Fr. Salvador Pablo, SDB
Makati City, the Philippines -- On June 29, 2017, Fr. Salvador "Boy" Pablo, SDB, celebrated the Holy Eucharist to commemorate not just the Passion, Death and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus, but also to thank God for the 50 fruitful years He gifted him with as a Salesian of Don Bosco.
One of his concelebrants in that Mass was Fr. Ronald "Ronnie" Ocampo, his classmate in the novitiate, which dates back to 1967. The rest of their classmates went to Cambodia to celebrate with Fr. Leo Ochoa, who has been part of the Thai Province as a missionary.
Don Bosco Technical Institute--Makati (DBTI) hosted this milestone for the two jubilarians. As Fr. Boy opted to celebrate this event in his alma mater. He reached his grade 7 in this institution before entering the now defunct juniorate in Pampanga to begin his formation as a Salesian aspirant.
The Mass was well attended by the Salesians who came from the local Salesian houses in the Makati district. In fact, all three rectors of the nearby local communities came to show such warm expression of fraternity.
To reach 50 years as a Salesian is surely a milestone, indeed, a bragging right.
But as has been Fr. Boy's wont, he made sure that the attention is not on himself, but is trained on the others.
In his homily, Fr. Boy made a parallelism between the martyrdom of the two pillars of the Church and of the martyrdom exemplified by the Salesians who die day-by-day in the service of the Gospel. He gestured at the priests all donned in red, and also at the Salesians in their midst, most notable of whom was Br. Tony Caspellan, who served as principal of the institution even before entering the formation house in Canlubang.
At the end of the celebration, the two Salesian priests were given recognition by the institution.
Such a splendid example of a life of daily martyrdom over 50 fruitful and faithful years of Salesian life.
