A/N: If it seems like I’m beating around the bush, I totally am.  I didn’t think the prologue was going to take this long.  Now I can’t wait until the story actually comes along. 

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Part II:

Human beings are incredibly resilient creatures, as I quickly learned during the first few months of my stay in the seminary.  There I was, uprooted from everything and everyone I knew in my life, but still, I managed to adapt.  Not that life in the seminary was particularly difficult; well, it was, but the people around me made it bearable.

Camaraderie was a skill that must be learned.  We were, more or less, in the same situation at the time.  There were a hundred and eighteen of us at the time, all in all, living under the seminary’s roof but there were only twenty-three boys of my age.  It might sound now like a nightmare to have that many boys living under one roof, and it was; there were at least half of us who were naturally born pranksters.  The priests and the nuns and the caretakers were unfazed; the have, after all, survived the recent war and a bunch of rowdy boys were of no real threat.  They all became my family; we studied together, we ate together, we did chores (and the occasional escapade) together. 

Life became a little bit easier but still, I was troubled.  I prayed and prayed for enlightenment; we were encouraged to voice out our feelings and apprehensions about priesthood to our professors, as it was a known fact that the life of a priest was not for everyone and they were not in the habit of ordaining men who had doubts. 

As I had no other choice, I threw myself at my studies.  There was nothing else to distract me, after all.  My family could not afford to visit me in Manila and had to content myself with a letter from Bicol per month.  I did not enjoy the roughhousing that other boys seemed to delight in; I enjoyed the occasional prank, of course, but to have the tomfoolery fill up all of my time was out of the question. 

By the time we finished high school we were asked if we still wanted to be on the path to being a man of God.  When I answered ‘yes’, it was the first time I acknowledged the fact that maybe, just maybe, I really was destined to become a priest. 

I was ordained at the age of twenty-three and for that joyous occasion, both my mother and father travelled to Manila to watch me take my vows.  My patroness was there, of course, and it made my heart soar to see the look of pride in all of heir faces.  At last, there I was, a priest under the Order of _____. 

Unfortunately not everybody made it out the same way I did.  There were just three of us from our batch who took the vows, a relatively big number, considering that only one man from each batch usually makes it.  It’s a sad event, but one that is part of reality.  The life of a clergyman is not for everybody and if it was in God’s will to lead them to the family life, then so be it.  At least they seem to have no regrets on leaving; I still speak to quite a number of my former housemates, after all, and many of who are now proud grandfathers.

After serving for a few months in the parish of the seminary from which I was ordained in, I was assigned to train further in one of the more obscure parishes in ____ Laguna.  I was to be the assistant parish priest there, Father John ____.  I knew that that particular area was under the Order but I’ve never actually been there before. 

To say that I had been excited was an understatement.  I was down right thrilled to finally be able to do my part in changing the world.  It’s been years and years of studying and learning and praying for a chance like that to come and finally it was on my doorstep. 

I was young and was the very definition of idealism.  I was ready to take on the world. 

-To Be Continued-