- NORMAN GRINDLEY/DEPUTY CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER
Archbishop of Kingston Lawrence Burke (centre), comforts Mauricio (right) and his wife, Conrada, during the liturgical celebration in thanksgiving for the young priests, Suresha Barwa and Marco Candelario Las Puña at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in downtown Kingston, yesterday. The couple, who are the parents of Marco, travelled to Jamaica from the Philippines this week to attend the funeral.Claude Mills, Rural News Coordinator
THE FAMILY of 31-year-old Marco Candelario Las Puña attended yesterday's funeral for the missionary and his colleague who were slain on October 27.
They had arrived in the island earlier this week to spend time at the Corpus Christi Missionaries of the Poor residence, and to tour tour the various care centres of the religious order in order to try to find deeper meaning as to why their son had given his life so willingly in the service of the poor and destitute in Jamaica.
Yesterday, they buried him, two weeks after that fateful night when he was killed by what police suspected may have been a stray bullet. Marco's family believes that he was a martyr who died doing God's bidding.
KEPT IN TOUCH
"Yes, he was a martyr. He gave his life to God," Mauricio Las Puña, Marco's 63-year-old father, said. "He would write letters to us, and keep in touch. I remember the last time he wrote was at Christmas last year. The last message was this ..." He pauses, his brow furrowed, indicating deep concentration, and then recites:
"Please learn to open your heart to give and share with others, to brothers and sisters and not to learn to open your hands to receive. That was my Marco. He always felt it was better to give than to receive."
He pauses again, and scratches his balding head. He is a short man, about 5'2", and wears a rubber band on the third index finger of his right hand. Beside him, his wife is seated on the couch. Father Fidelis Stoeckl, the couple's priest, is seated next to her, while the eldest son, Douglas, is seated to the far right. Douglas' eyes have an unnatural sparkle. He is fighting back tears.
On October 27, the religious brothers Suresh Barwa, 22, and Marco were among 15 other brothers washing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen when a single bullet smashed into the left temple of Barwa, killing him almost instantly, and mortally wounding Las Puña, who died four hours later the following day at the Kingston Public Hospital.
"I could not believe that this happened to him, but I guess it was God's will. It was his time. I am really thankful to God, even though the events are contrary to my own wishes for Marco, I am able to give thanks to those people who in one way or another, comforted us, and offered prayers," Mauricio said.
Born February 2, 1974, Marco was the third child in a family of seven, six boys, and the youngest, a girl. Marco was born in the copper and gold mining town of Bais City in the province of Negros Oriental in the Philippines, an archipelago of islands in south-eastern Asia with a population of 84 million, 85 per cent of whom are practising Catholics. He attended the Santo Niño High School, graduating in 1993.
However, because of the meagre resources of his family, he had no choice but to follow the path of his older brother, Douglas, and he took up a scholarship to begin a course of study to teach theology. Marco had attended the Institute of Catechist of the Archdiocese of Manila.
"After three years at the educational facility, Marco felt the call to give his life totally to God, and he asked my advice," Father Fidelis, a priest of German descent based in the Philippines, said. "I was the one who suggested a religious community to serve the poor."
He joined the Missionaries of the Poor in the year 2000, and on September 29, 2003, he set off to Jamaica,.
During the interview, Marco's mom, Conrada, has been very quiet. The reporter tries to coerce her to speak, with Father Fidelis translating on her behalf. She attempts to verbalise her pain. Father Fidelis translates:
"It's very painful. I have to accept, I have to accept," her voice trails off. She cannot say anything else.
Her hands fly to her face, they touch her forehead, then creep over her eyes, and pause at her nose, almost as if they are touching her to find out if all this is real, that she is really here in Jamaica to bury her son. It is a new reality that may take years for her to finally accept.
