Totus Tuus...
Monday, April 3, 2005
3:37 AM
We were children when the song Totus Tuus was taught to us as a recessional for Masses with a Marian theme. This song was composed by Filipino Salesian priest, and so we learned it, being members of a Salesian - administered parish in the Diocese of San Pablo, Laguna.
A rough line-by-line translation of the song (which is in Filipino) follows:
Totus tuus, Maria.
I am wholly yours, my Mother.
All I hold, all of my life,
all of these are yours.
Every step in my life,
to you, Mary, I commend.
A little wish in my life:
This only offering to you
now receive;
Happiness is found in you.
Totus tuus, Maria.
I am wholly yours, my Mother.
All I hold, all of my life,
all of these are yours.
Wholly Yours! Totus tuus!
When I had grown up and looked at the score's song, I foung the following dedication: "Sa ala-ala mo, Jaypee 2" ("To your memory, Jaypee 2"). Back then I wondered who this "Jaypee" was. And then it hit me: Pope John Paul 2's motto had been "Totus Tuus" (Wholly Yours). Now Fr. Robleza composed this song around the 1980's. Maybe he composed this at the time of the failed assasination attempt...
*****
I first heard the name of Pope John Paul II during the preparations for the World Youth Day held in Manila in 1995. That was the time we were taught in our Catechism classes, young as we are, the distinctive mark of the Catholic Church: fidelity to Rome and to its Bishop, our Holy Father (or Santo Papa, as we called him).
During that World Youth Day I saw Pope John Paul on TV. What I can remember is that he was smiling, and that he looked young and strong for a Pope. I admit, I was drawn to him because of the ease he gets along with the youth. I was drawn to how he spoke our language, the language of us youth. I was drawn to his message of us the youth being the hope of the Church (which resonated with Dr. Jose Rizal's statement that the youth are the hope of the our country). His message especially resonated with us members of a Salesian parish (the Salesian fathers focus on the youth as their charism).
I didn't have a thought at the time that there is so much more to this man than just charisma and friendliness to the youth. It was only after, with the momentum imparted by a Life - in - the - Spirit seminar, I started reading up materials on the Internet about the Faith, that I started to get a glimpse of what lay beneath the charisma: a staunch defense of the Faith against the forces of immorality and the culture of death, and a willingness, indeed a desire, to heal the schisms that rent Christianity apart. I also glimpsed a firmness on the things that matter, especially on morality.
His death handed me the realization: We are really just nomads in this world, as then - Cardinal Ratzinger said. Because of his death, I also realized that he had left a vast amount of works on theology, philosophy and ethics - works that await reading and reflecting upon by the faithful. Unfortunately, even now I have not read much of them...
*****
Exactly one year ago Pope John Paul II died. His life was truly an example of Totus Tuus: an commendation of his whole life to the Blessed Mother. More so, this Totus Tuus is adressed not just to Mary but ultiamtely to God. Pope John Paul's life was an example of whole self - offering, even of the sufferings he endured years before he died. May I, too, take up his example, an image of the example of Christ, whose whole life, death and resurrection is a perfect self-offering, a holy oblation to the Father.
Pope John Paul II, while I miss you, I hope and pray that you have been brought by the Lord into the True Eternal City, the new City of Jerusalem, where angels and saints worship and cry unceasingly, "Holy, holy, holy Lord God of hosts!" Please pray for us left here. Please pray for us youth, who are always in danger of going astray. Amen.
Eternal rest grant unto him, o Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.
May he rest in peace. Amen.
For You are the resurrection and the life and the repose of the soul of your servant John Paul who has fallen asleep, o Christ our God, and to you we send up glory, with Your eternal Father, and Your all holy, good and life-creating Spirit, now, and forever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.
Pope John Paul the Great, pray for us!
I am wholly yours, my Mother.
All I hold, all of my life,
all of these are yours.
Every step in my life,
to you, Mary, I commend.
A little wish in my life:
This only offering to you
now receive;
Happiness is found in you.
Totus tuus, Maria.
I am wholly yours, my Mother.
All I hold, all of my life,
all of these are yours.
Wholly Yours! Totus tuus!
When I had grown up and looked at the score's song, I foung the following dedication: "Sa ala-ala mo, Jaypee 2" ("To your memory, Jaypee 2"). Back then I wondered who this "Jaypee" was. And then it hit me: Pope John Paul 2's motto had been "Totus Tuus" (Wholly Yours). Now Fr. Robleza composed this song around the 1980's. Maybe he composed this at the time of the failed assasination attempt...
*****
I first heard the name of Pope John Paul II during the preparations for the World Youth Day held in Manila in 1995. That was the time we were taught in our Catechism classes, young as we are, the distinctive mark of the Catholic Church: fidelity to Rome and to its Bishop, our Holy Father (or Santo Papa, as we called him).
During that World Youth Day I saw Pope John Paul on TV. What I can remember is that he was smiling, and that he looked young and strong for a Pope. I admit, I was drawn to him because of the ease he gets along with the youth. I was drawn to how he spoke our language, the language of us youth. I was drawn to his message of us the youth being the hope of the Church (which resonated with Dr. Jose Rizal's statement that the youth are the hope of the our country). His message especially resonated with us members of a Salesian parish (the Salesian fathers focus on the youth as their charism).
I didn't have a thought at the time that there is so much more to this man than just charisma and friendliness to the youth. It was only after, with the momentum imparted by a Life - in - the - Spirit seminar, I started reading up materials on the Internet about the Faith, that I started to get a glimpse of what lay beneath the charisma: a staunch defense of the Faith against the forces of immorality and the culture of death, and a willingness, indeed a desire, to heal the schisms that rent Christianity apart. I also glimpsed a firmness on the things that matter, especially on morality.
His death handed me the realization: We are really just nomads in this world, as then - Cardinal Ratzinger said. Because of his death, I also realized that he had left a vast amount of works on theology, philosophy and ethics - works that await reading and reflecting upon by the faithful. Unfortunately, even now I have not read much of them...
*****
Exactly one year ago Pope John Paul II died. His life was truly an example of Totus Tuus: an commendation of his whole life to the Blessed Mother. More so, this Totus Tuus is adressed not just to Mary but ultiamtely to God. Pope John Paul's life was an example of whole self - offering, even of the sufferings he endured years before he died. May I, too, take up his example, an image of the example of Christ, whose whole life, death and resurrection is a perfect self-offering, a holy oblation to the Father.
Pope John Paul II, while I miss you, I hope and pray that you have been brought by the Lord into the True Eternal City, the new City of Jerusalem, where angels and saints worship and cry unceasingly, "Holy, holy, holy Lord God of hosts!" Please pray for us left here. Please pray for us youth, who are always in danger of going astray. Amen.
Eternal rest grant unto him, o Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.
May he rest in peace. Amen.
For You are the resurrection and the life and the repose of the soul of your servant John Paul who has fallen asleep, o Christ our God, and to you we send up glory, with Your eternal Father, and Your all holy, good and life-creating Spirit, now, and forever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.
Pope John Paul the Great, pray for us!
Photo Source: The Holy See
posted by JFelix | 3:31 AM
2 Comments:
Thank-you for visiting my blogs--and also for expressing your appreciation for "covenant theology."
If you visit again, you can also click my link to "One Monk's History", where you'll not that I was born in the Philippines--Cebu City. However, perhaps you've already seen that.
God bless you.
Father,
I just read the page you mentioned, and I am fascinated that you received Confirmation as an infant; this is the first time I encountered it in our Roamn Rite. Maybe I'll ask my parents (born in 1953 and 1954) whether they had been Confirmed as infants...
May the Lord bless you and sustain you in the holy priesthood.
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