At the loss of a friend and loved one the reaction may be either one of frustration or gratitude. Ours is one of gratitude and thanksgiving.

We thank the Lord for having given us Fr. Miguel Bernad. We also thank Fr. Miguel Bernad for all the good things he has done for us.

Pagans pull their hair and tear their garments in frustration that they can do nothing about death and the loss of a loved one. We too are frustrated and helpless but our faith has turned death to acceptance, with joy and gratitude. We know our beloved Fr. Miguel has moved on to a better life without the sufferings and difficulties of this life into the embrace of a loving God and Father welcoming home a beloved son into His joy. Jesus, our strength, joy and happiness has embraced our beloved Fr. Miguel A. Bernad.

I understand Fr. Bernad did not want a eulogy but this is just remembering him and sorting out how his life could be a model and inspiration for our own lives. Almost seventy years ago I met the young handsome scholastic who taught us English, Latin, and Faith. He was good at encouraging others. We learned Latin by doing his plates, a fancy name for homework that we would have found boring if not for his gimmicks. It was from Fr. Bernad that as a teenager, examining our faith, that I first heard that Jesus was either God or a bad man.

He could not be just a good man if He is not God, because He repeatedly claimed He was God. If He was not God He would have been a liar. He would not be an honest man like Gandhi, or even Buddha. He is either our God or a dishonest man nor a mere good man.

During the war when Ateneo did not open, he organized the Knights of Loyola, with the motto “Altiora Peto” (We seek the heights.) It succeeded in keeping my classmates and me together and out of trouble and to keep the idealism of youth burning bright. Five of us became Jesuits plus another who became Benedictine. Two of us, Fr. Oscar Millar, S.J., here present, and I, are still around. I would not have been a Jesuit if not for Miguel A. Bernad. He was very particular about the “A” after his first name. So we always pretended to ask if the “A” meant “Antonio” to rib him which he gamely insisted on “Anselmo.” He once told me that one of the great thrills of his life was, while researching the archives in San Cugat in Barcelona, Spain, he found a hand written letter from his father to the imprisoned Spanish Jesuits in Cagayan during the Philippine Revolution asking them to accept his gift of food and some other gifts to assist them in their predicament.

He delighted in banter. Last week as he motioned towards me he said, “This fellow thinks I am old.” When he starts with “This fellow...” it meant a challenge. Last Wednesday, I had given him 12 pages I had written and it was promptly returned to my desk the next day, corrected and edited. He argued that I should title it “Apostolate in micro finance.” I was reluctant because finance seemed far from an apostolate. He insisted that all we do is an apostolate and that we should be constantly aware that whether teaching or other activities, they are all intended to make God known, adored and loved, and therefore an apostolate.

I have never seen him angry although sometimes critical. He was not perfect for he had his idiosyncrasies.

But he was always ready to encourage especially for people to write and publish.

As a teacher he made history come alive, as a writer he was prolific, as a scholar he made you thrill with Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri, and the history of Mindanao, as a speaker he kept you at the edge of your seat awaiting for what is next with his characteristic prolonging of the vowel of the emphasized words. He was known to be kind to a fault, always unruffled, encouraging and efficient but most of all grateful. He loved to climb mountains. He did Mt. Apo a couple of times. He rafted down the Polangi when it was not yet dammed. He was an avid long distance walker, as for example from Manila to Muntinlupa and back. Many of his former students kept in touch with him. Some he called his drivers because they brought him to wherever he wanted to go.

Unlike the pagans our reaction is not despair but sorrow for a loss but also joy for his reaching the embrace of the Lord.

We are grateful to Fr. Miguel for all he has done for us and we thank the Lord for having given us Fr. Miguel Anselmo Bernad, S.J. and request the Lord to accept His faithful servant into His embrace and to grant that we may look to him as a model for apostolic and holy lives.