GKK at 50

(From Bishop Aseo’s Homily)

According to some, the real meaning of the GKK is Gasa Ka sa Katawhan (Gift to Humanity).

I, myself, could testify that I, as your bishop, is also a son of a GKK.

Being among seniors, I was in high school during the height of the discussion of the BEC. It was also then that the American priests were here.

We knew them, the Maryknoll priests along with Bishop Regan, in person until college, around 1971.

In the Vatican II, around 1965, the church is described as the communion of disciples.

This is also the inspiration of putting up the Gagmayng Kristohanong Katilingban that was started by the missionaries of the Maryknoll Fathers.

Of course, here in our Diocese of Tagum, in my experience, the first who lived the GKK are the simple peasants who worked for a living in Davao del Norte or in Davao de Oro. Many of them had their own devotions from the Visayas and Luzon.

They wanted to pursue their devotion of their patrons back home while they settle here in these provinces of Mindanao.

Hence, they were granted with a Mass by the Maryknoll missionaries in the chapels every feast date annually.

The GKKs eventually realized that it is a place to deepen faith of the community, know each other, help one another either in the spiritual or in material aspects.

Our presence here is a response to the goodness of the GKK.

But there were challenges as well.

From our first reading, Prophet Ezekiel, while the people of Babylonia became distant to the Lord, envisioned a communion of people in a significant temple that also signifies us – the people of the Lord.

Hence, we the communion in the GKK, we are gathered today.