RIP, MANUEL HILARIO MSC, FIRST FILIPPINO MSC TO STUDY IN AUSTRALIA
In the early morning of January 9, 2020, Father Manny Hilario passed away at the age of 88 years. At the time of his death, he was confined at the Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and being treated for the many ailments his advancing Parkinson Disease brought along. His final years had become an increasingly hard battle against his sickness. We do remember him for the courage with which he carried his suffering, most of the time with great equanimity, but he deserves it probably more if we remember him for the leadership he gave to our congregation and for the way he shepherded the people of many parishes in Nueva Ecija.
Fr. Manny with his classmate, Fr. Clem Mauricio, in 1958.
Manuel Hilario was born in Lupao, Nueva Ecija on September 19, 1931 as the eleventh child of what would become sixteen children of Roque and Felisa Hilario. In 1937, Lupao became an MSC parish and Father Reinier van Glansbeek – long-time parish priest of Lupao – became instrumental in showing him the way to becoming a priest in the MSC Congregation. As second-year college student, he entered the then still very new MSC Minor Seminary in Lapu-Lapu City. After his novitiate year (1957-1958) in Carcar, Cebu. He became a professed Missionary of the Sacred Heart on May 31, 1958. The next phase of his formation as religious and as future priest took place with the MSC in Australia, where the young Filipino members then went for their theological studies. By the middle of 1962, he had finished his studies and returned to the Philippines to be ordained priest in San Jose, Nueva Ecija on July 29, 1962.
As priest and religious Father Manny lived a rich pastoral life. After a short stint at the Sacred Heart Seminary in Angeles City, he spent the first ten years of his priestly life ministering to parishes: first to our Most Holy Redeemer Parish in Quezon City, and after that to many of our parishes and schools in Nueva Ecija: Muñoz, Pantabangan, Guimba and San Jose City. He loved the parish work and was good at it, and with his open heart for people and his very sound common sense, he was a gift to every place he served.
With Superior General, Abzalon, and the Province.
Nineteen-seventy-three brought him a new challenge, when he was asked – in line with the overdue Filipinization of our seminary formation, to be both Rector of the MSC Theologate and Novice Master in the MSC Novitiate, at that time both located at our Sacred Heart Scholasticate in Quezon City. There was an urgent need, urgent enough for him to set personal preferences aside and accept this new challenge wholeheartedly. Maybe he did it with a lot of fear and questions, because there was no time for any appropriate training or formators’ formation, but thanks again to his calm and thoughtful personality, he accomplished the task successfully.
After six years of formation ministry, he could go back to what he liked best: parish ministry, and in 1979 he returned to Muñoz, Nueva Ecija as parish priest and school director. Little could he have known that this would be only a sort interlude. After only two years in Muñoz, the MSC community elected him as Provincial Superior of the then newly established Philippine Province. It was a heavy burden to carry, not only because we were a very young province with few resources, but even more so because it was a time when human freedoms were suppressed by the powers in society, a time also when religious commitments were often radicalized and translated into political action. A time we needed an anchor in the storm, a rock to build on, a steady hand to keep us together. And that is what he was, in his own way, not always perfect, but always with dedication, conviction and courage.
He was our Provincial Superior for two terms. After that, he returned again to parish ministry. For almost 10 years he was still parish priest of Guimba, Nueva Ecija and for more than 15 years he was Director of its Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Academy. In 1999 he became the first parish priest of the new parish of Triala, Guimba.
In 2003 Father Manny retired from active ministry, first at the MSC Provincialate and later he was among the first residents of our Chevalier Home. His final years became difficult ones when his Parkinson disease progressed, and in the last days made speaking and eating almost impossible. Still, when he had to be hospitalized a few days after Christmas, we did not really foresee that he would not return in our midst.
We, Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, together with Father Manny’s relatives and friends, mourn his passing and join in prayers around his remains. But more than mourning, we may feel grateful for what he did for people and for his confreres – and maybe even more for how he was, for his humor and common sense, for his wisdom soaked in practicality, for the courage he showed in accepting difficult tasks, and for the heart he had for everybody; in his own unique way, he was, a missionary of God’s heart. It is in God’s Heart, in God’s love he is now at rest.
