The death of Fr. Amado Picardal who died of cardiac arrest last May 29, 2024 brought me back to the time when we have been together and shared about peace, dialogue and the mission of the Basic Christian Communities (BCC) in Mindanao. Our friendship became stronger when in 2001 he attended the Silsilah Summer Course in Zamboanga. I remember, I was a resource speaker in the course, but I also learned a lot from Fr. Picardal, a redemptorist priest.
I am an Italian missionary who arrived in Mindanao in 1977, the time of the martial law and the revolution in Mindanao. From the beginning of my mission, I was looking for models of missionary life in the complex reality of Mindanao and I found some of them in the Redemptorist community in Davao. I lived with them for four months while I was studying Cebuano.
From the time I met Fr. Picardal I admired his courage to be a priest close to the people and his courage to say the truth, exposing injustices committed by some leaders and groups.
Fr. Picardal was a good example of a priest close to the people and close to God. When he attended the Silsilah Summer Course, I understood that he was “searching for more” in his spiritual journey as a priest and an “activist”. When I heard that he chose to live like hermit in a place in Cebu I was not surprised. It was not only a place to hide from those who have tried to kill him, but also a way to answer to his internal need to make the ” sacred journey” with his life. In a certain stage of his life, he started to move around with the bicycle as a form of sharing messages, including the message of dialogue with creation to protect mother earth, but in the last stage of his life in the silence of his isolated place made the deeper journey with the Lord.
In his book ” Sacred Journeys” that he finished before he died, he said: “On the road I became aware of the presence of the One who has always accompanied me on my journey through life and the source of strength”. He also wrote the book : ‘ A vision of a Church Renewed , “A Priesthood in a Church Renewed”, and “Journeying Together a New Way of Being Church: Basic Ecclesial Communities in the Philippines”.
We in Silsilah say: “Dialogue starts from God and brings people back to God“. My good friend Fr. Amado Picardal indeed, was inspired by God in his journey and dialogue in life and now is with the Lord to continue the eternal dialogue. May his example inspire many.
Fr. Sebastiano D’Ambra, PIME
Founder, Silsilah Dialogue Movement