Before hanging up her gloves, “very senior citizen” Asuncion David Maramba launched a feisty book, “Towards Adult Faith,” published by Anvil, at PowerBooks.
Writes Emily Abrera, chair of the Cultural Center of the Philippines: “Her weapon of choice is the question mark. She wields it expertly as she probes and provokes, peeling away comfortable layers of religious habit and tradition, daring us to think for ourselves.”
The book is “a precious gift to the Church,” writes Sr. Mary Vianney, SPC. It “invites the reader to reflect on the lights and shadows of her faith-life and to open herself to grace for growth and maturity.”
The author was in the company of friends and relatives, nuns and priests, schoolmates of more than half a century ago, students of two to three decades past. The gathering was “full house, a listening audience, very friendly, intimate,” and as Charlie Azcuna put it, “so gray-empowered.”
Perhaps that meant the abundant presence of “gray matter” and “gray hair”—a powerful combination, by the way, among whom were professor Florangel Braid, Cheloy Dans, Sylvia Ventura, former Ambassador Lilia Bautista, former Cabinet Secretary Cora de Leon, Sr. Helen Graham and many more.
Speakers were Archbishop Oscar Cruz, former CBCP president; Sr. Amelia David, provincial superior of ICM; Fr. Herman Abcede of the Rogationist Fathers; Fr. Edgar Coroza, parish priest of Our Lady of Fatima Parish, Sta. Mesa; and Inquirer columnist Rina Jimenez David.
Good food from Center Table and good company, with everybody gamely posing for pictures, closed the pleasant afternoon blessed with clear weather.