CHAPTER 1

JOSE P.RIZAL : THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, COMPASSION AND LOVE

Reminiscences of the Early Childhood of Rizal

Jose Rizal, using the pseudonym P. Jacinto, wrote these reminiscences from
1878 to 1881; that is, from age 17 to 20. His manuscript forms part of the Rizaliana
Collection of the Bureau of Public Libraries, Manila. (National Historical Institute,
Writings of Jose Rizal, Volume 1, 1982, Chapter I - My Birth - Early Years)

The early childhood of Rizal reflects the innocence of his life as he fully
described from his writing on “My Birth-Early Years” which provided his
reminiscences from the age of 17 to 18. From his writing we can also share our
values, aspirations and love to our family and motherland. Rizal was born in
Calamba, Laguna on June 19, 1861.He fully described the time of his birth that it
was Wednesday between eleven and midnight, a few days before full moon.
Rizal showed his love with his mother Teodora Alonso y Quintos as he
described, “my coming out in this vale of tears would have cost my mother her life
had she not vowed to the Virgin of Antipolo to take me to her sanctuary by way of
pilgrimage. (The Virgin of Antipolo has been venerated by Filipinos, Spaniards,
and Chinese since Spanish colonial days. The month of May is the time of
pilgrimage to her shrine. She was known as Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage,
the patron saint of travellers. One legend says her image saved from shipwreck the
crew of a ship that bore her in its voyage from Acapulco to Manila many years
ago.).”
The reciprocal love showed by Rizal and Dona Teodora has been true sense of
good value where mother provided a deep sense of spiritual healings of love and
compassion to her sibling. The spiritual value served as a way to enlightened by
the miracle of pray to save the life of human soul to the colonial culture of the
Filipinos. Our prayer for spiritual intervention for good life has been the core of
belief of Rizal from our love of “Virgin Mary” as the colonial religious belief on
the power of miracle through the “Virgin of Antipolo” and Our Lay of Peace and
Good Voyage.
The early education of Rizal reminded him about the “a jar that contains the
odor of the body that it first held”. This represents his memories about the
education he received since his earliest infancy that was perhaps what had shaped
his habits.
 I still remember the first melancholy nights that I spent on the terrace
of our house as if they happened only yesterday—nights full of the
saddest poem that made impression on my mind, the stronger the more
the more tempestuous my present situation…
The significance from this insight of Rizal has shown the importance of
education that must start at the early age. At home provided him a habit to listen,
read and learn by the education given by his mother that made him understand the
basic knowledge of artistic appreciation about human compassion and love of
nature. The social stature of Rizal’s family had provided him the basic comfort of
life when he had a nanny and nurse at home. He appreciated in the way they cared
him. “I had a nurse who loved me very much and who, in order to make me take
supper (which I did on the terrace on moonlit nights), frightened me with the
sudden apparition of some formidable asuang, of a frightful nuno, or a parce-nobis,
as she used to call an imaginary being similar to the Bu of the Europeans. They
used to take me for a stroll to the most gloomy places and at night near the flowing
river, in the shade of some tree, in the brightness of the chaste Diana. . .”
The special care that was given to Rizal had made him to appreciate more
about artistic thoughts through the love of nature. He had experienced the same
normal playing at his early childhood that made him later gifted man who could
translate the natural activities of man into his writings and works for us to learn
and someday like Rizal would used for the love of country. As he said “thus was
my heart nourished with somber and melancholy thoughts, which even when I was
a child already wandered on the wings of fantasy in the lofty regions of the
unknown.”
Rizal described his father as a “model of fathers”. It must have been the
support for education and providing all the material needs including the love of
his children that gave Rizal’s impression about his father... “had given us an
education commensurate with our small fortune, and through thrift he was able to
build a stone house, buy another, and to erect a little nipa house in the middle of
our orchard under the shade of banana trees and others”
He continued to describe his interesting experiences as he loved to play in the
surroundings of their well constructed stone house
“There the tasty ate (atis) displays its delicate fruits and bends its
branches to save me the effort of reaching for them; the sweet santol, the
fragrant and honeyed tampoy, the reddish macupa here contend for
supremacy; further away are the plum tree, the casuy harsh and piquant,
the beautiful tamarind, equally gratifying to the eyes and delightful to the
palate; here the papaya tree spreads its broad leaves and attracts the
 birds with its enormous fruits, yonder are the nangca the coffee tree, the
orange tree, which perfumes the air with the aroma of its flowers; on this
side are the iba the balimbing( These are tropical fruits: Atis (Anona
aquamosa): santol (Sandoricum indicum L.); tampoy (Eugenia jambos
Linn.); macupa (Eugenia javanica Lam.); casuy (Anacardium
occidentale L.); tamarind (tamarindus indica); nangca (Artocarpus
integrifola Linn.); iba (Cicca disticha L.): balimbing (Averrhoa
carambola.) the pomegranate with its thick foliage and beautiful flowers
that enchant the senses; here and there are found elegant and majestic
palm trees loaded with enormous nuts, rocking its proud crown and
beautiful fronds, the mistresses of the forests.”
The endless description of Rizal’s past experiences had showed his lasting
impressions about his wonderful years at his home with his family. As he
continuously described on a poetical note about the beautiful panorama of his
beloved home. “Ah! It would be endless if I were to enumerate all our trees and
entertain myself in naming them! At the close of the day numerous birds came
from all parts, and I, still a child of three years at the most, entertained myself by
looking at them with unbelievable joy.
The yellow culia-uan the maya, of different varieties, the culae,
the maria capra, the martin, all the species of pipit (Lucul names of
Philippine birds: Maya is general name for sparrow; maria-capra or
maya-kapra (Rhipidura nigritorquis); martin or Chinese starling
(Aaethe-Opsar critatatellus); pipit or northern willow warbler
(Acanthopneuste borealis joined in a pleasant concert and intoned in
varied chorus a hymn of farewell to the sun that was disappearing
behind the tall mountains of my town.
Then the clouds, through a whim of nature, formed a thousand figures that
soon dispersed, as such beautiful days passed away also, leaving behind them only
the flimsiest remembrances. Alas! Even now when I look out the window of our
house to the beautiful panorama at twilight, my past impressions come back to my
mind with painful eagerness !”
“Afterwards comes night; it extends its mantle, sometimes
gloomy though starred, when the chaste Delia (A name of Diana,
goddess of the moon and of hunting) does not scour the sky in
pursuit of her brother Apollo. But if she appears in the clouds, a
vague brightness is delineated. Afterwards, as the clouds break up,
so to speak, little by little she is seen beautiful, sad, and hushed,
rising like an immense globe, as if an omnipotent and invisible hand
is pulling her through the spaces.”
 Then my mother would make us recite the rosary altogether. Afterward we
would go to the terrace or to some window from which the moon can be seen and
my nurse would tell us stories, sometimes mournful, sometimes gay, in which the
dead, gold, plants that bloomed diamonds were in confused mixture, all of them
born of an entirely oriental imagination. Sometimes she would tell us that men
lived in the moon and the specks that we observed on it were nothing else but a
woman who was continuously spinning. For a moment Rizal was overshadowed by
grief through the death of his little sister (Concha)
“When I was four years old I lost my little sister (Concha)
and then for the first time I shed tears caused by love and grief, for
until then I had shed them only because of my stubbornness that my
loving and prudent mother so well knew how to correct.”.
He sometimes compared his stubbornness by the lost of his little sister for his
parents always busy teaching them the values of love and education. At his early
age he appreciated much his parents’ sacrifices.
“Ah ! Without her what would have become of my education
and what would have been my fate? Oh, yes! After God the mother is
everything to man. She taught me how to read, she taught me how to
stammer the humble prayers that I addressed fervently to God, and
now that I`m a young man, ah, where is that simplicity, that
innocence of my early days?”
An interesting story of Rizal was when left at his hometown and for the first
time he experienced excitement in going to Manila for his education. It was here
that he further described in literary way from his journey in the Lake of Laguna
until he reached in Antipolo.
In my own town I learned how to write, and my father, who
looked after my education, paid an old man (who had been his
classmate) to give me the first lessons in Latin and he stayed at our
house. After some five months he died, having almost foretold his death
when he was still in good health. I remember that I came to Manila with
my father after the birth of the third girl (Trini-dad) who followed me,
and it was on 6 June 1868. We boarded a casco (Caseo is a Philippine
river craft, made of wood, used for passengers and freight). The catig is
the vessel's outriggers made of bamboo canes… I had never yet gone
through the lake of La Laguna consciously and the first time I did, I
spent the whole night near the catig, admiring the grandeur of the liquid
element, the quietness of the night, while at the same time a
superstitious fear took hold of me when I saw a water snake twine itself
 on the bamboo canes of the outriggers. With what joy I saw the sunrise;
for the first time I saw how the luminous rays shone, producing a
brilliant effect on the ruffled surface of the wide lake. With what joy I
spoke to my father for I had not uttered a single word during the night.
Afterwards we went to Antipolo. I`m not going to stop to relate the
sweetest emotions that I felt at every step on the banks.... few years later
would be the witness of my ... Antipolo. Manila, Santa Ana, where we
visited my eldest sister (Saturnina), who was at that time a ...
Concordia. (A well known boarding school for girls, La Concordia
College was administered by the Sisters of Charity. It was founded in
1868 by Margarita Roxas de Ayala, a wealthy Filipino woman, who
gave her country home called La Concordia.... and hence its popular
designation. Its official ... Concepcion)…. I returned to my hometown ...
the first year that marked my separation from my family.
As foretold from the deep insight of Rizal, human experience has full of
sacrifices which always been good at the spring of life. Although his life was
saddened from separation to his family, it was divine act to fulfil whatever destiny
might be given to him. His Christian values were always there on the belief of
power of God to lead the way for good or bad life. It did not mean that Rizal
perceived to believe the sociological belief of “Bahala na” based on the God’s
given destiny to our life. It was more on the sense of respect and love to the
almighty god but a protector of good soul from the world of sinners.
“This is what I remember of those times that figure in the forefront of
my life like the dawn of a day. Also, when shall the night come to shelter me
so that I may rest in deep slumber? God knows it! In the meantime now that
I`m in the spring of life, separated from the beings whom I love most in the
world, now that sad, I write these pages ... let us leave Providence to act,
and let us give time to time, awaiting from the will of God the future, good
or bad, so that with this I may succeed to expiate my sins.” ( B...bayan
( Rizal Avenue) Sta. Cruz, Manila, 11 September 1878).”

Cited Publication:

Bueno, C.F. ( 2012) Jose P. Rizal : The National Hero .CreateSpace Independent
Publishing Platform. Amazon.com