Ka Luring's Anima

*written ten years ago by Mrs. Vkyh Subia–Ungco as written testimony for Ka Luring’s bid for the Mother Teresa Award

I have known Ms. Loreana Franco as “Ka Luring” since I was a grade school student. As a young girl, I’d be waiting idly in our sala when Ka Luring would arrive in a jeepney full of white clad women who went with her to have merienda in our house, served by my mother, the late Gloria Subia.

My mother would tell me that these women whom Ka Luring accompanied to our home were RWM Sisters who conduct apostolate work in our hometown, Taguig. They were only a few of Ka Luring’s countless friends, I would soon find out.

Some days, I’d come home to young seminarians that would stay at our house as they went on their immersion programs in our area. Ka Luring, the sisters and the seminaristas became regular guests in our house.

Being one of only two children born to my father, Domingo and my mother, Gloria, I found friendship and fellowship with our frequent visitors. Some of them would eventually become my mom’s inaanaks. One of the nuns is now a Mother Superior and one among the seminarians is now a Monsignor.

I grew up seeing Ka Luring in our house at least once a week. She would always be asking for something or a favor of some kind – pamasahe for strangers she met on the street, pambili ng gamot or pambayad sa ospital for the indigent and the poor, even pambili ng sabon or lumang damit for prisoners or victims of a flood.

She came so often that one day our puzzled maid asked my mother, “Bakit po ba siya palaging narito at nanghihingi? Wala po ba siyang trabaho?” My mother had to explain that Ka Luring is a catechist, going about her work as a volunteer. While it’s true that Ka Luring is constantly soliciting help, she is always asking for help for other people. Whatever she does, she does it for others, not herself. In fact, Ka Luring never sleeps with money in her pockets. At the end of each day, she literally empties herself for the benefit of others, for she believes that her God always will provide.

Ka Luring is the modern-day Apostle. She lives a very simple and austere life. She is always burdened by other people’s problems but it seems she would not want to live any other way.

It has been her custom to leave her house at four in the morning to attend mass then go about the barrio or the village to visit and bring communion to the sick.

My mother frequently allowed me to tag along with Ka Luring on some occasions and on one of her sick visits, she brought me to call on an old and pious priest in the Ateneo, possibly a Jesuit, whose name I cannot recall now.

She said that visiting the old and sick people like the priest inspires her and gives her strength. As she goes about her regular visits, she also goes about soliciting allowance for her fellow volunteer catechists, stipends for priests, allowances or tuition fees for seminarians.

Ka Luring’s service to community is great. When she is not busy scouting for sponsors for church workers’ retreats or donors for construction or renovation of a church, she is busy sourcing funds for someone’s transportation fare back to the province or leading a padasal for the Dead.

Sometimes, she also gets invited to give lectures before seminarians, fellow catechists, lay leaders, other religious organizations and many more. On top of all her speaking engagements, she also has regular work as a volunteer catechist in a public school. She is also the favorite utusan to get a priest to bless or say mass when there seems to be a lack of them because she knows most priests and priests know her and it’s not easy for them to say no to her requests.

Ka Luring is such a prayerful person. When I was still a student in high school, through college, I would always seek her when I have a difficult test coming. I would say that she was vital in ensuring that I finished my studies with relative ease. As an adult, I have made fair decisions and overcome life challenges because she, my prayer partner cum prayer warrior is an effective instrument – Malakas siya sa Itaas!

People from all walks of life would come to her asking for prayers. For God and her faith, Ka Luring never did anything halfheartedly. Whenever you ask her to pray for something, especially for something grave or serious, she would go to a convent in Tagaytay, pray for hours in front of the Blessed Sacrament and impose upon herself personal sacrifices like fasting to make her prayers more effective. Ka Luring never asked for anything in return for all of these.

I am proud to say that Ka Luring has influenced me in a lot of ways. The environment I grew up with with Ka Luring’s Anima ever present somehow contributed to who I am now. My involvement in the community, helping the poor and the marginalized, sprung from some summers of teaching catechism and visiting prisoners in Muntinlupa with Ka Luring.

In my high school and college years, she also inspired me to join organizations that provided visitations to the homeless, the sick, the mentally ill and the old. She opened my eyes to life’s realities and instilled in me a great conviction that I must allow God to use me as an instrument to do good.

Now that I am a mother of three – ages 24, 18 and 8 – my respect and regard for Ka Luring as a mentor has never waned but has been more enriched by her unceasing works of faith and charity and her genuine dedication to her chosen vocation all these years.

She is still the same Ka Luring I have known several years back and the one and the same Ka Luring to my family and to the throng of people whose lives she has touched and for whom she has prayed.

Ka Luring is one of the few completely selfless people I have known or heard about,

who have given most of their lives to serving the Lord and His people. Winning the Mother Teresa Award will be a modest but fitting reward to the magnitude of service she has done for her community.

Thousands of untold stories surround the life of Ka Luring. If all her deeds and ways could be written into a story, it would be a powerful, impressive testament to the goodness and faithfulness of our Lord.