Remembering Nenette…
Another beloved and revered Mother Butler has left us before sunrise this morning. Sixta “Nenette” Bustos whom I look up to as the mother of MBG Paranaque. Nenette was formidable … in appearance, in character, in ability. To paraphrase a poem: “A lovely woman nobly planned … to warm, to comfort, to command.”
I remember it was in the early ‘80s, the planting season in the Lord’s vineyard for the Mother Butler Guild (MBG), that I came across Nenette Bustos. I was quite a young servant-leader of an even younger Church organization that His Eminence Jaime L. Cardinal Sin of happy memory wanted to take root nationwide. The MBG mission is unique. We take care of Our Lord on the altar through our care of the sanctuary of our parish churches, maintaining cleanliness and the good condition of liturgical articles used for Mass. Simply put, the MBG service is “atsay service”.
Cardinal Sin asked me to be at Villa San Miguel, his residence and to come in my MBG uniform. It was a rainy morning. The Villa San Miguel lobby was full of ladies in MBG uniform … ladies I never met previously. At first glance, they seemed intimidating not the usual first impression aura of the women I recruited for the MBG in the provinces. In the Cardinal’s office, Cardinal Sin introduced me to Fr. Cadusale, “Tita, this good priest started the MBG in his parish in Paranaque, and this lady, Nenette Bustos is his MBG commander-in-chief there.” Nenette Bustos looked every bit a commander-in-chief!
It didn’t take long for me to know the real Nenette Bustos … so motherly, so full of heart, so full of cheerful hospitality. The members she recruited not just for her parish, the Presentation of the Child Jesus, but also for the entire Paranaque, a district then of the Archdiocese of Manila, were young, energetic, committed. She called them “mga anak ko” and she lavished on them tender, loving discipline.
In the years that followed when the MBG was in charge of vestry service of mammoth ecclesial events, I could rely on Nenette and her “mga anak” to provide a large share of liturgical vestments and linens. When I was preparing to leave for Rome to take on a new role as chief of mission in the Philippine Embassy to the Vatican, I asked Nenette to look after MBG Laguna, the youngest addition then to the MBG vineyard. And she did a marvelous job. When I returned from Rome six years after, the Mother Butler Guild in the dioceses of Paranaque, of San Pablo Laguna, even in the Apostolic Vicariate of Palawan which she included in her visits was thriving. And Nenette did it all without any claim for power or credit. She did it all for love… love for the house of the Lord in the parish, love for the house pf the Lord in her neighbor’s heart, love for the house of the Lord in her heart.
And so I grieve … for the loss of a loving Mother Butler who formed and took care of so many MBG anaks … for the loss of a dear friend of my heart. But in my grief, I can still see and hear Nenette laughing her heart out, and with her usual tender loving embrace assuring us that all shall be well … all things shall be well because God is near us.
And we rejoice … for Nenette even in death turns our mourning into joy because in life she brought us to the nearness of God. I know and believe and trust that now Jesus is holding Nenette by the hand and showing her around His Father’s House.
Amb. Henrietta T. de Villa October 5, 2020
