God and the Bar Part V

When it was the time to review on Civil Code, I could not absorb any lecture anymore. I fell asleep the whole time. I knew with this kind of setup I would never pass the Bar. I heard my seatmates discussing about their lgal knowledge and I was intimidated because I knew nothing. Some students even told me that they never heard about the school where I graduated from as if they were telling me that they had learned more from a well-known Law School. The only hope for me came when Dean Aligada shared to us his personal experience when he took the Bar. The words I could not forget from him -Just pray, he said, to pass the Bar because he only read his book once, took the Bar and passed it. I was awakened by the Dean's words and I made a decision to stop going to the review center, instead I studied all by myself. I consulted Msgr. Manny if my decision was right. I also asked Fiscal Chris Gonzales about my decision. With them, I finally made a decision that starting August I would review alone. I asked Dan Tejada to buy me the whole set of the review notes from San Beda as my guide. 

But studying alone was not easy. There were times when people asked me for confession and counselling. I would even go to far places to give the last sacrament for the sick. I could not get away with my pastoral duty to people knowing that I am a priest. I had to say funeral mass or give catechism classes. I had to exorcise or bless someone. I had to visit a sick priest in a nuns' place. It was a good thing that Msgr. Manny saved me from trouble by reminding the parishioners to give me space and time for my review. Of course, this reminder could not stop the parishioners to approach me. What they care about is that I am a priest. The difficulty in reviewing alone happened as there were many things in the review notes which only lawyers could explain. I remember when I sought a young lawyer's knowledge on a specific Bar subject, he told me I still have the time to quit. He discouraged me to take the Bar as he tested my knowledge on the subject which I asked him to help me understand. I had only two options: to take or not to take the Bar in November 2015.