Monsignor Guillermo “GG” Azcona Gaston will be buried at the Silay Catholic Cemetery in Silay City, Negros Occidental, on Thursday, August 3, his nephew Joey Gaston said.
He will be buried after a 2 p.m. funeral mass at the San Diego Pro-Cathedral in Silay City.
Gaston, 91, succumbed to cardiac arrest in Bacolod City on July 20.
The fifth of eight children, Gaston was born in Hacienda Santa Rosalia, Manapla, on March 7, 1932, to Jose and Consuelo Gaston.
He obtained his college degree from the Ateneo de Manila and studied to become a diocesan priest at the San Jose Seminary and later at the San Carlos Seminary.
In 1956, he began higher theological studies at the Pontificio Collegio Pio Latino Americano in Livorno, Italy.
Immersed in the sweeping changes introduced by Vatican II, he completed his doctorate in Paris, writing and defending his thesis in French on the translation of Catholic teachings into the vernacular – displacing the Latin usage that the faithful did not comprehend, his nephew said.
The substance of his thesis covered all aspects of Catholicism in Ilongo, including Church teachings, the liturgy of the mass, and the arts.
Gaston was ordained at San Sebastian Cathedral in Bacolod City on Dec. 19, 1959.
He taught at La Consolacion College and the Sacred Heart Seminary in Bacolod and served as assistant to Monsignor Silverio at the Silay Parish Church.
Invoking Vatican II, he directed and built, with his brother-in-law Architect Jerry Ascalon, the Ilonggo-inspired Chapel of the Cartwheels near the Gaston family home in Manapla.
The chapel was the site of the first Holy Mass in Hiligaynon celebrated in 1967 by then Bacolod Bishop Antonio Fortich, and it remains a culturally important place of worship to this day.
He returned to France in the 1970s and went on to do missionary work in Gabon, West Africa, ministering to Filipino construction workers. On his return to Negros, he was assigned to various parishes and twice served as rector of the San Sebastian Cathedral (1985-1988 and 1991- 2000).
Gaston’s stewardship included many youth-directed activities in music, dance, the arts, and education, including the award-winning Santa Rosalia Rondalla. He was a gifted teacher, warmly remembered by high school students throughout the province, his nephew said.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Gaston’s memory to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Bacolod for priest care at Banco de Oro Account No. 003010066699, Most Holy Trinity Home Victorias Foundation Local Superior of the Sisters of the Most Holy Trinity Inc. at Banco de Oro Account No. 003790153812, or for the support fund for the Chapel of the Cartwheels and the Santa Rosalia Rondalla care of Agnes Maria A. Casas or Frantz Jesse M. Gaston at BPI Account No. 3340 0045-81.*