Adriatico, Shekinah V.

BSE – 2B
SEE 7

Reaction Paper

I. TITLE: Faith, Love, Time and Dr. Lazaro

AUTHOR: Gregorio Brillantes
REFERENCE: https://iwrotefiction.blogspot.com/2010/04/faith-love-time-and-dr
lazaro.html

II. SETTING
PLACE: Country/Province, Dr. Lazaro’s house, Pedro Esteban’s house
TIME: Nighttime

III. CHARACTERIZATION
A. Dr. Lazaro
- Protagonist, Country doctor
- Apathetic to his profession and clients
- Empty/Dead
- Struggling with God and Family
- Tries to rekindle his relationship
B. Mrs. Lazaro
- Flat character
- Latent Behaviour
- Distant relationship with her husband
C. Ben Lazaro
- Foil character (age, faith, love their job, care for others)
- Wants to become a priest and always helpful
- Fervent faith, could influence his father
D. Pedro Esteban & Family
- Flat characters; Strong believers
- Needs assistance for Pedro and his new-born
IV. SUMMARY

A father who is dedicated to his profession has a distant relationship with his family. He is a
country doctor, he help those people who needed his help. He went to the barrio with his
son to heal the ill new-born baby. After witnessing what his son did to the ill child, made
him questioned his lack of faith. After that he realized everything that happened on their
way home and rebuild his faith to God.

V. PLOT

Exposition: From the upstairs veranda, Dr. Lazaro had a view of stars, the country
darkness, the lights on the distant highway at the edge of town. The phonograph in the sala
played Chopin – like a vast sorrow controlled, made familiar, he had wont to think. In the
scattered light from the sala his angular face had a dusty, wasted quality, only his eyes
contained life. His wife came to tell him he was wanted on the phone. Dr. Lazaro reached
for the phone. The man was calling from a service station outside the town. He was Pedro
Esteban, the brother of the doctor’s tenant in Namblan.

Rising Action: The mas week-old child had a fever, a bluish skin; its mouth would not open
to suckle. They could not take the baby to the poblacion, they would not dare to move it; its
body turned rigid when touched. Ben, Dr. Lazaro’s son, drove for him. While on the way,
they had conversation about Ben’s plan on what career to pursue. Dr. Lazaro wanted his
son to be a doctor too.

Climax: Dr. Lazaro and Ben reached the gas station, where the doctor agreed to meet
Esteban. They went to Esteban’s house and saw the sick child bundled with balnkets. Dr.
Lazaro made cursory check – skin dry, turning cold; breathing shallow; heartbeat fast and
irregular. He removed the blanket and injected a whole ampule to check the tonic spasms,
tried to draw air into the faltering lungs, pressing and releasing the chest; but even as he
worked to rescue the child the bluish color of the face began to turn gray.

Falling Action: Dr. Lazaro shooked his head as a sign of there’s nothing more he can do to
save the child. Ben knelt beside the child and baptized it. Esteban’s wife began to cry.
Resolution: When Dr. Lazaro and Ben are on their way home, Dr. Lazaro realized
everything around him- the town, the people, his family, his faith, love and time that it was
long gone.

VI. THEME:

Dr. Lazaro doubted his faith because of certain events such as his son’s death and the
everyday happenings in his occupation.

VII. MESSAGE

A. Religious/Biblical
Psalm 143:8
“Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show
me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.”

B. Psychological
“Always pray to have eyes that see the best in people, a heart that forgives the worst, a
mind that forgets the bad, and a soul that never loses faith in God.”
Adriatico, Shekinah V.
BSE – 2B
SEE 7

Reaction Paper
(Faith, Love, Time and Dr. Lazaro)

The story Faith, Love, Time, and Dr. Lazaro is about the author confronting the most
important questions of our lives as Christians: Does God exists? If so, what is the nature of
God? The author succeeds in compelling the story because he never preaches or subverts.
That he allows the reader to experience, rather than solve the problem of God’s presence or
absence. The story is deceptively simple: An aging medical doctor and his young son are
called to a poor family whose newborn baby has a terminal case of tetanus. The journey
towards the family’s home, however, seems to take on a different level when it also
becomes a spiritual journey, most especially for Dr. Lazaro, whose beliefs about and
disbelief in God, faith, love, and time seem to haunt him with a pressurized intensity – and
all because he sees a wide chasm between him and Ben, his son, in terms of how they see
life: He has lost so much faith in God and life, while Ben – intent on becoming a priest –
seems so infuriatingly fresh and positive. He has also lost his faith because he has been a
witness to countless, seemingly random deaths: There is a patient with cancer, whose
racking pain even morphine can’t assuage anymore; there is the baby who is now dying
from tetanus; but most of all, there was his eldest son who, we later learn, committed
suicide. From each latter, the Lazaro family “died” to each other as well. It made the doctor
focus mechanically on his job, just to forget the pain, and his wife became more immersed
in religion than in family. For Dr. Lazaro, what kind of God would allow pain? What kind of
God would kill a baby? What kind of God would take away a son? Is there really a God?,
because of this, Dr. Lazaro falls into darkness and is denied the light. Instead of faith, hope,
and love, he is consigned back to his tomb of death and dirt. The darkness though does not
make the doctor an evil man. He is simply tired, a character who has seen too much and
who like Job, asks what man did to deserve this lot.
 “The sparrow does not fall without the Father’s leave, he mused at the sky, but it
falls just the same. But to what end are the sufferings of a child?” And again like Job, Dr.
Lazaro has the temerity to insist that is wrong and to ask the only question there is to ask;
why?