Many Are Called But Few Are Chosen

We were all seated at the conference room. We were a band of brothers who spent months living and studying together. We consider ourselves a family, after all we are a community of Salesian aspirants.

"Not all of you will become priests here. Some of you may have to leave and build their own families. How I wish all of you will become Salesians but that is not the case, not all of you will become Salesians", Fr. Ronel frankly declared.

Such is the case of all religious communities. Many young people enter the seminary gates with much enthusiasm in their hearts. The same young people exit the seminary gates with bags full of experiences and their hearts full of enthusiasm for things other than religious life. With five years of college aspirancy behind me, I can attest to the truth that not everyone I see in a school year will last for the next. This is how fluid the community is. This is the test of one's detachment.

Many young people would come to say "yes" but could not keep that "yes". It's nobody's fault that most seminarians would eventually leave the seminary. It's a play between their true vocational calling, their psychological maturity, family background, and their generosity. Most, if not all, come with a very good intention of following Christ's call. However, formation to the religious life has been providentially designed to sift through vocations.

I, for example, came from a batch of a meager six aspirants. Now, I am the lone survivor of that batch in the postulancy. Most of my companions have to leave to further other dreams. The perseverance rate of religious life is low. The call of community life remains. This is the bittersweet reality of our life. We act like real brothers even with the possibility of departing from each other. We trust is the community as it is now.

There are many factors that affect vocations, but the most essential things are discernment, prayer, and personal commitment. Seminarians can have the most lucrative venue and amenities for formation, they can have the most talented, wise, understanding, and loving formators, but if they lack the capacity to commit, persevere, and surrender to God's Will it means a change of choice.

Oily Problems

No, I'm not writing about the greasy facial oil masking your skin. It's all about sweet crude oil, the Black Gold, the OPEC-issue, today's fuel, and tomorrow's scarcity. We're seeing macroeconmics here, when most of today's economies solely depending on oil, take it away and you paralyze the global economy. Who cares, you ask? You might have felt it a little with the rising of the standard minimum fare but its long term effects are disastrous.

It has already been noted that global market growth is slowing down. The US Economy is fluctuating, the OPEC is fighting for a $100 a barrel mark-up, Russia is going war freak again with oil as its hostage. The slower the growth of a market, the slower the development, and the slower can we uplift our standards of living. Yes, it's nobody's fault but everyone's. We've been too dependent on oil. We knew its long-term effects yet everybody's addicted to it. Think about opium and shabu addicts in rehabs. The world is so much like it right now, enslaved and in-denial.

I've written how indolent we are when we could have harnessed other sources of energy by developing hybrid technologies. We've been too slow on these developments. Our policy was: let's use oil for now and see what happens next. Good heavens, we not only see but also feel global warming, pollution, and now economic slowdown. Think about it, if oil runs dry today, what would happen to the millions of jeepneys and tricycles running up and down the Philippine road?

Will we really run out of oil? No, we won't. Oil will become so scarce that it will become so expensive, no one wants to buy it or invests in finding it. Isn't this a classic human condition? We trust so fully in things that are passing, things that are temporary. We easily find solace in the easiest conditions that we have. What little psychological problem we innately have adds up to become the global problem. Everything after all rests on individual choice and everything else is a reflection of the inner struggle. We can't always blame the higher institutions, it's too immature for today's consciousness.

As human persons, we are called to more social awareness and active participation. Whatever we do, no matter how small, affects everything in reality. Think about the Butterfly Effect.

Spot not the Focus

A psychological study conducted a few decades ago proved that a person ordinarily would focus obsessively on a spot in a white sheet of paper. The human mind is intent to focus on contrasts. While this is an advantage for our survival and environmental surveying, too much of it in our social life will surely do otherwise.

The focus of each individual as a part of a larger entity called society must focus not so much on the spots but rather on the bigger picture. Yet, we must guard against the danger of dismissing the spot altogether for the sake of the bigger picture. Then, as everything else in life, this calls for balance.

As individuals, we tend to become too focused on our small little problems. These little spots get amplified by our self-doubt and criticism, spawning fear and despair. As a group, we tend to focus much on differences than on similarities. We often ask who's better and who's worse. In effect, focusing too much on the spot begins the pointing and blaming game.

Spot not the focus, lest you focus much on the spot. Objectively, we are more good than bad, more of promise than failure, alive more than dead. There is more beauty in us than what meets the eye. The little spots in our life shouldn't block out the whiteness of our being.