Of Detachment and Moving On

Yesterday's Gospel asks one question: Am I willing to let go of all my attachments in answering the call of Christ for me?

I wanted very much to blog about it yesterday but didn't have the time since I have to wash my clothes (and yes, I wash my own clothes here in the post novitiate). This morning gives me ample time to think and reflect again, to draw out from the Gospel of Daily Life. In the gray and cold overcast morning of Canlubang, I received latest news of happenings that providentially coincides with my first reflection.

Aspirants come and go in the seminary. It is a sad but true fact that not everyone perseveres in the seminary. It is sad because as years go by you build a brotherhood and friendship that is quite an unforgettable heaven and to leave it behind is like going out of the gates of Eden. It is sad for both, for us who stay because we have to move on despite a dwindling number of candidates in a batch, and for those who have left because they will surely miss the seminary culture as they take on the new road which they believe is the right path for them. The coming and going of candidates is natural in the seminary where people come to discern or seek their true calling in life.

For this formation year, both seminaries in Canlubang and in Lawaan have guided vocations outside their walls. It is always a sad exchange of goodbyes, but it is also a victory for the discernment process. At the personal side, it takes a lot of courage to continue on without the usual friends that you are accustomed with. You have to let go of batch mates because they have their own paths to follow. This is the "moving on" for us, a drama that is unfamiliar for lay folk.

I am also happy for my friends who have chosen to continue their search for God outside the formation house. As we are the Church's investment inside her ranks, they have become her investment in the world. They have been specially trained and inculcated with the spirit and skills while in formation, and they will bring these in the world that is to become their field of work.

For us who believe we will find Christ in our perseverance in the Salesian Religious Life, it takes a double toll of detachment: of the unessential and of the one's self. Anything that is unessential in following Christ must be left behind. Anything that hinders one's heart to answer God's call must submit. I don't call it a total and absolute renunciation of the world because in following Jesus we remain in the world. Instead of dismissing the whole world altogether, we only take those parts that are useful in one's vocation. And this is the easier of the two, because in the second renunciation, we die to ourselves.

And I believe this is why there are fewer who persevere in the Priestly and Religious Life, because nowadays, it is so difficult to live this daily dying to one's self. This dying is not physical rather it involves the interior self of a person. A religious must discipline his own human nature to match it with Christ's perfect expression of poverty, chastity, and obedience. To sublimate one's energies, to rationalize one's passions, to curb one's appetite, to tailor the self to make it more like Christ is a radical option that goes beyond the extremes of Islamic extremists and the verbatim of the fundamentalist. This I believe is the ultimate discipline of the religious, the more proper expression of asceticism, the spiritual hair shirt that each religious should wear. This is the difficult part of the religious life in which so many of us fail.

The lay person must recognize this in his priest for him to appreciate the hidden struggles his pastor is doing for the sake of being a single-hearted Christ for his sheep. It is utter foolishness for the people of the world, but it is the only way to become Christ for other people. We have chosen to live this path, and we are willing to pay its demands. Why? Because in this path we have found Love so sublime that what we pay pales in comparison to what we have found and are fighting for.

Calling Out

The night no matter how beautiful

Is as dark as its velvet shade

When my heart is calling out to you

And the distance of so many miles apart

Are like clouds that cover the moon and stars

And my heart is calling out to you

Dreams limitless though they are

Fall short of reaching you afar

And my heart is calling out to you

A gaping hole demands to be filled

In my soul whose tears have dried

For my heart is calling out to you

Such sadness blinds the sun's rise and set

And the heavens hide her ornaments

With it my heart is calling out to you

Painful agony, how sweet to wait

For something that comes not yet

Till then my heart is calling out to you

I call then from my depths, please hear

And come in haste, be near

My heart is calling out to you

Through Heaven's Eyes

Today, June 30, 2010, marks the inauguration of the 15^th President of the Republic of the Philippines, President Noynoy Aquino. This will mark new governance for us from a new administration. Today also, we commemorate the first martyrs of Rome whose blood became the seed of Christianity. Their martyrdom held promise and is now realized in our Faith today. Now what else happened on the past June 30’s before?

§  350 – Roman usurper Nepotianus, of the Constantinian dynasty, is defeated and killed by troops of the usurper Magnentius, in Rome).

§  1805 – The U.S. Congress organizes the Michigan Territory.

§  1905 – Albert Einstein publishes the article "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", in which he introduces special relativity.

§  1934 – The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler's violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, takes place.

§  1953 – The first Chevrolet Corvette rolls off the assembly line in Flint, Michigan.

§  1968 – Credo of the People of God by Pope Paul VI.

§  1971 – The crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft are killed when their air supply escapes through a faulty valve.

§  1997 – The United Kingdom transfers sovereignty over Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China.

And today, the following were born:

§  1974 – Fr. Anthony Wilbert Dianon

§  1975 – Ralf Schumacher, German F1 race car driver

§  1984 – Fantasia Barrino, American singer

§  1985 – Michael Phelps, American swimmer

In a more personal note, June 30 marks the following:

·         63^rd day since the First year Brothers’ First Profession

·         65^th day since the Second year Brother’s Renewal of Profession or  430^th day of their Profession as Salesians

·         But most importantly, this day marks the day when I gave my first sermonette in Canlubang.

Forgive me if I am fond of dates and history tonight. Fr. Nesty’s anniversary seems to have taken its toll on me. I believe however that it is common for us, I mean for everyone and not just the Religious, to be fond of dates and to find connections in the seemingly disparate dots of life, and see through the disparity to form a pattern that was previously hidden.

What appeared to be stars sprinkled across the night sky we have come to form and label constellations. In the same way, we look at our experiences, we look at days and nights, and we find connections, we find constellations, because it is our nature to find meaning in our life.

One of my favorite Bible-based animation movies is Prince of Egypt. Aside from the story on Moses which I have heard a thousand times already, and a beautifully arranged music that captures the magic of the Middle East, I am fond of the line that Jethro delivered for Moses: “Look at your life through heaven’s eyes.”

A single thread in a tapestry with its color brightly shine

You will never see its purpose in the pattern of the grand design

And the stone which sits on the very top of a mountain’s mighty face

Doesn’t think it’s more important from the stones that form the base

So how can you see what your life is worth or where your value lies

You can never see through the eyes of men

You must look at your life through heaven’s eyes

I have been privileged to meet senior Salesians like Fr. Felix Glowicki and Fr. Edgardo Espiritu, two of the many who lived their lives in the Salesian Congregation. At their deaths, I was asked to compile their data and videos for the eulogy. The striking thing is, both saw through their lives a beautiful pattern, which at their youth was yet unclear, slowly becoming clearer and clearer through the years, and manifesting its grand design at the sunset of life. Both were left awestruck and thankful at the turns and twists their life took.

Don Bosco had a similar experience of seeing through his whole life not just an ordinary story of a man who lived and die, but a story of faithfulness and grace. Only at the sunset of his life did he see the full realization of his dream at nine. He couldn’t be more thankful than by shedding tears that sprang forth from the depths of his heart as he was celebrating mass during the blessing of the Sacred Heart Basilica. It was a different set of tears from what he shed when in the dream at nine he could not understand anything of he saw. He was thankful for being chosen as the golden thread that ran through the tapestry of the Salesian Congregation.

We share a similar story with our founder and many of the holy Salesians who have gone ahead. We share a story of a life shared with a faithful God. We are young, and so are our formators, and at this point we may not be able to see through the cloud that covers mystery of our own lives, but we believe and we believe with certainty that through this course is a promising beautiful story that we live every day.

I for one still could not believe that I am already a Salesian, that I am now living in Canlubang away from Cebu, that I am now taking up the challenge of Philosophy, and that I am leading a radical life a far cry from what I originally planned as a child. However I believe that this is part of a wonderful plan for me. There is something around the bend, but that something is not the end, and that it is the journey that counts.

Brothers, Don Bosco lived his life through the background of the dream at nine. I am sure, too, that each one of us lives our lives with a background of a dream that Jesus and Mary had planted in each of us. It is our own sacred story that runs through the tapestry of daily life. What is this sacred story, a dream, that Jesus had shared with us and triggered us to join the Salesian Congregation?  The challenge for us is to incarnate that dream like Don Bosco did, to believe in that dream which triggered the blazing fire of Salesian zeal. How often do we revisit this dream of ours? We may not understand it yet but in due time the story will unfold, and like Don Bosco, we will be thankful we have been chosen to live this life. Until that time, we must see our lives through heaven’s eyes.

***

This sermonette was given on June 30, 2010 during the monthly commemoration of St. John Bosco before the Post Novitiate Community