HOMILY. Fr. Jose Cecilio Magadia, SJ

Transcription

1 HOMILY Fr. Jose Cecilio Magadia, SJ We are here for a very simple reason, we are here because we would like to join our six sisters Sisters Joyme and Kath, Sisters Jella and Socorro, Sisters Mel and Jean on their first profession. I think it is only right that we join them in prayer this day because it is a special day for them. Today is a feast. But this morning I would like to say something on the feastday that we celebrate today and on the vows that our six sisters are making. First, the feast. If you count 40 days starting from Christmas, December 25, you will have the feast today, February 2, exactly 40 days. On today s feast, Jesus was presented at the temple of Jerusalem according to Jewish law. According to today s Gospel, the first-born male is consecrated in a special way to the Lord. And as the offering is made with the sacrifice of two turtle doves or two pigeons, Simeon, a wise old man in the temple, proclaims, that now, Yahweh may let Him go in peace because his eyes have seen the promised Messiah. Pwede na siyang magpahinga. And therefore, this Messiah is proclaimed as the light of the world. And that is why today is also what we would call in our local liturgy as the feast of Candelaria. Because on this day, if we follow the liturgy, there should have been a procession and a blessing of candles because this is the feast of the Light of the World. It is this Light we recall when on this same day we offer candles to be blessed as symbols of the brightness that will always accompany our lives. And I think this is the feast we celebrate. What is the Feast of the Presentation all about? Is it about Jesus being presented in the Temple? Not only. It is also about Jesus, Light of the World. Therefore, we bless the candles. It is a beautiful Feast of Lights. But it doesn t mean that there will be no more darkness.

2 It does not mean that just because you are in the light of vows today, there will be no more darkness. As a matter of fact, there will be more. We are still far from perfect and the world is far from perfect. Injustice, greed, and violence continue to plague the world. Disease and death will come upon us all and we will remain as Clay in the Potter s Hand, as your formation anniversary proclaims, while we live in this world. Yet the Light has given us Jesus our Lord. In Polland, this day is called, The Feast of the Mother of God, Thunder because it recalls the purification of Mary after giving birth and because of the traditional belief among the Polish people that the candles blessed on this day are used to protect against thunder and lightning. The candles are lit during the thunderstorm not to take away the thunder, but to give confidence and to strengthen the hearts of all as they realize that even if the darkness and the evil will not yet go away, they still know with certainty that theirs is a God who will accompany them through it all and give them hope. That is what the candles are all about. It is about the hope that somehow, through the difficulties that life continues to pose, we have a God who will be there with us, and it is to this God that we pledge our love. On the vows. Today, our six Sisters will profess for the first time their religious vows in the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres. Like all religious, they will pronounce vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. In today s world, most people will not understand what the vows are and what they mean. They only know, Ah, magmamadre yan. But, what do the vows mean? A Swedish friend of mine told me that he thought that entering religious life is like entering some kind of prison; that it is a giving up of one s freedom, that it means closing doors to great opportunities, that it limits your capacity to grow as a person. That is what he says. What my friend does not realize was that, that was the view from the outside. The view from the inside is different. The reality is that on the side of someone who understands the vows and embraces it wholeheartedly, they are the exact opposite.

3 Rather than being a giving up of one s freedom, they are the living out of freedom in its most radical form. This means that when our Sisters make their profession, they are acting out of a very profound freedom. I am assuming that you are freely taking the vows. Hindi kayo pinilit. That you actually chose to profess because what important is that you actually chose this. If you do not chose this, then it does not make sense. Our Sisters will vow poverty not because they want to be miserable, and destitute and hungry, without roof over their head, or clothes on their back. That is not the kind of poverty they will live. They chose the poverty that frees them to be ready to drop everything and to go anywhere in order to be of service. They will vow chastity not because they don t want to get married. Maybe, deep down inside they still want to. But they freely choose chastity because they want to be available, not just for a few, or for one, but to the whole community, and indeed to the whole Church. Because they know in their hearts that there is depth of happiness, in a life of complete self-giving. They will vow obedience not because they cannot make their own decisions in life so that Sr. Zeta has to make their decisions for them. That is not the reason they make the vow of obedience. They choose obedience because they know there is strength in doing things with others; that by joining their efforts with this group of women that they have chosen to belong to, however sinful and imperfect they are, they can more or less contribute to the building of the Kingdom of God. We know that it took two years of formation in the Novitiate to prepare for this day and a few more years before final vows. Why so long? Why so

4 long to make such a decision? Is it because they are matigas ang ulo, is it because they are slow-learners or baka na-in-love. Or maybe, all of the above. But also maybe, it is because the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience are really best taken only after long consideration so that the person can be certain that he or she is doing without any coercion, in complete freedom, after intense discernment, after making many mistakes and recovering from them, after much prayer and consultation, after having experienced small victories along the way. Sisters, you are invited to pronounce these vows by quietly and calmly coming to realize that it is really God who has taken hold of your lives with a grip so strong and so mysterious that you cannot turn away. What God is doing is directing everything in His gentle and unimposing way with a love so intolerably intense. Today s Feast is the Presentation of the Lord. But the bida in the story is not the Lord actually, if we take a look at the readings but His parents, because they are the ones who make the offering. Mary and Joseph who make this offering as their own treasure, their only child, and they make this offering of their only child. What makes them heroic, why should they be admired? Because they have come to realize that there is nothing that did not come from God. Nothing. That all gifts, good and bad come from God and that when we offer them to God, is nothing more as an affirmation of who we are. Like Mary and Joseph offering Jesus in the temple, you, Sisters, affirm in your lives what a great theologian so eloquently describes, that really, we are all beggars, members of a species that is not sufficient by itself, plagued by unending doubts and restless and unsatisfied hearts, always poor, always incomplete, always needing, and humbly begging for what we need, always realizing that in the end, only God can satisfy our deepest longings.

5 And that is what the vows are all about a testimony of this longing deep inside our lives, deeper than any love can give. In our world of the 21 st century where men and women actively pursue what they believe to be their good, we need men and women who can humbly pronounce vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and echo in their lives the immortal words of Teresa of Avila, All things are passing, God alone suffices. In so many words, that is what you, Sisters will be doing today. You will pronounce in a lengthy way, God alone is all I can truly need. This morning, let us keep them in prayer because we know that this is just really the beginning of a live of service, of dedication to the vows, and a challenge that continues to pose itself to our Sisters, day in and day out. The challenge to fidelity is always there and they need our prayers.