The Lord is my light and my Help, whom shall I fear, before whom shall I shrink?
It is your face O lord that I seek.
With these words of the responsorial psalm, we would like – at the beginning of this Eucharist - to express to the Lord all our trust and confidence, together with Simon in his first religious profession, his parents, his grandmother, his companions of the Diocesan Seminary where he lived for 9 years; our companions of vocation in C., with Fr. Emanuele Borelli, our Superior Delegate who tried everything to come and preside over this celebration (the severe restrictions due to the pandemic COVID 19 and the typhoon Ambo battering the zone of Marikina. He was planning, like a fugitive, to come during night by bicycle); with Lucivaldo and Fr. Cesar; with Deacons Erik and Tatno, and Fr. Xavier, with our companions in Project 8: Venansius, Ivan, Anselme, Arsène, Richard and Friwandi and Fr. Matteo; with the community of Project 8: Fr. Petrus, Fr. Patrik and the student Richard. We are blessed to celebrate the first religious profession not far from the presence of our two Filipino confreres: Fr. Patrick and Fr. Joeven (who is also among us in these days), and the community of Marikina: Fr. Purnomo and Justin; and with Fr. Simone.
With the presence in Heaven of our three confreres Wang, Yang and Liu.
In the first reading we listened to the biographical narration of Amos’ vocation. Last week we listened to the core of the narration of the vocation of our brothers Deacons Ryan, Patrick and Novice Simon. Their narrative and experiential language were immediately welcomed in our lives too.
Amos is the first writer prophet of the AT in the VIII century BC. The meaning of Amos is God lifts up, raises up. He is coming from a farming village called Tekoa, 18 km distance from Jerusalem. He is a sheepherder (or a sheep breeder) and a grower of a sycamore figs, that is the normal food to feed animals: two elements to indicate life in all its concreteness and ordinary dimension. But these two elements did not fit the traditional qualification of vocation (professional, family, clan, or plans: I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son… (Amos 7:14). As for our three brothers, they did not see any “professional qualification” to be eligible for vocation, rather an amazing, surprising and humble experience that “The Lord could not have been more benevolent towards us (Letter Testament 1). An experience of being raised up, lifted up, that is desired, thought by the Lord.
And the most repeated words of the sharing of our three brothers were “joy”, “gratitude”, “struggles” (the struggles to grow, to be formed and transformed by the friendship of Jesus in this Missionary Family), and “confidence”. The three of them underlined that the right, mysterious, and unmerited journey of their vocation was not something that they made on their own. None of them felt that the origin, the beginning, the growth of their vocation depended only on the road they chose to travel. With their narrations they told us that their vocation has been rather a response, sometimes not so smooth, sometimes slow, but always a response, a growing answer to a calling experienced as a surprising and unconditional gift from above. As Xaverian Missionaries we were all born from a gaze of love with which the Lord came to meet our Founder Guido Maria Conforti and talked to him as a friend: I looked at Him and He looked at me and seemed to say so many things.
Indeed, “Vocation, more than our own choice, is a response to the Lord’s undeserved call”, wrote Pope Francis to Priests, 4 August 2019.
When we experience, in our daily formation, the “passage” of God in our lives; when we realized and recognized that our concrete, ordinary and limited life is the first place of His revelation, of His face, of His help, of His mercy, of his Glory (which means “weight”) - where little by little we recognize the voice of the Lord saying: “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground" (Exod. 3:5) - then we can say that we have discovered the gift of vocation and embrace it with all ourselves: with our talents and weakness and defects, imperfection, poverty and need of sense of amazement, gratitude, praise and conversion. In this way our vocation becomes passion for the Gospel, for the Kingdom of God, for the person of Jesus and His word, for those who do not know the Risen Lord. Therefore, “vocation” expresses what we are, but “vocation” expresses also what we are called to be, and we are not. In Amos, in fact, the irresistible, sudden, and divine calling in his daily life came like the roaring of lion: A lion has roared! (Amos 3:8). It is the Lord who said: Go, prophesy to my people.
There is a sentence used to describe the first Christians during the persecution. This sentence is referred to the entrance of Jesus in Jerusalem: Asinus portans mysteria (ονος αγων μυστήρια): “An ass that bears the mysteries”, or “A donkey carrying the mysteries”. An “ass” or a “donkey” symbolizes the simplicity, the littleness, the smallness, the limitedness, also the poverty of our life, and yet this “ass” carries the mysteries, that is Jesus, the treasure of the Good News, the Kingdom of God at hand, close to us, the gift of vocation, the gift of fraternity, the sense of amazement for the mercy we received unconditionally.
As missionaries, living with and for non-Christians, we never forget what we are, and at the same time what we are called to be; what we carry in our life, in our heart, in our joys, in our wounds, in our daily transformation. And this is the way how you, Simon, carry in your life the “mysteria”, that is Jesus, among us and to Non-Christians: the humility, the simplicity, the sense of humanity, the experience of weakness and imperfection, carrying, bearing the gift of the Gospel, the gift of mercy and love always greater than us. In this sense, “vocation” is something that you experience, choose, in every moment of your life, and not necessarily in the Novitiate. Peter gave a nice definition of “spiritual life”: "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. (Jn. 6:68)
You are called to approach a non-Christian with humility, like an ass bearing the mysteries, like Jesus entering Jerusalem. A missionary can approach a non-Christian only through Jesus. Without Jesus Christ we are not able to know the heavenly Father, and without Jesus we cannot know our brother non-Christian and approach him/her.
In the second reading the experience of Baptism is seen as a burial and an experience of total unity, total participation in the life of Jesus. To say “yes” to His relationship is also to leave our former selves. This is another element that our three brothers Patrick, Ryan and Simon underlined when they shared with us the heart of their vocation.
In today’s second reading, Paul describes the experience of death as an experience of liberation.
The “death” of Jesus is the expression of his total love, to the end, whereas “sin”, “evil” here is seen as the break of a son and his relationship with the Father; and the break of our relationship with our brothers. Therefore, the one who dies to this evil/sin, is a liberated person: “Alive for God”, says Paul. The First Profession is this experience of being “alive for God in Jesus Christ”. Jesus does not live for himself; he lives for the “Other”. Today, Simon, your “yes” to dedicate yourself to God and his Kingdom among non-Christians is the testimony that you are “alive” for God, therefore you do not live for yourself, but for Him and for your brothers non-Christians, as a gift and a little sign of a greater love. Your obedience, chastity and poverty qualify your encounter with non-Christians.
Today, to recall our baptism means to also remember Joseph and Mary, your father who is sick and your mother, with your three siblings and your aunt. In C. were born the first religious families inspired by Xaverian spirituality founded by Calza and Bassi You came to know this family through a member (your aunt) of the family founded by Calza. Your vocation is coming from the Spirit of Love through these concrete people.
To be alive for God is an experience that passes through the life, the confidence, the openness, the courage, the struggles, solidarity, and the faith of other people. We feel close to our companions of vocation in C. who welcomed you with joy as a dear brother.
Today’s Gospel presents Jesus proclaiming the Good News, the Kingdom of God at hand, “walking along by the sea of Galilee”, and there, he sees us, there he speaks-calls us to follow Him. Three important verbs in our story of vocation: he walks, he sees, and he says. “Galilee” is the place where Jesus was born and grew up. It is the place where he worked for 30 years, that is daily life. It means that our vocation, the revelation of the Risen Lord, the experience of the Gospel happens in our daily concrete life. But “Galilee” is also a complex, intricate, and compromised place. It means that the Risen Lord cannot be encountered only in clean spaces of our experiences, in the cleanest part of our life, or in the most serene part of our mind, but the Risen Lord can be present in our fears, tears, in our confusion, in our doubts, in our empty nets, in the concrete dimension of our limitations, and in our sins. Where is the Risen Lord? In “Galilee”!
In every vocation we have the same framework. In today’s Gospel the two callings keep the same elements (Simon and Andrew, James and John), that is the same condition of this personal relationship with Jesus. Always two by two, because the experience of our vocation is never a private matter, but always an experience of fraternity. The journey of your vocation in Postulancy and Novitiate has been shaped by the fraternity of this concrete community. What you are today, Simon, is also because of the experience of family within the community of the Theologate. This international missionary family of the Theologate of Manila offered many precious pearls and treasures. I would like to point out just one pearl: this community shared with you a positive and credible testimony, despite all our shortcomings and defects, of an intercultural family capable of love, patience, acceptance, listening and collaboration.
The calling of each of us, in fact, is meant to create communion, community, fraternity. In this time of pandemic, we realized how important is, despite uncertainty and precariousness, to live our vocation as an experience of fraternity, the communion of our bodies, even with social distance. It is the most important thing in this world. We give many thanks to the Lord for professing your consecration in this context of essentiality. What the community has been doing in these two months of “stay at home” will remain always. To say “yes” to the Lord and to this missionary family under these (COVID 19) circumstances is a blessing.
I would like to conclude with the words of prophet Isaiah. Our temptations in our vocational journey are not only moments of suffering; being moments of choice and decision, temptations are also moments of love. We are mature not because we do not have temptations, but because with humility we can transform moments of temptation in an opportunity to abandon ourselves to the Heavenly Father. There we find peace, freedom that goes beyond our struggles and desires because: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength." (Isa. 30:15).
The Word of God
1st reading: Am 7:10-15
Responsorial psalm 26 (27)
2nd reading: Rm 6:1-11
Gospel: Mk: 1:14-20