This section is devoted to reflections that may be used for the 'Talk' session or any part of recollection deemed to be proper.
Vocation and Profession
(Matthew
12:46-50)
What
would be the difference between vocation and profession? I stumble across this question when I ask my Mukha Ad brother, “Why
do you want to be a priest?” He replies, “Actually to be a teacher is my first
option, not really a priest.” His answer does not surprise me since he is not
the first seminarian who brings up that reason. Yet, I know that my follow-up
question would be significantly more crucial, “You know that it is not your
first option, and you need to sacrifice many things to become a priest, but why
do you still struggle to stay put being a brother?” His answer excites me. “I
feel an inner peace and joy every time lay Mukha Ad-ers sincerely say thanks. I
know that all my efforts and labors to spiritually help them have been a fruitful
one.” After he says his last piece, I immediately shift the topic of
conversation to avoid the same questions bounce back to me!
My Novice Master, echoing the insight of
Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, OP, says that it is fine to enter for the wrong reason,
but we need to have a right reason to stay. We may become a doctor, a teacher,
and even a brother for a wrong reason, but it does not matter since it does not
define who we are. What matters is that we stay put for a right reason. This
reason empowers and emboldens us to hurdle even those extremely difficult
situations and still we find a little piece of happiness in this midst of
tribulation. This reason is what we call vocation.
Unlike profession, vocation knows no time
limit. A mother cannot say that she would be a mother every weekday from 8 AM
to 5 PM only! Or in an emergency situation, a doctor cannot say, “Oh look for
another doctor. I am having weekend off! Or, a priest cannot simply become a
priest only every weekend yet play with girls every weekday! Vocation is
life-long commitment and precisely it defines who we are.
Unlike profession, vocation knows no
career. Well, a husband cannot expect that he would be the majority stock
holder and earn billions from his marriage. Definitely there are certain ranks
and academic positions one can attain, but most of the teachers especially in
the Philippine and Indonesian context, will remain simple and ordinary teachers
throughout their lives. I myself cannot say that after 20 years, I would grab
the rectorship of Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas! Most likely,
I would turn to be simple brother for the entire of my life. Vocation is
sacrifice and it precisely defines who we are.
If vocation does not give anything good,
but why do people stand their ground to their chosen vocation? It is simply
because vocation brings us something that even the best profession could not
offer. It is to discover that after all the struggles and disfigured realities
we have to endure, our life is not a waste at all, but it has been a meaningful
and fruitful one. In the world of education, the greatest reward a teacher can
earn is not bulk of money or a brand-new BMW, but to see his students succeed
in life and even surpass him.
In the Gospel, Jesus reminds us that doing
the Father’s will is a vocation and not profession. This is why He describes
those who do God’s will as his family members since there is no career in the
family, but vocation. Vocation is not about earning wealth, glory or power, it
is about profound fulfillment of helping people grow and flourish. It is a joy
of serving and loving others. This is why St. Therese of Lisieux says that her
vocation is to love. Every one of us is called to do the Father’s will that is
to love no matter profession we have.
Br.
Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP
[1] The author is personally indebted this insight to Fr. Enrico
Gonzales, OP
“Woman, behold your son!”
No where in the bible we can discover that Jesus
calls his mother, ‘mother’. Not even He addresses her with the beautiful name,
‘Mary’. Jesus names her ‘Woman’! Certainly Jesus does not teach us disrespect
by calling our own father, “Yo, Man, what’s up!” Rather, He recognizes who Mary
really is, her true and deepest identity. On the cross, Jesus reveals the name
of Mary, ‘the Woman’, because she is the new Eve. While the old Eve, the first
woman, failed and fell, Mary, the new Eve, remains faithful even until the most
painful end.
Who could bear to see her only son, the
fruit of her womb, being unjustly condemned as a criminal, tortured like an
animal and humiliatingly crucified before all eyes? Yet, Mary did not run away,
she did not weep, she did not kneel, but she stood firmly under the cross (John
19:25)! The ‘Yes’ Mary said to God in the Annunciation, is the same ‘Yes’, she
professed to her Son, under the cross. She remained faithful, while the rest of
humanity fail and fall.
Look at Jesus’ male disciples! Practically
almost all male disciples ran for their lives. Peter, the boldest among all, denied
his Master thrice. Judas cheaply sold Him at the price of a slave. Others were
scattered and nowhere to be found. The community of disciples that Jesus
painstakingly had gathered was eventually disbanded under the cross. However,
not every body left Jesus hanging on the cross. Mary stood and looked at her
Son. It was at the cross, the greatest sufferings the world could inflict,
Jesus saw who the true disciples were, the one who followed Him till the end.
Remarkably, she was the first disciple of him and in fact, the last, Mary the
Woman.
Like Mary, our authentic identity and
characters reveal themselves under the cross, under great sufferings, and
sometimes on the face of death. The genuine disciples of Jesus can only be
found under the cross. And through the cross, like Mary, we are admitted into
the household of God, the community of believers: “Woman, behold, your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your
mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home (John 19:26-27).
Do we say a little prayer and sign of the
cross in public for simple blessing we receive? Do we go to the Church every
Sunday despite boredom and laziness? Just in case our boyfriend runs with
another woman, are we able to forgive them, or we rather look for the payback
time? In dire need of money, are we going to remain honest, or we start seeking
opportunity for corruption?
Under
the cross, in the face of disintegrating old group and hopeless death of its
founder, the embryo of a new community springs up. It is the community of
believers who like Mary, recognize God even in most battered humanity of Jesus;
believers that hold fast despite no good future in their gaze; believers who
see the seed of resurrection in the disfigured realities of life. There is no
resurrection without the cross. The genuine disciples of Jesus can only be
found under the cross. Only through Christ’s cross, we can say that we are
truly Christians.
Br.
Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP
For When
We Are Weak, Then We Are Strong
Christianity has
been stamped as the religion of weak people. One of the reasons is that it
teaches us, Christians, to love our enemies, to pray for those who have
persecuted us and to forgive those who have wronged us (Mat 5:53 and 6:16). We
are also accused to have suicidal tendency and submissive mentality as
thousands of our fellow Christians choose to die a martyr death rather than to
fight back their persecutors. And the summit of all contempt is that we believe
that God became a poor and feeble man, and even he died the most shameful death
on the cross. “God is dead!” what miserable belief! Friedrich Nietzsche, one of
the most influential German philosophers in 19th century, views
Christianity as the morality of mediocre people and further proclaims ‘God is
dead’.
Before we answer
that allegation, I would like to invite everybody to look back into the history
of humanity. Man has this tendency to hate and hurt others, and our history is
many of times written through blood and violence. The biggest events that mark
and change the course of our history are actually wars and bloody revolutions,
i.e. the French revolution, the first and the second world wars, and the atomic
bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Having this
historical view in mind, the birth of Jesus into the world two thousand years
ago is then not without a purpose. He comes to preach the good news. He
announces that our God is not merciless judge that scrutinizes his subjects for
every detailed mistake and punishes them severely, but forgiving Lord that
rejoices for our conversion (Luke 15:20). He is not Greek God who is playing
favoritism and makes fun of his creatures, but God who causes his sun to rise on the bad as well as the good, and sends down
rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike (Mat 5:45). He is not a poker-faced and selfish God who is residing
at a remote and hidden place, but an intimate and providing God whom he dearly
calls “Abba, Father” (Mark 14:36).
However, Jesus does not only preach the good news, but he is also the
embodiment of the good news. This might be understood as he does what he
preaches, but more than that, he is actually the fulfillment of this good news,
and in fact he is the Good News himself. When humanity is shut in the culture
of violence, he comes to embrace all the worst humanity can do in his passion, to
stop the vicious cycle of violence in his death at the cross and to make them
fruitful in his resurrection. When Jewish society in Jesus’ time could no
longer conceive something better than “eye for eye and tooth for tooth”
mentality, Jesus opens up a fresher and fertile possibility of the culture of
compassion and perfects it in himself when he forgives those who nail him to
the cross and even provides an excuse for them. “Father, forgive them;
they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
An essential part of Jesus’ good news is to invite those who follow Him
to be like God in whom He believes (Mat 19:21). If then our God is loving and
forgiving, then we need to love and forgive others as well. But, we can only
forgive those who have wronged us and our enemies. This is the critical
threshold for those are well rooted in the culture of hatred, those who draw
their strength from oppression. The good
news may come to be a bad news! To forgive, like Jesus, we have to learn to
refuse to be a channel of violence, end the stream in us, and make it fruitful.
But, the moment we attempt to forgive, we face great powers moving against us,
both from within and from without ourselves. From within, we have to undergo
painful process of uprooting ourselves from the stabile old self that is rooted
in hatred. While, from without, we move against the whole world that adores the
culture of violence. Thus, only those who are truly courageous and enormously strong
are able to forgive, and they call themselves Christian.
To love and to forgive are real test of strength and an essential part of
the definition of being a Christian. Which are more difficult, to divorce our
spouse because of irreconcilable differences, or to remain faithful and loving
for the sake of the spouse and especially the children? Which are harder, to
dump a new born baby since it is wanted or to rear and love the child despite
the sacrifices a mother has to endure? For
those who uphold the culture of violence, what Christians are doing are mere
insanity and sign of weakness, but for those who are called, it is Christ the
power and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24).
We are to love and to forgive not because we are weak, but because we
are strong enough to embrace the history of humanity that has been colored by
violence and blood and make them fruitful in the resurrection of Christ. We are
blessed that we believe in Jesus’ God who is loving and merciful, and together
with St. Paul, we say that we are well
content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with
difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when we are weak, then we are strong.
(2 Cor 12:10)
Br. Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP
Thanks for these inspiring reflections...hope you post more. You never know it saves life, vocation, and faith. God bless you!
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