IN my 8th year of priesthood, I was asked to be part of a dating game. Not the dating game that we see today on television like The Bachelor or the dating service called Christian Singles, but the dating game we used to have with several pastors who were looking for associates. Back then, that was the way to get another parishassignment: date some pastors!
So after a week of doing this, I got a call came from one of the pastors I “dated.”
“Rodel,” he said, “I really like you and my staff also like you a lot. Would you take me as your number one choice and I’ll put as my number one?
“Oh yeah,” I said, “I’m thrilled that you like me but, to be honest with you, I might not be there for a long time because I want to be a pastor soon.”
Then he responded, “That’s okay Rodel, spend some years here with the Hispanic community and you can be prepare yourself for the pastorate.”
To make the long story short I agreed to be this priest’s associate pastor. My job was to be the chaplain to the Hispanic community.
But I remember that I was not fully giving myself to my work. Deep within me was the urge to have my own parish.
One day my pastor noticed my half-hearted attitude towards my assignment, and that I was thinking more of my longing to be a pastor. So he gave me an advice that I could not forget until now: “Rodel, bloom where you are planted.”
I remember that it was a wake-up moment for me. So I took my pastor’s advice seriously and engaged myself wholeheartedly in my work to prepare myself for my dream that came through two years later.
It’s the same advice that I gave our new and returning seminarians last week in a homily as they started the school year. I told them to bloom where God has planted them. I reminded them that the seminary is a seedbed and they are the seeds.
“What does it mean to bloom where you are planted?” I remarked.
“It means to be like a seed that falls on the ground and dies as Jesus tells us in the Gospel. It’s to allow ourselves to be broken, to be open to the sources of nourishments and growth that surround us, to give ourselves generously to the formation and to allow God to form us,” I explained.
“All these attitudes entail lots of trust: trust in us—in the gifts that God has given; trust in those who are in charge of our formation; and trust in God the Father who provides for all our needs.”
“Here in the seminary, we provide everything you needto grow in your vocation to the priesthood—the spiritual, academic, human and pastoral formations, including all the material things you need such as food, books and technology,” I added.
“All you have to do is to engage yourself fully in the program, to be a cheerful giver as St. Paul tells us, to have the joy of the Gospel as Pope Francis always reminds us so that we can reach our goals and our dreams.”
As the seminarians were listening to my homily, hope was stirring in me that they were taking to heart the advice I was giving them.
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From a Filipino immigrant family, Reverend Rodel G. Balagtas was ordained to the priesthood from St. John’s Seminary in 1991. He served as Associate Pastor at St. Augustine, Culver City (1991-1993); St. Martha, Valinda (1993-1999); and St. Joseph the Worker, Canoga Park (1999-2001). In 2001, he served as Administrator Pro Tem of St. John Neumann in Santa Maria, CA, until his appointment as pastor of ImmAaculate Heart of Mary, Los Angeles, in 2002, which lasted 12 years. His term as Associate Director of Pastoral Field Education at St. John’s Seminary began in July 2014.
