IT WAS eight o’clock on a quiet night in the municipality of Izalco in Sonsonate, El Salvador. The parish priest, Padre Napo and his vicar, Padre Jorge, invited me to come to a meeting with members of their parish pastoral council. I didn’t know what to expect with this encounter. All I knew was that I was stepping outside my boundaries again with a group of people that I will be meeting for the first time, not to say that I will be chatting with them “solamente en Espanol”.
As I introduced myself and sat with them in the living room, I allowed myself to blend with them naturally by overcoming any feeling of shyness and distance. They were interested in what I had to say. They asked questions about my origin, culture, ministry and were delighted to hear my answers, and my stories. We kept on chatting for an hour until we all got up to sit for dinner at one table. We smiled and laughed as we shared experiences and thought of meeting again someday.
As I sat at a the dinner table with this group of “strangers”, I felt something profound. No, I did not feel like an outsider, I felt one with them. We were speaking the same language: the language of our faith in Jesus Christ, of church, discipleship and leadership, of our joys and challenges and the beauty of all of these.
Much more than my feeling of oneness with them was my feeling of Christ’s presence at that moment. Jesus was there In our midst.
It was the same thing I sensed earlier that day in the morning when I visited the tomb of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the chapel were he was killed as a martyr for the people of El Salvador. At each place, I became one with Archbishop Romero in an intimate prayer of intercession for God’s people, priests, and bishops.
It was the same feeling that I had for my host family, Mario and Maria Elena Ortiz, their daughter, Fatima, and Maria’s mother, Cristina, as they took me around El Salvador for three days. Of course, it was the same feeling I had for my hosts and friends in Guatemala during my visit there the prior week, for Hector Castaneda and his beloved mother, Maria Luisa, and all their relatives. Every encounter with them and their “paisanos” was a profound encounter with God.
I’ve learned this lesson again during my visit to Guatemala and El Salvador: We need to have the courage to step outside our boundaries and comfort zones. This is not easy but it’s a fundamental call of Christian discipleship. Stepping out of our boundaries means opening our hearts and homes to other people, of learning their culture, of sharing each other’s resources, and most of all, of loving God’s people, especially the poor and the downtrodden.
Indeed, as we step out of our boundaries, however difficult it may be, we enter into a surprising moment: we encounter God, alive and working in other people’s lives!
* * *
Reverend Rodel G. Balagtas attended St. John Seminary in Camarillo, California and earned his Doctor of Ministry in Preaching from Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri. For twenty years, he has been in the parish ministry of large multi-cultural communities. Since 2002, he has been the pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Los Angeles. Please email Fr. Rodel at [email protected].