GOD’S recent mighty works in my life have amazed me! He has now brought me to complete recovery after undergoing a medical procedure to cure an unruptured aneurysm in my brain. My friends and colleagues could not believe that I recovered so quickly. “It’s because of the mercy of God, the miracle of medicine, the love and support of family and friends, and most of all, the power of prayer, “ I would tell them.
Now I’m ready to tackle my new job as Vice Rector and Director of Pastoral Field Education of St. John’s Seminary. It’s a challenging job because it involves forming and training future pastors of the Church, but with God’s grace and power, which includes the support and collaboration of my colleagues in the seminary, I know that I can fulfill its responsibilities.
I will always trust in God’s mercy and love. He has led me safely through the darkness and pains of illness, and I know that he’ll continue to guide me through the hardship and challenges of training the people that he has called to priestly ministry.
Our greatest challenge as priests is to put our complete trust in God in all the difficulties, trials and pains of ministry. We’ll all need to be like St. Paul in last Sunday’s Second Reading: safe with God’s “sufficient grace”, “content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:7-10)
We also need to remember the hardships, persecution, pains and challenges that Jesus himself endured during his earthly life and ministry. In the Gospel last Sunday, we find that his own kin and town people could not accept him when he taught in their synagogue. They asked, “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given to him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands! Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?” Then the Gospel says that they took offense on him. To this Jesus responded, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.”
We can’t be like the unbelieving people in last Sunday’s Gospel. As priests, we have to be true models of strong faith for our people. And the best way to do this is to testify of the mighty deeds that God has done in our lives. For as prophets and priests, we’re called not just to teach but also to give witness to the marvelous ways that God is working in the world, his Church, and our lives.
Perhaps, some of the ways that I should teach seminarians to prepare them for future ministry are precisely these: to learn to have complete trust in God who has power our ministry and our lives and to always lead people to the truth of his mighty works, mercy and love!
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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 Immaculate 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.
