TWO young brothers in their 20s joined me during one of my pilgrimages to the Holy Land at the encouragement of their parents. Being young, they had many questions about their Catholic faith. And so, after supper during that pilgrimage, we would still spend long hours together engaging in deep thoughts about life and faith.
One night, the older one asked me, “Father, what has been your most difficult and challenging work as a priest?” For a while I could not answer him — I’ve always enjoyed my calling and have developed pastoral and administrative skills to overcome difficulties. “It’s not the work that I find hardest,” I told him. “It’s my struggle in dealing with self-effacement, which is forgetting to be somebody of higher rank and being the least of all.” “Even in Church,” I explained to him, “there is a tendency among us priests to seek recognition, prestige, title, and popularity.”
“This was the same struggle of a rich young man in the Gospel who asked Jesus what else he could do to enter the Kingdom of God after following all the commandments,” I told the two young men. “His biggest struggle was to forget his very self to follow Jesus. If he wanted to be great in the kingdom of God, then he must be the least and the servant of all.”
“Do you remember the words of Jesus in the Gospel?” I asked the young pilgrims. “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God,” the younger brother responded.
“That’s right,” I said. “Here, Jesus was using a familiar sight of his time — camels hardly passing through the gates of the Jerusalem. Their owners would have to remove baggage from the camels’ backs for the animals to enter through the narrow gate, making the owners victims of theft, thereby losing their possessions.”
“To be a disciple means to abandon one’s life into the hands of God by letting go of all worldly attachments,” I further explained.
Then the two young men shared how they realized this when they prayed the Stations of the Cross by walking through Via Dolorosa toward the Holy Sepulcher. They understood that Jesus had to empty himself and carry the Cross to Calvary to fulfill his Father’s mission of saving humanity.
“I sensed this radical way of life that Jesus preached as I travel through the Holy Land,” I told the young pilgrims. “It calls for letting go of hatred, of forgiving and loving enemies, of sharing one’s wealth, and of giving up ambition.”
“Perhaps, our political and religious leaders would find enlightenment in solving the problems of violence and conflicts in the world by adhering to the teachings of Jesus, which calls for humility, self-sacrifice, and forgiveness,” I continued in my conversation.
The two young men nodded in profound thoughts, agreeing to the insights that I was sharing with 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.
