AT times, I’m amazed seeing the zeal of some of our seminarians in their vocation. Take for example, this 24-year-old first-year theology student who is disciplined in most areas of seminary formation: he wakes up early morning to go running, spends one hour of meditation every day, eats healthy food, prepares well for class, is always excited to go out to do apostolic work, and participates well in community activities. He is eager to learn about his Catholic faith and heritage and always asks profound questions. All his professors admire him for his intelligence, prayerfulness, and zeal in seminary studies.
Another example is a fourth year student in his late 20s who was ordained deacon in December last year. In his class on parish administration, he shows great interest in learning about finance and personnel by engaging in active and relevant discussions and doing his homework diligently. He’s now finishing his M.A. thesis on theology of the body and marriage and is excited to do parish ministry. He loves ministering to young people and does not mind working in a poor parish. He is truly a dignified and a prayerful man.
Another seminarian is a 53-year-old man who used to work as a computer engineer. He gave up his lucrative job to finally fulfill his boyhood longing to be a priest. Just like the other seminarians, he is a prayerful man who loves the Church and works hard to complete his studies despite his mental challenges as a middle-aged man.
In the Gospel this Sunday, we find the disciples remembering the words of Psalm 68: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The house in this psalm refers to God’s Temple. The disciples remembered this psalm after Jesus drove out the people who were making the Temple of Jerusalem into a market place: they were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and were engaging in money changing. And Jesus shouted at them saying, “Take these things away; you shall not make my Father’s house a house of trade.”
Our Lord, Jesus, was consumed with love for the house of his Father. For Jesus, the Temple is not merely a building where people gather, generated into a marketplace; it is the “house of my father.” It is not only an area where people gather to worship God, but a place among men and women where the God of Israel whom Jesus calls “my father” has his dwelling.
This is the same zeal that our seminarians have for the house of the Father. Their zeal is to continue making communities, churches, and the world as places where God truly dwells. And so with zealousness, they are learning a lot of theology, scriptures, spirituality and other academic disciplines and are developing pastoral skills to imbue the world with the presence of God, especially in these times of violence, war, and terror.
For our seminarians, the place where God dwells is not only a building. It is the Spirit of the Risen Christ in this world. Our seminarians’ hope is that this world would be imbued with the Spirit of the Risen Christ where everyone finds true wisdom, hope, love, justice and peace. It is the Risen Christ and his message, tangibly experienced through the Sacraments, liturgies, prayers, witnessing and apostolic works of the Church that can redeem this world from all evil ways!
Our seminarians will be on Spring break this week. They’ll go back to their families, friends, and parishes, hopefully that they carry with them the consciousness of the Spirit of Christ to every place they go.
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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.
