Good morning to all of you! Good morning, Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin, S.J., President of the Ateneo de Manila University and our commencement speaker today; Fr. Jose Mario Francisco, S.J., LST President; Fr. Dean Enrico Eusebio, S.J.; faculty, administration and staff. Good morning and welcome to our religious superiors, brothers and sisters in our communities, and all our family and friends. Thank you for coming to this graduation. Your presence, guidance, and friendship have supported us these past four years at LST, and even longer. On behalf of our graduating class, thank you very much and God bless you.
What was the whole point of investing in LST some crucial years of our lives? In this class, some have done STBs in just three and a half years; some, six. I know one has done it in ten, and God bless him! For sure, many of you here today, will continue such an investment. What was the whole point? Why did we have to study God’s Revelation and our own free response, especially in this Year of Faith? Why did we have to go back to Sacred Scripture and Tradition in understanding the Church, or the collegiality of the bishops, and the possibility for a successor of Peter to resign? Why did we have to practice listening and responding to complex Reproductive Health cases or social injustice issues in our Ad Audiendas? Why did we have to simulate the celebration of the sacraments, particularly the “High Mass”, the one with numbered incensations? In other words, why did we have to study theology at all?
Of all people, ladies and gentlemen, a taxi driver posed this question to me during a commute from Loyola House of Studies to our apostolate area in Payatas A, Quezon City. And so to you, Manong taxi driver, wherever you are right now, and to you, apostolate brothers and sisters, and to you who continue to yearn for God’s Word, and to all of us here today, here is my answer: we have studied theology for you. We did it for you. At least, I hope that my batchmates and I know deep in our hearts for whom we have done all of this: not just for personal career advancement, or for the accomplishment of a canonical requirement for the priesthood. Why have we studied theology? Because of you. For whom have we done it? For you… because God has entrusted you to our care, and has entrusted us to yours. Because our theology is for you, you are worth all the years we have put in it.
One can just imagine how fruitful – in fact, how spiritual – my conversation with Manong taxi driver was. It certainly caught me by surprise that even in the most secular moments of our lives, we can choose to engage in spiritual conversations – in talking about our faith. It comes in handy, as you notice, this spirit-led exchange segues into a religious dialogue with the most ordinary people in the world: with the nanay from our apostolate area, for example, who tries very hard to make both ends meet for their growing family of seven. She comes to me one day, complaining about her eldest child who decides to stop studying just to live in with her boyfriend: “Bakit nangyayari sa akin ito, Rev,” the nanay cries, “Mother Butler pa naman ako!”
My dear batchmates, our theological studies at LST have furnished us enough tools to help us converse intelligently, and eloquently, about our Catholic Christian faith. About our loving and merciful and powerful God is in control of all the events of human history; how death and evil have lost their sting! How Jesus Christ redeemed not just the sinful humanity but the entire suffering world–not just by his cross and resurrection, but by the entire Christ event. How the Spirit, sent by both the Father and the Son, continues to guide and provide for the Church until today–from the informal settlers at the dumpsite in Payatas to the cardinal electors in Rome. This perhaps is one of our roles as students of theology, and if I may add, future priests and ministers of God’s Word: it is to facilitate the people’s encounter with God. It is our responsibility to make them aware, even just a little bit, of God’s presence in their midst.
But wait, there is more! Manong taxi driver eventually qualified his original question, ala examiners in the Comps: “Bakit kayo nag-aaral ng theology kung hindi naman nag-aral yung mga disipulo ni Kristo?” There was no LST back then, no professors to listen to, no Councils or Canon Law books or Congar to read, no term papers to write, no exams to prepare for, no rubrics to follow, no nine unmet needs of the Church to respond to. The disciples were simply taught; yes, in very simple ways, they were taught, and they learned. And as they learned, they were sent… to tell the world of Christ’s love.
So, why study theology if the disciples did not? Well, Manong, these followers of Christ, these apostles, actually had the best teacher in the world. Through his words and deeds, this best teacher in the world walked his talk. Whatever apostolic authority his students had, did not come from their own provenance. Whatever issued from their words and deeds were the fruits of a living encounter with Jesus. The Message of the Synod of Bishops on New Evangelization recalls how “we can discover the various ways and circumstances in which peoples’ lives were opened to Christ’s presence.” For instance, how “Jesus engaged Peter, Andrew, James and John in the context of their work, how Zaccheus was able to pass from simple curiosity to the warmth of sharing a meal with the Master, how the Roman centurion asked the Lord to heal a person dear to him, how the man born blind invoked the Son of the Living God as liberator from his own marginalization, how Martha and Mary saw the hospitality of their house and of their heart rewarded by Christ’s presence.” This life-changing encounter with Jesus, this genuine conversion, we pray to experience as ministers of God’s Word. Ultimately, more than our learned “theologies,” it is this personal relationship with Christ, lived out in words and more importantly in deeds, that we bring to the people whom we are sent. This intimate relationship with the Lord, we cannot force to initiate and establish. It is free; it is gratuitous; it is grace. Let us be confident then about what St Paul writes in his epistle to the Philippians – that the Lord God who began this good work on us, will bring it to perfection and fulfillment.
And so, my dear fellow graduates, after these Commencement Exercises, let us all come down from this hill of higher theological learning at LST to the real world of real people who hunger and thirst for God’s Word of love. It is for them that we have been called to LST. And it is with them that we will share our personal relationship with the Lord. Let us go forth then and be sent back to God’s people, glorifying the Lord in living out our faith in action. And may we be endlessly surprised to discover and encounter God himself who has always been with them as he has always been with us!
13 March 2013
