Last year 29th Dec, South Johore Vicariate cancelled all Sunday Masses except for the one Mass here in the Cathedral to launch the Jubilee year. Quite a few turned up for the cancelled 6:00pm Mass later that evening despite the repeated announcements we had made preceding the event.
Jesus says that we can hear and hear but fail to listen.
Sometimes repeated reminders are needed for the message to truly sink in. A message which has not sunk in for many of us, in the last 60 years, is connected to this Sunday’s challenge of following Jesus. It is the question of vocation. I have raised this issue in the last couple of weeks. Priests are getting older.Where is the next generation of vocations?
Firstly, the average age of the congregation is climbing up. There was a bigger group of people who used to serve the Cathedral and they have aged and the number is dwindling due to deaths. Secondly, membership in the youth group has dropped reflecting the smaller size of the family. However, this reality does not gel with our statistics. The world’s population has gone over 8 billion. A hundred years ago, were we about 1.6 billion inhabitants? But we still had a thriving vocational scene. Young men were entering seminaries in droves. Now, with more than 8 billion, it cannot be that we are running short of human beings, no?
Perhaps what is more reflective of reality is how we have stopped listening and responding to both God’s call and invitation. The crisis of vocation is a crisis of listening and responding.
Following Christ is a life-long journey. It requires everything from us. On the one hand, we cannot give what we do not have. On the other, what is in it for us? That was Peter’s question to Jesus. “Look, we have left everything to follow you. What will we have?”. Our reward system, unfortunately, has been short-circuited by materialism. Reward is measured through instant gratification. Delaying pleasure is not our strength now. If that be the case, it is not easy to accept what God wants to give to us because at the back of our head is the incessant demand of instant gratification.
We need a vision that looks beyond the surface of materialism. It is an ability to appreciate a prize that is beyond the present which as a consequence allows us to carry on despite opposition, rejection, persecution and the Cross. Our imageof the Cross is tied to suffering—and human that we are, we tend to avoid any forms of suffering. But the Cross is the greatest symbol of love and only love can explain suffering. That is why St Paul waxes an ode to the love that is courageous in the face of difficulties and suffering.
When we think of love, we think of being loved. Whereas the vocation to the priesthood specifically and to religious life in general is to focus on others rather than on oneself. True love is never for ourselves or of ourselves. In the face of challenges, a natural response is to take things rather personally. Jeremiah may have been consecrated in the womb and yet he faced rejection. If he had taken that rejection personally, he would never have stuck on with being the prophet that he was. While rejection is often personal, we must go beyond the personal and a way to do it is to love beyond the self.
A mark of Christianity is loving to the point of self-sacrifice. In other words, the specific vocation to serve God’s holy people, as His priest or religious, is to imitate Christ, poor, chaste and humble. It is a love that lays itself down for the other. Perhaps the Easter Candle can help illustrate what it means to be loving.
A candle is just a candle when unlit. It becomes a torch when it is burnt. Its usefulness lies in burning itself out. To understand this we may have to make a distinction between selfishness and self-preservation. Self-preservation is a natural human instinct. It is not selfish per se. We draw boundaries in order to protect ourselves—our physical and mental well-being. Selfishness on the other hand is self-preservation at the expense of others—I prioritise myself and disregard the needs of others. The vocation to follow Christ will take us beyond self-preservation. A candle burns itself out so that others can see in the darkness.
Perhaps the idea of vocation or having Good Shepherd Sunday during Easter is good because the idea of self-sacrifice can only make sense when we believe in the Resurrection. Why? The instinct for self-preservation is real and it kicks in because one naturally shy from sacrificing. Nobody wants to die. Instead, everyone wants to live forever. Yet, living forever is never meant to be earth-bound. Everyone knows it. Why? When we have lost all faculties, we instinctively know that our time is up. Only when we realise what feels like a defeat is not a total loss that it is possible to lay down one’s life. The Resurrection is that assurance. Belief in the Resurrection gives one the courage for self-sacrifice.
Jesus Himself said, unless a seed falls unto the ground and dies, it remains but a single seed. But if it dies, it yields a hundred-fold. Sometimes, when I am in the car with friends and the driver is weaving in and out of traffic, I will scream “I do not want to die. I am still a virgin” and we will burst out laughing. It a joke but clearly symbolic of how earth-bound our sense of fulfilment is. Those who sacrifice for the love of Christ will never know defeat. Instead, they will reap a reward beyond their imagination. If you know it, you will never be afraid that there is nothing left of you or for you. What you dare to give up for Christ, He will give you back a hundredfold. So, young men, young women. Come. Follow Him.
