My vocation
story goes like this; when I was in my fourth year high school I have planned
to enter the seminary, but I decided not to pursue it because of my mother. She
abruptly spread the news in our entire clan and neighborhood, and I did not
like it. So, I decided to study in college instead and took up Bachelor of
Science in Accountancy at Ateneo de Davao University. This course is in demand at
that time and the school is distinguished in its business courses. However, during the second semester of A.Y.
2010-2011, the university obliged us to take up Theology 111 or “Christology” and
there, the once neglected calling has stirred once more.
During that
entire semester, the subject help build my calling again. I was inspired with
Christ’s life, yet my mind is still focused on finishing the Accountancy
course. Actually, the course that I took up is very difficult and challenging,
from 13 sections in our batch during 1st year, only six were left,
and glad to say that I was able to make it to the fifth section. So hearing the
news that I can still have my second year in this course, I enrolled myself to
summer classes because I do not want to be pre-occupied with many subjects in
the years to come.
However, during the
Black Saturday of year 2011, my brother and I had a immense physical fight.
With that incident, I unconsciously said to my family that, “I can’t take this anymore. I want to enter
the seminary now. I will ask some help from my friends….” My mother got
dumbfounded hearing this from me and she didn’t expect that my desire to enter
the seminary returned. So she replied, “If that’s what makes you happy,
okay...” (This shows how supportive our mothers are).
And this is how
I enter the seminary.
Entering this
kind of life is very difficult. I thought being here inside is as easy as counting
1, 2, 3 and singing A, B, C, but it was not. Being a seminarian, one must
really have his calling not from anybody else but God.
Now, I am
studying in a college seminary where religious seminarians from different
religious congregation study. Most of us come from Mindanao; and a few comes
from Luzon. It is so sad to say that from every ten seminarians only one will
pursue his priesthood ambition.
I’m so glad to
have friends who entered the seminary before and I ask them their reason of
quitting their dream. They told me that entering the seminary must not be from
parent’s will, friend’s influence and academic desire.
Some say that,
“Priesthood is really not my calling; it is my parents’ call for me.” Sadly,
many young men enter the seminary because they are just forced by their parents
to do so. They feel that when they enter this kind of life they make their
parents proud and at ease. But actually, parents won’t be. Parents must realize
the value of this vocation. To enter the seminary must not be their choice but rather,
of their son. They must not force them to enter because it is not good for the
welfare of their son. One might be in crisis in his priesthood life when he
becomes a priest because he chose the life that he didn’t like.
Another reason
why they quit the seminary is that; they are just influenced by their friends.
This reason sprouts from their need of belongingness. Thus, they think that
becoming a priest will make them popular and be accepted and recognized in the
society. But, again, they are all wrong. If priesthood is about popularity, it
is better for that seminarian to go out from the seminary, unless he’ll mend
it. To follow Christ, one is called to serve and not to be served. Priesthood
is not also about looking for belongingness. Belongingness in the sense of
making yourself accepted to your friends especially if they are all seminarians.
A seminarian who wants to encourage a man to enter must encourage them by
helping them to respond to the will of God given to them. Seeking it, one must
look for his true happiness, a happiness that may not insult Him and neighbors.
And lastly, they
enter the seminary because of their academic interests especially since the
course they will be taking up is rare to every youth: Philosophy, “the most useless because it is the most
useful” (Chuang Tzu). Because of the low tuition of fee of the college
seminary, many young men prefer to enter the seminary as a means of finishing
college. They will have no need for studying in a prestigious, known, and expensive
school if they can study the same course, with the same quality of teachings,
and the same good teachers. Still, their mindset is wrong. Seminary is not a
way of finishing college but of forming oneself to the way God had opened for each
of them.
Even though none
of us know who will become a priest someday, none of us also know that maybe
some of us will become bishops, cardinals, or the pope. But we are certain that we all have the
calling…. It is the calling to enter the kingdom of God. For me, once a
seminarian decided to go out from the seminary is not a sad news. Actually it
is a happy one because they try to look for their selves here inside and
haven’t found it so they decided to look for it outside. Now, the election of the next Pope is
happening. I wish someday I’ll be there at the College of Cardinals. Some of
the seminarians dream to be a Pope. Honestly, I’m one of them. I want to become
a pope, but I prefer to look for myself first here inside the seminary.
Priesthood is
really not my priority in entering here, but it is to look for the real me. And
if I found myself already and acknowledge that priesthood is for me, well I
know that God will bury my treasure in this life. As what Jesus said, “Where
your treasure is, there’s your heart.” And I would like to add it with, “Where
your heart is, there is your happiness.”
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