(Arvisu entrance Day 2014)
Reflection on ACTS 16:1-10 / JohN 15:18-21
By Frank Savadera, SJ
Today is a FEAST of Mary. The Salesians celebrate the feast of MARY
HELP of CHRISTIANS. Our Chinese
brothers, as exhorted by Pope Benedict XVI five years ago, are asked to pray to
OUR LADY OF SHESHAN (Shanghai) to renew their faith and fidelity to the Pope as
the successor of Saint Peter. The Jesuits today celebrate the feast of the
SANTA MARIA DELA STRADA or Our Lady of the Way.
Which image of the Blessed Mother do we venerate? It’s the same mother that we come home to
especially as we seek to be placed CLOSER to her Son.
There
is something interesting that
I pick up from the account of the apostolic travels of Paul, Timothy and the
other disciples. They were able to
travel through Derbe and Lystra and Phyrgia and Galatia and Mysia ... BUT the Holy Spirit as
well ... prevented them from preaching and reaching some provinces in
Asia. Reportedly, they tried going to
Bythynia BUT the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.
There
were places that they were able to visit ... and there were places which the
Holy Spirit prevented them from entering.
And we ask: What meaning do we
pick up from this narrative that more or less can apply to us???
For
one ... we know that we are welcoming you our 20 brothers into this house. Isn’t it true that it took us a while to
decide to be here. There were a lot of
factors in life, our livelihood and relationships that we needed to consider. The questions we asked ourselves before
coming here were serious and real: Why
am I doing this to myself??? Why do I
even need to consider making this decision to be here??? Huwag na lang
kaya?? But the clock was ticking ... and
days passing ... 7 days na lang ... 5 days na lang ... 3 days na lang ... and
finally finally we are here. Brothers ... as the Spirit wills ... He could
have prevented you from being here ... BUT WE ARE HERE! Be confident in knowing that the Spirit
has led us here. Our Lord ... in the
Gospel says: I HAVE CHOSEN YOU OUT OF
THE WORLD. We are tasked to discover
more where and how the Spirit will lead us. Because this is how He works. We submit to and we follow where the Spirit
leads us. Let this be ... our being here
.... be our first step in following the Spirit.
My
second point has something to do with Timothy.
Timothy ... he was a disciple, he was a son of a believer; the brothers
in Lystra and Iconium spoke highly of him ... BUT ... twice it was mentioned also ... as if it was a
cause of shame for him ... that his father was Greek. According to our account ... he needed to be circumcised
... and mutilated. (????) We no longer think of this literally of
course. Instead, we talk about
experiences of cutting ourselves off ...
a slow and progressive separation from my old world .... old ways of
doing things. How do we SLOWLY SLOWLY find meaning in cutting myself off from
old and gotten-used-to preoccupations???
Eg. What I say or do ... my judgments and
decisions ... I will need to know ... will have an impact on members of the
community; we have a LOCATOR BOARD ... and are asked to log in and out so we
may know where you are; we eat the same
food ... you cannot hoard ... what we have we share; we have a time for everything ... a time for
sports and recreation, a time for eating, a time for prayer and silence ... we
call this DE MORE ... which for some can be DEMORE-LIZING. How do I find myself slowly slowly inserting
myself into this rhythm of life?
My
first advice is: BE PATIENT WITH
YOURSELF. Slowly and very subtly ... we
are cutting ourselves off from old ways of doing things. Is this something that we can handle??? We
do not need to mutilate ourselves physically ... just in the case of
Timothy. No need not cut our fingers
off. We venture into FREEING ourselves more ... cutting ourselves off
from things that drag us down ... so we can move FREELY in doing the work of
Jesus ... as Paul, Timothy and the other disciples did. Isn’t this the message of the Gospel today
... a kind of separation from the usual, from the worldly and mundane.
Lastly,
as mentioned earlier ... today the Jesuits pay tribute to the image of our Lady
as SANTA MARIA DE LA STRADA or Our Lady of the Way. If
there is one who knew exactly how it felt BEING LED BY THE SPIRIT and being
CHOSEN for a specific work of God ... if there is one who knew how it is like
to be CUT OFF from mundane things and be FREE to do the work of our Lord ...
Mary ... Mary! Isn’t it that we can
always look up to Mary and allow her to accompany us on the way to Jesus. Mary Help of All Christians, Our Lady of Shenshan ... SANTA MARIA DELA
STRADA ... pray and intercede for us.
