A call

Last summer vacation, my benefactor asked me to visit her in the hospital where she works. Since my duty that time as tutor started at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, I proposed that I could have my pastoral visitation for a half day. And she agreed. On the first day, she introduced me to all the staff of the hospital and to some patients.

It was a very meaningful and memorable experience. After five days of being there, I learned a lot. I encountered different people with different perspective and status in life. I heard different stories of their lives. I let them share and talk. I comforted them for a short period of their pains and sufferings. I laughed with them. Sometimes I ate with them. But what struck me most in all my conversation with them, they asked me some questions, “What makes me to decide entering seminary? Why?” For a moment, I just gave my full swing smile. It is very hard to explain in details and I was in hesitation that they may not understand me. Consequently, I continued to reflect as days had passed. Other would say it’s a call. Eventually, I convinced myself that time that it might be. I am convinced that I am happy about it. This was how I grasped it cognitively.

Many months had passed. Many things have changed. Still, I am on the process of discernment. I believe that whatever it is, it should be an action. Whatever calls it maybe, I have the power to decide and live it. I can choose not to do it. But I can choose to do it, to give my life and love in that way to bless and call forth the good in me.

One book stated that “Calls are around us. We are never bereft of call.” Yes, it’s true. We are called in different ways. We have to recognize that some calls come as whispers; some calls come in very ordinary ways. In responding to this call, it equates to responsibility. We are called in this way and we should act and do what we are expected to be.

Like those individuals in the hospital, they are called by God in different ways. The doctors, the nurses, the patients – mothers, fathers, wives, sons, they are called in that field and they continue to live in that God’s way of calling them. Same as well to what I have now, to what I am now. Though I am not meant to be a priest someday, in optimism, I believe that in this way I called by God to serve Him more faithfully. In serving others, in reaching out to my fellow, on the kind of work I have now, this is where God’s way of calling me belongs.

It is just like in the Word of God. It invites us to dig deep and to be awed by God’s strange ways of Divine Election. Now, these make up God’s pedagogy that every person is a potential, that everyone is a risk and all that matters is teachability.   

I am called to be here; to be with the grassroots of the community and everyone either is being called because no person is really born, made, naturally endowed and tailor-fit for anything. Every person even those who have studied and specialized in their fields will have to adjust and learn as they settle into specific working environment. 

Let us reflect what call of responsibility you currently incline with.  How do you feel about this initial call? Do you, in a way, feel worthy and fit for this?

Finally, let us ask God who elected us to do a specific mission for Him to help us do it well. Amen.