On A High
What most of you don't know is that one of my long-standing regrets in college is never having been able to join the ACLC. The reasons why I never actually DID (as I suppose I could really have) are too personal and too silly to mention here. It's something that's been eating me up (as some may have or have not noticed) for quite a great deal.
Why do I want to join anyhow? I dunno. I've always considered myself a Catholic-on-the-edge (and barely hanging) and that's made my faith life somewhat mediocre. I guess I saw ACLC as the necessary anchor to keep it all on stable ground.
But that's changed.
The regret has passed.
I'm actually part of another group called the Youth for the Third Millennium. In spite of having helped to found it with twelve of my closest friends, I felt myself growing distant from it as the years and missions passed.
Our main charism is evangelization through the youth. Every semestral break and holy week, we pluck eager young volunteers from the relative comfort of their everyday lives and cast them into far-flung places (well... Batangas... ok... so NOT-too far) where they tend to Catholics who are without the benefit of constant parish priest support.
If you think that's quite a task, well, in one way it is, in another way, it isn't. It's difficult because you often do it under the scorching heat of the Philippine sun (sometimes the chill of a November storm), you often speak of passages from the Bible you're only barely familiar with, and often you deal with people whose problems far surpass any you may ever face. And yet, it isn't all too hard because God seems to have a way of just using oh-so-unexperienced you to fit His greater plans. I've had missionaries who found themselves shocked by the depth and empathy of what they found themselves sharing in a single moment of hither-to unknown clarity. I've had missionaries who were surprised when they found their attended families burst into tears or explode in unquenchable gratitude.
It's a beautiful thing you have to experience to believe!
What's my problem? Actually, it would be the same one all our missionaries face: REALITY.
I mean, when in the missions, one does indeed seem to stand in an enlightened emphatic position that one perhaps has rarely experienced. The Holy Spirit within you seems to come alive and you feel yourself transcendent. You're on a high, a spiritual high, so to speak. And then you go home...
It's like my spiritual director always says: "the high will fade the first problem you hit when you get back." Indeed, it always does.
I used to take that as being weakness on my part as a Catholic and that's led me to doubt a great deal of my faith and my self-capability. Until now...
I dunno, this last mission was the best I had. Seriously (more on it later, hafta go get the groceries done.) And it's made me realize: faith is not about being high, about being perfectly Catholic, because, to a certain degree, we can't be. While we can't use our innate ignorance as humans as a ward against fighting temptation and sin, we still have to accept it as being the conditions of existence we will always live with.
And when I think about it: faith is not an end we reach, it's a constant state of aspiration, a constant struggle for transcendence and sainthood.
For if we do not, as Catholics, aspire for sainthood, we will always be mediocre in our faith.
Thy Kingdom Come.
Why do I want to join anyhow? I dunno. I've always considered myself a Catholic-on-the-edge (and barely hanging) and that's made my faith life somewhat mediocre. I guess I saw ACLC as the necessary anchor to keep it all on stable ground.
But that's changed.
The regret has passed.
I'm actually part of another group called the Youth for the Third Millennium. In spite of having helped to found it with twelve of my closest friends, I felt myself growing distant from it as the years and missions passed.
Our main charism is evangelization through the youth. Every semestral break and holy week, we pluck eager young volunteers from the relative comfort of their everyday lives and cast them into far-flung places (well... Batangas... ok... so NOT-too far) where they tend to Catholics who are without the benefit of constant parish priest support.
If you think that's quite a task, well, in one way it is, in another way, it isn't. It's difficult because you often do it under the scorching heat of the Philippine sun (sometimes the chill of a November storm), you often speak of passages from the Bible you're only barely familiar with, and often you deal with people whose problems far surpass any you may ever face. And yet, it isn't all too hard because God seems to have a way of just using oh-so-unexperienced you to fit His greater plans. I've had missionaries who found themselves shocked by the depth and empathy of what they found themselves sharing in a single moment of hither-to unknown clarity. I've had missionaries who were surprised when they found their attended families burst into tears or explode in unquenchable gratitude.
It's a beautiful thing you have to experience to believe!
What's my problem? Actually, it would be the same one all our missionaries face: REALITY.
I mean, when in the missions, one does indeed seem to stand in an enlightened emphatic position that one perhaps has rarely experienced. The Holy Spirit within you seems to come alive and you feel yourself transcendent. You're on a high, a spiritual high, so to speak. And then you go home...
It's like my spiritual director always says: "the high will fade the first problem you hit when you get back." Indeed, it always does.
I used to take that as being weakness on my part as a Catholic and that's led me to doubt a great deal of my faith and my self-capability. Until now...
I dunno, this last mission was the best I had. Seriously (more on it later, hafta go get the groceries done.) And it's made me realize: faith is not about being high, about being perfectly Catholic, because, to a certain degree, we can't be. While we can't use our innate ignorance as humans as a ward against fighting temptation and sin, we still have to accept it as being the conditions of existence we will always live with.
And when I think about it: faith is not an end we reach, it's a constant state of aspiration, a constant struggle for transcendence and sainthood.
For if we do not, as Catholics, aspire for sainthood, we will always be mediocre in our faith.
Thy Kingdom Come.