Our First Calling…
Man’s life on earth is a search! A search for meaning and happiness. We start searching from the moment we understand that we are just passing mortal beings in this life, the valley of tears. Then, we start asking ourselves where do we go after all these? Our search will remain unanswered if our focus remains only at the earthly level. So, we start searching for realities beyond ourselves and even beyond our human realm. And there we realize that there is this God who sent his Son to come and dwell among us. We inquire where he lives and what he does. We hear his divine voice speak to our human heart through our prayers: through the Holy Mass we attend, through the liturgy we celebrate; through the lectio divina of his Word; through the apostolates we extend to our least brothers, etc. It is through these that the Wisdom of God comes to us.
He came and called us to stay with Him, to walk in his footsteps and to share in his compassion (cf. Called to Stay with Him (CSH), 17). Though we are not worthy of staying with him yet it is he who took the first initiative to invite us to be with him. Our vocation is merely an answer to this sublime calling. It is his divine voice that we first hear and thus we are drawn and attracted to this unmerited invitation.
This journey toward God starts with the opening of our heart to him. An opening toward something new, unknown and unfamiliar or even sometimes risky. An opening in the ordinariness of our daily life; in the obscurity of our sinfulness and vulnerability; in the confusion of our mind due to our narrow mindedness and selfishness. Oftentimes, we do not even see him walk with us in this rugged road which he is indicating us to travel. Oftentimes, it is like in a journey without a crystal clear destination. But do not be afraid, for I will be with you until end of time (Mt 28:20), he said. This is the Sequela Christi, the following of Jesus, as it is proposed in the Gospel, the supreme rule of life (cf. RCJ, Const, 10).
Like our Holy Founder, St. Hannibal Mary, who followed and remained faithful to his Lord in the Blessed Sacrament even in the midst of continuous difficulties which are very distressing. Like for instance, the lack of approval from Msgr. D’Arrigo for his Congregations was a weighty load he has to carry with him for a long time together with all the loads of running them and his works of charity. And yet he was able to see God in them as he said in his speech for golden jubilee of the Bishop: …we couldn’t be of God if we were not yours! (TFS, p. 802). Why all this strength? Where was he drawing all these moral and spiritual strength?
The adorable Jesus in the Sacrament, he once said, is the center of the institute’s love, sacrifices, atonements, thanksgivings, petitions, prayers, practices and holy hopes (RA, p. 430). He has a very strong desire to receive Jesus in the holy communion every day and he wants his children to long and to thirst for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in the same way. He taught them that even in their sleep they have to desire to receive Jesus and should they wake up in the middle of the night, they should pour out this holy longing in prayer to Jesus (cf. TFS, p. 277).
The Fr. Founder’s heart was fervently centered and focused on Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament that wherever he goes and whatever he does he was living continuously in the presence of his Divine Master. He wanted to be unceasingly in touch with Jesus even in the night when people were already sleeping, that he often spent much time in the chapel, even in the midst of his daily hard and numerous labors. And when the needs of the institute and of souls were urgent, he prolonged his prayers and adoration much more (cf. TFS, p. 260). It is from this staying in the loving gaze of his Divine Master that he regains his strength to carry on the enormous challenges of his works of charity and priestly ministry.
He insisted that his sons and daughters would do the same; to be fond of Jesus, in the Blessed Sacrament when he said that the center of all devotions and activities will be the Holy Sacrament; our order will love, honor and court the Holy Sacrament with such a bliss as to be called a Eucharistic Order because Jesus himself is the loving, fruitful, dutiful and continuous center of this pious institute. He is the true, effective, and immediate founder of this Religious Families (cf. TFS, p. 258). This Eucharistic union, then, ‘is what gives life and existence, increase, fruitfulness, and stability to our religious Institution (RRLT: USC, 55). It is in Jesus in Blessed Sacrament, indeed, that we draw our being and existence.
Fr. Marcelino Diaz II, RCJ is currently the Responsible of the Rogamina Community of the St. Matthew Province in Mina, Iloilo, Philippines. The Rogamina Community aims to follow Jesus’ call for unceasing prayer, especially for more and holy vocations, in the monastic-contemplative lifestyle.