“Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father in heaven.”-Mt 7:21

Faith-Sharing
For who I am now and what I have become so far, I know I should be thanking a lot of people. Lately, I have come to realize how I have failed to express this gratitude to God and to the specific persons who have helped me in various ways in my life journey. Hence I have recently resolved myself to spend some time writing and sending letters so that I may put my “salamats” into words and communicate them to certain individuals. This is my way of making amends with my past and celebrating the gift of my present life—the noviciate.
As I was beginning to write my letters of thanks, I have been caught up between doing the task in the traditional way—the handwritten style or making it typewritten and sending it via e-mail. Nowadays, the former seemed to be a thing of the past, old-fashioned and requires quite a lot of work as compared to the latter which appears to be more convenient. This is so not only because typing is rather effortless as compared to writing but even the manner of sending mails, whether by way of post or e-mail, has a glaring difference. E-mail is certainly better off than Snail mail, or so it seems. The temptation is to do it the easy way. Yet after some thinking over what should be done, I saw that my purpose is defeated when I settle for the convenient way. Writing in drafts and rewriting it for a final copy may sound tedious. But it dawns on me that it can be a way of showing how thankful I am to the person receiving the letter. The effort and the intentionality involved in writing it capture, aside from the words therein, my expression of sincere and heartfelt gratitude.
Words will merely be empty rhetoric unless they are lived, applied and acted upon. It is one thing to say thank you. Yet I find it more meaningful and worthwhile to show how thankful I am not only in words but in actions. The same goes with faith. Professing my belief in Jesus Christ is not the same as leading a life grounded on a belief in Jesus Christ. This is the message of the Gospel for me today: to be a man who has a word of honor, a man true to his words. It is challenging me not just to say what I mean, but mean what I say. Indeed Jesus’ powerful message is true: “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father in heaven.”-Mt 7:21
As I ponder my life, I feel ashamed and guilty of the countless times that I have not been true to my word to many people. Yet even more shameful are the instances when I have not been true to my promise to God. I have been very inconsistent, saying “yes” to God but finding myself leading a life doing otherwise. God has been the only one who has been truthful to his promise of loving me and of being always with me. There remains this feeling of unworthiness to stand before God as I recall the numerous times that I have turned away from Him trying to search for meaning and fulfillment on other things but to no avail One time when my teaching job was about to end, a friend of mine asked me what were my next plans. I told him, “I am going back to the seminary.” She then had a curt reply, “Aren’t you just wasting your time?” Her spontaneous remark had left me stunned for a while. It kept me thinking how true I was to my word. Was I really sincere of, in a sense, leaving the world behind in lieu of following Christ the Redeemer? Was I ready to face the gravity and the consequences of saying “Yes” to God?
Before, I may have associated the noviciate to a prison. But I see noviciate now as my rite of passage to manhood. I am not, and I don’t need to be a boy anymore who tends to be immature and irresponsible to choices I make. I must face this life that I have freely chosen. I have to walk the talk. And though it seems that this road that I’m taking is narrow and uncertain, I press on still for I know that God’s grace suffices. To be honest, the temptation to succumb to secular and worldly life still teases me. Even the invitation to take another vocation does not slip my mind. Just recently, an ex-girlfriend of mine who has lately been keeping in touch e-mailed me saying, “I hope I am not talking to a priest right now, you know I’ll always be waiting.” But God knows I have resolved myself. I have never felt this free before. In my heart, I know I have chosen a path that is wonderful, meaningful and worthwhile. This will be my way of facing God as a man, of rising up once more from where I have fallen, and of being true to my promise just as He continues to be.