Today, we are gathered for three important reasons. First of all, today is the first family weekend of the school year, a day where our dear minor seminarians are “re-united” with their respective families for the first time since returning to the seminary for the new school year. Secondly, today also concludes your son’s first recollection for this school year, where they have reflected on the vocation to the priesthood as a call to answer, a grace to accept, and a gift to take care and cultivate. Finally, we celebrate the feast of the Most Holy Trinity, one of the most important foundations of our Catholic Christian faith. It is quite fitting that the previous two reasons blend together with this great feast that the Church celebrates today.
The gospel reading today comes from the Gospel of Saint John, which was actually part of a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, a Pharisee who came to Jesus at night to express his belief in Jesus. Nicodemus believes that Jesus is a teacher sent by God by virtue of the words and deeds that he witnessed in Jesus’ ministry. We hear in our gospel one of, if not the, most famous lines in the Sacred Scriptures: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believed in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” Perhaps this passage explains the message of the entire Bible in a nutshell: God loves us so much that He sent His son into the world to concretely express His love to us. Such is actually the basis of our faith in the Trinity: the love of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is given to us out of love so that we can live fully and share in His eternal life.
In our reflection for today’s mass, let us then reflect on this passage and the message of God’s love in relation to the three events that we celebrate this day: our first visiting Sunday, the culmination of our first recollection this school year, and the feast of the Most Holy Trinity. It is our hope that our reflection on the Trinity as a relationship of love can shed further light to two essential realities: the importance of the family in discerning and committing to God’s will in our lives and the challenge of responding generously to the vocation to the priesthood through our program of seminary formation.
To help us understand the Holy Trinity, let us return to the readings for today’s mass. The first reading, taken from the book of Exodus, speaks of God revealing himself to Moses as a God who is merciful and gracious, “slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” In the second reading, Paul reminds the people of Corinth to mend their ways and so that they truly may experience love and peace, which comes from God Himself. As mentioned earlier, the gospel points to God’s plan for humanity: a plan of love and life through the person of His Son, Jesus Christ.
Our readings today have a common theme: love. When we talk about love, we are not simply referring to an emotion that makes us feel good. When we love, we just don’t stop in a level of feeling or accepting love nor do we simply limit it to our own self; rather, we give, share, and express love to someone other than ourselves – to others. Such love gives life: it is an action that builds, fosters and cultivates relationships with others. This is perhaps a way for us to concretely understand the Trinity. The Father, whose love is so perfect and immense, wants to share to us this love by sending to us Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son, so that we may have life and share in His very life. Through the incarnation, the Son manifested the Father’s perfect love by embracing our humanity in order to redeem us from sin and bring us back to the Father, even to the point of accepting death on the cross. And yet, the Father’s tremendous love did not stop there, as He sent the Holy Spirit to continue making His love known to us and thus to lead us back to Him. Our God is indeed a God of love! He desires not just to keep this love for Himself; rather, He wills that this love is shared with us in the way that the three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – share this love with one another. This relationship of love in the Trinity challenges us to emulate the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in our lives, especially in our own relationships: that the love we partake with one another is a love that gives life and fulfills our lives. If God is a God of love, then our words, actions, and relationships should also mirror such love.
We can concretely understand the Trinity and its relationship of love by comparing it to the family. The family is actually the most concrete example of love giving life, both in terms of physical birth and the pursuit of meaning of the human person. In the family, we experience respect, comfort, belongingness, and acceptance. It is in the family that we have a first hand experience of love, care, and affection. Through the family, our character, values, and principles are formed and practiced through our experiences with individual members as well as the family as a whole. Every member of the family is unique in their own ways. More than just physical distinctions within its members, there can be a variety of preferences and priorities, contrast in personality types, diversity in skills and talents, differences in opinions or choices, and the like. Yet despite these distinctions, what unites the family is the spirit of love shared with each other. In fact, the distinctions among the persons in the family actually make relationships, unity, and openness to each other possible. We relish experiences of conversations and dialogue, common activities and interests, shared laughter, and bonding with each other. In times of difficulties and trials, we seek the solace and consolation as well as draw inspiration and strength from the family. While respecting the uniqueness of each person in the family, the ties that bind the family are further deepened and nourished as they live by the spirits of openness, communion, and love.
On a broader sense, these experiences of love shared within the family are manifested perfectly in the Holy Trinity: the attributes of mutual self-giving, genuine openness, and communion of life and love. Indeed, we look up to the Holy Trinity as our model of family life – as the ideal that we would like to imitate and emulate in our own respective families.
As a minor seminarian not so long ago, I enjoyed family visits on Sundays because it was a time to be with the people whom I love the most. Not only have they serve as a cure for my homesickness, but these visits also made me appreciate the value of my family in my formation towards the priesthood. My family, out of their love for me and support for my vocation, made it a point to visit me on Sundays – from my high school years in the minor seminary, my philosophical studies in the college seminary, and even until my theological formation in the major seminary. Their support to the vocation I pursued was manifested way before I entered the seminary and even when I decided to leave the seminary. I remember during the day of my interview for admission in the minor seminary, my mother was crying incessantly on our way home. I asked her why she was crying, and she said, “Ikaw lang ang kaisa-isa naming anak na lalaki, pero pumayag kami na pumasok ka ng seminaryo kasi mahal ka namin.” When I decided to take a break from seminary formation after finishing my college degree, my father told me that the family will remain supportive to me as I try to discover myself in the “outside world” after eight consecutive years inside the seminary. A year after, I signified my intention to return to the seminary, and the first thing my mother asked me was, “May visiting Sunday pa rin ba? Kasi gusto pa rin naming dumalaw sa’yo kahit malayo ang seminaryo sa bahay natin.” Despite the fact that Sunday is considered a day of rest for them after a week’s work, they made it a point to come and visit me to accommodate my needs: bring me the food I miss eating, exchange my soiled clothes for a fresh set of clothes for the week, and drive all the way from Las Pinas to Quezon City to see their only son. We may have our own priorities and preoccupations in life, but these family visits made our relationship as a family as well as my vocation stronger. At first I was not open to them in telling about my struggles in the seminary, but eventually I found myself telling them how I have been throughout the week because I was assured of their acceptance and love to me through the good and the bad times. More than seeing them at least once a week, those Sunday visits became opportunities for us to share stories with each other, address concerns in the family together, and experience the love of God that resides at the center of our family.
Personally, their commitment and support to me as their son is something that I cannot fathom until now. But perhaps such love sustained and strengthened me in times when I felt like packing my bags and running away from all the challenges I faced in my stay in the seminary. In the same way, the love I experienced in my family helped me to further appreciate the vocation to the priesthood as a tremendous gift to take care and nurture. Indeed, a person who loves and cherishes his vocation will do his best to make the seed grow into a plant and eventually a tree that bears much fruit. However, this is not an endeavor that one can achieve by relying on one’s own effort alone. One needs the love of others – classmates, friends, upperclassmen, teachers, formators, and even one’s family – to respond to Christ’s invitation to follow His footsteps.
This perhaps was my secret through the many years I was inside the seminary: the support of my family in my response to God’s gift of vocation to the priesthood. This is my experience of shared love that brings life – a love that finds its perfection in the love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the Trinity. I believe that my experience of mutual love in the family is but a drop of water in the endless sea, which is the life-giving love that is shared and experienced constantly in the Holy Trinity. Nonetheless, by reflecting on the Trinity as a relationship of love and family, we can come to know others and our own selves in a more profound way: as persons mutually growing in a relationship of love with others.
To our dear parents, the first visiting Sunday of the school year is truly an opportunity to express your love and support to your sons who are undergoing seminary formation at such a young and tender age. This day might be an appropriate time for parents to affirm their love and commitment to their sons especially at the start of the school year. The rest of the day could be spent together by the family in meals, conversations, and other fun activities. Listen to your sons, especially their stories about their lives inside the minor seminary. Make your sons feel comfortable in being open to the family their joys, fears, anxieties, and hopes at the beginning of another year of studies, prayer, and community life. As the first seedbed of vocation, the family, moved by the life-giving love of the Trinity, should be one of the focal sources of strength and inspiration of people who are aspiring to be priests someday.
To our dear seminarians, I encourage you to make the most of your visiting Sundays with your families. More than just our source of weekly allowance and board and lodging fees, our parents are our number one supporters, or better yet, our biggest fans that raise us up when we’re down and troubled. Be open to your parents of your triumphs and struggles inside the seminary. Listen to their thoughts and heed their advices as they serve as your guides for you to choose and pursue what is best for you. Show your care and concern for your fellow siblings in the family by engaging in conversations and exchanging stories with them. Your family is the sunlight and water that breeds, nourishes, and brings the seed of your vocation to growth and fruition.
As we continue with our celebration, let us thank God for the gift of the family, the seedbed of vocations especially of our own sons. We pray for the families gathered today in this mass, that they may continue to foster, nourish, and enrich the gift of God’s call by living the love and unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in their todays and tomorrows. We pray especially for their sons, our dear minor seminarians, that they may grow in deeper faith, hope, and love in God who calls them to be stewards of goodness, teachers of truth, and instruments of His love.
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