Sunday, August 31, 2008 Lagura: It's in dying to self that we truly live By Fr. Flor Lagura, SVD in the service of the word
ST. Augustine Seminary’s graduating students were all excited about the prospect of leaving the “four walls of seclusion” and going into the “real” world of Ateneo, LaSalle or UST to be doctors, lawyers or businessmen. Outside was the promise of “fame, fortune and power.” There was not enough appeal for the priestly calling which demands so much, but offers “so little.”
In his graduation homily, Fr. Holz looked at the young men for whom he had sacrificed so much over so many years. Directly he told them, “Gentlemen, before you go, before you leave for the world outside, ask yourselves very seriously the question our Lord himself posed to his disciples, ‘What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?’”
With the disciples of Jesus, the prospect of their Lord, the Messiah having to suffer the ignominy of a criminal’s death was totally unacceptable. They only thought of a discipleship of comfort, glory and consolation. This kind of discipleship would mean devotion and offering of oneself for the good of oneself. Never did it cross their minds that true discipleship can and does involve a challenge and dedication come what may. True discipleship means forgetting oneself and paying the price for it even if it entails suffering and immense sacrifice.
Discipleship in Christ poses a serious challenge for the suffering it implies. This does not mean, however, that a follower of the Lord has to look for suffering. That would be masochistic. All of us, Christ included, consider suffering as an evil to be avoided if and when possible. The Lord’s agony in the garden is a proof to this. But when the challenge of evil and suffering is taken up in obedience to the Father, as Jesus did, then it can be faith-strengthening and self-saving. Peter, Paul, Andrew and myriads of Christian souls who dared to be true disciples and kept their faith in the Lord in spite of dungeon and sword are hard and fast proofs of countless souls living and dying for Christ.
Years ago God invited those young men at the St. Augustine Seminary to a life of generous self-giving and proven constancy. Some did forego their personal dreams of becoming a doctor, lawyer or a businessman. The Lord patiently led the brave and generous few along the right paths one careful step after the other. Those steps have been in the form of life’s sorrows willingly, decisions painstakingly and painfully arrived at, and personal dreams sadly but generously surrendered. From the many who had been initially called, a few were chosen to give all through these years testimonies to their faith in Christ in a bloodless martyrdom.
They have not gained the whole world. However, their pay-off is “way out of this world.”
“If anyone wants to be my disciple, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life will find it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but at the end loses his soul?” Matthew 16: 24-26
