success is relative
This particular attitude is also related to other human reactions to success. When a person becomes successful, people will begin to realize the early signs that brought about the success. People will begin to recollect the signs early on that portend the triumph, signs that show that the success was really meant to be.
When I was already a priest I happened to meet my elementary school teacher and the first thing she said when she knew that I became a priest was, baw si andy nga ini, sang bata pa ini sia bal-an ko gid nga mapari kay man kabuot gid ini sa iya. Siempre nagtango-tango man ako bisan indi tuod. Even my parents, my lolo and my lola came into the picture of my supposedly success, that my priesthood was the dream of my parents and the fruit of the prayers of my grandparents. It is a human reflex whenever we see successful people - that they become successful not in an instant, not in a blink of an eye, but there were already signs, there were already events, there were already efforts made in the past that now bears fruit in a successful person today. These signs, these events that portended and which brought about the success may have started far back in one’s childhood, farther still in the parents dreams and hopes, and even farther still in the grandparents efforts and prayers. Success in the human mind did not happen in just that person or in just that instant. It goes back many, many years before, beginning or starting perhaps as a desire, a dream, a hope, a prayer and even an effort of our ancestors.
This was how the gospels were written by the way. They were written backwards starting with the passion, death and the resurrection of Jesus. From these events people begun to look back and ask, didn’t he teach us this and that when he was still with us, then they begun to look back farther, didn’t he do this and that, then people begun to remember farther and saw the signs early on, in the circumstances surrounding his birth, and even before his birth and they begun remembering too the events that happened even before he was announced by the angel Gabriel - people begun to look back and they begun to see the signs that point to the triumph of the present.
Today we celebrate the feast of Joachim and Anne, grandparents of the Lord, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are never mentioned by name in the gospels, but their names were written in an equally ancient book in the 2nd century called the Proto-Evangelium of James which is considered an apocrypha. An apocrypha may not be considered part of sacred scriptures as we know it today, but they remain good spiritual readings for the guidance of the people and surely no one can say that the events mentioned in the proto-evangelium of James are fictitious. The point here is this: the triumph of Jesus was prepared for, salvation was prepared for, the redemption brought about by Jesus was prepared for. It did not happen in an instant, it did not happen with Jesus as the one and only important character in the plot. In Jesus there is always a Mary and a Joseph, there is always a Joachim and an Anne. In the voluntary acceptance of the pain of Jesus’ passion and cross there was a Mary and a Joseph, there was a Joachim and an Anne. In the triumph of his resurrection there was a Mary and a Joseph, there was a Joachim and an Anne.
A seminarian once recalled to me how his father would react when he had failures or successes in school when he was younger. When he did something wrong in school his father would shout to his mother, hoy karla ang anak mo di ay ginpatawag naman sang principal. But when the father was told that his son made well in school, his father would say, hoy karla ang anak ta honor roll. Those who have gone ahead of us will always have a role in our failures and in our success. It is a human reality. Look at yourself closely - there is always in us a bit of our fathers, a bit of our mothers, and a bit of our grandparents. People who know me will always say that of the five of us I resemble my grandfather more closely - bisan ang pagtabo sang kilay ko daw si anhing Andong - Andong by the way was the nickname of my grandfather and so they named me Andy today.
On this feast of Joachim and Anne I invite you to think of those who went ahead of us, those who prepared the way for us, those who built before us. We remember them for the lessons that they gave, for the discipline, the love, the care, and we remember them too perhaps for their neglect and their failures which affect us even now.
The lesson here is this, we never walk alone. What they did in the past has repercussions in the present and what we do now has repercussions in the future, not just in our lives and in our generation but even to those still unnamed and even unimagined. Be responsible for what you do now, for you never walk alone. Be responsible for you affect knowingly and unknowingly those who follow us whether it be in the responsible use of our resources, in the decisions we do now for our country, in the way you take care of your fortunes, in the way you rear your children, in the way you take care of your health and your life.
It never probably came to the minds of Joachim and Anne that their daughter would one day become the mother of God. But their faithfulness unwittingly prepared Mary to become the mother of Jesus, the mother of God. You never walk alone, be mindful of that, you never walk alone. If success is relative your failures now, your stupidity perhaps may be related and will relate well into the future.
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