developing purity of heart: investiture of the miraculous medals

Why are seminarians cloistered?  Why can’t they, like students outside, go home to their families every after class?  Why do we keep them apart and separated?

Why are we not allowing cell phones?  If students outside, students who go home every night at that, need cell phones, how much more seminarians who need to communicate their needs to their parents who are living apart from them, and considering especially that those two pay phones we have are always out of order?  Can we allow them cell phones?  Shall we allow them ready access to facebook?  Shall we encourage them to have girlfriends?

 

These questions, are actually non-questions outside but they can be burning questions inside the seminary.  These things make us a kind of curiosity in the world today and I believe that this is partly the reason why we have so many visitors in this open house - people seem very interested in seeing how we live our lives here.  In their eyes we have become curiosities in a circus where people flock wanting to see how a dog with six legs look like, and how Siamese twins travel from point A to point B.

Perhaps some of you may have felt deprived because of all these rules.  That is why during weekend breaks and vacation you are texting like mad, and you deprive yourselves of sleep for the sake of the computer because anyway you have plenty of sleep here, like you sleep in the chapel, you sleep in the classroom, you sleep while I’m talking.

But cloistering has a deeper meaning for us.  Cloistering is not depriving for depriving’s sake.  Cloistering is a method of training, the training to form in the person purity of heart.  Cloistering is the physical structure that complements and aids us in forming a pure heart.  This is today’s theme - purity of heart.  It is good that our readings have jived very well with our topic today - the apostles with Mary in the cenacle - the apostles and Mary locking themselves inside the cenacle as they waited for the Holy Spirit, praying. 

What is purity of heart?  It comes in many names and descriptions.  A person has a pure heart if he is single-hearted.  He knows where his heart lies, he is not divided, his loyalties are clear, his intentions are pure, he has clarity of purpose. That is why Soren Kierkegaard said purity of heart is to will one thing.  Wala nagapang-alang-alang kay claro sa iya kon ano ang buot sang Dios, klaro sa iya nga sundon niya ang iya konsensiya.

I think I heard this somewhere in your debate where a group implied nga sa masami we break rules if our heart is not totally into something, in our case it is not totally in the seminary.  I think they said something like, sin-o man lang sa aton ang naga-violate sang rule nga indi magdala sang cell phone - ang mga naga-nobya-nobya.  When the heart is no longer pure, it becomes distracted, it becomes divided and it does not anymore discriminate . . .  tani lain ini, lain man ina - pero tungod kay indi na pure ang heart palareho na lang ang tanan, ginsimpon na ang tanan.  Kon sa kape pa indi na sia puro nga cafe, three in one na sia, worst, lasaw na sia nga kape.

Then these distractions will add up - masulod na ang indi ka tulog, sakit ulo, infirmary lang pirme, tulog sa misa, late, indi na makatuon.  Then next level butig, escapo, these keeps on adding up and adding up - life in the seminary becomes complicated, kagamo, it is no longer simple because it is no longer pure.

Siling nila kon seminarista ka lalagson ka sang mga babayi.  Gani mag-andam kamo.  Siling nila lalagson kamo kay kon seminarista ka nagaguapo ka.  Actually wala ka nagaguapo, amo man ina sa gihapon ang itsura mo.  But in my own analysis what attracts women to seminarians is their sense of loyalty and faithfulness, seminarians are generally faithful through and through, that is why siling ni Fr. Nonong most seminarians who got married mga under sang ila asawa.

Our segregation, our separation is the structure that helps us develop purity of heart because to become priests you will be ready to offer life and limb, you are to give your all to the church. It is not nga under sila, it is because they are loyal and faithful companions. That is why as priests we don’t get married because our obligation to our family can slow us down in our devotion to the Lord and the church.

In the diocese there is a group of priest who will oppose a lot of things and they will shout, why were we not consulted?  But there is also another bigger but silent group who says kinahanglan nga ihambal lang gid sang obispo kon ano ang luyag niya kay masunod man lang kami.  Ihambal lang kay masunod kami.  Pure of heart - wala na pangduha-duha - halin sang una wala na ina gina-question pa.  Of course indi tanan nga ihambal sang obispo manami para sa imo but that is our training, - single hearted devotion, undivided in our pursuit of what is good for the church we have loved and continue to love. . . if that is what God wants - then go - there is to be no hesitancy, and there is not hesitancy because the intentions are clear, the devotion is strong, the heart is pure.

Mary and the disciples were there in the cenacle waiting.  They locked themselves in. Locking themselves together was the structure that aided their single-mindedness, their devotion to the cause of the Lord but it was the Holy Spirit who will complete the picture because in the end purity of heart is above all a gift, a grace from God.

Mary is the first disciple because she has a pure heart - bug-os and better still nahim-os na ang iya tagipusuon.  The heart has come to rest, wala na naga-restless kag nagapangita pa kon ano ang isabat - him-os na.  Today as we impose this medal work for this ideal, work for a pure heart, pray to the Lord for a pure heart like Mary, so that when you become priest bisan diin ka dal-on ukon ipadala ang tagipusuon mo will always rest in God.