Homily: FDCD Gathering (Mergrande)

An African-priest friend of mine once commented that, in his place, in Nigeria, there are three things that they consider useless to do: (1) to bathe a cat (lagoon ang iring); (2) to hear the confession of nuns (pakumpisalon ang mga madre); (3) to preach to priests (magwali sa mga pari).

Our first FDCD gathering this year is highlighted today by the oath-taking of our new set of animators. Reflecting on the Gospel Reading, in relation to the First Reading that talks about Elkanah and his two wives, one of which, Hannah, gets pregnant thanks to the prayers and intercession of the priest, Eli, I can only marvel: Unsa kahay mensahe niini alang kanato. But on a deeper reflection, we may begin to see the message.

I always understand Catholic priesthood as one and undivided although it is exercised by many priests who share the same calling but are quite different from each other in so many aspects: personality, formation, temperament and talents. And this one and undivided priesthood has its unique source: the priesthood of Jesus Christ, shared in full by the bishop, successor of the Apostle and participated in by priests, collaborators of the bishop. That is why no priesthood should be exercised apart from that of the bishop.

Consequently, the authority of priests is actually a participation of the authority of the bishop. The authority of the bishop is coming from the Apostles and therefore, from Jesus Christ Himself. And Jesus, in the Gospel today, amazed the people of Capernaum with the miracle of the Cure of a Demoniac. The people exclaimed: “What is this? A new teaching with authority!”

The people’s comment in the Gospel could guide us in our reflection today of how we exercise our priesthood: A new teaching with authority! Two terms catch our attention: “new teaching” and “authority”.

“New teaching”. Sometimes people are excited when they find something new in our homilies: new jokes, new ideas, new style. Consequently, we, priests, want to satisfy public demand by giving them what we think satisfies them. And we get stuck on looking for what is new and what is sensational. We often forget that the newness of the Christian message consists in its nearness to people’s experience. The Gospel is new because I can connect with it. The people of Capernaum could say that Jesus’ teaching is new because they could relate with it.

But we can connect the Gospel to people’s lives only if we have connected it to ours first. You see, this is not a new teaching. Pope-Emeritus Benedict XVI had lengthily talked about priests being soaked and drenched in the Word of God. We shall have “new teaching” only when we strive to make God’s Word alive in our daily struggles as priests.

Haven’t you noticed how, in the First Reading, Eli, the priest, was able to help Hannah, the barren wife of Elkanah, go home consoled? Eli was sitting on a chair near the doorpost. The figure of a Jewish priest sitting on a chair suggests that he is studying the Torah, “soaking” himself with the word of God. We can console the afflicted in the measure that we are drenched in God’s Word. (It is no mere coincidence that January is the Bible month).

“Teaching with authority”.We know that the authority of Jesus comes from God: He is God. But we also know that any teaching has authority when it is born out of the consistency between words and actions. If our words coincide with our actions, our teaching becomes authoritative. This is our basic struggle as priests. But keeping up the struggle is almost enough for us to say that we can teach with authority because we are striving to make our actions consistent with our words.

Yet, we must also consider that as one diocesan clergy of Davao, our teaching will have authority only when we do it out of our unity, that is, from our personal communion with Jesus that is also manifested in our communion with our bishops and with one another. When we live and strive to maintain this two-fold unity, (communion with God and communion with the Church), only then we can teach with authority.

I believe this is the importance of this fraternity gathering: in coming here, we somehow incarnate the Gospel values of charity and fraternity. We connect the Gospel with our lives. We acquire “new teaching”. In coming here, we develop and promote communion or unity that enables us to “teach with authority”.

We should never miss any fraternity gathering. Every time we do so, we slowly lose the newness and the authority of our priestly ministry.