Why Are You Looking For Me?

The closing liturgy of the VI° MJ General Assembly

Introduction

Two unrelated sets of scripture texts are running parallel in the readings of today. One is about the martyrdom of Stephen as the ultimate expression of the following of Jesus; the other, about the Eucharistic discourse of Jesus after the multiplication of bread.
Jesus confronts us with a fundamental question that requires a radical response. He is asking us, “Why are you looking for me?”

Kirby Bagaslao and Diosdado Santiago, Jr have applied and have been accepted for first profession in our congregation. They, too, like us, have been looking for answers to fundamental questions about fundamental things—the meaning of life and human existence, of enduring love, of service, of faith. The Lord has, in fact, turned around their questions and is asking them: Why are you looking for me? Will they respond in and through our community, our vision, our mission, our calling as the Missionaries of Jesus?


Homily

By virtue of our vocation as religious-missionaries, we are convinced that we have found the Lord in the Community of the Missionaries of Jesus. To his question—“Why are you looking for me?”—we have answered, “Because you have called us. You have called us your missionaries. Because you have called us by name and we want to follow you.”

Thus when we gather in assembly every year we ask ourselves, “How have we been following Jesus now that we have found him?” The General Assembly is an appraisal of our discipleship.
That today the “Acts of the Apostles” puts at center stage the figure of Stephen, the protomartyr of the Church, is patently significant for us. A meditation on the martyrdom of Stephen is a focused way of determining how close, or how far we have come in the following of Jesus. The Mindanao District has cautioned us that our vocation is not a calling to success (attributed to Mother Teresa of Calcutta). We are reminded, therefore, of the constant need to re-state, to re-claim our vocation to serve, lest we stray into paths not intended for us. The calling to serve in the name of God is not circumscribed by either success or failure. It is beyond success or failure. Its only measure is the intensity of our desire to re-create humanity into the image and likeness of the Son of God; how far we are willing to be consumed by the Spirit of Christ, the fire that builds as its consumes. We go by the passion with which we engage ourselves in the mission of Jesus to serve and not be served.

We have set our goals very high, perhaps, too high. And so at times we are tempted to re-interpret our calling by citing one or another theological flavor of the day, or twisting set paradigms and rules of engagement, cutting corners, or accommodating to the practical. Yet year after year, assembly after assembly, we have re-affirmed our unwillingness to let go of our dreams. They may not be surrendered to the practical, to what is pragmatic. Like Stephen, the martyr, we have decided to go for broke!

The dream must be caught time and again, pursued relentlessly as did our ancestors in the faith—like Sarah and Abraham, who preferred displacement to security when Yahweh called; like Joseph, to whom God spoke in a dream; like Mary, who never stopped gazing at her beloved child who ended up hanging on the tree of the Cross.

The dream must be caught and pursued, as do our tribal brothers and sisters, the aborigines of this world who keep painting dreamscapes, unwilling to surrender their ideals to the practical and the pragmatic, to the impure of heart. Were God pragmatic and practical, he would not have called us. Were God pragmatic and practical, he would not break imperishable bread with us nor give us drink from his cup. Were God pragmatic and practical, he would not have loved us.

But because the Lord was a catcher of our dreams, he called us to embrace his dream of the Cross. He trusted that we could find our way to Golgotha and there climb the tree of dying to self. Dying for a dream is what our life is all about; without a dream, we live to die; with a dream, we die to live.

When Jesus asked us, “Why are you looking for me?” Did we not say, “Because you have called us to follow you outside the gates (Heb 13:11) to find the tree of life?” Once again, the Lord is calling, asking Doods and Kirby the very same question, “Why are you looking for me?” They seem to say, like Peter, “You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God (Jn 6:68-9). You have called us by name.”

—W. T. Dulay, mj