We live in a world where we encounter many personalities. These personalities might fit with our own unique personality or may not. There is this real fact that spirituality experts say, that even two saintly persons living in the same place will surely have some disagreements, big or small. That whether lay or clergy, we are not exempted from this, and we are all vulnerable to this kind of pitfall.
I remember when I was in my
Novitiate (introductory years to seminary life), there was this incident when I had a little
“quarrel” or misunderstanding with one of my co-novice. Our novice master
learned about it. The two of us were called and were reminded that we need to
strive to lower our PRIDE in order to be reconciled. We shook hands before we
left the novice master’s office, but it was more for formality’s sake. In the
succeeding days after that, there was no retaliation, but it yo-yoed to the
other extreme end. We found ourselves not talking to each other. Either the
reason was out of shame or we felt awkward, but the atmosphere we created was
more of “silent treatment”, and this continued for some months! Maybe we were
contended with the saying, “no talk, no trouble”. And due to that quarrel
incident, we had been extra careful not to let the incident happen again by
being “silent” and avoiding each other.
Then came our 30-day Retreat when ,
on the first day, our novice master announced that there will be ten in our class
who will share room. He intended to do this by drawing lots. All our names were
written in small pieces of paper, 54 of us, and were placed in a box and the
first four pairs were called. And when the last pair of names were drawn and
announced, guess whose names were called??? My name and that co-novice’s name
(the one I had not been talking for a while)!
When we entered our shared room, of
course, there was awkward silence. When we sat on our respected beds, something
funny happened sincethat we both burst into laughter at the same time! Why? We
both were thinking the same thing: EVEN HOW MUCH WE TRY TO AVOID EACH OTHER,
GOD WILL MAKE A WAY FOR US TO RE-ENCOUNTER EACH OTHER AGAIN and BE LED TO
RECONCILE. That very moment, we started talking and even realized how long we
have not been talking to each other. This resulted to our being reconciled at
last. Praise God, the Reconciler!
In our life - to repair, restore,
mend a damaged, broken, injured relationship - is to reach out. If we decline
or postpone to do this, God will do it for us or will create the occasion. In
the gospel, Jesus’ prescription is to speak directly in private and to avoid
brooding over our grievance. And if this fails, then we must still not give up.
If ever we give up, God won’t give up on us. For the Lord Jesus wants to set us
free from resentment, ill-will, and unforgiveness. We must not give up on
PRAYING for those who cause us offense. With God's help we must seek to make
every effort to win them with the grace and power of God's healing love and
wisdom.
There was once a touching liturgy I
celebrated when I was in Papua New Guinea (PNG), during the time of the
Penitential rite within the Mass, when two “warring” groups of villagers would
come forward in front of the sanctuary to BREAK THEIR BOWS and ARROWS as a
gesture of reconciliation or to cease fighting each other. Very touching!
We can conclude then, for TRUE
RECONCILIATION to happen, REPENTANCE and FORGIVENESS need to come about. For to
“FOR-GIVE” is actually to “GIVE-FOR” the other.
Fr. Ted
