Thanksgiving Message
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Thanksgiving Message “God does not call us so we can do great things for Him; rather, He calls us so that he could do great things for us.” This was one of the points for reflection that was given to us during our pre-Diaconate pre-Diaconate Ordination retreat retreat last year. Indeed, today the Lord has given given us the greatest gift we have received received so far. But this gift does not come come one time big time for for in the eleven to twelve years we have spent in formation, He has given us little gifts that have helped bring us to this point in our vocation journey, small gifts that have prepared us to receive this great gift of ordination. Hence, would like to thank the many bearers of God’s gifts to us. [Family.] We would like like to thank our respective families. families. We thank especially especially our moms and dads for their patient and a nd faithful love that has made known to us a God who loves patiently and faithfully. We hope to share this same love with the spiritual family that we have been called to nurture nurture as we begin ordained ministry. To our families and relatives, when the time comes that you begin to miss us and see less of us because of the demands of ministry, let us allow ourselves to be consoled by the thought that perhaps more than physical proximity, it is the intimacy in our hearts and memories that will continue to bond us as family. [Apostolate.] We would also like to thank the people we have met met and worked with in our different apostolic engagements— engagements —the different chapels in Sapang Palay, Payatas, and Montalban; the different families and communities we lived with in Tondo, Muntinlupa, Bukidnon, Culion and Zamboanga during our Urban Poor and Mission Trials; the management and staff of the different factories we worked in during our Labor Trial, and the medical staff and patients of the different medical facilities we were assigned to for our Hospital Trial; the different student organizations in and outside Ateneo; the schools and parishes, offices and organizations which are part of our Jesuit ministries in Naga, Il oilo, Cebu, Davao, and, Cambodia. Cambodia. The many and varied experiences experiences of success and failure in ministry are invaluable lessons we bring with us as we engage in ordained ministry. Pasensya na po sa mga kakulangan namin at kapalpakan at paumanhin po sa mga nasaktan namin. We just had to go through them to learn our lesson, and hopefully we did learn our lessons well. [Academics.] To all our Juniorate teachers, we we thank you for drilling us on the basics of language and communication. communication. To our Philosophy Philosophy teachers, the prime movers movers of the Unmoved Mover in our search for Being, thank you for teaching us to unceasingly question our experience of being. Honestly, I hardly understand what I have just said. And yes, to our Theology professors, professors, thank you! Now we can say that indeed indeed there is a God . . . not simply by faith but with a faith that seeks understanding. understanding. The oral and written exams we had to take, especially the comprehensive exam (Question pa la ng hindi na namin maintindihan!), have impressed on us two things which we take with us as we seriously engage ourselves in ministry: our contingent nature and our utter dependence on God. [Formators.] [Formators.] And yes, not to forget, our superiors and formators. Don’t we just love them? To all our superiors superiors and formators, our spiritual spiritual directors and retreat guides, thank you for being patient with us when we were stubborn, encouraging when we doubted our
vocation, firm when we were wrong, and affirming when we were right. We would like to especially thank Fr. Joe Quilongquilong, our present rector, and Fr. Jojo Magadia, our current provincial. Thank you for letting go of us! When ordination seemed to take forever, we thought you were just too attached to us. Hindi pala. [Ordination.] Finally, we would like to thank all those who worked hard to make this a meaningful and stress-free celebration. To all the scholastics and brothers of Loyola House under the leadership of Neo Saicon, thank you for taking care of all the details from picking up our relatives at the airport, making sure that they have a comfortable place to stay in and preparing for this beautiful liturgy. We thank the 50 voices that comprise our choir, friends from the different choirs involved in our music ministry. We would like to especially thank Fr. Tim Ofrasio for another Ofrasian Creation—our chasuble--and Fr. Jett for shouldering the cost. We thank the Loyola House of Studies community and the University Dorms Administration for opening up their premises to provide a warm welcome for all our guests. Thank you too to the Church of the Gesu Committee for providing the support that the scholastics needed as they prepared for today’s celebration. We are grateful to each and every one of you – dear relatives and friends, former classmates and officemates, students during regency, partners from various Jesuit institutions and companions in ministry, workers and staff from our houses and centers, friends from various religious congregations and charismatic communities, diocesan and religious clergy, and so many more – thank you for all your prayers and support, and for taking time to share this moment with us, arranging your schedules, traveling from different parts of the country and the world to be with us. It means a lot to us that you are here. Finally we thank our ordaining prelate, His Emminence Most Reverend Jose Antonio Cardinal Tagle. While you were in Rome during the conclave, we secretly hoped to go to Rome to be ordained by the Pope. But this unholy desire was not to be so. But we still thank the Lord for giving us a Jesuit pope and for allowing the local Church to keep you a little while longer. Just as it is by God’s graciousness and your generous affection and support that has gotten us to this point in our vocation journey, we would like to end by begging for a few more favors. First, please continue praying for us. Please pray that we will continue to strive and persevere to be the good Jesuit priests you hope us to be, even if in a limited and imperfect way. Second, please do not spoil us too much. You may spoil us . . . but not too much. And when the day comes when we start feeling entitled to preferential treatment, when we start expecting and demanding privileges, please remind us that the only privilege that the only privilege we are entitled to is to be of service to God and his people. In the end, today’s celebration is not about us six newly-ordained priests; rather, it is about our Gracious God who is doing something great for all of us at this very moment, in this very place. And so we pause for a moment to thank the Lord for this graced moment.
Finally, we ask you to join us in honoring Mary our pratroness and advocate. Like her, may we truly magnify the Lord for this graced moment and keep all these things in our hearts. Please all rise for a hymn to our Blessed Mother.
vocation, firm when we were wrong, and affirming when we were right. We would like to especially thank Fr. Joe Quilongquilong, our present rector, and Fr. Jojo Magadia, our current provincial. Thank you for letting go of us! When ordination seemed to take forever, we thought you were just too attached to us. Hindi pala. [Ordination.] Finally, we would like to thank all those who worked hard to make this a meaningful and stress-free celebration. To all the scholastics and brothers of Loyola House under the leadership of Neo Saicon, thank you for taking care of all the details from picking up our relatives at the airport, making sure that they have a comfortable place to stay in and preparing for this beautiful liturgy. We thank the 50 voices that comprise our choir, friends from the different choirs involved in our music ministry. We would like to especially thank Fr. Tim Ofrasio for another Ofrasian Creation—our chasuble--and Fr. Jett for shouldering the cost. We thank the Loyola House of Studies community and the University Dorms Administration for opening up their premises to provide a warm welcome for all our guests. Thank you too to the Church of the Gesu Committee for providing the support that the scholastics needed as they prepared for today’s celebration. We are grateful to each and every one of you – dear relatives and friends, former classmates and officemates, students during regency, partners from various Jesuit institutions and companions in ministry, workers and staff from our houses and centers, friends from various religious congregations and charismatic communities, diocesan and religious clergy, and so many more – thank you for all your prayers and support, and for taking time to share this moment with us, arranging your schedules, traveling from different parts of the country and the world to be with us. It means a lot to us that you are here. Finally we thank our ordaining prelate, His Emminence Most Reverend Jose Antonio Cardinal Tagle. While you were in Rome during the conclave, we secretly hoped to go to Rome to be ordained by the Pope. But this unholy desire was not to be so. But we still thank the Lord for giving us a Jesuit pope and for allowing the local Church to keep you a little while longer. Just as it is by God’s graciousness and your generous affection and support that has gotten us to this point in our vocation journey, we would like to end by begging for a few more favors. First, please continue praying for us. Please pray that we will continue to strive and persevere to be the good Jesuit priests you hope us to be, even if in a limited and imperfect way. Second, please do not spoil us too much. You may spoil us . . . but not too much. And when the day comes when we start feeling entitled to preferential treatment, when we start expecting and demanding privileges, please remind us that the only privilege that the only privilege we are entitled to is to be of service to God and his people. In the end, today’s celebration is not about us six newly-ordained priests; rather, it is about our Gracious God who is doing something great for all of us at this very moment, in this very place. And so we pause for a moment to thank the Lord for this graced moment.
Finally, we ask you to join us in honoring Mary our pratroness and advocate. Like her, may we truly magnify the Lord for this graced moment and keep all these things in our hearts. Please all rise for a hymn to our Blessed Mother.
