A significant ceremony

Recently I witnessed a ceremony simple but highly significant. It was the renewal of vows of scholastics and brothers. At the Communion of the Mass, the celebrant holding up the Host, the forty-two young men came to the sanctuary knelt down and read the formula of their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. They came in groups, depending on the language each had chosen to pronounce his vows in. First came those in English, then (a much larger number) those in Cebuano Visayan, then those in Tagalog. Then came two in the chavacano of Zamboanga, and finally one in Ilocano.

These were young men who could have had successful careers in the world. They were the cream of Filipino youth. All of them were professionals, some with four or five years of experience in business or the professions, with good jobs and the chance for advancement. Two were Doctors of Medicine, one with medical practice in the U.S. Several were engineers. Some had executive jobs before entering the novitiate. One was already in the U.S. with an offer of a job — something that thousands of our young men and women are hoping for. He declined the job and came back to enter the novitiate.

These young Jesuits were only a few of the hundreds in other religious orders and congregations. Not to mention the hundreds entering the seminaries to join the diocesan clergy who will be the future parish priests, the front-line soldiers (as it were) of the Church, some of them future bishops.

Today we are faced with much corruption among government officials and employees from the highest to the lowest. Their prominence, their number and the terrible harm to the people that these persons do would tempt us to conclude that Filipinos are a nation of thieves. But there is another side of the picture: the hundreds of men and women who dedicate themselves unselfishly to the service of God and humanity.

In many cities and towns, there are persons involved in various projects to help those in need. Some give financial aid. Others devote much of their time to these projects.

More than that, the vast majority of our people are decent persons living upright lives and raising up families for which they make enormous sacrifices. This is true of all classes, the rich, the middle class, the poor. These persons may have their faults, their weaknesses, but basically they are decent, God-fearing persons trying to live decent lives, and teaching their children to live accordingly.

This is particularly true of people in humble jobs like domestic servants. I live in a house served by several employees. These men and women have their families and their domestic problems. They work for a salary. But they go out of their way to make life easier and more comfortable for me, far beyond what they are obliged to do.

No. We are not a nation of thieves, despite those in high places. We are a nation of decent, God-fearing and — above all — caring men and women.