65 Years of Priestly Life. The history of a Journey 16 marriage is not one in which there are no quarrels but one in which, because of one’s promise to be a witness to Christ’s love for the Church, one tries to forgive,thus helping the coming of the reign of God’s love. Because of this missionary nature, a Christian marriage ought to be indissoluble. I prepared some of my nephews and nieces for marriage and with them I discussed the present situation in society and the world. As with many young people, they wanted to see changes, they were concerned about the future. I told them that Christ needed their help to change society, needed their love to make a difference. Were they willing to do something to change it? Were they willing to dedicate their union to create a better world based on justice,love and forgiveness? Were they willing to educate through their example the children that would come from their union? Our society can be healed only if the building blocks of the same, the families, live the ideal preached by Christ. They, as a couple, had to renew the commitment to Christ made at their Baptism by their parents. I see society as a safety net in which marriages are the knots that build and keep it together. To Christianize society, we need to Christianize marriage. Christian marriage ought to be the healthy cell in society, healthy in that it lives the justice of the Kingdom. This for me is the missionary sacrament par excellence. As children, they have been Baptised and Confirmed; now they have a chance to reflect on their Baptismal commitment and renew it together as adults; as a couple. Sacrament of Holy Orders The sacrament of Ordination is a special call and empowerment to serve the missionary community, the community of those called and sent to continue the work mission of Christ. As a seminarian I was looking forward to being ordained a priest, to becoming and alter Christus, as theology told us, another Christ. Preparing for Ordination, I was reading and meditating on the treatise on the Sacrament of Ordination. I did not read it to prepare for an exam but to reflect on the grace to have been called to be an alter Christus. When Vatican II came and the documents became available, I realized that every Christian was an alter Christus through Baptism. Every Christian was assigned to the apostolate by Christ himself. I was not the only minister but one among many. My role was that of reminding the community of its dignity and mission and of enabling the community to live up to that responsibility. My task, in dialogue with the community, was to establish structures that helped the laity to exercise their birthrights. Another task, given my philosophical and theological preparation, was to be the spokesman for the community, the one who presents their insights in a philosophical and theological language to the leadership and the wider Church. My priesthood blossomed after Vatican II. My role was clear and the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity guided my ministry. I would never do what one of my lay coworkers could do. As a matter of fact, I would encourage and support them to go as far as they could in their ministry. On the other hand, I would be supportive and stand up for them. I needed to foresee the problems that would emerge, given the clerical structure of the present Church, and stand by and support them. Reflecting on this Sacrament, I realize that I experienced the teaching of Vatican II as a pastor at Yobai. I had been shaped by a formation that taught me to see in the other an equal, though, maybe, quite different from me. My theological journey probably was shaped more by my openness based on my anthropological formation The sacrament of Ordination is a special call and empowerment to serve the missionary community, the community of those called and sent to continue the work mission of Christ.
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