Sometimes I still wonder why God has called me to serve Him as a future priest. I would ponder why I am here in the seminary and continue to respond to His call. Before entering, I was happy to serve our parish through a Catholic Lay Group. All my life, it amazes me how much the Lord has shown His love for me.

I have felt this wonderful love of God even before I responded to His call. There were many blessings granted to me and our family, particularly good health and strength for my mother. It is this feeling of being loved that moved me to strive to serve and follow Him and to consider journeying along this path. I realized that, in my simple responses, His grace abounds.

Following Jesus is not just walking along smooth and flowery roads. There are times in our lives when we suffer and complain, times when our requests seem to be unheard and unanswered, moments when we feel forgotten or rejected. In these times, God wants us to grow more in patience and in love. He gives us opportunities to purify our love.

I feel ashamed that, even though He gave me so many good things, I only do simple things for Him. Sometimes I even become unfaithful to His teachings. Yet God is always forgiving and ready to receive me whenever I go back to Him sorrowful. Such is the love and faithfulness of God for us. With this experience of love, we cannot help but to also love and follow Jesus. May God grant that I may faithfully serve and follow Him always.

By: Sem. Eric Yabut

Today’s Gospel

Mk 10:32-45

The disciples were on the way, going up to Jerusalem,
and Jesus went ahead of them.
They were amazed, and those who followed were afraid.
Taking the Twelve aside again, he began to tell them
what was going to happen to him.
“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man
will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes,
and they will condemn him to death
and hand him over to the Gentiles who will mock him,
spit upon him, scourge him, and put him to death,
but after three days he will rise.”
Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
came to Jesus and said to him,
‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”
He replied, ‘What do you wish me to do for you?”
They answered him,
“Grant that in your glory
we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.”
Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking.
Can you drink the chalice that I drink
or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”
They said to him, ‘We can.”
Jesus said to them, “The chalice that I drink, you will drink,
and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized;
but to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give
but is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
When the ten heard this, they became indignant at James and John.
Jesus summoned them and said to them,
“You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles
lord it over them,
and their great ones make their authority over them felt.
But it shall not be so among you.
Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.
For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve
and to give his life as a ransom for many.”