By Ian Vergel
The Visitation of the Virgin Mary is part of the rosary. It is a part of the joyful mysteries. The second joyful mystery. If there is one thing that characterises today’s mystery it is joy. We see it throughout today’s gospel. Mary greets Elizabeth with joy: joy from Elizabeth’s womb and joy from Mary’s Magnificat.
Service and Joy
Why is joy the theme of this passage? It is because of service. Service brings joy. When we serve, we become a gift to others. We then experience a joy because we have become a gift. As we farewell Dawn tonight*, we will miss a young man who has gifted himself to the seminary. Dawn personifies joy and service always willing to lend a hand at the seminary especially when it comes to washing dishes. He is always ready to serve while doing it with a big smile.
Fraternity
Service at the seminary comes in a number of ways. Washing dishes, working bees, helping with liturgy; these are just some examples. Often, we talk about service in relation to the people of God. Serving our neighbour, our parishioners, the marginalised. Today, I would like to focus our service towards a niche group - priests and seminarians.
After all, aren’t seminarians and priests part of the People of God too? Are they not our neighbour? Service amongst seminarians and priests is called fraternity.
What does fraternity look like? Recently, I was watching an interview between a Filipino seminarian and an archbishop. The seminarian asked the archbishop, “Your Grace, what has influenced you the most?” The archbishop replied, “To love priests, to take care of priests. Take care of the young priests because they are lonely, take care of the sick and elderly priests because they feel forgotten, take care of the middle-aged priests because they are experiencing burnout. Whenever a priest knocks on the door, greet them, welcome them, offer them a drink, offer them food, listen to them.” Of course, not every priest who knocks on our door or, in the modern age, rings our phone will be like this. But it reminds us every priest is human too. My brothers, we are not archbishops but we must love and take care of our priests and seminarians too. When they do knock or when they call, we must be ready to serve them and receive them with joy like the child who leapt from the Elizabeth’s womb. This is fraternity to take care of our fellow priests and seminarians.
Priests come in all sorts of personalities. We are all different. Some more opinionated than others. Therefore, it is not so easy for us to always jump for joy when we meet them. At some point differences will arise in the presbyterate. Maybe some of us have already experienced this here at the seminary. Despite the differences and possible frustrations, I would like for us to ponder this, will we be able to still love them? Will we be able to still take care of them when they are in need? Brothers no matter our differences we must be available for each other. This is fraternity.
Conclusion: Magnificat, Joy and Fraternity.
Today’s mystery of the visitation reminds us to serve with joy. May this joy and service be extended to priests and seminarians. And may the fraternity we share together always lead us to joyfully proclaim like Mary, “My soul glorifies the Lord my spirit rejoices in God my saviour.”
*The night this reflection was given, we were farewelling Syro-Malabar seminarian Dawn Saji, who left Corpus Christi to continue his studies in India.