By mudir 
Fr Diego Dalle Carbonare, mccJ
Homily of the final vows
(Rt 1:12-18; 1Cor 12:31-13:8; Jn15:12-20)
Dear Cristal, Meschack and Charles,
Dear brothers and sisters gathered today for their perpetual vows,
There is a riddle that says ‘What’s the thing that goes with you wherever you go, yet it never moves? – It’s the road’
You are here today to make a step on the journey, and your road is LOVE. Love is the one and only road. All other roads are fake love, delusions. Just one week ago I was driving somewhere in the desert north of Omdurman, and I realized how easy it is, in the desert, to lose direction, to get off the road…
Today’s reading answer 3 questions about this road:
- Where is the road taking us?
- Why?
- How much does it take?
The first reading is there to tell us WHERE the road is taking us. Not geographically, but existentially. Mission is not about the address, but about the attitude. Ruth choses not only where she wants to live and die, but with whom she wants to live, and she makes a choice for the God of the covenant. She was not born a faithful, but she is a shining example of faithfulness.
It is what Comboni called ‘making common cause’. Choosing God is to choose to stay with the poorest and most abandoned. Being close, sharing their pain and sorrow, working with them to build and re-build hope.
Tell me who your friends are (more about friends will come in the Gospel) and I’ll tell you who you are. A missionary is first and foremost a brother and a friend to the poor, the unloved, the abandoned. Only when in our heart we have space for the least, the last and the lost, then we have space for all. We leave behind our countries, our tribes, our culture, our “small friends” and make friends with the children of God, those we did not choose, but God chose for us.
The second reading is there to tell us WHY. Why do we make the fundamental option for the poor, why do we work and toil. Many of us here and elsewhere in the institute struggle with works: learning languages, running parishes, schools, projects, struggling in different fields. Why do we do all that? St Pauls tells us “though I command the languages… though I have the power of prophecy, though I have faith… though I should give away all I possess… even my body to be burned…”
There are many ‘things’ we do in mission, but mission is more than those ‘things’. We do all that we do because of LOVE. Sometimes, as missionaries, we fall into the temptation of calling so and so ‘a great missionary’ because of great achievements and things. But that is not a spiritual way of talking. All missionaries are great in as much as they do the little things they do WITH LOVE. Remember the story of the bishop asking old St. Bakhita what she was doing on her wheelchair. “I’m doing exactly what you are doing”, she answered, “I am doing God’s will”.
Love is the only thing that is a reason to itself. Other things need a reason; but love needs no reason: IT IS THE REASON. “Love is always patient and kind; … never seeks its advantage… it is always ready to make allowances, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes…”
May you have the courage of loving the people you minister. Because love is not about making people happy. It’s not about big smiles, nor about giving out sweets. It is about giving your life.
And this takes us to the gospel, which tells us HOW MUCH. Just last night with some confreres we were joking that today’s liturgical colour should be red. In a way, it is true. Your perpetual vows, are not perpetual because every day you give one day. By giving your life, you are not just giving God and the Church your time. A prisoner gives time.
Jesus says in today’s gospel “No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends”. Every day you are to give… all your life! Not just your time, but your energy, your rights, your dreams. Give generously, because the more you give the more you will receive. You have been given a lot, a lot more than most: much more will be asked of you. As a provincial superior – soon your provincial superior – let me tell you quite frankly; we, the superiors, do not expect from you to make miracles, and not even to be perfect… but we would be very happy to see that you are generous!
The Lord calls you his friends. For his part, he has done his perpetual vows to you long ago, even before the day you were born. For us humans, because we are frail and keep falling and standing back again, it takes time to reach to this day of the perpetual vows – and even after reaching it, we know we are a poor thing. But do not fear. Like Mother Theresa of Calcutta used to say, we may be a small thing, like a broken and consumed pencil, but in the hands of the greatest Artist of all we can be used to make works of art.
Make yourself available for that. God has big dreams for you. Let him show you!