Alter Christus - Reflections on the byways of a Sacred Vocation by Kit Gacias

I initially wanted to become a priest.

In fact, for a time, I thought I would eventually become one. I spent more than thirteen years inside the “hallowed” walls of the seminary and at least, as far as my spiritual director was concerned, that was more than enough proof that I was indeed being called for the priesthood, that that was more than enough initiation to be able to join the men of the cloak, and ultimately, that I was indeed destined to become an “Alter Christus.”

Perhaps I did not give an ear to my vocation and eventually lost it. Or perhaps I had no vocation in the first place. Vocation, from the Latin word “vocare” implies the proper co-ordination among a three member team: the Caller, the one being called and, the calling. And just like the triangle that needs three points to determine a plane, each one is indispensable to effect a harmonious interplay.

Did one member of the team then err in its function? Did something go wrong?

Surely, the Caller cannot be faulted here. For presuming that it is God Himself, he cannot therefore admit any impediment. Perhaps I was at fault and solely to be blamed. Or in the Aristotelico-Thomistic jargon, perhaps the calling remained “in potencia,” a frozen delight and was never translated into “actus.” Or perhaps other outside factors are to be blamed, like other persons, the surrounding circumstances, or more often than not, an imposing system. Nevertheless, wherever the buck stops, the fact is, I am now in the “outside world.”

It is said that not all flowers are for the altar. In the same manner, not everyone that is called is chosen. Yet the vocation to priesthood has always been a curious thing. Everything about it, from its origin to its finality, can be brought forward and questioned in the arena of debate.

First and foremost, the nature of the motivation that moves a person to enter a seminary can already be highly debatable. Is it divine or human? Is it inspired by a divine juggernaut or moved by something else? And what for all intents and purposes is the yardstick that should be employed to be able to determine its nature? For apparently, not all seminarians, and priests for that matter, derive their inspiration from the grace of the Holy Spirit. In fact, many see other factors, from the deadening influence of parents and relatives to false ambitions and selfish vested interests, as their prime movers. Many are in fact forced the don the habit. Even Rizal, a hundred years ago, was able to note this fact and wrote about a priest who was forced to become one by his parents. It is sad, but in this case, the seminarian or the priest becomes the victim of other people’s wishes, a sacrificial lamb minus the theological or mystical touch. It is also strange but in this case, it is the parents and relatives instead who should have been ordained by the bishop. After all, the vocation was theirs. Each of them should have been the ones instead who should have been proclaimed “Tu es sacerdos magnos in aeternam.”

Secondly, the act of choosing as distinct and separate from the act of calling can yet stir another controversy. It is a joke circulating among many ecclesiastics that the latter task is usually attributed to God while the former has already assumed an anonymous identity. Yet as far as formation to priesthood is concerned, it can be technically assumed that the seminary formators already took this divine task to themselves. God calls, the seminary formators choose. It is a fact that it is a matter delegated to seminary formators to testify before the congregation during ordinations whether a particular candidate for the priesthood is worthy or not.

And what when someone unworthy or undeserving turns out to become a priest? Did the Holy Spirit err, as some ecclesiastics would sometimes blaspheme? Or more blasphemously - yes, how they love to blaspheme! - was the Holy spirit bribed? Is the Paraclete rubbing salt unto a wound by allowing undeserving priests to become leaders of the Church which has already suffered long enough from scandals committed by its erring ministers?

Everything happens out of necessity, so the Stoics believe. Following this thesis, it isn’t therefore necessary at all that the Church be led by good and worthy ministers alone; Rather, it is necessary that scandalous and erring priests also occupy its highest ranks. It isn’t necessary that, as far as vocation to priesthood is concerned, the priests be free from any outside influence and vested interests; Rather, it is necessary that some priests fall victim to other people’s wishes and caprices - and that they remain so. It isn’t necessary at all that the inspiration to become a priest be divine and should come from the Holy Spirit; Rather, it is necessary that it would sometimes proceed from a wrong source.

Now, I do not completely subscribe to this. Yet I cannot dispute it either. Indeed, I am more inclined to favor Hume’s position: I do not subscribe to it because first and foremost, it denies the existence of free will. Secondly, experience does not give a good score in favor of this thesis. But I cannot dispute it since ironically, experience does not prove that it cannot happen either. Indeed, it appears that paradoxically, experience only proves that it really does happen.

Perhaps a better if not the best way of explaining this irony is by looking at it sub specie aeternitatis - from the point of view of eternity. For I still I believe that Divine Providence, much like a silico sapien in perfect operation, is at play and at the top of things. Mysterious and boggling to the human mind yet undeniably a force that compels this squalid mundacity to deviate from its vacuous poise, a maelstrom that satiates the insufficience of this perfunctory world.

Divine Providence. Another curious thing. Yet perhaps the only key that could unlock the many doors that veil whatever remains elusive to the human mind. The concept that all things are subject to the divine government and that divine goodness is both the first effecting cause and the ultimate final cause of everything. Pushing it further, perhaps it even extrapolates the Grand Unification Theory which the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has been relentlessly laboring on.

This may be too simplistic and I am perhaps taking a quantum leap from a valid logico-epistemic proposition into the absurd. Perhaps I am merely invoking the notion of Divine Purpose as a useful trick of reasoning to arrive at an epistemological dead-end and be able to cover-up the limits of reason. For as Feodor Dostoevski succinctly puts it, “we degrade Providence too much by attributing our ideas to it out of annoyance at being unable to understand it.”

Yet how else should we scratch off layers from the skin of life to be able to understand its oddities and ironies? How shall we run our fingers on the anatomy of physical evil for instance? Under what light shall we explain its very existence? How shall we overcome a paradox, and more concretely, this theological nay, existential paradox?

Perhaps Providence is really the straw that stirs the drink. Perhaps it answers the questions that shroud the nature of vocation to priesthood, justifies the presence of scandalous ministers in the Church and, as far as I am concerned, makes clear why after having been called, I wasn’t chosen.

I am now striving to make a good life outside. Providence has led me to a life of battles, perhaps less in wits and intellectual depths but definitely more in guts and principles. I have chosen to hand down my habits to someone who I pray would be worthy of spreading the sanctity which they signify. Most of my contemporaries in the seminary are now priests. I hope they will all persevere and be happy albeit one or two have already expressed sorrow and regret at a belated realization of having wrongly chosen their paths.

I pray for all of them though. And I pray for more vocations to priesthood - the true vocations - that the Lord will send more laborers in His vineyard. And somehow, by striving to make a good life and with the Lord’s mercy, I pray that I will yet become an “Alter Christus” - however lower now in its form and distinct in its meaning.

And wherever Providence would lead me, my only prayer is “Pater, in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum (Father, into your hands I commend my spirit).”

Kit wrote this wonderful reflection sometime in 1997. He says it's about some of his reflections about failed vocation. It was originally published in "The Thomasian Philosopher," UST Faculty of Philosophy's official publication.