Don Bosco Philippines South Province

Homily on Saturday, 3rd Week of Easter, 29 April 2023, Guided Retreat of SDBs, Colle Don Bosco

Brothers, we’ve been very serious these past days.  So I’d like to start with a story in order to lighten up our mood.  Once there were three men who got drifted in an island in the Mediterranean when their ship capsized. After several days when they could no longer find anything to eat and no boats were coming to rescue them, suddenly they found a dark bottle of wine still with a cork on it.  Thinking it was red wine, they immediately opened it to quench their thirst but lo and behold a Genie came out of the bottle. Seeing the three men, the Genie said “Ho ho ho… thank you, thank you, thank you for having released me. You know I have been trapped there for centuries. Oh, at last I am free again!  So my masters, as a reward for having set me free, I will grant three wishes, one for each of you. So let me know what you wish for and you shall have it.

So one of them named Joao excitedly stepped forward and said “I want to be back in East Timor. My post-Novices need me.” And then, in a blink of an eye he immediately disappeared. The two remaining guys were astounded as they saw their companion disappear in thin air.  So the next man named Juvelan said “I’m really missing my boys and my community. So please bring me back to Makati in the Philippines.” And in a split of a second he too disappeared. 

Then the Genie looked at the last of his masters and asked him “What do you want? You’re the only one left here.” Tuia replied “You know it’s really lonely in this island but it’s beautiful and I don’t want to be back in my place of assignment yet. So… I want my two companions back here with me.”  “You have expressed your wish,” said the Genie.  “And so there you have it. And in a split of a second the two guys were back.  

Dear confreres we have been somehow isolated here for the past six days and we have been in this Italian Peninsula seemingly trapped for two weeks already.  Is there anyone of you who has been longing to go home by this time? Try opening one of the dark bottles in the dining hall this evening and maybe some Genie will come out and grant you your wish… Br Mon, no one seems to be wanting to go home yet. I’m pretty sure everyone is enjoying this guided retreat. On my part I am definitely enjoying every moment of it. And I am very grateful to Fr Jose for keeping my heart and my spirit well-fed and well nourished these past days by God’s Word and by his spiritual accompaniment. So I don’t need a Genie to take me home, maybe not yet.

The Gospel passage we have just heard unfortunately does not sound very positive at all, as many of the Jews who were being accompanied by Jesus have made a decision to end their journey with him abruptly and just walk away. It was because they could not accept what Jesus had been teaching them about the Bread of Life.   He told them plainly that he himself was the Bread of Life and that the living bread he would give was not something that could be bought from a special bakery or a pastry house.  No! What he intended to give was his very own flesh for the life of the world.  And that whoever would eat the bread he gives will live forever.

And I guess what shocked the Jews the most was that Jesus even reinforced these statements by declaring the same truth in its negative form. He said “Amen, I say to you, unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you do not have life within you.”  In fact throughout the whole discourse Jesus as we all know has been using the word “to eat” five times, or “trogon” in the original Greek which literally means “to chew” or “to munch.”  This really sounded obnoxious to the Jews as they understood it to be utterly cannibalistic.  Hence, many of them decided to walk away from their Master. It must have been a terrible walk out, and Jesus must have felt the pain and disappointment in his heart. 

The good news, however, is that Peter and the rest of the eleven chose to remain with him. They continued to hang on Jesus’ words, with Peter acting as spokesman they said “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and we are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

During this guided retreat we have been feeding ourselves not only with the Bread of Life in the daily Eucharist but also with the Word of Life that our spiritual guides have been suggesting to us to reflect upon prayerfully.  On a personal note this is the second time that I am experiencing a guided retreat like this. And for me it feels so refreshing, so enlightening, and so nourishing to the soul. I feel like borrowing the words of the Psalmist in today’s liturgy: “How shall I make a return to the Lord for all the good he has done for me.” 

Br Mon and Fr Fabio, thanks so much for creating this school, and for organizing an English version of this program especially right here where our spiritual father, Don Bosco, was born and learned the basics of spiritual accompaniment. I feel we are truly blessed to be in this program and I just wish all Salesians, if not at least many more confreres, will be given an opportunity to undergo a formative experience similar to this. 

Now that our retreat is about to end we need to start gathering the fruits of this awesome spiritual experience and to make firm resolutions to maintain the momentum of the journey we have set in motion so that we may truly be the spiritual guides in our respective settings in the way Jesus, the Good Shepherd, wants us to be.  This retreat has confirmed for me that one of the traits of a good spiritual guide is his ultra-sensitivity to the Holy Spirit.

The first reading in fact presents to us what incredible things we can do if we are moved by the Spirit.  The passage we have heard from the Acts of the Apostles shows how after the Pentecost event Peter and the apostles were able to make the Church grow in great numbers and to do many miraculous deeds among the people, like for example, the instant cure of the paralyzed man named Aeneas, and the raising up of a dead woman named Tabitha. Let us pray that having been helped by this program we will finally let the Genie out of the bottle.  Hopefully the congregation will soon have many more competent spiritual guides to help young people discover their true vocation in life, help other confreres discern God’s will to persevere in their vocation and thus produce many more saints for the Church and the congregation for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. GiGsss!

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