By Fr. Abe Sumalinog mssc

A lot of people ask me a serious question: Was becoming a priest your dream since childhood? Since I got used to answering question, I would not meditate too long but answer them simply, “No”.

I was born in a city but then my family moved down to a rural area close to where my grandfather lived. Our house is just right across the road where our kapilya is. It means that I have no excuse in not attending the community prayer or the Mass. Every month of May I was always present attending the catechism classes at the kapilya. It was those tickets (which at the end of the months will be changed with candies and biscuits) that kept me going there. I also remember that flowers are a big thing in May. I always made sure that I had the most beautiful and most fragrant flowers-picked from school or our neighbor’s garden-offered to the Blessed Mother. At home we used to pray the rosary. And my grandmother taught us to pray and bid good night to our Mom and Dad in Spanish which I did not understand.

The Awakening

It was in high school when I started thinking about priesthood. But that way of living was the least or not even on the list of my dreams. As a child I wished to become somebody who works in a big company, with a high salary, a beautiful house with a garden and a family. But as I grew up I realized that my dream and it was not really what I wanted to do in life. I wanted something more.

Idealisms of Priesthood

So thinking about priesthood as a young man I had loads of idealism and fantasies like I wanted to bring people back to God, converting the unbelievers and baptizing them in the name of Jesus. And I even had fantasies of healing the sick,physically disabled and driving out evil spirits using Jesus’ healing power. It was a good vision because through it, I found some purpose and aim in life. These idealisms were the stars that brought me to where I am and that made me what I am now and will be in the future.

Looking for signs

While mediating and praying about priesthood I remember that I spent a lot of time looking for signs that God was really calling me. I am sure that I never heard God calling me through a voice. But I tried recalling my childhood and tried to see how God touched my life. I was not very prayerful then but I prayed spontaneously from the heart like most children do. But I knew that whoever that man up there was I really was respectful and thankful to Him.

What’s in the Name?

As I kept on seriously searching and listening to God, I remember one time I asked my mother where she got my name. She answered me that my father got it from the Bible. She did not know why I asked her that question since I never told anybody about what was happening to me then. My two bothers and four sisters were named after the saints, not from the Bible. So I started praying and meditating about the biblical Abraham. Since then I began to know him more and more. I knew that my name is the same as in the Bible because I can recall a song we learned in catechism classes called Fr. Abraham. I sometimes got annoyed with other kids teasing me by that song in which one line goes like this “Father Abraham has seven children, some are black, the others are white...” (In Korea the Catholics celebrate their Christian name's feast day. I find this very meaningful.)

Gospel invitation

One thing that I found really helpful in my search is the Gospel. Jesus always invites people to work with him by basically living the gospel values. When I decided to join the priesthood I actually made a crucial decision: to be diocesan priest or a missionary priest. I decided to become a missionary priest. It was always the image of the disciples being commissioned by Jesus to go and preach the Gospel which gave me the spirit to choose this way of living.

Why Mission is a necessity?

The things I have just written above were my thoughts when I was sixteen years old. Now that I am thirty-one I realize that I am here in a foreign land not to convert the pagans and baptize the unbelievers. But I am here to give witness to God’s presence in a place where God was before I came. As a Filipino I can always make a difference because the God I know through my people, experiences and culture is different from that of others. it simply means that through  missionaries everyone receives a deeper understanding and experience of the one God that we all worship in hundreds of ways. The exchange of one’s experience of God will always be vital in a Christian faith if we are to understand God more deeply and serve him more seriously-through people and the whole of God’s creation.