Every Eucharist has a special meaning for each one of us. Let me share with you the meaning I am experiencing in concelebrating this Eucharist with you. To concelebrate the Eucharist with so many bishops, so many priests, religious, lay people from the Philippines, many experience what you have in your heart, what you represent. Because in this concelebration like all the concelebrations we had with the priests and the bishops, we put together the thousands of intentions, the thousands of hopes and dreams of our people – the People of God. Each one of us has in his heart a specific concrete people of the diocese, of one’s congregation, or of one’s seminary. And we all together offer that to God as a family – as a family of Filipinos. And I really thank you in the name of Cardinal Stella and myself for this great opportunity to experience the beauty of being a family, a priestly family, a family that needs our Church; and to experience this great gift that you have received in the local Church of the Philippines; and how much you can share to the Universal Church.
One of you told me this morning that many of the reflections, discussions and even the moments of prayers are like seeds – “calls” getting into his heart, a priestly heart. And when I was meditating on the gospel for today, it is what actually is. It is what the new Ratio and this conference do to us. It makes us conscious of how many good seeds God is sowing in us, in each one of us. The challenges that we have in our missions can be seen like that. He does not cease to sow good thoughts, good desires, good dreams, good projects, good programs, good discussions – good seeds. And every day He is sowing those seeds. The only thing we have to do is just to prepare and to make our land, our humble land, receive those seeds, to make those seeds grow and bear fruit. That is all we have to do. But we can do that with confidence because he is sowing the seeds. He is giving us vocations, the renewal of our clergy, the renewal of our Church, the vision that Bishop Quevedo gave us, the vision of the Church of the Philippines that God wants to build up for our generation today and for the future. Those are the good seeds. And we experience this in a personal and in a communitarian way. Because each one of us experiences a new call – a call within the call.
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