Investiture Reflections: Becoming a Kierkegaardian Hero

Being invested with the ecclesiastical garb is considered by many as the highlight or the peak of one’s life here in the college seminary and as someone who can attest to this, I’d like to share my reflection about it with the help of my friend, Soren Kierkegaard. His “Knight of Faith” is something which I really think is apt to describe what it means to wear the cassock and surplice.

He infinitely renounces the love that is the substance of his life.

Kierkegaard proposed for a creation of a whole new kind of human being as he aims to achieve his infamous “Authentic Existence”. This kind of human has an almost superhuman kind of strength and greatness. Wearing the garb transforms one to different person indeed, which is why I think that to wear something like that means to become a man of change, a man of faith, a Knight of Faith, just as what Soren is saying.

There are so many things that entails that beautiful cassock and surplice. The garb itself symbolizes so many things and to the one who wears it is expected so many things. It is a symbol of blessing, which asks a seminarian to be always grateful for it and to never forget to be. It is a symbol of power , which asks a seminarian to use it for nothing but service. To use it for selfish reasons is a very, very wrong move. The garb also symbolizes responsibility which asks a seminarian to be responsible for it. All of this makes a whole new kind of human being. All of this makes one a Knight of Faith.

During the Investiture, after almost crying of joy as I wore my cassock and surplice, there was one thing that the bishop said that I believe I’ll never forgot and that was his statement: “Tungkulin ninyong manindigan sa ating pananampalataya. Kayo ang dapat and kaunahang manindigan dito.” Upon hearing this, I immediately told myself that we’re college seminarians, not a bunch of Holy Priests or Martyrs. But then, it’s what we are entitled to do as a seminarian and at the very basic, as a Christian. To become a Knight of Faith is to be a Guard of the Faith. To be one entails defending the faith at any cost.  That is what it is.

In the middle of a world swallowed by chaos and so many upheavals, we were invested. Just in the same timeline wherein modernity is paving its way to the very corners of every place, we wore our garbs. Now that the world and all its peoples have their different concerns and most aren’t paying attention to the things of the world, we faced them with a new identity. The world right now is scary and true, just like the Knight of Faith feels the disconnectedness of things in his bones, we feel the world in us as well yet it is in me that I find the strength to unify my world, to hold it together with an act of will, my faith.

Soren Kierkegaard said that his Knight of Faith is one who could grasp his own freedom and create his own destiny and indeed, this is what the seminary is teaching in the very first place. It teaches us to discern what it is that we really want. To be a knight of faith is to grasp and understand the meaning of our lives specially now that we are under the formation walls of the seminary. To understand why we do things and comply to everything with obedience. To be free and to create my destiny is to understand my existence and that’s when, I believe, the authenticity of one’s own existence begins.

My favorite description about this Kierkegaardian Hero is that which says that it is an individual who has looked profoundly into the world of men and has seen that in the deepest level that we are alone, for this hero is alone with his God. To become like one is to be with God and to be with nothing else and no one else but God. It is an expectation for an invested seminarian to have a look at the world deeply for him to realize that there’s nothing in the world to depend on but God alone.

Kierkegaard once said: “Each shall be great in proportion to the greatness with which he strove. For he who strove with the world became great by overcoming the world. He who strove with himself became greater by overcoming himself. But he who strove with God became greater than all.”

For me, this sums up my investiture. It felt great, being invested. And why is that? Because we become great by overcoming the world and ourselves and we did it with God. 

“Stealth”

You were gone in an instant

And that almost dropped my sanity dead

I never thought you’d just be gone ahead

I lingered on my cold, safe haven

A haven of imagination

Where lines intersect, ours indeed

I thought you’re there really

I always did

I can’t believe this

At some point we’d met

Though we’ll never see each other’s souls and hearts

I was still satisfied,

Thinking I could always catch a glimpse

In that eyes made of hazel brown

Somehow you’re just gone

In stealth, are you?

Your absence is a gash to my soul

I spoke to my eyes to whom were my tears for

But what’s the point when there’s only one line

Did the intersection even exist?

What do I do now, when there’s no more?

How can I know that I am alone, when I can’t even feel you’re away?

How is sadness possible?

When my object of being sad doesn’t exist?

Why did you make me feel abandoned?

Where are you?

(October 26, 2016)

Thanks, Kierkegaard

All it took me was a lesson from my friend, Soren Kierkegaard.

I was on my way to reading the 10^th chapter of John Green’s ‘The Fault in our Stars’ when the beadle knocked on my door.

“Let me see that”, he said. I handed him the book. He took it then whispered “Lights off!” with his annoying facial expression.

Congratulations, self! You just let that idiot take your book.

As I surrender my head, face first, on my pillow after the beadle left, I was already burning with anger. Then, my mind was already constructing so many ideas like putting him down through my column in our school paper by enumerating his endless flaws or like breaking rules to piss him more and so on. I fell asleep with my soul saying: “Did he just took my book and deprived me of reading? I swear I’ll die before I let this slide!”

When I opened my eyes, I immediately saw my newly-purchased John Green shelf with a small space between the Paper Towns and Looking for Alaska that made me remember everything that happened last night. By then, I was again enraged that resulted to me, not being able to concentrate on praying and on the celebration of the mass.

Thanks, man!

My brain was so busy planning for revenge when I accidentally heard the priest (our class’ adviser and my very own spiritual director), delivering his homily by relating the gospel with the Existentialist Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard’s Subjective Truth.

By that my whole self was put to pondering. Kierkegaard, in relation to his subjective truth, said that the thing is to find the truth which is true for me, the idea with which I can live and die.

I believe in the truth that I did nothing wrong in last night’s incident. It was the idea which is true for me and that made everything right like the plans for revenge and the ideas of putting him down and so on. But then, thinking about it, it doesn’t even look right. Then what is all this? Is Kierkegaard wrong?

That thought made me realize my part. The idea of me, doing nothing wrong last night wasn’t the truth even for my very own self to believe. I was the one who is wrong the whole time. The problem for me is that I wasn’t brave to accept it.

Kierkegaard was right on the subjective truth, indeed. The truth really isn’t something that can be handed out on a plate. It is something found, accepted and committed through a painful way.

Now the truth is that I broke a rule. I guess it’s time to face it and commit to that truth. Thanks for the lesson Kierkegaard. (February 19, 2016)

An Overview of Everything and Nothing

                 I’ve been living here for almost two years now but nothing has ever changed with how I admire the view of Lucena from the fourth floor chapel. The view continues, even until now, to remind me of so many things in my life.

                  The view was just too infused with glamour for my mind to deprive my eyes of witnessing it. During the day, when it seems like it is being scorched by the burning heat of the sun, it reminds me of the place I used to see face to face. It was the place I have loved and the place wherein everything that I loved was. At night, the view was a still water that merely reflects the things above, the darkness together with the glimmering brightness of the stars which seems like little diamond sparks. It was a place where I have dreamt of love – a place of love itself.

                     Whenever I glance to this beautiful scenery, I’ve always thought of all my ideas before. It was the place where I’ve once thought that I had nothing to lose with my life, the place where I thought my past soul has fallen apart because of all the hurts and miseries, the place where I thought I decided to gamble with myself. It doesn’t just remind me of my past, it was my past itself. How ironic that now it makes me wish that it’d be my future as well.

What everything and nothing mean for me....

                It was the view that pictures her, the one that I have loved. She was just as normal as anyone just like how normal the scenery can be. Yet for me, she was more than that. Three years ago it was when I was so lucky to caught a glimpse of her and by then she was then already as dazzling as the sun and as shimmering as the stars. She was like the city overview itself and though she isn’t part of it, I know that she is near. She is just like the scenery itself, too vibrant with her abundant glamour to prevent myself from admiring her but yet too far to be reached by my hand and heart.

                At the same it was the view of the place that taught me how to be a fake. It was the fakeness itself, with me as an individual included. It reminds me of the place which embedded in my brain the idea that everyone is fake and that all of them loves the idea of fakeness. It was the place which made me realize how fake I am as well and mostly, it was the thing that made me see that the place I am currently standing on is much faker.

                It was a reminder of all the miseries and sufferings mixed with love and pleasure and everything. It was something I have hated, and at the same time loved. It was a reminder of her, and a reminder that I can’t be with her. It was a fake and it was something that made me realize that it was, indeed.

                    It was a view of everything, and at the same time, a view of nothing. It was really great – that overview. (February 27, 2016)