… The World Needs Less Tourists and More True Culture Lovers…

… The World Needs Less Tourists and More True Culture Lovers…

As this world becomes more interconnected and distances are narrowed more people are becoming aware of the diversity of this planet. This is not only a reality for developed countries or urban cities, but the entire world is a now under the effect of media and technology that bridges distances and supplies massive information in no time. As we bump into each other more frequently and at a faster rate, it is to no surprise that diversity is no longer something that we can avoid and certainly acknowledging and dealing with cultural differences are only the basic requirements to live a somewhat fulfilled life. While it takes much more than just tolerating cultural differences to fully experience our human potential, this phenomena has also created a false perspective in celebrating cultural diversity: it has created ‘Disney-Tourists.’

Certain attractions of places may be the center of attention that draws us to visit them or be interested in that specific culture, but this deteriorates our experience of the other. The practicing of this ancient tradition often referred as tourism is not only deteriorating cultural richness but it undermines our cultural endeavors altogether. Once again the reality of a fast and interconnected world through technology has shaped our cultural experiences to be merely data to be interchanged, in which, only certain objects or main attractions deserve our attention.

The building of stereotypes is made this way. If you get a glance or a shot of a different culture, the automatic response would be to be impacted by what is different from your own. However, with time, one picks up on the similarities. The problem here is the most people are not willing to put in the time to really get to experience the similarities within cultures giving that our sense of immersion in another cultural revolves around the desired to be perplexed by the newness of the experience.

While it is true that the world is making distances shorter and information a lot more accessible, it is also creating culture and altogether human experiences superficial. The need to appreciate our similarities and celebrate our differences arises from an experience that truly affects us as individuals and not from a data-based description of what culture is like.

What does the world need? The world needs less tourists and more true culture lovers. The world need people who are willing to disengage from the picture-taking and the crave for transitory newness. The world needs people who are willing to immerge in a culture not for a week or a couple of months on a giving vacation, but for some years, people who are willing to engage and sustain in other people’s customs and traditions. Unfortunately, the world tells otherwise, it points out for us what ‘should’ experience. Technology has made of culture, a data-transition. It is to no use that we have shorter distances if we are not truly experiencing the other. 

...I rebel therefore I exist..

I have come to recognize that one of my favorite lines of thinking in the world of philosophy is the category of existentialism. Part of what attracts me to these ideas is the heavy emphasis on a world where the individual has the ability to construct a reality according to his own determination and will. At first glance, it might seem idealistic or at best optimistic, but the view cannot be summarized and reduced to this. In fact, one of the characteristics that describes existentialism is also the seriousness in which it admits our frailties and limitations in all human aspects. Our tendencies to err or shortcomings are key for an existentialist. Nietzsche, described as an existentialist by many, focused his whole human theory on the human instinct for power and  dominion for instance, creating the Superman theory. And while many argued that existentialism led to a world that is obsessed with free will and consequently that it led to the problem with subjectivity, I tend to think that the world needs more of them--but those that are true to the heart of existentialism.

In a life where no one can escape death, mourning, suffering, injustice, hunger, exhaustion, ignorance, indifference, and the inability to truly touch and influence another individual--existentialism puts the finger in these wounds. In the sincere cry for the tragedy that is to be alive, (not that life itself is a tragedy--although many existentialist would argue for this) but that being alive contains much tragedy, we must act. In many forms and experiences, tragedy creeps up on us and taps on our shoulders and we turn in despair to see horror in the face.Our response must be defiant or else we are not only compliant but also collaborator of this condition. Our response, our action then is one of rebellion -- for we have no other one that truly dignifies us as human beings.

The irony here, is to walk a thin line between madness and realism. While Sartre for instance, said that there is no point of leverage to rely on that would save the human condition from its burdens and that the only response to the problem was to face our condition head on and because of this live consciously and fully aware that every decision truly is magnify in the great scheme of things, others submerged into madness for a solution. In a world that is desperately seeking to the realism of our condition, we need more mad people.

Madness, as a response is a legitimate answer. To say that within suffering there is purpose, to say that death does not end it all, to say that love can transcend all things--is to really be mad. This is what lies at the heart of existentialism, a call to freedom from our subjectivity we cannot escape and as a consequence a radical position in life. Life is a struggle, a fight, a strong force reminding you of your meaningless existence, why not answer from our deepest desire with a solemn word of resistance? No!

Rituals.

Life is full of rituals. We develop our life around a set of rites or 'habits' that become an expression of ourselves. From the very small things that give meaning to our life like starting our day with a fresh cup of coffee or the way we greet the people, rituals are everywhere  If we were to stop and see ourselves throughout the day, we would see that our life is full of them.

Is part of the human condition to developed a way to give meaning to our life and at the same time provide understanding to it. Anthropologists and sociologists referred to them as cultural or social behavior. It would be chaotic to live in a society were social norms would not be established for example and in the same way, it would be impossible to live a life without a set of rituals that expresses your personality or self. From waving your hand to express 'hello' to frowning to express 'discontent,' these symbols are expressed in rituals to provide meaning to our life.

In the same way, the spiritual world provides a set of symbols and rituals seeking to understand and give meaning to this reality. It is to my amazement the richness in diversity and unity within the Catholic Church when it comes to rituals. When young people ask me why is it important to go to mass or celebrate the sacraments as part of living a Christian life, instead of providing a profound and complicated theological or historical explanation of the mass, I often referred to the importance of rituals in our life and the meaning they provide to it. The mass and sacraments provide for our very own Catholic identity--worldwide. In the same way, our personal rites of prayer are very diverse and unique. These are often referred as 'schools of prayer' or types of spirituality. The way we 'perform' prayer can be so vast that coming to know how someone understands and communicates with God is a personal and unique affair. I tell them to let their imagination fly when it comes to developing spiritual rituals. Journaling and reading the sacred scriptures, eating cake and reciting the rosary, writing poetry and kneeling at church--they all can become profound expressions of communication with God. They can all become rituals of prayer.





While it is important to mention that we are not to reduced our sacramentality and rites to a cultural set of meaning that gives a certain group a specific identity, it helps us understand why we express our faith the way we do. However, we know the mass and sacraments not only give us our Catholic identity but truly professes and expresses a reality. In other words, in contrast to cultural habits, we do not give the sacraments meaning but rather it is the sacraments and mass that define us. We engage in these habits to be transformed by them. We enter into a reality that gives us meaning, and not the other way around.

As a missioner, I find that everything is a ritual. From the way we referred to God, the way we position ourselves in prayer, the chants we sing and prayers we recite to the way we eat, the way we communicate with each other, the things we express and hold important for us, the values we hold significant, and activities we engage in, these are all expressions of ourselves--they are all rituals and changed from culture to culture and from individual to individual. Culturally and individually, we have developed rites for ourselves that we hold very important to our life--again, because they give us meaning. Their sacredness does not depend on its relation to God or Church.

Rituals are everywhere. In fact, every time we find ourselves misunderstood or unable to comprehend another person is likely because we are not familiar with the rituals being expressed. The ability to engage in this art of developing a sensibility to the sacredness of another one is a profound reality of the missionary spirit.

Yes, In Today's World It is Harder to Pray...

In a fast pace world it is very difficult to slow down and center ourselves. We are constantly running around getting from a to b, filling gaps of time in our busy schedules with more things to do and if by any chance we find ourselves idle, we feel uncomfortable and restless. Lets face it, we are a little obsessed with being busy.
This is not a new phenomenon however, so why blog about this? Well, I work with young adults at a parish mostly and one of their biggest challenges is the difficulty of praying because of the business of their lives. They have expressed this challenge in many ways. They talk about being bombarded with information all day, of school, work and all activities that keeps you busy throughout the day and entering in prayer seems difficult. Often, they talk of being accustomed to having your mind occupied on tasks and so prayer as the emptying of a doing-mind becomes impossible.

This message is counter-cultural and this is why is difficult. From the outside, scheduling prayer or finding the time to seat quietly might be perceived as wasted moment of valuable time of your day. When the young adults tell me that they have grown accustomed to a particular lifestyle, they are indeed expressing a sign of our times Our eyes are entertained through screens, I-pads, laptops, phones, television etc. Do you find it hard waiting for the elevator without taking out your phone? Perhaps waiting for the bus or train without checking the latest updates? Do you constantly put music to fill the silence of your room?  Well, everything we do has become a response to some outside stimuli--I tell them. Being in silence and quiet brings aims at looking inside as oppose to outside. The introspection of being in silence allows you to deeply know yourself--and to listen to a God who speaks in the most inner part of yourself. A God who speaks in many ways, but only in silence can you listen.





The response is immediate to challenge this type of prayer. After all, prayer is very broad and seating in silence and reflection is only one vehicle. Is this type of prayer for all? Are some just not meant to seat quietly but meant to pray in a different way?  They ask me. While an aspect of prayer is doing, this is not all prayer is. I tell them to bring their busy-schedules into prayer and that God is acting through the business of their lives but I also tell them that finding a moment to quiet the mind and centering yourself is crucial in a rich spiritual life.

While it is very important to enter into silence and quietness, finding the time for God it far more important. it is in fact easier for some to pray in silence and quietness--but for those who find it very difficult I tell them to first 'make a date' with God in their busy schedules and honor the time however they choose to do so. Prayer in fact is not restricted to one vehicle as they mention, but prayer does involve transformation. The intention to move away from a busy-life that does not allow us to listen to God should transform us. At the end, we tune off from a loud world for one purpose only, to listen. If we cannot hear anything with so much noise, then no transformation is possible.

Before they leave I tell them that prayer is not meant to be difficult.  Prayer is a relationship. In our busy schedules we can find the time to keep the relationship barely alive, somewhat interesting, or deeply trans-formative. The difference is not in the amount of time in prayer, but in the quality of it.

Jesus Christ of the Slums

Being in formation for the priesthood requires all participants to be active in ministerial work. This can be a vast number of things, from teaching English, to working in parishes, or Catholic organizations, the options are many. I spent two years working in a program called 'The Mantle' at Port Ministries, an outreach program founded by Franciscan friars in the south-side of Chicago. Founded by Fr.Gus in 1984, the Port decided to make its mission the service to the needy. Beginning with a soup kitchen, the port now extends its services to distribution of food through a 'Bred-truck', a healthcare clinic, educational programs for adults, home-visiting ministries and a program called 'The Mantle' that tutors kids after school.

After two years of service in the Mantle, I have shared many wonderful experiences and have come across many hard realities. The place where the Port is located is one of the most dangerous and poor neighborhoods of Chicago. Poverty and crime are a reality that the children who attend the after school program face everyday. As I got to know the children and their stories unfolded- I began to know the Jesus Christ of the Slums. It is very common for these children to experience friends and relatives being shot or killed. It is far more common for them to experience absentee parenting, it is yet even more likely for them to never reach high school or graduation, but as these rough realities were being unfolded I met the Jesus Christ they know. As part of a daily activity the kids are encourage to keep a journal where they can freely write about something that is happening in their life. A young girl y the age of twelve once wrote of her gratitude and love for the world. She wrote of the small heaven that was the Mantle, where she felt loved and could love in return and referring to the tough times of the neighborhood she wrote of a Jesus who spoke to her in day-to-day small gifts like having her family and friends coming and going from home safely. Her immense gratitude at the things most of us take for granted opened my eyes to this Christ.

I graduate from Loyola University of Chicago this year with a bachelor's in philosophy which is also part of the formation program for the priesthood. As I travel everyday to school during these two years, I witness the geographical institutionalized racism of the city of Chicago. As soon as you cross certain streets, the Jesus Christ of the Slums is no longer visible. He is a reality that only this young black girl gets to experience by having been born in a particular quadrant of the city. You do not witness gun shots, robberies, infrastructure falling part, prostitution or drug circulation in the North side of the city giving the impression that we have left Jesus Christ crucified and have forgotten about it.

This two years of formation were a milestone in my understanding of mission and the priesthood. In a recent speech, our new pope said, 'the shepherds must smell like their sheep,' referring to the identity of the priesthood. These words resemble the reality I saw at this place called the Mantle. The mission is to places of need, our call and identity is to be with the people we are called to serve.

La Vida de Un Seminarista Misionero

¿…Que por qué Misionero?

…..Estos últimos dos años he viajado más que el resto de mi vida. Si, hace dos años entre al seminario de Maryknoll en Chicago, Il y desde entonces mi vocación misionera empezó. San Diego, Nueva York, Ossining, y Lima son algunos de los lugares que he visitado en este pequeño tiempo. Las alegrías son incontables. Mucho más la gente que encuentro en el camino que hace de este caminar un hermoso paisaje lleno de sonrisas. La vida misionera entonces, es en sí es un desprenderse de todo para llenarse de la providencia de Dios. Esta realidad—es una que tratamos de vivir ya que dentro de nuestras vidas, lo que llevamos en mano es solo una maleta de porta manos. No sabiendo que nos espera muchas veces emprendemos viaje. Nuestra tarea es verdaderamente llevar la buena nueva. Mientras más emprendo en esta vocación, mas entiendo que la buena nueva toma muchas formas. A veces compartiendo la historia de mi vocación en parroquias, a veces enseñando a leer a niños en el sur de Chicago, otras veces orando con grupos de oración en Lima, también escuchando las historias y testimonios y renovando la fe de jóvenes católicos aquí en Chicago, organizando retiros en San Diego, o simplemente siendo un amigo para muchos- la buena nueva se proclama.  Tal vez en una palabra, la vocación misionera se resume en: Enviado. Asi como Jesus fue enviado al mundo a salvarlo y redimirlo del pecado, asi también todo misionero camina en la tierra como extranjero y peregrino, siempre guiado por El Espiritu Santo que también se revela de tantas formas…asi nuestro caminar es nuestra alegría, nuestro caminar es nuestro destino, nuestro caminar es la buena nueva, nuestro caminar es nuestra vocación.

The Habit

The habit



People who are contemplating a religious life are simultaneously seeking to answer a call of identity. To be able to see yourself and have a clear image of who you are or want to be is essential in a matter of vocation. Many people approach their vocation by the image that they have in the profession being observed. For instance, the image the fire-fighter, policeman, doctor or lawyer have in their profession represent the work they do. In the same manner, for a long time the image of the religious person involved a habit, which for the most part included the major orders (Franciscan, Dominican, Benedicts, and Augustinian.) This image has been slowly dissipating among the religious community as lay people have been empowered and religious member have blended among the community. For the most part, the traditional orders have maintained their habits as a sign of identity but for many other religious communities the emphasis on the habit has decreased.

​The Church however, faces new challenges and new times. As vocations drop all over religious communities the conversation for habits arise. As new wave of young enthusiastic Catholics have arised who demand to come back to the roots of the religious vocation with their habits and traditions. They seek desperately to be able to identify themselves with their vocation among a society that they feel, has lost Christian values. For traditional orders as mention above this is not an issue. However, for Maryknoll and other congregations and societies who have evolved from this era, this topic is a matter of discussion today.

​As a Maryknoll Seminarian, this is a quiet an important issue. Maryknoll, The Society of Foreign Mission of America, has identified its charisma to be foreign mission. Maryknollers travel thousand of miles all over the world to blend with people, to lose our sense of comfort, language and tradition to be able to reach people in a very mutual and personal level. Maryknoll missioners all over the world have never given any significant importance to the habit. As a matter of fact it would appear to be something contradictory to the essence of mission. Today however, we face the dilemma of people interested far more in lay vocations than religious ones, we face young people seeking to embrace and revive lost values and a broken Church.

​There are many approaches to the habit among the Church. Still, we can agree that the religious habit has both limitations and attributions. It brings hope to those who discern a vocation (especially in today’s society), it brings identity for a set of beliefs, it brings a sense of community for a same cause. However me must always be aware of the exterior appearance of the habit as well, and make sure the identity we are seeking is grounded in Christ.