My Father,
After these months of observation, reflection and learning Practice parish, my desire to go to the priestly life seems to have matured and found its roots in the pastoral reality, I beg to submit my application to enter the seminary.
I am aware that, compared with my brother seminarians, I have a very specific term, then it will be useful as I try to profile the route I surveyed all these years, under the gaze of the Lord.
1. "She is alive, the word of God ..." (Hebrews 4:12)
"May he be blessed forever, He who has so long awaited"
[1] and writes the holy mother of reformed the Carmelite order on the first page of his autobiography. This sentence has revealed in me such a feeling, which often inflames me in the silence of prayer. Yes, the Lord has waited too long; He not only expected, but was, indeed, following her guidance that I got here: his conduct as a gentle accompaniment
quiet, loving and unobtrusive protection, without my freedom or private, nor let me fall into the chaotic darkness, but still, it surrounds me faithfully. He, the sole dedicatee and the real author of my life! When I go back in my memories, through circumstances that seem random, I finally understood, "there are indeed behind it all internally consistent. "
[2] I was raised in a world dominated by a fierce atheism imposed by power. Since the age of reason, any information I could receive asserted that no god existed. So the question does not particularly interested me, but like any rational being, my life exacted from its inception a sense, a meaning which proves his worth, a sense that I designate a destination: I never thought my life was a risky event.
At the time of my childhood, China was not yet fully open and the education system still had his sufficiency that we wanted to install an absolute value of the communist state and unconditional obedience and without reflection. However, the discrete changes in the company already aroused in me elks rebels. Teenager, I was seized by the philosophy of Nietzsche (the appearance of his books in bookstores also showed an initial opening of my country in the cultural field), and soon I am "armed" by the "hammer"
[3] he grant me through his words of fire, and I began when an "inner revolution". Indeed, the result of these readings is only one very slight trace today, however, a main idea then I received from him was the "transmutation general values. " She gave me a reason "convincing" to question, criticize, get rid of everything I had previously received in education (school and family). The former world fell into ruin. And, paradoxically, the "hammer" Nietzsche eventually morphed into "whipping" of Christ, with whom he was purified for the first time his "temple" that is my heart.
Although the aphorisms of Nietzsche stimulants were also established in my mind a sort of cult of "me" and a tendency to isolate myself, to escape the world "present" to me choking, and even sometimes "despicable" and inaugurated in all my life long "odyssey" of heart. But at the same time, another world opened before me, the Western world that has an entirely different story, which is the Christian faith. This faith, Nietzsche accused of being behind a slave morality, and he criticized all his strength into his work. Like me she then completely unknown, the desire to discover pushed me to get a Bible.
I found my first Bible in a Protestant church, and I began to read. I still remember the day when the Word of God took me the first time was during a class - I do not remember which - and as this happens very often, I did not listen to the teacher. I had the Bible on my lap, and voila, I came across the "Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, introduced by the Beatitudes. It was an indescribable moment
the Word conquered me, it has entered into me by erasing everything that was around me then, and I heard, as if she spoke to me as if She was said to me. I surrounded by about thirty young for my age, in silence, no one has seen anything: Me either, I understood nothing of what had happened, I was not able to say, however, , something happened in me, quietly but objectively, I knew it. "She is alive, the Word of God" (Heb 4, 12), she speaks, she turned to me, I am a witness. And so I met him in such a beautiful game.
There was no miraculous change in the wake of this event, nothing prevented me from continuing my wanderings in my little solitude. However, as a monophonic solo that turned into a "fugue with two themes, a different" melody ", a vague but constant melody began to play in my life and it reminded me from time to time his presence.
Soon after, I went for the first time to attend a Sunday mass. I met a lady at the entrance of the church who was a professor of music with religious, and she introduced me to a young priest, Father Ren. I had my first appointment with the priest a few weeks later. I do not remember almost any more of what we talked during this meeting. In fact I wanted to see how I also wanted to see unusual characters with whom I could learn about things I could not hear talk among others. I have good memories of him (despite his stutter). When he was sent to the South, I have known after his successor, Father Zhao. He gave me a Bible, the authentic translation into Chinese, adapted by the Catholic Church "patriotic". I saw two or three times a year throughout my college years and even later, until two years before my departure for France.
These appointments, was not clear aim to cultivate in me a true Christian faith, at least for me it was not the case, and I had no idea of a "spiritual father", we rarely spoke of life , se: "inner". Yet, every encounter, I asked questions about the Bible (my Bible reading has not been interrupted), or questions about the Christian culture, its history, its tradition. Nobody ever knew I had this kind of knowledge in my life, it is my secret garden.
Once, during those years of study, I addressed with some emotion and even some hope, the subject of baptism (I was also a desire to confess, yet I was informed that this would happen after baptism). Father Zhao asked me to "wait and see." This emotion did not last. The question came in 1999, urged by a friend whom I knew in a celebration for young people, but this time I declined. This could be the result of some misunderstanding or incomprehension, but I was afraid to take a step without being insured as important. However, an internal crisis was being felt more weight. I was in darkness, and the pressure was high, at home and at work. I would not be crushed or disposed of by the huge outpouring of collective society, led by a frightening materialistic greed. I fought blindly to find me a way out of me with my own strength, but in vain.
A year later, during the October holidays, the day after the National Day (October 2, 2000), the name of a "small country" that was not even mentioned on the cards and he does had never been in the media, has emerged in the title of the first Information from all the presses (written, spoken and televised): The head of this country, a Pope John Paul II canonized, the very day of our National Day, 120 "martyrs". Yet these "so-called" martyrs, were considered in our media as "imperialist invaders," "murderers" and "thieves", and the most "despicable" was their "shameless collaborators". So all of China was inflamed with anger, attacks in the national media continued all week, and all the characters known publicly expressed their indignation, including some members of the clergy "Catholic" Church's "patriotic". I, as always, I was fairly indifferent to what was happening in the media, and I would never have imagined that among the 120 martyrs, there was a French, a Moselle, the Jesuit Father Leo Ignatius Mangin and nor more than a year, it would be in his native country that I would settle down, and it would be there, I was going to reach a new horizon of my life. No, I did not know the point, but Him, He who was waiting in my future, He knew.
On October 2, 2001, I arrived in Metz. Two or three weeks later, I walked to downtown and I saw a church, (it was the church of Saint-Martin), I entered and saw a lady out, she looked at me bowed, and asked me questions, I told him I was Chinese, I came to France to resume my studies. She asked me if I was a Christian, I replied that I did not know because I was not baptized, but I read the Bible. She asked me how old I was and I said, twenty-eight, she looked at me and said: "Saint Paul when he converted he also had twenty-eight years. (This lady is the sister Teresa know many in your diocese). Six years later, in Rome, the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, I found myself kneeling before the tomb of St. Paul, this phrase came into my heart, "St. Paul, when he converted, he also had twenty-eight years ... "I asked myself: Who am I? How do I deserve that I talk like this? I stand before his grave, he, the Apostle to the Gentiles, who said: "I live, but no longer I, but Christ lives in me ..." (Galatians 2:20) And I, I had twenty-eight, but six years older than I had left running, and I always stayed away from him and as ignorant, but not only these six years, all these years, what had I done?
Before resuming my studies in France, I had already spent five years in a bank in Beijing, one of the largest national banks. It was a surprise for my parents when I found this work right after I graduated: it was to find an enviable position at the bank, yet I've never been a good student in college. For a while, I myself had some illusions have a life of ease and quiet, why not? The illusion grows again when I received during the first two years of work positive feedback from management. But it soon broke. Neither my reason nor my pride n'acceptèrent to sell my whole life for a vile price. It's not comfortable but a sense that I was looking for my life, and I had not found it yet. I wished rather to believe that "life is elsewhere" rather than support me every day hiding behind a mask of false smile, I wanted to be "myself" what I should be. So I left everything.
The return to power in France allowed me to breathe for a moment but not permanently. I prolonged and even blindness reprolongeai studies, whenever I had to re-consider an "after" I could not be "student" all my life, I finally had to return to society here or elsewhere. I had, it seemed, incarnate in the world, but my life would never be completed, and yet I would not expose myself to the cold eyes of others and be viewed from a commercial to me "detestable" ("Be a good man always seemed to me something very ugly."
[4] ) that I was valuable or not, I did not want to be "sold" but what I was looking for? And most importantly, who am I?
However, during this period, I always had a Bible next to my bedside. The Bible in Chinese had been offered by a correspondent in China who was part of an underground Christian community (when I left China, my parents did not want me to go with my Bible and the Bible I mentioned here have offered to a young man who asked questions). It was indeed she who taught me the existence of the Church illegal in my country. The correspondence between us has not been maintained for long, because I believe that shortly after she too had left China and I lost his contact. Yet nothing she told me about his life and his community still comes back to me very often now: his ardent faith, his hope alive and brilliant, and above all, his joy and serenity to frequent tests and storms, testified by its small simple words. Every time when I hit back these memories, I saw a mirror in which a figure appears: a sad face, pale, mine.
"I walked away from you and you, let you do ... you shut up then. And I I went the distance, far away from you towards many other sterile sowing pain, proud abjection, restless fatigue. "
[5] Yes, the" abject arrogant "and" restless boredom, "expressions so bitter and so painful, but if just to tell the truth of this dark adventure that I have done wrong in pursuing the honors . Like Don Quixote attacking the windmills, I'm opposed to this "world", not because I had the lucidity of his vanity, or that I want to leave everything to embrace the authentic truth of Life , but only because I wanted to celebrate my little "cult" of "me" to look more heroic. Lamentable challenge ... I finally lost in the void, my own emptiness.
Yet I have never been abandoned by the Lord, He who gives up person, he was always there, He looked at me as he looked Nathanael under the fig tree as he looked to Levi the tax office, as Zacchaeus looked perched on the sycamore, he looked at me and He loved me, and every time I opened the Bible I spoke, as did the first time, but my ears clogged and I could not hear more ... Yes, Lord, "thy omnipotence is not far from us even when we are away from you. "
[6] , and you've always wanted me to wake up in my own illusion, and finally the day has come.
In 2005 I started working at the hotel to the Cathedral as a night watchman. I spent most nights reading, and often the Bible. Once, my colleague who succeeded me in the morning was surprised to see me reading the Bible and asked, "Are you a Christian? I replied: "Yes, at least I think so, but I'm not baptized. "You have not called, she said, so if you want, we'll go see the cure all! And a week later, I began catechism classes.
The rest of the story, Father, you see them. A year ago, it was under your eyes that I received the sacraments of Christian initiation and a whole new life. My long wanderings of Odysseus hit close, it was transmuted into a veritable exodus, the "me" that I tried, I've found in Christ, the true "me": a child of God .
"Of late I have loved! You were inside, I was outside, and there ... I Ruais! You were with me, I was not with you ... "
[7] Every time when I think of my baptism, they return to burning in my heart. The Lord me most intimate to myself as myself, he knew what I was looking for, and I thought I know but I do not know. I had that "me" in my eyes, I wanted to become the real "me" someone I was dreaming, but if I do not want in you, I find that? Without You, "me" is nothing. All these years, it was indeed a vacuum that lived in me. I was obtuse, limited by my little pride, but the Lord was waiting for the awakening of my heart, He was waiting with a patience full of tenderness and love, as it is written in the holy Song " ... did not wake, do not awaken love until the hour of his good pleasure. "(CR 8, 4)
But why only now that the Lord wanted to make my conversion, after so many years after so many miserable way? Without doubt, the issue is beyond me, as well as its willingness and freedom. But One thing I am certain: whatever he wants for me is that my good, and whatever He gives me, is that his grace. A late conversion is a very special thanks. As the night is long and dark, the more we feel like the dawn, and the splendor of the sun is dear to us. St. Augustine was converted at age 33, and St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, 31, and there are still countless others who have testified to this grace through faith and life. "By carefully following the course of the life of St. Augustine, said the holy Father, we can see that the conversion was not the event an isolated moment, but an entire journey. And you can see only
font this journey was not over yet. "
[8] Yes, the path of conversion is long and bushy, I lived, I've seen, and I continue to live, following in the footsteps of the ancients; baptismal grace I have received, is the summit of my past life, and the door of my life to come. After the baptism, Augustine spent the rest of his years to seek and preach the true teaching of the faith of the Lord, as the successor of the Apostles, he remained always faithful to the flock entrusted to him; about Edith Stein, by carrying the cross of his people, she joined her beloved in his Passion. So the path of conversion does not end at baptism, as says the holy father, but he found his purpose in Christ.
2. "... You, follow me. "(Jn 21,22)
I still vague image of the first Mass I attended in Beijing: the interior of the church was" immense ", filled world, many were standing, too . I had to stand on tiptoe to see what was happening before. It seemed that whole church was in shadow, except the altar: the altar was surrounded by white light, golden, and the priest who stood behind the altar. Spontaneously, I thought that I had read in the book of Exodus: "Moses entered the cloud ..." (Ex 24, 18) So the lady who accompanied me whispered: " The Lord Jesus is now down to the altar ... "
is my first idea of a priest: the" Moses "who alone can" enter into the clouds to meet God, "and all others like me, can only stay back and watch. Imagine me becoming the man that I could not see that far? Even think I would not have dared. But the Lord can always achieve what he wants in a surprising way.
admit that the birth of my calling occurred during the preparation of my baptism. The day I understood the purpose of this journey of wandering, the Lord knew from the beginning, suddenly, a door was wide open before me, I told myself: He knew everything, He knew that one day I get up there, He saved me so many opportunities, and He kept me free, then He expects something from me, he waits for me to take a decision ... Do I mixed the vocation and a surge of emotion of a new convert? Or, simply, is because I missed all the other opportunities in my life and this one seems like the last possible way? A thousand times I asked myself this question, and sometimes as a whip, these issues hurt me.
"... every night when you enter is that of the Blessed Agony ..."
[9] and Bernanos does it say Blanche in "Dialogues of the Carmelites "But he did not disclose a heavy reality of our life in this world? The Lord said to His Father on the Mount of Olives: "That this is not my will be done, but yours. "(Lk 22, 42) But I know what I do for you, but is that really what you want from me? Yet, what is it that "what I want? "What gives value to our desire is to unite with God's, so she does not want anything but what it means Her Majesty. "
[10] So, my Lord and my God showed me your Will!
August 2008, when I went to a retreat in Caramel Broussey, I asked the father Ange-Marie at the end of my retreat: How do I know if the Lord wants me to become a priest and not only me- same? The father told me that if in the next year, at my request to enter the seminary, I was at peace in my heart, it would mean that he wants too. Heard what he said, curiously, my heart has already subsided.
So what does the calling? My father, two years ago, when I spoke to you and I told you: " I want to become a priest, "I had no answer in me. The Lord says: "This is not you who chose me, but I who chose you and have prepared for you to go and you bear fruit and that your fruit should remain ... (Jn 15 16) "... no man can come to me, but by a gift from the Father. (Jn 6, 65) "The purpose is, to quote Pope John Paul II:" Gift and Mystery, the mystery of free elections ... the divine mystery of a wonderful exchange between God and man . "A man" in Christ gives his humanity so he could use it as an instrument of salvation, making almost a man, another himself. "
[11] A " other self ", an" instrument of salvation ", is not it a paradox? How can I stay "myself" and at the same time become "another" and "instrument"? But that's the mystery, as I metamorphosed into the "other me," I transfigured into Him by making me his "instrument", I will come in its Divine Purpose, I will be conformed to him and I will be configured yes, that's it, "Love the one formed by her lover transformed "
[12] , for" The response to the divine call is a response of love to the love that Christ has shown us so sublime. "
[13] And in Him I will still be" me " because He called me by my name and He knows me! Is there something in the world even more beautiful than this? Lord, what result you make me when you call me by my name!
At the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, 2007, father, thanks to your invitation, I attended for the first time in a priestly ordination. During the litany of the saints, I ordinands seen to bow down before the altar. Long, my heart was seized by a shivering. "What does this gesture? I asked myself, and I heard a voice say: Here is my offering, O Lord, do not hesitate, because this is my life, that's all I have I have received from you, and Today, I'll give it back in your hands. Then, an old image is back: that of Moses, which enters the cloud to meet with God: an image blurred and distant, superimposed by another one of those young men, who prostrated themselves, which were open.
Later, I read in a poem by Karol Wojtyla these verses: "Peter, you want to be the Pavement and they trample you, those who walk without knowing where they go, you go where you want them to guide their feet ... you want to serve their feet spend as rock serves the hooves of sheep. The rock, the Pavement of a gigantic temple. The cross - grazing. "
[14] Yes, that's why these young people prostrated themselves before the altar to become the pavement of the path that leads men to stray Lord, and yet the path is the Lord Himself yourself, and be the Pavement is entering his divine destiny is to identify with him in his Passion. The Lord gave his life to men, and now in turn, the man went to his God. Shouting
people, "Come, walk with me, trample me and go the direction I was telling you, you will see the Lord, and you have Life!" What makes me believe that this can be achieved in my life except the love with which He wrought? Me, a man who believed himself lost and always pretended to be happy in his little solitude, but now the Lord invites us to love: to love and to love like Him, and that man, despite He is preparing to Him answer: "Yes."
3. "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up ..." (Ps 69.10)
In a vision "prophetic," Christ appeared to Saint Teresa of Jesus. Contemplating the wounds left by the crown of thorns, the saint heard the Lord say, do not complain about these injuries there, but all those that it currently.
[15] Our Lord is always on the Cross, and even today he suffers, because her body, which is our holy Church, is undergoing a multitude of pain and torture.
In 2008, the second Sunday of Easter, Father, you have met all the newly baptized in the Diocese (including me) in the convent of Peltre, and you told them: "you now have for our Mother Church, but she herself is ill, she is getting older, She being eroded ... "Some found it difficult to accept. But is "the truth, the bitter truth," if we truly love our "Mother", looking at the churches that are increasingly deserted, looking at the call of vocation that raises fewer response, and watching the war, the lies, which flow in the dementias world, a torrent after another against the Church and against our Holy Father, how we may not suffer with it?
"It was in the world and the world was made through Him, and the world did not recognize. He came to Him, but His own did not receive him. "(Jn 1: 10.11) And even now, Christ is misunderstood by his own, he is denied by his family. And evil, darkness of the world is to exert his power.
Edith Stein, the holy martyr has written: "The battle between Christ and the Antichrist is far from complete. In this struggle, those who walk in the footsteps of Christ have to take their place. And their main weapon is the Cross. "
[16] Cross, yes, the whole mystery of the priestly journey is engraved on the Cross of Christ, and He has already revealed:" If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, Similarly, take up his cross and follow me. "(Mt 16, 24)
Cross on the day of my baptism, I received it, and on it, I'm already nailed.
Deign, my father, I pray to the Lord our God, for He completes me in what He has already begun, and that He keeps me faithful!
Saint Augustine "Confessions. Book II, II, 2, "Library Search of the Pleiade, 1998, P. 805
Saint Augustine "Confessions. Book II, II, 3, "Library Search of the Pleiade, 1998, P. 805
Saint Augustine "Confessions. Book X, XXVII, 38, "Library Search of the Pleiade, 1998, P.1006
"priestly Caelibatus. 24 "
Karol Wojtyla," Poetry - Theatre, Cana / Cerf 2007, p. 111.
