Amor Vincet Omnia

Amor Vincet Omnia

When a father loses his job, his children, his wife and the entire family, what can he hold on to? Can he still hope that there is still tomorrow and that the sun will rise again in the east and when the evening comes the bright stars will again entertain his wounded heart? At times of uncertainties and doubts, one word can be our armour and shield—Amor. Amor is a Latin word for love. When a heart is still capable of loving, even how great is the challenge, “Amor vincet Omnia”—love conquers all.

The servant of God Archbishop Teofilo Camomot once said “God is in each and every one of us and we can find Him in our hearts”. Our heart is also the locality of Amor, the locality of love. That is the reason why I would say instead Deus Vincet Omnia, I would say Amor vincet Omnia, because I believe that when I start to love, I also start to recognize that God is present in my heart.

Before I decided and proceeded to the theological studies of my seminary formation, a lot of fears confronted my entire ontological existence—the fear that I may not be able to endure the intellectual rigor of theological courses, the fear that I may not sustain to the end until the time that I may finish my theological studies, the fear that I may not be accepted by the new community, the fear that I may not be able to adjust to the new culture that I may encounter and so on and so forth. A lot of fears that if I am going to concentrate myself into, I may be drowned and perhaps may banish into the nothingness and the absence of my treasured existence. Yet after all, I am here because I still love, I love God and I believe that although I can express my love  for him in many different ways, it is in priesthood that I can best express this love to God.

However, love has a very staunch anathema that is not hatred but fear. Once a person is enslaved of fear, authentic love will also be enslaved and worst, it hinders the intimacy of our relationship with our fellowmen and women.

FEARS subtle attack on man

Our fears can be our hindrances towards living life authentically. Fear can also hinder the intimacy of our relationship with others and with God. These fears of ours attack us subtly. These fears are like shadows, they are part of us. We cannot go away from these fears. It is already part of us. Each of us have our own fair share of fears.

This is the reason why we should not confront and fight back with our fears because they can never be defeated nor can be removed away from us. These fears will always haunt us unless we recognize that indeed we possess these fears, that indeed we are afraid.

We need to be vigilant when will these fears comes out or manifests their existence within us. We can only do so if we name our fears, if we own our fears, if we forgive ourselves and others who in one way or the other contributed to the fear that we possess and finally accept that indeed we are afraid. We have to name and own our fears. Our fears are like shadows hiding in the dark. These fears must be brought into light because if not, then these fears will sabotage us when they are triggered in the near future.

Befriending our FEARS

David Richo in his book “Shadow Dance: Liberating the Creativity of Your Dark Side”, mentioned about “befriending our shadow”. It is not that we have to defeat our shadows but we have to befriend otherwise we will always be repeating the same process again and again as we try our best to liberate the creativity of our dark sides, the creative energy that can be drawn from befriending our fears.

This is also the way how to conquer our fears, a very clever way of conquering our fears. We do not have to suppress nor fight against our fears, rather we just have to befriend our fears.

Fr. Richard Rohr in his book “The Wild Man’s Journey: The authentic experience of masculine initiation towards masculine journey” said we have to “secretly steal the key from our mother’s pillow”. What does it mean? Our mothers are symbols of our comfort zones. Most of us if not all are pampered by our parents especially our mother. If we are going to remain at our comfort zones, we will not be able to name and own our fears. But like in our relationship with our mother, if we are going to go out from the comfort zones that our mother gave us, we will incur a wound in our mothers’ heart that is why we need to do it cleverly in a way that she will not notice.

According to Fr. Rohr in his above mentioned book, “each male must be initiated to the masculine spirituality” after we lost our “golden ball”. The “golden ball” that we possess can be our comfort zones in life. When we are in the bosom of our parents especially from our mother, we were in our individual comfort zones. Yet, when we were spank by our mother because we did not follow what she want, we lost our golden ball. When we were carried by our fathers in their shoulders, that was our golden ball, yet, when we got his sermon in front of our friends and we were shamed, we lost our golden ball. Each of us, in many different ways possess our comfort zones, yet when we were forced to get out from that comfort zones, then that is the time that we need mentors to accompany us towards the process of our masculine journey.

In the many oriental practices, masculine initiations happened many times with Buddhist monks, with the masters in other cultural and ethnic denominations. Even in our own native practices as Filipinos like circumcision, I believe it is also our own way of masculine initiation towards masculine spirituality.

Perhaps seminary formation is also like that. We were removed from our individual comfort zones for us to be initiated into the spirituality that we may wish to follow for the rest of our lives.

Masculine initiation is very painful and not rushed. It is “slowly, persistently bucketing from the pond where the wild man is” as Fr. Rohr would say. It is very stingy because the wild man is very dirty that we don’t want to touched but when we were able to bucket the pond and we get hold of the wild man and we tamed the wild man, then that is the time that we get hold of our own very self because that wild man is in us. It is in each and every one of us. Each of us have the wild man with in that we have to take hold on to, to master and to tame because if not, then it will sabotage us in the near future.

The wild man in us represents our individual issues in life. Each of us have our own issues by the time we lost our golden ball in many different ways. If we will not recognize, master and take a hold on our issues, time will come that once those issues are triggered, then those issues will explode like atomic bombs that are very difficult to control and perhaps will hinder our authentic relationship towards the people around us.

I believe that is also the rationale behind why we have to cooperate and be honest with ourselves in our seminary formation particularly in human formation, so that authentic guidance towards the initiation to the masculine spirituality will authentically happened. That for me is the most crucial part of seminary formation, once we are not ready, once we are not honest with ourselves, with our issues, with our struggles, then the dilemma of seminary formation starts.

This is a very tiring and rigorous task, yet, we should not be afraid because after all “Amor vincet Omnia” love conquers all. In the eyes of God we are all wounded but in our woundedness, that is where God meets us, that is where we need him most. St Paul would say I boast with my imperfections, with my weaknesses because in my weaknesses that is where that I am strong, and I would say in my weaknesses that is where that I am ultimately strong because the power of God is more than enough to make me strong amidst my imperfections, amidst my woundedness, amidst my brokenness, amidst my weaknesses. After all Amor vincet Omnia—love conquers all.