"I Would Miss You", says the world.

What would the world miss if there would be no religious?

This question rings a bell to me during our class in Sojourn. However, time flies that this skips my memory until that moment when I have to do a paper job. Actually, I don't imagine myself allotting any time answering this one. But for want of a topic to write about, I revert to this.

While the world is so busy increasing the height of lofty buildings and widening still their breadth, there are men and women inside the cloistered walls who are inspiringly calm, thanking the good Lord for the height, breadth, and depth of the world. Are they calm and serene amidst the hustling world? Apparently, yes, and they are called religious.

I was surprised during our modular class with Fr. Fernando Hernando, MB about the word "Religious."  All I thought was that the religious are the persons who profess the vows of the three evangelical counsels. However, he said that the religious are the ones who profess the virtue of religion. "If justice, on the one hand, is giving to others their due," he further stated, "the virtue of religion, on the other hand, is giving to God His due."

He elaborated it more by making reference to the three pillars of faith:

The first pillar is worship. God deserves to be worshiped with all our hearts, with all our minds, and with all our strength. We make this manifest in our daily prayer of the liturgy of the hours, in our devotions, in the mass, and in the other kinds of worship.

The second pillar is doctrine. Worship alone is not enough. Our worship seeks understanding. It is worth inculcating to the faithful to desire to know the One whom they worship, lest it would be an empty faith. In the words of our father St. Augustine: "I believe in order to understand, and I understand, to better believe."   And it is the doctrines of the Catholic Church which teaches the fullness of truths that serve us to better understand our faith.

The third pillar is morals. The worship and the doctrine must be seen in our action. St. James the apostle made this clear by affirming that faith without action is dead. Thus the ones who have attended the mass and heard the sound sermon of the priest should never neglect the brethren who are asking for help.

These three pillars of faith are interconnected, and one cannot be isolated from the other. Much like the pillars that support the whole structure of a building, these three above mentioned pillars support the whole edifice of our Catholic faith. And, our profession of the virtue of religion would be strong and unwavering all because the pillars that hold the structure our faith are equally strong and unwavering.

Now, for the sake of curiosity, if we take out the religious - the ones who practice the virtue of religion - from the world, what would happen? For me, if there would be no religious at all, there would be no one who would remind the people of the things that are due to God. As our faith is something that can be shared, the religious also diffuse their strong and unwavering faith to all the faithful, and teach them what to do in accordance with the faith they profess. Thus, if the religious would be taken out from the picture, we will again and again fail to acknowledge the redemption we merited through Christ's passion, death and resurrection. We will again worship other gods, listen to erroneous doctrines, and lead immoral lives.

I like to end this with a prayer. I pray that the religious in general - those who practice the virtue of religion, and in particular - those who profess their vows, remain faithful to their vocation; and that the words of prophet Jeremiah to the priests in his time would not echo in our age today, "You proclaim to worship God, but you do not mean what you say."