The qualified and the called

A few weeks ago, I listened to the homily of Fr. Herbie Santos, our parish priest at Our Lady of the Pentecost.

Father Herbie always has three reflection points with three corresponding questions for his homilies. This time, he had only one: God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called.

It was encouragement for those who felt that they were not good enough for something that they had been tasked to do. Take heart, Father Herbie said: the way had already been made perfect, the grace was ready, and they simply had to be ready to receive it and get started with their duties.

The secular variant is: they who are least eager for a task are also the readiest to undertake it.

Take, for instance, the exorcist, who, the Roman Ritual says, should be “utterly immune to any striving for human aggrandizement, and relying, not on his own, but on the divine power.” All exorcisms have to be investigated, then sanctioned by the local bishop. No priest should go charging in, proverbial guns blazing, lest the priest invite the demons to feed on his pride because he has made himself the center of the Rite. For such a task, God qualifies the humble, the hesitant, called.

A related Tao Te Ching saying: when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. When one acknowledges that they know nothing, then they will always learn new things.

God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called.

The words stuck with me, and kept repeating in my head as a so-called Vice President kept on eluding questions about her agency’s spending, and then descended into what looked like bottom-lit, shadowy madness as she talked near-gleefully about plotting assassinations.

I couldn’t understand why the words kept echoing as I read trolls spouting their vitriol online. Where are the Leni Robredo supporters? They asked. Now that the Vice President is speaking up about corruption, you’re all going quiet?

When I first saw the post, all I could think of was: how bold of them to assume that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The enemy of my enemy … is also my enemy! If principles are at stake, and everyone is accused of corruption, then why would I support a person deflecting attention from their own corruption charges—which, by the way, they haven’t even addressed?

That was when it hit me: the idea of someone being called into service is not about someone simply wanting to serve. A calling is a union of personal integrity, the actions that one takes, and the principles that one is vocal about. A calling is consistency, and not simply a summons from an invisible source.

We often hear would-be leaders saying that they feel they need to help, that they want to be of service, and that they promise changes for everyone to live better. But they have never served at lower government positions and are suddenly aspiring for higher ones, have a history of shady deals or dealings, and associate with those in power regardless of the integrity of those in power.

Can we believe their promises, let alone their calls to end corruption in government, if their backgrounds and language betray them? Can we rely on some abstract “calling” if there is no consistency in how they talk, reason, and act, with how they have been trained?

“God does not call the qualified; He qualifies the called,” is not a statement that makes excuses for poorly trained people to aspire to national leadership, nor does it encourage voters to elect mediocre candidates all because those candidates claim to be called to the position.

The statement invites us to look at the nature of a candidate’s supposed calling. Have they been prepared for years? Are they experienced in helping people? Do they actually listen to people’s stories and respond to people’s problems? To have a calling, one has to have a listening heart. Anything other than that is a mere wish to get a hold of the purse strings.

The statement tells us leadership is a grace. To be called to a position, one has to be ready for grace: to be open to criticism, magnanimous after being corrected, and ready to answer questions even when questioned by one’s rivals. Anything other than that is arrogance, and arrogant leaders make for self-centered dictators.

This week, Father Herbie spoke of Advent as a new beginning, when we throw out the old to make way for the new. Without critical examination, this idea seems to encourage simply throwing out leaders when we want change; but when taken with the Advent spirit of self-preparation, the idea is still that of consistency.

We have to be ready and deserving of a new kind of leader. Our culture must be ready to accept that there are avenues for people to be so easily drawn into misinformation and deceit, and those avenues must be addressed. Our culture must be ready to accept correction and criticism without throwing tantrums, regardless of the gender and age of the person making the correction.

If we simply keep throwing out the old without first changing ourselves, then whatever we receive will never be new.

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