Discovering the Law of the Gift: the force behind a priestly vocation
(This article first appeared in the Belen Jesuit Alumni Magazine, Winter 2020 edition)
“Why do you always wear black?” my ninth-grade students asked me one day before the start of a lesson. What’s funny about the question is that I remember asking the same exact thing when I was a Belen student fifteen years ago; except back then it was Fr. Willie who fielded the question at the beginning of his philosophy class. His answer surprised me because of the bluntness of his answer: “black is a sign of death and St. Paul says that we are dead to the world and to sin” and he hurried on to the next question. The answer rattled deep in my imagination: priests are “dead to the world”? Why die to it if this life has so much to offer us? The answer still mesmerizes me to this day: why are priests constantly announcing “death” with their black clothes if they are so joyful?
“Why do you always wear black?” my ninth-grade students asked me one day before the start of a lesson. What’s funny about the question is that I remember asking the same exact thing when I was a Belen student fifteen years ago; except back then it was Fr. Willie who fielded the question at the beginning of his philosophy class. His answer surprised me because of the bluntness of his answer: “black is a sign of death and St. Paul says that we are dead to the world and to sin” and he hurried on to the next question. The answer rattled deep in my imagination: priests are “dead to the world”? Why die to it if this life has so much to offer us? The answer still mesmerizes me to this day: why are priests constantly announcing “death” with their black clothes if they are so joyful?
If I had to share the many Belen experiences and their contributions to my priestly vocation, they would all coalesce into this fundamental idea so aptly expressed by St. Francis of Assisi: “for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” This short prayer can be summarized even more in what is called the “the law of the gift.”
During my time at Belen, I quickly realized that the power of its greatness lay not just in the events that transpired from 8 am to 3 pm, but in what happened during ones free time. Here is where the law of the gift came into play. During school, we were obligated to study, read, and to work under the excruciating social pressure that came with getting good grades. But after hours, that’s when one’s freedom was put into play when one was able to offer oneself freely for whatever task was desirable.
So I spent much of my time looking for service opportunities. My favorite one was working with and feeding the poor alongside the Missionaries of Charity. They had committed their lives so absolutely to this law of the gift that for them there was no other desire greater than that of giving their life for the service of God and their fellow man. “Greater love than this no one has than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”—there’s the law of the gift as defined by the Son of God himself (Jn 15:13).
Not only did these extracurriculars teach me the law of the gift, but so many teachers also demonstrated this with their own graceful abilities. Zoller’s patient instruction on how to highlight a text, DQ’s sweeping knowledge of Western civilization, and Mr. Collin’s masterful presentation of American government: each of these taught me how to give of myself to the task at hand. Everything from Mrs. Jiménez’s wonderful passion for Hispanic literature to Armando Rodriguez’s mafioso presentation of cubanazo culture, they each taught something about giving oneself to something greater than oneself.
Some may argue that this law of the gift is at the heart of most purely humanistic values: most people know it to be good. But even our critics admit that a particularly pointed contribution of religion is that it has a refined talent to foster and protect this law of the gift. The truth is that without religion we have no Belen Jesuit, we have no Missionaries of Charity who put into practice our need to be “men for others,” without religion we have no DQ’s or Collins’ who show us what it means to live “for the greater glory of God.”
Many celebrate the freedoms of American democracy and we all gladly reap the benefits and comfort of modern life. But at the core of this freedom lies both the risk and the invitation to build on this law of the gift. Figures like Alexis de Tocqueville and John Courtney Murray have carefully observed that the genius of the American Republic consists of the freedom it allows for religion to flourish. Isn’t this at the heart of Belen’s unique history upon arriving at this city over sixty years ago? When Belen was expelled from a totalitarian form of government, didn’t it look for a place to continue to uphold this law of the gift? Doesn’t the freedom America affords us today give us this opportunity to show what beautiful things can be done in the name of God and our fellow man? Isn’t our freedom ultimately fulfilled and find its greatest happiness in this law of the gift?
The call to serve others as a priest comes because of schools like this one which unite people across different subjects in a desire to live from this law of the gift. Community service, good sportsmanship, excellence in education, rootedness in faith are all virtues taught at Belen and they are each expressions of the law of the gift. All of these virtues I learned from the teachers, coaches, counselors, and priests who taught with their lives the mysterious power of this profound truth.
Belen has always been on the cutting edge of many things: creating STEAM centers, manicuring the campus with lush gardens, and excavating a swimming pool of Olympic proportions. Among its greatest accomplishments is its technology. Back in my day, SMART Boards were the best the world had to offer. But the same projectors and devices which once dazzled teachers and students years ago, have now aged and hang on our walls lackluster and unimpressive. Today the devices have shrunk to handheld iPads and our eyes gaze in wonder at our newly minted 3D printing abilities.
But over the course of the years, at the front and center of every classroom, there remains—unchanged and never lacking in its meaning—the greatest technological 3D display that could ever be offered to our students and our Belen community: the cross on which our savior rests. While the world turns and devices come and go, the cross stands fixed and unchanged. And yet again we see, no longer in theory but now in the flesh of this Man what this law of the gift looks like: “Take this all of you…for this is my body, given up for you. And take, this is my blood of the new and everlasting covenant, poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins.” The Cross and the Eucharist both bear indelible witness to this law of the gift. The priest is the one who makes them present today.
This unchanging and essential truth—the law of the gift—motivates our every desire to strive for something greater, to yearn for something that is unending and ever new. And for this reason, the world will always be in need of a priest who can remind us of this ultimate Gift: that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” It is because God has been so generous with us that a priest finds the energy and the ability to give his life in turn.
My prayer this year, as a priest teaching and working at Belen, is to uplift and always uphold this law of the gift so that Christ’s mission—exemplified so perfectly on the Cross and unceasingly expressed in the black clothes that I wear day in and day out—may stand at the center of our hearts today and always. God bless you Wolverine Nation!
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the School property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit sits on a 30-acre site in western Dade County, only minutes away from downtown Miami.