LUKE 16, 9-15:

DETERMINATION ON THE PILGRIMAGE

In our daily living, I believe in each single moment there are always choices placed before each one of
us. It is in the freedom bestowed on us that we are invited to take the choice, the decision for our own
life. At the same time, I realize that only in taking choices courageously that our journey as a pilgrimage
could worth something.

“You cannot serve both god and money”,

Personally, the saying reflects clearly the capacity to decide and to be determined on the vocation that
I’ve taken. A very simple and funny story I heard that reads: There is a donkey that is starving and
thirsting to death, and yet on one side of him, there is a great quantity of oats, the other side a bucket of
water. And yet, he is too hesitated that could not even come up with a decision what to take. Eventually,
he is just there and death surprises him. Aside from the many other views on the meaning of this, I’d
like to take one which is the inability to take decision which leads to destruction. The act of choosing
speaks out the freedom and freewill of what is that that I want my life to become, not to be forced to
become someone that I do not long for. Not able to choose is susceptible to enslavement, the death of
the donkey is the outcome of that. Also once I encountered one small girl in my pastoral area. I asked
her: “what is your dream?” The answer was so striking to me which said “a dream is just eventually a
dream, nothing more”. In that I realize how many times have I also just had the similar answer like her
as if there were only one choice, no others. Many temptations and attachments of the daily life have
promised a doomed future and have blinded other choices in which I feel so enslaved. And in the Gospel
today also, the call to choose only one Master is cited, God or money, God or idols. The invitation is
obviously always towards the God of love and freedom - giving. Still, who would dare to say he has
never made a wrong, a worse choice among other choices, the same to me as well. There have been
many times the decisions I took seemed devastating. Yet door has never been shut, in each of the
experience like that, there is growing, there is learning. Paulo Coelho has a wonderful saying: “the
secret of life is to fall down 7 times and to rise up 8 times”. There is thus always resolution for a return.
The mammon is itself not bad, yet “the Pharisees who loved money” has let it to take control over them,
instead of the one God that they were following”. We may’ve all learnt that in the time of Jesus, it is
commonly considered that wealth as a sign of God’s blessing and on the contrary poverty a symbol of
God’s punishment. And thus unconsciously, they, the Pharisees, gradually let money be their Idol, their
attachment. They let their heart be on the boundary between God and money. They followed God in the
surface and in fact loved money. So then the decision one needs to take between God and mammon has
not yet made. To me, the questions I need to constant reflect on is to ask what my idols are now? am I
determined with what I have chosen? Again, only in taking decision that I can start to live with my own
freedom responsibly. In taking choices that I can truly live my own journey, travel my journey as a
pilgrim on the way.

Yes, Once taking the choice, I sense that I have truly entered into a pilgrimage, to become a pilgrim.
This word actually flashed back to me once I was asked for the annual publication of the Dakilos in
Novitiate. The question was how I am to describe my journey as a Novice. My answer was “a
Pilgrimage”. It is not only in the 2-years of Novitiate but also for the whole life journey of mine .The

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pilgrimage has truly reflected the choice that I’ve made, the vocation that I have chosen. There are
known and unknown things. The known is the destination that I am now heading for, towards an infinite
God beyond my understanding. The unknown is the journey, the process, the falling down, rising up, the
risks, joy, and all others that I may encounter along the way. And so, it is the invitation again to walk the
journey, to be determined with the choice I have made on the way and believe “there is no ordinary
moment” (Movie: The Peaceful Warrior) for in each step God is there with his grace. Once I have been
conscious of the God that I am heading for, the God as St, Augustine says “the end of man”, so what it
would be that I could not overcome with my being determined. What would it be that I could not get
thru with his grace and blessing.

To end my sharing, I pray that we may be strengthen in our vocation, be determined with the way of life
that we have taken with the belief that God is always there in our pilgrimage with his grace on each one
of us. “God, the end of men”

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