07/09/2024
An article I published on Oct 2018...sharing it again for our new members..
What does it mean to be Pag-ibig sa Diyos Catholic Community Member?
Having been called to the Pag-ibig sa Diyos Catholic Community, or even to other similar Communities for that matter, is both a privilege and a responsibility.
It's definitely a privilege, as not everybody is called and given this opportunity of having a spiritual support system like a community to see to it that you don't run out of spiritual energy. As the Lord said in John 6:44,
"No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day." Thus, we are lucky to have been chosen and called.
Being called in such a community, on the other hand, means commanding certain powers that others do not have, mainly because we tend to know and learn more about our faith and our God than those who are outside a community. The powers we are talking about here include such things as spiritual gifts, the power of prayer, and maybe other spiritual and temporal powers that we may develop and obtain in the course of our long stay in the community.
And as we often hear, "power comes with responsibility", thus the second attribute of being in the community, responsibility.
Responsibility means duty or obligations that one is expected to do or perform. It also means something that one is accountable for or for its consequence.
Knowing these two things by any "responsible community member", could mean less problem for the community, but what if the member is not aware of these? What if what they only know is that they are just members, period? Or, what if they just decide and choose on their own which responsibilities they would want to take and not? Or what if a member decides on his own which policy, or say activity, he would want to abide by or participate in? Having these scenarios at hand would then mean problems for the community and servant leaders. Thus, it is very important for all members, especially the new ones, to know and keep in their minds and hearts what it really means to be a member. It would be a very sad and hard scenario to reach a point when you would hear an elder or long-time member of the Community saying, "No, sorry, but I know that already," and then refuse to follow whatever new policies or programs that are being implemented by present leadership.
Let us, therefore, try to take a closer look at those two important words, privilege and responsibility.
The privilege that we are talking about is a grace and blessing that we should be thankful for. It comes from God, as we mentioned above, and knowing it comes from Him, said privilege should be covered by each one's being responsible steward, as it was entrusted that need to be taken care of and not abused.
Responsibility, on the other hand, encompassed all things that a member is bound to respect and follow. A responsible member fully knows that age or length of stay in the community is not an excuse to refuse to follow, support, and respect the community and its leadership. Suffice it to say that if you've lost your faith or love for said community, maybe it's time for you to leave. If the reason of anyone refusing or stopping to support the community is loss of trust or confidence, they must remember that all policies and processes are subjected to discernment to emphasise that it is from Him that we get the direction, and it is for Him that we want to push through with said decision, thus losing trust could indirectly mean losing trust in Him.
The suggestions to conduct orientation to new members of the Community are very timely and surely will help a lot in avoiding future problems that may arise because their knowledge of being a member is different from what's expected of them.
Catholic charismatic communities like ours are what our mother Catholic church needs right now to help in the catholic education of our fellow Catholics, and to be able to do that, we should be able to nip in the bud the usual problems that our community encounters, especially those that can be
controlled.
