Theology 2 in Venezuela #16

(By Stephen Villa)

Closing thoughts

It's hard to believe already. But it is just about time to go. Tomorrow afternoon, we fly to Caracas to spend the night, catching our US-bound flight to Houston then to St. Paul on Monday.

Whatever apprehensions we may have had prior to coming down here, they have all since vanished, and in its place, there are many many fond memories to cherish of the beautiful people that we have met, the breath-taking places we were able to visit, the delicious food that we were able to eat. There are also many insights that we have gained in terms of the universality of our Catholic faith, the theological notion of inculturation of faith, its ritual expression and catechetical formation, the role and function of the priest in the community, the role and function of the laity, the reality of poverty in a context outside of the US, the relationship of missiology and ecclesiology and evangelization. All of this -- and then some -- was jam packed into our short 2 week immersion into the Archdiocese's mission parish in Venezuela.

Besides the memories and the insights, all of which will prove themselves useful in our future priestly ministry, the other thing that we will be able to take home with us is a stronger sense of fraternity. There is something beautiful that can happen among seminarians (and priests for that matter) when they are sent away for a period of time from the normal regimen of seminary life. In our particular situation, we have been out of our normal comfort zones for the past two weeks, and correspondingly, our personal idiosyncrasies have become more easily observable than when we are at home at the seminary. Here, there are fewer places -- if any at all -- to hide from your brothers. We have lived in a tight community, where just about everything we did during the trip was done together. In a situation like this, it would be normal for tempers to flare a little more readily than they might back home. It would not be unheard of for a missionary group to endure a certain dynamic where tensions go unspoken, and where gossip acutely (though subtly) divides. Thankfully, this was not the case with our group. While each man sorted through this new environment in his own way, I got the sense that we, in turn, learned much about each other in new ways. We were able to utilize each others' gifts which were generously offered, but also we to be compassionate to each others' moments of weakness without using it against them. There was a general tone of "chevere" -- happiness -- among the group throughout the entire trip. And while some of are are looking forward to getting on the plane tomorrow, and while others will deeply miss this place, I think that we all agree that is was a positive experience for us -- not only theoretically, but personally as well -- in our continued preparations for priestly ministry. The only thing that would have made this trip even better would have been the company of our other classmates who, for a variety of reasons, had different summer assignments than the Mission Trip.