From Sunday’s first reading: “Up, Jerusalem! stand upon the heights; look to the east and see your children gathered from the east and the west at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that they are remembered by God."

San Miguel has 419 graduates. Sometimes, when there are a lot of alumni around, or during graduation season, I imagine them a little bit like Baruch describes them in the first reading: all gathered into the gym or back basketball court, celebrating or reliving their time at San Miguel, and, hopefully, thankful for us.

From Sunday’s second reading: “I pray always with joy in my every prayer for all of you, because of your partnership for the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus."

But I am also grateful that I was privileged to teach so many of them, or even any of them. They are remembered in the alumni corner of our chapel, where they are entrusted to the prayers of San Miguel Febres Cordero, as well as by so many of us because of how they touched our hearts in their devotion to God and our community, just as we touched their hearts and minds through teaching. I am confident that they will share this mutual love throughout their lives.

From Sunday’s gospel: “John went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah: A voice of one crying out in the desert: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.'"

But we cannot stop with the alumni. We have students on board, and more coming. I cannot imagine that John the Baptist’s mission was easy, just as ours is not. There are always those who are difficult to reach, will not do work, or have life difficulties that present obstacles to learning. Often times, it can seem as if we are the sole voice crying out in a vast desert. Yet that is our calling: “[John the Baptist] said, therefore, that he was only a voice crying out in the desert . . . The same is true of those who instruct others. They are only the voice of the One who disposes hearts to accept Jesus Christ and his holy teaching. . . Pray God to impress all these truths so firmly in you that you will have no occasion to be or to consider that you are anything . . . but the ministers of God and the dispensers of his mysteries." (De La Salle, Med. 3.1, 3.2)

No matter the difficulties, let us so pray this week, especially as we work with those who need us most, those who need us so that they know that they are “remembered by God."

Live, Jesus, in our hearts!