"PORMA!"

I have been away from this blog a long time.  And there has been a lot of angst boiling up in me.  One of these is the anger I feel for “PORMA” priests. 
PORMA actually means “form” in English.  We usually used this word when we were in the minor seminary against some who wore the latest fad in fashion, walked as if they owned the world, acted as if they knew a lot of the world, but can never answer a simple question in class, flunks the simple tests, or even makes the best form before kicking a soccer ball and totally misses it.  PORMA.  Puro PORMA.  Yes, all form... no substance. 

Being here in Japan for almost 13 years, I feel like an impending volcanic eruption in my heart is about to happen against these PORMA priests, both here and those I see in the Philippines.  A lot of PORMA.  
Facebook allows me to see the world of some priests and those of others who are friends of friends and other friends.  Honestly, I am more impressed by those who are branded as “Traditionalists”.  Their uploaded pictures are always about their life as priests.  They are dressed as priests.  If ever they are in their casual clothes, you see them doing things that even children can appreciate.  Their status updates have sense, call for some thought or reflection, and even give information that can enrich your faith.  

As for the others.  Hmmm....  They say nobody has the right to judge others.  Yes, I dare not judge.  I am just here to express the impressions that come to me when I see their uploaded pictures and their status updates.   I see the status update of one priest and I immediately come to doubt if ever he was really aware WHO and WHAT a priest must be.  I see the uploaded pictures of this and that priest and only the word PORMA comes to me. 

Oh I did have my PORMA days as a young priest, too!  As a new priest, I felt I had something fresh to bring to this world.  As a newly arrived missionary priest here in Japan, I was aware I was bringing into this country the joy and active lifestyle of this “new generation” of priests from the Philippines!  I knew that eyes were on me.  I felt it was easy to become popular, especially in the circle of Filipinos.  You get to rub shoulders with the people whose status make you rarely see them in personal if you were in the Philippines.  I thought that the Mass has to be done in “performance level”.  Facial expressions, voice projection, and a stack of jokes and vocabulary for sermons mattered so much, I thought.  I was dressed well.  With a meager allowance, I was able to save and buy good clothes.    The only thing I was conscious of was that I should not look “baduy” (ill fashioned).  I am not handsome nor cute at all, but, just being a priest makes you become “handsome” or even “cute” to some.  You can actually feel it.  

The rise of awareness on the Tridentine Mass -- now, more properly called the Extraordinary Form of the Mass -- and the release of “Summorum Pontificum” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summorum_Pontificum)  by Pope Benedict XVI got me knocked out of this “porma world”.  Of course, a big chunk of this “reawakening” is the realization that despite the growing popularity that I was coming to have (even among the Japanese Catholics in the diocese) I was still (and am still) a very sinful person... weaknesses that were cheated by false consolations of fame and good reputation.  I just felt I just needed to be PRIEST.  No... not just in the heart.  This PRIESThood needed to be felt by this being who has five senses, too.  I had to see myself as a PRIEST.  I had to feel myself as a PRIEST.  I had to smell that fabric characteristic of PRIESTs.  I had to hear myself being a PRIEST.  

I stopped singing in public (except if it is a prayer in the Mass).  I dared not join any dance.  I had to be firm not to join any of those parlor games that promoted physical contact.  In picture takings, I did not allow anybody to touch me.  If people have to realize that PRIESThood is such a holy thing, I had to start on it myself... acknowledging my being human and at the same time knowing it had to be “apart” from the usual thoughts of the world.  Yes, this body... this self.

It is hard.  It is hard when you have already crossed the line of being “like one of the rest”.   It is hard to come back to the very ideals you held dear in the very first days of seminary or in the very first years wearing the Cassock or the Roman Collar.  Sometimes, I feel like removing this white thing in front of my neck when I am in a public transportation.  Sometimes, I feel lazy wearing the cassock.  But I have to fight it, in God’s grace.    Usual Catholics may say, “Then, don’t wear it.  Lots of priests don’t wear it anyway.”  Yet, it’s like telling a policeman not to wear his uniform, or a married person not to wear his/her wedding ring.  Ah yes... I did not become a priest to become an “undercover” witness of the Gospel.  I belong to the more obvious category.  In some way, I do not need to open my mouth to tell people that I am a “Man of God”.  
Rather than be “like the rest of the guys”, rather than do things that even the usual men down the streets can do even in their sleep, if a priest just stays on BEING A PRIEST... he does not need to do any PORMA at all!

(... and the ranting goes on....)