Life at the St. Alphonsus Formation Residence
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord”
—Colossians 3:23
Many of Jesus’ parables speak of work. A landowner leaves his farm to tenant farmers with instructions to work the soil and produce good fruit. A master entrusts talents to his servants with the admonition: get to work and go make more!
God works. Jesus worked (John 5:17). And Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation I calls us “to work together for the coming of the Kingdom.”
St Alphonsus worked feverishly his whole life, and our confrere Assisi Saldanha reminds us that in working for the salvation of people, the sanctification of the members is achieved (“Work,” Lexicon of Redemptorist Spirituality, edited by Sean Wales, C.Ss.R., and Dennis Billy, C.Ss.R.).
Many, if not all of us, come to the Congregation because we witnessed the good work Redemptorists were doing and wanted to be part of it. We want to work for the salvation of souls and the redemption of the poor. Yet the initial five to six years of formation demand less apostolic work and much more in the areas of schoolwork, spiritual work, and relationship work. This can frustrate students.
Yes, our students have their apostolic work. Jesús and Vincent care for the hospitalized and infirm at the Terrence Cardinal Cooke Care Center. Royce and Michael help Blessed Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity feed the hungry and house the homeless. A.J. and Mark break open the work for catechumens, and Trung-Tin and Greg teach children’s liturgy—now that’s work! But this is only for four to five hours a week, while studies dominate and account for 40 to 50 hours a week.
Learning to how to work—and learning a particular Redemptorist approach to work—is an important part of our formation. Cleaning up dishes after dinner, shopping for the community, or clearing snow teaches us not only how to live in community and the idea of co-responsibility but also how we carry out apostolic work through community (Constitution 21).
Each Sunday we pair up to prepare the community dinner. That’s work for most of us! To help us in our work of preparing dinner, we recently took a recreational cooking class at the Institute of Culinary Education on the Lower West Side of Manhattan. What a tremendous experience.
The meal we prepared was entitled the “Puerto Rican Kitchen.” After chef Susan showed us basic knife skills, preparation tips, and cooking methods, we divided into groups of four and went about preparing different parts of the meal.
Our meal consisted of arroz con granules, chicken cacciatore, potato patties with a beef mix, plantains, and the pièce de résistance, el postre de tres leches, made with condensed milk and heavy cream for extra richness, of course.
Piña coladas were also on the menu. Even though chef Susan mandated no alcohol consumption until after all the cooking was done, she relaxed her rule as we got closer to the end and the chefs-in-training became more excited by the prospect of eating rather than cooking.
We had less chicken cacciatore than expected as a few couldn’t contain their appetite and started eating before everything was done, but in the end the impatient fingers were a mere dent in the banquet we had prepared. Who knew that actually following recipes could yield such copious results?
Living and working together help us do both better. Whether going out two by two for ministry or pairing up to make dinner, our doing helps shape our being, and our being shapes our doing.
Theologies or philosophies that divide soul from body distort reality and harm our development as ministers of the Christ, introducing false dichotomies between “personal sanctification” and
external ministries” (Saldanha, “Work,” Wales and Billy, eds.).
Learning practical skills such as cooking also helps us become more self-sufficient and humble, imitating the apostle Paul, who worked so as not to be a burden to others (1 Thessalonians 2:9), and the Lord Himself, who came to serve and not be served.
Who knew that doing so could be so fun—and taste so good!