Subject: Introduction to the Old Testament

Professor: Fr. Manuel Montesclaros, S.J.

Student: Anthony Le Duc Tho, CMF

A Theological–Spiritual Reflection on How Covenant Implemented by My Parents and How

I Respond to God’s Covenant to Live My Vocation As a Consecrated Person

We as human beings understand and have different concepts between the word covenant

and promise. Being Christians, we understand the covenant in a profound way, that is, “the

covenant is ratified in a solemn ceremony that involves a reading of the covenant document and

eating and drinking.”1 In the covenant, each side will receive some benefits and must also carry out

some duties. In this Theological–Spiritual reflection, I would like to focus on how my parents

respond to the covenant that God had marked in their hearts and then my respond to the covenant

when I took during my first profession between God, His people and I through the witness of the

Church with her people and through my Congregation.

Recalling on sweet and bitter memories that my parents told me and connecting to what I

learned from our class on the Old Testament, I realized that my parents are truly faithful to keep

their covenant at least in two levels: first is between God and they, and second is between they and

I. I was born out of their plan, but surely God has a plan of salvation for me from the day I was

formed in my mother womb. I do believe that they did not give up and break their covenant that

had sealed before God through the Church and God’s people during their sacrament of marriage.

It was difficult for them to take care of me and bring me up because I was born one month

ahead of time. They were sad and unhappy when they saw me very small and weak. However, they

did not lose their little hope in a Provident God, who is merciful and compassionate, had sealed a

covenant with them. Instead of letting me be, they had tried all their best to fight for my life, a life

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Class-note, The Covenant Principle: Testimony from Scripture and Tradition.

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was very fragile and was in danger. Thanks be to God and to my parents’ endeavor so that I was

able to survive as I am of today. That is a gift of God for my family.

Being born in a business family, I know very well that my family has many times to sign

contracts with our partners. However, if things are not good and matched with the contracts, the

partners can return the goods or void the contracts and my family could be fined. Seeing that, I

connect to my own case. If my parents didn’t want to follow the covenant when I was born, they

could already do something with me as their business partners had already done to them.

Nevertheless, my parents did not consider me as a goods or a contract. They love me with their

whole being as they want to keep their own covenant and they also want to keep that covenant in a

loving and concrete way as they had responded to the covenant between God and them.

Implementing the covenant in our daily is not easy at all. Based on my parents’

experiences, I understand that they have been sacrificed a lot for their covenant. They did not

flinch from taking the most difficult moment of their life in order to keep their covenant alive by

showing their love to their children. Their covenant requires many other promises that they must

keep with tenderness, warmness and affection from the beginning until the end of their life. For

example, there were many challenges and difficulties happened with them but I know that they are

able to stand still to keep their covenant through God’s Providence and their own love and effort

that come from their inner strength.

I am grateful to God for giving me loving and caring parents who faithfully keep their

covenant. I am proud of them because they have been given me the best from the day I was born

until now. My five siblings have followed my parents and they are successful in their life. In my

case, I know that the first time my parents give freedom to me to choose which life I want to

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follow. I mean here, is that, my parents had already chosen career for my five siblings. They also

chose career for me as a businessman (I have studied four years in college) but when I tell them, I

don’t want to follow that career. They change their mind and give me freedom (to get this freedom,

I spent two years to pursue patiently) perhaps I am a special one in their eyes or from the

beginning they have given me all the best and they still want more for me.

Being a consecrated person, I must take or seal a covenant or an oath between God and me

through the Church, God’s people and my Congregation. As a newly professed, I am happy and

eager to carry out the covenant that I professed. In order to keep that covenant alive and based on

my experience of my parents’ covenant, I must be faithful to the covenant through my

commitment, community, and especially through the sacraments.

I remember that my first profession was celebrated solemnly as my wedding with the

Bridegroom Jesus. Standing before God’s people and the representative of the Church, I took and

swore an oath to be faithful with my covenant in order to offer my whole self to God through the

service of the Church to God’s people and through the community where I live. Through a process

of mature discernment, I have decided to take the covenant with God so that I must responsibly

and tenderly carry it out until the end of my life not only temporary.

Community is a good place for me to bring my covenant into practice because the

community is the representative of the Church, God’s people and my Congregation. Community is

a place to welcome and to help me grow in faith, love and hope. Especially, community is a place

where I am able to live fully my covenant and to show my love, an equal love without

discrimination, to everybody even if they are Catholics or not.

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 One of the significant means to keep my covenant alive is the strength of the sacraments.

My covenant will be meaningless when Jesus Christ is absent. My faithfulness to the covenant will

be affected when I don’t have a close relationship with Him and don’t connect to Him who is the

main source of my life. The most important sacrament is the Eucharistic sacrament because Jesus

wants to stay and unite with me in order to help me to keep faithfully the covenant through His

covenant - the Blood of the New and Eternal Covenant.

Nowadays, I am living in a consumerism and instant world so that to keep the covenant is

very challenging for me. From that perspective and my own experience, I will talk about the

challenges of being faithful to the covenant in the level of my family and community. Indeed, I am

proud of my parents who have faithfully kept their covenant to do the best for their children.

However, sometimes they also found difficulties to keep their covenant. For instance: As doing

business, their daily life has many kinds of problem. One time I heard the serious quarrelling of my

parents and they said to one another that their covenant or promise is just as a contract which they

sign and seal everyday with their business partners. It was serious that they have separated and my

mother went to her mother house around one week. After one week, they reconciled again but I

realized that the identity of being Catholics has spiritual strength to keep them safe not to break the

seal of the covenant.

For me as a consecrated person, sometimes I also face the challenges and difficulties to

keep my covenant in order to be faithful to my commitment to God’s people. With the idea of

being given whatever I need and want in my family, I know that I am so attached to material world

so that it hinders me freely to deny everything to follow Jesus closely to serve His people,

especially the needy. Individualism also affects to me. Instead of doing as a community, I prefer to

do things alone rather than with other members. When I do things, I want to receive honor or

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recognition from people rather than I do things out of love. All these things are against the

covenant I took during my first profession, that is, to follow the example of Jesus closely to

proclaim the Good News and to love others tenderly. In the level of the community, we also have

our commitment to do our apostolate service as our covenant to God through people. However, the

division among members is affecting to our service because our ego is high so that we cannot

surrender to find a common voice that all members are united in one heart and one soul to carry

out our commitment. We are also facing the ism of touch me not because if you don’t touch me, I

will not touch you or otherwise many unexpected things will happen.

Loving Father, thank You for giving me loving and caring parents who faithfully keep their

covenant to bring me up even though I was not their initiate plan. Lord, thank You for saving me

when I was a small child and thank You for giving my parents hope in order for them to have

inspiration to take care of me. Lord, thank You for giving me the gift of life and making a way

when it seems no way for me in my early life. Lord, thank you for giving me this vocation and

inviting me to take and seal a covenant with You to serve Your people even though I am not

worthy and I have weaknesses and limitations to carry out the covenant in my daily life. Lord, I

believe that when I took the covenant, I already know that I am Yours and You are mine.

Therefore, You will never let me alone. I always feel You are there in any decision and

discernment I make in order to be faithful to the Covenant. Lord, please give me faith, hope and

tender love so that I can overcome my own limitations and weaknesses to discern Your Holy Will

when I carry out the covenant in my daily life.