Ready to serve

The WORD in other words (2009) by Fr Florencio Lagura SVD – New Jersey, USA

Holy Thursday / Commemoration of the Lord’s Supper – Paschal Triduum

Everyone in the Seminario del Verbo Divino at Cizur Menor, Navarra fondly called him “Enrique.” However, he was no ordinary member of the religious community. A topnotch scholar, a grizzled missionary, an excellent teacher, and a compassionate formator.

Fr. Heinrich (Enrique) Heekeren, SVD, showed the youngest members of the community that, like our Lord, as teacher (actually professor of exegesis) and master (prefect of scholastics), he was ready to serve.

For example, after the community meals, he would lead a gang of volunteers to the kitchen to do the dishes thereby giving the kitchen help a much appreciated rest from their hard and hot work.

Years later, when he got elected as SVD superior general, Fr. Heekeren—still Enrique to many—regularly did his share of humble service for the community, more often by doing the dishes for them.

When the first disciples, notably James and his equally ambitious brother John, were jockeying for choice positions in the earthly kingdom they envisioned under Christ, they triggered a fierce resentment from the rest of the apostles. Jesus calmly and wisely taught them a complete reversal of human aspirations and worldly values, for he taught them that in order to be first in the heavenly kingdom, one must be ready to serve the rest. To be the greatest, one has to be ready to be the last.

For today’s success-crazy corporate world, such setup is unthinkable. As one bishop wisely notes, the rewards of Christ-oriented organizational scheme are “way out of this world.”

Fr. Enrique had inspired to no end his fellow religious missionaries with his monk-like humility and simplicity. When he fell ill, he stayed in a hospital ward and forewent the comfort and luxury of a private room. He now rests peacefully in the community burial grounds at Nemi, Italy.

While the founder of the SVD, St. Arnold Janssen bears the title of “pater, dux et fundator” (father, leader, and founder), Fr. Enrique as the Eigth SVD superior general is fondly remembered as “pater, servus et magister”(father, servant, and master).