“There is so much power in gratitude.” – Fr. Ramon Maria Luza Bautista, SJ
WISP OF WISDOM is Art and Prayer in a book and features quotes by Fr. Mon Bautista and the leaf prints of Fr. Jason Dy SJ (cover design and art direction by Fr. Eric Escandor, SJ with foreword by Fr. Kit Bautista, SJ)
Available at:
PAULINES stores nationwide PAULINES
TANGING YAMAN Stores – Jesuit Communications
BLESSINGS COPY CENTERS in UP Diliman and at the Ateneo Professional School (Rockwell) library – BLESSINGS COPY CENTER
Proceeds are earmarked for the Philippine Jesuit Aid Association (for the formation of Jesuit Scholastics) and rebuilding of the Payatas-St. Benedict Chapel Formation Center.
Fr. Bill will turn 87 on February 15 and continues to be spiritual director and confessor to Jesuits, other religious and lay friends. This article appeared in the Windhover, year XVI, Volume 1, 2014.
What am I doing in the Lucas Infirmary? To be succinct, Father Minister asked me if I had given any thought to moving in to the infirmary and said that Superiors were asking this question. I asked for a day to think about it. (Some like to say “pray over it,” but this would be presumptuous for someone like me.) I asked for that day because I was quite conscious of my reluctance which sprung and springs from the realization that this is most likely my last assignment. I knew that the room to which I would be assigned would be my last room. This would be my last assignment.
Yes, I see it as an assignment. People have sometimes recoiled at my speaking of my own death but I think we should be realistic. I’m 84. Not to recoil, but face. So yes, when I told the Minister ok, I was saying that the time has come for me to get ready for death.
Why should death cause much reluctance even to those with faith/hope. You see I love the beauty I’ve seen and heard. That beauty is for me summed up in rose-lipped friends and light-foot lads. There’s more beauty than that but the lads and maids sum it up. Tremendous beauty which I find it hard to say goodbye to. Some day I’ll remember to ask a Shakespeare specialist who “thou” is in the line, “to love that well which thou must leave ere long.” Never to see rose-lipped maidens and light-foot lads again? Take death lightly? “Tut tut” away if your faith is facile. I have fears that I may cease to be.
Of course there is something like fear and shame when I think of meeting the very Lord I want to meet. He can’t be ignorant of my infidelities. Yes, I hope he has forgiven but in the gut there remains this other aspect of death-reluctance. I believe that the Lord is “God and not a mortal” but I haven’t really met him yet. I believe in his compassionate forgiveness but this is belief, not knowledge, much less a knowledge that flows over into the gut. It’s good to keep repeating, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!”
Ever Ancient, Ever New
Is all this too heavy and pessimistic? Of course, but that’s part of being a gael. Mixed with all this is a certain excitement. Augustine speaks of God as “beauty, ever ancient, ever new.” And leads me to look forward to gazing at and possessing unalloyed beauty, the one who really sums up all the beauty I see and hear and feel. For this reason my attitude towards death has changed and is now seen as the passage to a new sort of life.
Some of my thoughts of death are morbid but at base there’s nothing morbid about looking forward to beauty ever ancient, ever new. Recommended is the 13th chapter of Wisdom. What hinders a whole-hearted desire for death is the fact that the things we see are indeed beautiful and we don’t want to leave them. No wonder there’s reluctance to moving to Lucas if death is seen as the loss of the beauty we prize. Thank God there is the expectation, the longing, the excitement in the belief that there is no real farewell to beauty in death. It only seems that way. “…the things that are seen are beautiful.” Moving to Lucas and beyond is not so bad after all.
Diminishment
A few words about diminishment. In the building which housed the Philosophers at St. Louis University in Missouri, the Scholastics had a reference library which was taken care of by a Father McInerney. Father McInerney had a large sign on the wall of that library in Milwaukee English. It’s been hard to forget. One simple sentence, “Ve gets too soon old and too late schmart.”
They tried to teach us wisdom at St. Louis. I suppose most people “paint (their) outward walls so costly gay.” Some things take long to learn. What you are is more important than what you do. We are all more valuable than what we do. But this is hard to learn. God gives us the gift of diminishment so that we can laugh at our folly. We need to come to the realization that there is much beauty in bare ruined branches, dying embers, twilights and sunsets. Diminishment leads us to look for this beauty not just in the flashes of what is produced but in the producer. Then we learn not to paint the outward walls so much as the inner rooms.
It takes a while for us to allow others to hold us so we won’t fall, finally realizing that there is a good chance that old legs will not do the job. Diminishment of mind and body can teach us to get schmart and leave behind much of our convictions of over self-confidence or self-importance. Diminishment has its painful moments but it is also a great gift, a great teacher. It really is refreshing to see the giants of old chuckling at their own silliness and new-found incompetence. And it is good for us to cease to be afraid to drown an eye unused to flow. A good prayer is, “Lord, give me tears of compassion for others. It’s too late for hiding tears.”
Changed, not taken away
Most of the rest of this paper will be on Jesuit life for the aging and aged. Let me hang it all on contemplation, community, apostolate and then poverty, chastity and obedience – the six components of Jesuit life. Jesuit life is changed, not taken away.
Since the next faze of our life will be lived in the ecstasy of gazing at and possessing “beauty ever ancient, ever new,” old age seems like a good time for the transition. The heads of us old men don’t always function well but we can look at sunsets, smell flowers, feel the breezes, taste wines, thrill to music as we look forward to beauty ever ancient, ever new believing in where it all comes from.
We Jesuits are called to be contemplatives. It doesn’t have to be unpleasant contemplation or too heady. Is it too much to ask for a little more prayer? We can spend lots of time remembering in prayerful petition past and present friends and apostolates. And we can pray for and with the other bare ruin choirs we’re living with. Chances of hearing sweet birds sing are not great but whatever value that mysterious petitionary prayer, it still seems to draw us. Of course, all this is impossible if one sees one’s self as one of the great sources of light and life which superiors foolishly removed from the front lines. Yes, it all calls for letting go. Someone asked if Father Arrupe in his well-received letter intended that apostolate be prayerful or that prayer be apostolic. Neither really. He was concerned with the compenetration of both. But the stress here is that our prayer will always have to be apostolic.
Community Life in Old Age
So Jesuit life is not abandoned in diminished old age. It just takes somewhat new forms or emphases. Let’s look at community. As always we will want to build people up, to support them. Here we have an opportunity. We’re living with a group some of whom may need a lot of support. Maybe this internal apostolate will involve more laughter. We bring good news and reasons to laugh (or smile, or grin or at least a cheerful smirk.) Are not our friends in the Lord (or brothers) objects of our apostolate? Are they any less humans loved by God and any less in need of hope than the subjects of our apostolate? Why the discrimination? Someone has said that the members of our communities are our first apostolate.
In a very kindly way I was told by the Minister that I would be free to take many meals in the main refectory. I still greatly appreciate that. However, I should not allow myself to leave my wheelchair platoon too often. One has to be there. Of course, some escape is not a bad idea. But in health and sickness or dying one has to aim at some self-forgetfulness for the sake of others. By the way, ”This seeing the sick endears them to us. Us too it endears.” Or maybe should.
One bit of self-denial that has to be practiced by me is the restraining myself from green jokes. They need an audience that enjoys them. One of our numbers goes from one man to another to ask who our professors were at Woodstock. (Six or seven of the Lucans did time there in the Maryland countryside.) It’s a reminder that far beyond Woodstock we Jesuits have much in common indeed. I find myself reciting to myself: “We clamb the hill thegither,(John)… Now we maun totter down, John, but hand in hand we’ll go, and sleep thegither at the foot, John Anderson my Jo.” Let’s look again later at how community and apostolate should not be seen as far apart. How strange if we feed the beggar at the door but not our house mates.
Continuing Service
And so, to the third essential of Jesuit life, the one that should color them all. I strongly urge the reading of numbers 272 (about illness) and 595 (about dying) where it is clear that aging, sickness, diminishment and the final days of any Jesuit are to be a preaching of the word, an apostolate. I strongly urge letting go but I see that central to our life is apostolic service. Father Higinio Berganza, a Basque Jesuit who spent most of his life on Pohnpei in Micronesia, once came to the superior speaking about his diminished strength and asked to be assigned now to the “ministerium passivum,” a life of weakness, prayer and perhaps suffering. After some conversation the superior gave him that apostolic mission but added that he should be sure to keep going to visit the sick in the hospital until he could no longer do so. After all he was only about 80.
Should all give up all work as they pass a specific age? Why in the world would they? The thirty-five year old Jesuit should be involved in the ministerium passivum and activum but mostly in the active. The man in his 80s might well spend most of his time in the passivum but not all if he still has some strength. This will disappoint those who want precise dates for “retirement”. Virtue is in the middle somewhere. Some work and some withdrawal from work. It depends on the individual. Hopefully he will listen to his friends and superiors so that he may “let go” when the time has come. He may retire in some cases from forms of ministry but all his life will be an apostolate even for us who are senile. We still smile at our fellow infirmary inmates. We take seriously praying for the church and the society. Our fellow sick are still our apostolate.
I wonder if it is always clear to our men that their moving over or out can consist in great apostolic service. I also wonder if it is clear that there is nothing particularly pious about unexamined hard work or being in the way. No one is saying here that all work must stop but it may be reduced or the form may change. God does not exact day labor light denied. He may call for labor, but not the labor of a blind surgeon.
I would recommend some projects involving apostolic things that a man can do. I would be grateful to Pina and Liza* who call me for light work. Maybe we should look for other Pinas and Lizas besides, but always people who know our limitations. In it all, make sure there’s laughter at least no glumness. After all we remain apostolic men and men who are at least somewhat excited about the coming meeting with beauty ever ancient, ever new.
Poverty, Chastity and Obedience for the Diminishing
The living of poverty seems difficult for some men but it becomes easier for the diminishing. Once a man decides to let go, he has nothing. He is no longer holding on to his empires and treasures. He loves his body (at least as it was), his memory, his intellect but we can hope that he has learned to let them slide away in the Lord’s good time. He has memories of great accomplishments but he may have learned not to be a laudator temporis acti. He has had many little deaths in the past. Maybe moving into Lucas is another one. Maybe he’ll get good at dying with enough practice. Some might be sufficiently embarrassed by having the health care of the wealthy but let the embarrassment lead to trying to save the money of the Society and the poor as much as possible and allowed. I know a man who has been required to give up a cherished life’s work when he has lots of energy for a superior job. This is the kind of poverty I have in mind here.
Then there is chastity. This is a time for being more loving and for increased availability to people. Some loneliness? Of course. The 40 year-old celibate feels this as much as the 80 year-old one. No need to be a D.O.M. but encouragement of the young might be one’s big contribution in old age. It might be good for the wrinkled to tell young Jesuits not to give their heart away. “Tis paid with sighs a plenty and sold for endless rue.” And tell them that they don’t have a license to break the heart of another. There will be “time” for gazing at and possessing beauty ever ancient, ever new.
Obedience is now more to doctors, nurses and care-givers than to superiors looking for men to send on mission. But it’s the same obedience. You who are getting older or more sickly, please realize that superiors have a hard job. Resolve not to make it harder by resisting the assignment to the infirmary. I say assignment and I mean it. All of our assignments should be taken with a certain joy or something like that. Don’t do as I did. Don’t wait until you’re told. Listen, ask. Be available for this mission. Get out of the way. Don’t hold on.
We say we don’t want to be put on the shelf but there really is no shelf. We remain men on a mission. There is work to do. So, in the aged or diminished Jesuit life is not taken away but only changes.
This paper was requested by Fr. Jose Quilongquilong, Rector of Loyola House of Studies. I have a feeling that this is not exactly what he wanted. As I look over it, it is too autobiographical. At the same time a sociological, psychological, theological approach would be beyond me. I am limited to my experience. Joe Q doesn’t know of my allergy to writing.
Last April 28 to May 1, 2014, Fr. Herbert Schneider, S.J., PJAA’s Executive Director, attended the meeting of the Development Officers’ Jesuit Conference in Asia Pacific (DO JCAP), held at Kingsmead Hall, 8 Victoria Park Road, Singapore.
The JCAP Development Officers gathered in Singapore from 28th April 2014 to 1st May 2014 for their annual meeting.
We welcomed Fr. Hyung-chul SJ from Korea Province, Fr. Vincent Dinh SJ from Vietnam Province and Karen Goh from JCAP who joined us for the first time. We shared our experiences of being development officers in our provinces, regions and missions. It was important for us to listen to one another on what we have done and the challenges we faced. Listening, sharing and learning from one another were a big part of our meeting. Fr. Jorge Serrano SJ from Rome joined us for the meeting. Workshops for budgeting, newsletter, goals & priority, communication and emergency relief cooperation were conducted. We felt very much like a community of JCAP development officers in our time together. Fr. Herbert Schneider, SJ from Philippines province has been elected to be our coordinator. During the days of our meeting, we were treated with delicious Singapore food. The lay collaborators from the organizing committee gave wonderful logistical support during the meeting. We are grateful to them.
(Fr. Weng, former Editor-in-Chief of the Windhover, was ordained last April 14, 2012 and was missioned to Zamboanguita, Malaybalay City, Bukidnon.)
I put my helmet on, strap my elbow and kneecap pads close, lug my backpack at the rear and jump into the motorcycle waiting to speed me away to the next barrio Mass several kilometers away from the Jesuit convent in Zamboanguita. An hour or so of driving along alternately rocky and muddy roads brings me to breathtaking scenery of mountains and hills, the meandering Pulangui river and rice and cornfields of green and brown. Intermittent rains make puddles on unpaved roads while the wet wind chills my skin. I have to hold my breath while crossing hanging bridges, careful not to lean on either side lest I plunge into an engorged river below. Where the motorcycle cannot travel, my companion and I brave the river using a bamboo raft to cross to the other side. A group of wide-eyed children of an indigenous tribe sheepishly wait for us at the chapel. Thus begins a day in the life of a newly ordained priest.
Several weeks after my priestly ordination, I am still not used to being addressed as “father.” When someone asks how it feels like to be a full-pledged minister of the Church, I invariably speak the words overwhelming, joyful, grateful and humbling though these adjectives do not come close to describing what I really feel. I once described during a sub-community Mass that I felt like a young groom lost in the melee of events surrounding the ordination. Now, I know full well that something has fundamentally changed yet I am just beginning to make fuller sense of what that gift is all about and what it demands of me. There are times when I wake up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror, asking the person looking back at me whether the person who entered the Society of Jesus eleven years ago is the same as the present one who has received a wholly undeserved gift.
I say Mass in a language I could barely speak to a people whose culture and tradition are strange to mine. I hear the confessions of pious ladies who seem not to have done anything seriously sinful and I head meetings of lay leaders to talk about ways to increase participation in Church activities. Giggly teens and curious children approach me to receive priestly blessings. Life is so simple here. But people are mostly happy despite the poverty all around. Some school children leave home at 3 a.m. to walk to school. Though some would have a packed meal for lunch, a good number come with empty stomachs. The same goes for the alagads (servant leaders) from the different chapels. I am still, therefore, making sense of how utmost beauty and extreme poverty could co-exist side by side, such that it almost becomes a travesty.
Then I look at myself and ask what I can positively contribute to make peoples’ lives a little less painful and a little more bearable. I do not have discernible talents of which to be proud, I lack skills with which other pastors seem to teem. How can I possibly give these people something they can latch onto? Something to verify what we unabashedly proclaim in the pulpit: that God is great, generous to a fault, merciful and all-loving? Then I realize that I am asking the wrong question. It is not so much what I can accomplish in so little time. Because if this were all just me, I will achieve very little. Rather, it is how I allow myself to become the gift that God can use to pour His blessings upon his people. In that way the undeserved-ness of the gift of ordination becomes truly, meaningfully and powerfully a life-changing gift — for me and for the wide-eyed children, the giggly teens, the persistent lay leaders and yes, even the pious women of the village.
Botika sa Kapilya aims to improve the health care delivery system of very poor, marginalized families living in the Upper Pulangi, a rural area of Bukidnon Province, as well as other areas. The program, through Fr. Tex Paurom, SJ, addresses acute medical illnesses (injuries, infections and the like) by providing medical diagnoses and medicines with the Church, as a base station. Hence, the name, Botika sa Kapilya.
Treatment and medication for these families who live very far from health centers, can be quite expensive since they have to travel to Malaybalay city to get treatment and buy medication.
Consider these costs in 2012 for two persons ( the sick person and a companion) in the table below:
Fare 70 pesos x 2 ways x 2 persons
Php
280
Multicab fare from bus terminal to the hospital
40
Consultation Fee
500*
Food for two persons (breakfast, snacks, lunch)
250
Laboratory Fees—500-1000
750**
Prescription Medicine
1250***
Total
3,070
*Php 300-500, **Php 500-1000, ***Php 1000-1500
Fr. Tex, has shown that we can reduce health costs by situating the Botika within the infrastructure of the Church. He elaborates further in an interview conducted by Windhover in 2012:
“Windhover: How does this system work? What services do you provide?
Doc Tex: Botika is designed to complement and collaborate with the health related efforts of the Local Government focusing on poor residents of rural areas – with special emphasis on the Indigenous People — not regularly accessed by the local health units. The program primarily aims at responding to their acute medical health care needs by empowering Chapel based volunteer health workers in managing simple acute medical conditions and, within their felt competence, institute interventions using medicines in the medical box which our program provides.
Thanks to communications technology, a licensed physician can easily be consulted by the trained, locally-based volunteer health-worker using mobile communication.
The economic impact of an acute health condition can be staggering to a family with no budget for health (as the case for most Filipino families!) As we know, health and poverty is very much intertwined. Providing them BotikasaKapilya will eliminate at least half the necessary expenses involved with treating acute medical conditions (e.g. transportation, consultation, and food costs) and can help alleviate their current economic difficulties.
Windhover: What are the challenges and difficulties for such a program?
Doc Tex: Sustainability is the word that is put at the end of every sentence regarding this program. The health workers need to be empowered. This implies 4-6x seminar training per year.
One of the most challenging things also is the actual operation or management of the Botika. We arestill experimenting drug pricing schemes that will make the program both sustainable and affordable to the needy. However, since this is a charitable program, I instructed that in emergent or urgent situations, the Medicine Box is “opened”(payment to be discussed later.) We know that this will result to bad debts and easily depletes the small capital, thus the need to regularly subsidize the Botika system from funds from generous benefactors – but this is a small price to pay for providing medical care that can at times save lives and prevent already poor families from sliding into tragically desperate conditions.
The medical box containing 3,000-5,000 pesos worth of medicines is loaned to the chapel. The chapel owns it. The Empowered Health Worker manages it and gives status reports to the chapel officers during their monthly meeting. So far I continue to infuse capital into the Botika to keep supplies coming. (Thanks to very generous benefactors).
Windhover: Speaking of benefactors, how is the program currently being supported? How can readers of the Windhover (friends of the PJAA) help?
Doc Tex: Currently, the pilot phase of this project – involving the residents of upper Pulangi under the parish of Our Lady: Mary, Mediatrix of all Grace – is funded by the J. Homer Butler Foundation of Staten Island in New York, to whom we are terribly grateful.
But already we are seeing the possibility of replicating the project throughout the Diocese of Malaybalay. Bishop Jose Cababntan, DD is very supportive of the project and is keen to see it spread. Currently, we are generating and collecting data for study and analysis. The aim is to come out with a template that can be applied to other areas with same context as upper Pulangi.
Already, other Jesuits like Fr. Ogie Cabayao,SJ of Cabanglasan and Fr. Mat Sanchez, SJ of Miarayon are asking if this program be extended to their parishes. Plans are underway to start a “soft” opening in their parishes. And so any further support from individuals and groups will be most welcome.
Windhover: How much does it cost, more or less to get the program going in a chapel?
Doc Tex: We are doing the numbers now and tracking expenses (given that we have not been in operation for that long). But roughly the cost of sponsoring the start-up for one chapel amounts to around only PhP 10,000. This would be enough to cover for the medicine box and its contents, a basic medical kit (with Sphegmomanometer, Stethoscope, weighing scale, thermometer, tape measure and Journal). Around P5,000 can cover for the training needs of several chapels for the entire year. This would mainly be transportation fare and food expenses for the participant health workers and resource persons. And Php 3,000 will be enough to fund the cost of mobile communications of one Botika , making on-call volunteer doctors accessible to the health worker via celfone for at least 6 months.
Windhover:What other things have become crucial to the success of the program?
Doc Tex: One thing is the “infrastructure” that Catholic Parish-Chapel system provides. This is a stable structure through which we regularly reach far-flung communities on difficult terrain. If a community, no matter how far flung, is part of the Parish-Chapel system, this means that they are regularly visited by a priest or Church worker. These visits are what this program maximizes for the distribution of medicines and regularity of communication. In this system is also the trust and indigenous knowledge that has been key to a successful start.
Creativity in maximizing local resources would be second. And lastly, compassion. Over and above the competence and experience of the volunteer doctors and health workers, the awareness of the context and being in the know of the situation in rural areas, and the ability to empathize, although a tall order of qualities of the back-up physician, spell a great difference.”
Reference:
Paurom, Tex. MD. SJ. “Botika sa Kapilya: Frontiers in Health Care”, Windhover. 3 .2012: 32-36. Print.
VATICAN CITY – The following is the text of the Vatican’s official English-language translation of Pope Francis’ Easter Sunday “Urbi et Orbi” (Latin for `to the city and to the world’) read by him in Italian from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Dear Brothers and Sisters, Happy Easter!
The Church throughout the world echoes the angel’s message to the women: “Do not be afraid! I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised . Come, see the place where he lay” (Mt 28:5-6).
This is the culmination of the Gospel, it is the Good News par excellence: Jesus, who was crucified, is risen! This event is the basis of our faith and our hope. If Christ were not raised, Christianity would lose its very meaning; the whole mission of the Church would lose its impulse, for this is the point from which it first set out and continues to set out ever anew. The message which Christians bring to the world is this: Jesus, Love incarnate, died on the cross for our sins, but God the Father raised him and made him the Lord of life and death. In Jesus, love has triumphed over hatred, mercy over sinfulness, goodness over evil, truth over falsehood, life over death.
That is why we tell everyone: “Come and see!” In every human situation, marked by frailty, sin and death, the Good News is no mere matter of words, but a testimony to unconditional and faithful love: it is about leaving ourselves behind and encountering others, being close to those crushed by life’s troubles, sharing with the needy, standing at the side of the sick, elderly and the outcast. “Come and see!”: Love is more powerful, love gives life, love makes hope blossom in the wilderness.
With this joyful certainty in our hearts, today we turn to you, risen Lord!
Help us to seek you and to find you, to realize that we have a Father and are not orphans; that we can love and adore you.
Help us to overcome the scourge of hunger, aggravated by conflicts and by the immense wastefulness for which we are often responsible.
Enable us to protect the vulnerable, especially children, women and the elderly, who are at times exploited and abandoned.
Enable us to care for our brothers and sisters struck by the Ebola epidemic in Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and to care for those suffering from so many other diseases which are also spread through neglect and dire poverty.
Comfort all those who cannot celebrate this Easter with their loved ones because they have been unjustly torn from their affections, like the many persons, priests and laity, who in various parts of the world have been kidnapped.
Comfort those who have left their own lands to migrate to places offering hope for a better future and the possibility of living their lives in dignity and, not infrequently, of freely professing their faith.
We ask you, Lord Jesus, to put an end to all war and every conflict, whether great or small, ancient or recent.
We pray in a particular way for Syria, that all those suffering the effects of the conflict can receive needed humanitarian aid and that neither side will again use deadly force, especially against the defenseless civil population, but instead boldly negotiate the peace long awaited and long overdue!
We ask you to comfort the victims of fratricidal acts of violence in Iraq and to sustain the hopes raised by the resumption of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.
We beg for an end to the conflicts in the Central African Republic and a halt to the brutal terrorist attacks in parts of Nigeria and the acts of violence in South Sudan.
We ask that hearts be turned to reconciliation and fraternal concord in Venezuela.
By your resurrection, which this year we celebrate together with the Churches that follow the Julian calendar, we ask you to enlighten and inspire the intiatives that promote peace in Ukraine so that all those involved, with the support of the international community, will make every effort to prevent violence and, in a spirit of unity and dialogue, chart a path for the country’s future.
Lord, we pray to you for all the peoples of the earth: You who have conquered death, grant us your life, grant us your peace!”
Source:
Associated Press. April 20, 2014.Pope’s Easter Message ‘Urbi et Orbi’. Fox News. Retrieved from: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/04/20/pope-easter-message-urbi-et-orbi/
I met Jesuit priest, Jaime Bulatao, Fr. Bu or Pabu to his students, during my freshman year as a Psychology major at the Ateneo de Manila University. When he was introduced to us during the Freshmen Orientation Seminar as the founder of the Ateneo Psychology Department, I told myself then that this guy must really be ancient enough to have that stature as a founder! To my surprise, he was a cheerful gray-haired priest who welcomed us to the Department of Psychology.
As we toured our home department, I noticed that he had the strangest room in the faculty area in the Bellarmine building. I used to wonder why his things were always in disarray until I was told how he preferred to keep his place that way because he would not be able to find what he needed if they were organized in another way. It wasn’t long before I got to know Fr. Bu as there was no way any psychology major would miss him in the department or along the halls of Bellarmine. It was a treat to be invited into his room full of books across a wide-range of topics and novel items not to be found elsewhere. He was always excited to show curious students like me his new finds from Quiapo — from rods of different shapes, to crystal balls of all sizes, and to what looked like anting-anting or amulets. Soon, I met his dwende friends who lived along the Balete tree along the Bellarmine sidewalk. Best of all, he enjoyed taking me on a “journey” through what I would later on learn to be “hypnosis.”
Inside the classroom, Fr. Bu was a teacher who demanded much from us but gave much more of himself. During my undergrad years, I had him for History of Psychology, Independent Research and Hypnosis. During my graduate years, although I did not pursue Counseling or Clinical Psychology, I took a class in Abnormal Psychology because he was the instructor. As always, he animated his students with a great deal of stories and trivia, and challenged us with exams that required much critical thinking. He was very open about discussing anything that interested us in class, as long as it was related to our discussion. However, he made it clear from the very start that he could not stand noisy students who disrupted the flow of the learning in class.
Once, during a lecture class in History of Psychology, I found myself chatting with my seatmate. Fr. Bu was always nice to me, thus, I never thought I would ever get his ire for what I thought was a casual conversation with the guy seated next to me. We sat across the teacher’s table and before we knew it, Fr. Bu threw a chalk at us to interrupt what must have appeared to be a more engaging discussion between two students right in the center of the classroom. Fortunately, the chalk did not hit my face but I got his point and never dared to do the same thing in any of his classes again.
He also expected us to come to class prepared to participate and contribute our thoughts or insights. He said he did not want to waste his time talking to himself as students sat passively in his class. Many of us took note of this but there was this one time when no one appeared to prepare or have the energy to participate in class. It must have been one of those hell weeks during our senior years when we could hardly keep up with our mounting requirements. Fr. Bu attempted to ask a few questions but no one offered any reply. After a few minutes, we were all surprised to see him pack up his stuff from the teacher’s table and walk out on us in the middle of the class! He remarked that it was absolutely pointless to go on with the course with a bunch of zombies. It was the first time Fr. Bu was known to have walked out on a class and we felt truly at a loss for words and strategies to get him back into the classroom that day or in the succeeding days. The class then decided to send one of our female classmates, known to be ever calm and sweet, as our emissary to apologize for our non-participation and persuade Fr. Bu to return to our class. He did not return to our class that day but in the succeeding days when he was finally convinced to resume our class, we knew we had to do our part in the learning process if he were to stay with us. Fr. Bu modeled and challenged us to make the most of every learning opportunity.
I have known Fr. Bu for more than half of my life. More appropriately, I guess, I should say that he has known me for more than half of my life. Fr. Bu has seen me through my undergrad and graduate studies, through my marrying and un-marrying years, and through the challenges of my parenting and teaching years. As always, he was unconditional with his support for me in whatever I decided to pursue but was uncompromising in his desire for excellence. When I decided to leave my post at the Ateneo to join a pioneering effort for sport psychology in the country, many did not think much of my decision, except for Fr. Bu who expressed excitement over what he recognized as breaking ground at that time. Through the years, as my study and practice in the field intensified, he continued to encourage me and would proudly introduce me to his friends and students as “the great sport psychologist.” It was always humbling to hear him say that of me but it certainly gave me a great boost of confidence to pursue the field and eventually, specialize in it. He always asked about the athletes under my care and even met some of them to share much of what he did in hypnosis that aligned with mental training for competition. Before I knew it, some of them looked forward to my sessions, not because of me but because of the opportunity to see Fr. Bu! Indeed, Fr. Bu never ran out of generosity, even if his physical energy was already running out.
Much has been said and will be said of Fr. Bu as the great mentor to generations of psychologists. Fr. Bu is all that and more. He is more than all that because Fr. Bu has embedded himself in countless lives through the generosity of his heart and soul. If we try to figure out what drives one man to do all that he has done and be all that he was to many of us, we would certainly come to the conclusion that he must have drawn all that energy and inspiration from some Unlimited Source that can only be God. Indeed, Fr. Bu was truly and foremost, a man of God.
[ I wrote this essay for Fr. Bu last 22 March 2010 for a book on him but it never made it to print so am sharing this on the occasion of his 90th birthday 22 Sept 2012]
From Fr. Jack’s FB page, on this 90th Birthday, last January 16, 2014.
On a typical day, Fr. Jack would be sitting in his room reading a book on Kindle or reading and answering emails on his desktop. On a non-typical day, even though his cardiologist tells him that his heart is now only 20% functional, he would make the effort to attend a meeting or an event of an organization with which he is affiliated, to keep himself updated about their work or to give encouragement to a friend who may be giving a talk. Fr. Jack continues to connect with friends, former students and colleagues through Facebook and email. They virtually keep him company in his room as their happy faces light up the screen of his computer in a slideshow of photos that evoke not only memories of happy occasions but also the feeling that so much love surrounds the life of this 90 year old Jesuit.
Before successive surgeries forced him to work from his room at the infirmary, Fr. Jack was the constant presence at the Institute on Church and Social Issues (or ICSI, and renamed John J. Carroll Institute on Church and Social Issues in 2007), a research-for-advocacy NGO which he co-founded with Fr. Ben Nebres and Bishop Francisco Claver in 1984. Before that, Fr. Jack was the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Jesuit-run Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Except for those years spent at the Gregorian and in the United States studying theology and sociology, Fr. Jack has lived and worked in the Philippines since 1946 when he first arrived in the country as a 22-year old Jesuit scholastic from Orange, New Jersey.
He taught at the Ateneo and not a few well-known people would claim to be his student. At age 80 he was still teaching a graduate course on social change and development issues. He instilled in his students not only knowledge of social science theory and practice but also the value of service to the nation and to the poor. Many know Fr. Jack for his incisive and thoughtful newspaper columns in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, his excellent sociological essays and political commentaries which appear in various Church and academic publications. An observer of Philippine society and politics with a keen sense of history, his opinions and reflections are highly respected within and outside the academe.
For all his accomplishments that would easily impress the equally accomplished, Fr. Jack is simply the smiling, gentle tatay to many young and not-so-young men and women who have received help through him for their educational, nutrition and health needs. For more than twenty years, Fr. Jack had been saying mass in Filipino in Payatas, Quezon City and ran a feeding and scholarship program there. Up to the present, teenage boys and girls are among his dear friends who would visit him at the infirmary and share with him their stories of struggle and triumph.
He is also tatay to his former colleagues at ICSI where he mentored young professionals many of whom went on to work for service-oriented organizations in the country and abroad. Through the years he has kept in touch with them, continuing to comfort them in times of personal difficulty and crisis, and celebrating with them their victories, whether big or small.
Friends who visit him at the infirmary will always be greeted with a welcoming smile that never fails to convey how much their presence is appreciated. When they leave, they come away with gratitude for knowing this man who by his life has shown how it is to faithfully love and serve the Lord with joy.
In John 5, Jesus cites the testimonies of John the Baptist, His own miracles, His Father’s voice and the Old Testament as verifications of His identity. On the day of Pentecost, Peter cites the many witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection.
Scientists adopt a similar principle in their quest for greater understanding.
Just as an Old Testament judge required multiple witnesses, scientists look for multiple sources of evidence. Our understanding is considered robust when scientists have found independent measurements all pointing to a single, consistent conclusion.
On the question of global warming, natural witnesses are found in our climate. Warming is directly measured by thermometers scattered across the globe, which find that the two hottest years on record were 2005 and 2010.
In addition, we have many natural thermometers painting a similar picture. Icesheets in Greenland and Antarctica are dissipating at an accelerating rate, shedding hundreds of billions of tonnes ofice every year. Scientists are observing tens of thousands of species shift toward cooler regions. Arctic sea ice is melting faster than even the worst-case predictions. Even tree-lines are shifting in response to warming temperatures.
To properly understand what’s happening to our climate, we must listen to all the witnesses and consider the full body of evidence. The consonance ofevidence paints an unmistakable picture of a warming planet.
How do climate skeptics respond to the cloud of witnesses for global warming? By denying the full body of evidence. A common claim is that we haven’t seen warming over the last 15 years. To do this, they ignore the witness of the icesheets, the testimony of shrinking glaciers, the evidence of shifting seasons and the inarguable fact of rising sea levels.
Selective cherry-picking occurs in arguments against climate action. There’s a Yiddish proverb that states “a half-truth is a whole lie”.
To say climate action in Australia won’t have a global impact underestimates our country’s significance. Australia is one of the top 20 carbon emitters in the world (we actually come 16th). While the world’s countries as a whole extract 19% of their electricity from clean energy, Australia is lagging behind with only 7% of our power coming from renewable sources. Consequently, Australians emit more carbon pollution per person than any other developed country.
The crux of climate change for Christians is the poorest, most vulnerable countries are those hardest hit by global warming.
The poor are least able to adapt to the impact of climate change and ironically, have contributed least to it. The carbon footprint of the poorest one billion people on the planet is estimated to be around 3% of the world’s total footprint. This is the social injustice of climate change: poor, developing countries will suffer because of the fossil fuels emitted by developed nations.
We are commanded to love our neighbor. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus defines our neighbour as those who are in need. In the parable of the sheep and goats, Jesus describes the key characteristic of His followers as those who help the poor and needy.
To Jesus, the weightier matters of the law are justice, mercy and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23), echoing the Old Testament command “to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). Justice is an important biblical theme.
In Amos 5, God condemns the society that oppresses the poor and deprives them of justice. To a society (or a church) that tolerates injustice, God says “I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me”(Amos 5:21).
Climate change adds another dimension to who our neighbour is. What we do impacts others. Our pollution contributes to global warming which affectsour global neighbours. This is unjust.
God requires that His people oppose social injustice and open their hearts to the poor and vulnerable.
For the church to turn a blind eye to the injustice of climate change is to turn our back on God’s heart for the poor.
Cutting down our fossil fuel pollution has become part of the mandate to love our neighbours. We must pray and campaign for justice in a changing climate. We need to support action on climate change and look to reduce our carbon footprint.
