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.
