1. Last Saturday evening, I caught up with Yoht, Joseph and Paul, scholastics with whom I began my Juniorate studies three years ago. There we were, from four different countries, sharing our journeys in Jesuit formation as a peer group over Black Forest parfait, Iceberg Dazzle and other sweet concoctions at Icebergs, a legendary local ice-cream shop in Manila.
    We began our juniorate studies with thirteen scholastics divided into two peer groups. Over the years, our groups have witnessed scholastics come and go; some have now moved on to regency or other Jesuit schools for study, whilst a few have returned to the lay life. Now, we are four in our peer group, each of us at varying stages of study and formation. Whenever we gather, we remember our past companions fondly for being part of our life at Arrupe.
    In our Arrupe community, Jesuits are divided into peer groups that gather twice a month to pray and to share about our experiences of life. Once a month, we go out for a movie or a meal; sometimes, we enjoy both. These times offer us more than a respite from studies; they are graced moments to share in each other's life and faith journeys and help one another integrate the spiritual, vocational and academic that is part of our lives as scholastics.
    Laughter and goodwill filled the night as we kwento-ed about the happy and good we enjoyed and the challenges we faced this past month. Every now and then, the intriquing wonder of what lies ahead for each one of us in God’s greater scheme of things found us immersed in hopeful reflection. A warm camaraderie enveloped our communion for the body and the soul that rainy evening.
    Like my good and cherished friends I’ve known for years, my Jesuit friends—of whom Yoht, Joseph and Paul are but a handful of treasured relations—walk with me daily. They are there for me in good and bad times. They are friends I confide in, share a joke and a cuppa with, if not regale one another with the stories of our lives. Every now and then, we ponder about life, philosophy and faith. And, when the need arises, as it always does, we collaborate to respond to the marginalized and less fortunate who only ask to be listened to, treated with compasssion and dignity, and uplifted. They inspire me, as they also challenge me to live my vocation more faithfully and to stay the course. In our friendship, we affirm one another. Together, we help each other discern God’s will as we prepare for future ministry. Indeed, my Jesuit friends remind me that it is possible to have meaningful and life-giving friendships in religious life.
    More than anything that Saturday evening, I savoured most the blessing of being happy and contented among fellow Jesuits, friends in the Lord.
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  2. Whilst browsing through our university's Rizal Library two mornings ago, I chanced upon Scott Cairns' poetry in a collection he has published as Philokalia. Amidst his many delighful poems, I providentially found this.

    Promise
    Someone is to come, is now to come.
    -- Derrida


    "When the Messiah comes," we mumbled as we pore
    over our knotted and confused translation. Should
    we listen we may hear with a blush that begins
    in the breast and rises, and seems even to reach
    the responsive leaves of the fringe tree overhead.

    The responsive leaves of the fringe tree overhead
    fly back as if breathed upon, but that is surely due
    to the first gust of the gathering storm approaching,
    so we are not inclined to make much more of their
    quick flight than that, though we many wince under the new

    compunction--the common failure to make more. How
    often and how clearly must we say these words
    before we finally hear them, and their weight reveals
    what mute hope they must have harbored all along,
    and without our notice, which we only now set down?

    These lines speak to me, especially as I teach a class in Philosophy of Religion at our Jesuit university here, the Ateneo de Manila. Together with my students, a key strand I explore in class is the continuing relevance of God and religion for the human person in our present postmodern culture. The more I read as I prepare for class, the more I work on the curriculum and lecture notes and the more my students, people of today's world, share, the more I'm beginning to appreciate that postmodern thought--several elements of it, thank heavens--can indeed offer us ways for a realistic and meaningful encounter with God as God really is, Totally and Wholly Other, or, as Derrida describes, the tout autre.

    This has led me to reconsider seriously the oft-maligned arguments that postmodernity is dangerous as it corrupts and erodes religious belief, a sentiment expressed in the line, "believers are safer the further they are from postmodernity." The irony is that we do live and move and have our being in this postmodern world. Should we then not try to appreciate its posible contributions towards strengthening our religious belief in God and making us better practioners of religion today?

    Reading Cairns' poem, I detect a subtle message for those of us who are presently engaged in philosophical dialogue with postmodern thought as we seek out possibilities for humankind to continue thinking and speaking about, if not, also encountering, the Holy in our present reality. It is this: let us return to those misunderstood, if not silenced, texts of the masters of postmodernity and re-read them, once again, with openness and humility, for it is quite possible that even there, God speaks prophetically.

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  3. Last week was a moment of grace: Greg, my youngest brother, was in town for a few days on business. Amidst our busy schedules, we managed to spend some time together.

    Like true-blue Singaporeans, we caught up over meals, each a communion where we shared family tales and news from home. In our sharing, we nourished each other's life. We also found time to partake in the things we do and the spaces we inhabit respectively: he joined our community at Arrupe for the Eucharist and supper on Thursday evening and I visited him at his workplace in Ortigas. Whether over pasta or pad thai, a walk through the leafy, verdant Ateneo campus to gaze upon the Marikina Valley at sunset or sitting in his room at The Peninsula talking, we shared in the palpable joy of being family again.

    In all of these, we affirmed the bonds that make us brothers, make us family. Indeed, as Greg and I "kwento-ed" (Filipino for telling stories), laughed and pondered about the future during the brief time we had, I felt much gratitude not only for Greg but for all in the family, especially, as the distance and time apart since coming to Manila has not withered but strengthened our shared ties even more.

    As I pen these lines, I’m reminded that being part of a family is truly blessing and gift. For some, however, the experience of being family is painful and terrifying, even worse, non-existent. But, I'd like to believe that there is always a moment or two--many more, for us fortunate ones--of much goodness, care and love, as there is the promise of happiness, especially when difficult times abound and disappointments deflate one’s spirit, when one is together with family.

    I can’t help but attribute what we are as family today—so often both nuclear and extended in our particular circumstance—to so many who have come before me, from our great-grandparents to Mom and Dad to my aunts and uncles. They have all nurtured “family” as they religiously convened the family together for anything and everything, from great-grandma’s birthday celebrations to evening walks along the old Changi Beach, and thereafter for dinner at Millie’s to Christmas celebrations.

    Today, the tradition continues. I hear about our family gathering for an impromptu meal at Ivin’s or a lazy, Sunday afternoon tea at my sister and her hubby’s. I’m regaled with the family’s amusement (and frustration too) of being stuck in terrific after watching the National Day fireworks at The Cricket Club and of the amazing discoveries of new eateries in Yishun and Jurong East that my brothers, the artist and the coporate VP, take Mom and my aunties to every now and then. Indeed, it is heartwarming and re-assuring to see my siblings keeping this good family practice alive.

    Yes, it is always good to have family around.

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  4. As Jesuits, we can be sent wherever there is a need for God's work to be done. This is the reality of my saying "yes" to God. And though it is possible that I can be far from Singapore on mission as I am now, I will always call Singapore, home.

    Home is where our families and friends inhabit a shared space where our own rituals define us, giving us meaning and identity. In this space, each one is free to be independent, to explore the myriad possibilities for our existence and to become the people we can become.

    Those who came before us carved out of a little red dot that definitive space where we realize ourselves as Singaporean--one people, "regardless of race, language or religion," working together for our "happiness, prosperity and progress" as a nation. Today, so many of us--at home and abroad--continue this good work that God began.

    Nation is home because this is where families and friendships are the bedrock on which we root ourselves as the persons and citizens we are. Nation as home is that tent in which we rest ourselves along life’s journey, as it is also that place of assurance we seek in the face of life's challenges. Nation as our home is nothing less than our natural habitat where we are loved and we love. No matter how strained relations may be or the global situation looks to descend into chaos, we can find in this space the necessary affirmation of our being human and Singaporean.

    More signifcantly, however, the goodness we are blessed with as our nation and home cannot help but remind us that all things good and beautiful, even those that challenge and disturb us, that we have received in the fullness of our time as a nation, was enabled by more than finite, human hands and minds working together. All we have received is simply gift from the One who first gives in gratuitous love.

    And so, within this space we call home, we can begin to relish the reality that Love abounds, nourishes and leads us forth into the future with hope.

    Happy Birthday, Singapore!


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  5. As a regent, my primary task is to coordinate the academic studies of Jesuit scholastics in a stage of formation called Juniorate. Having recently taken their vows, Juniors prepare themselves for university studies, in particular Philosophy, here in the Ateneo de Manila. A subject I teach our Juniors this semester is Orality and Texts.

    In Orality and Texts, we discuss a film we watch each Thursday evening when our Juniorate community recreates together. As we discuss the theme and plot of the film, as well as its characters, we reflect on it in terms of being human and Jesuit, of having faith and doing ministry. The Juniors then write a reflection paper, wherein they try to integrate their feelings and thoughts about their own life or faith or being Jesuit in the light of watching the film.

    Among the films we have watched thus far are: Dead Poets' Society (where we shared about learning and discovering oneself), Lost in Translation (where our discussion focussed on adapting to a new environment), Chocolat (where we reflected on the tension between having religious belief and living it out as Christians) and Big Fish (where we asked the question, "how much am I today a result of my family's narrative of life?").

    Last Thursday night, we watched A River Runs Through It. It is based on Norman Maclean's memoir of his growing years in Montana.

    Robert Redford's film tells a heart-warming story of life and its rhythms, the passage of time and growing up. It is a portrait of family relations, as it is also an insightful study into the person one becomes because of choices made. The film is truly a cinematographic delight to watch: the colours, the scenary, the play of light on the waters as the brothers Norman and Paul and their father go fly-fishing are breathtaking. As always, a lyrical musical score enhances the beauty of this fim, and Mark Isham does wonders on the soundtrack.

    Watching this, I found myself awed by the hauntingly beautiful Montana landscape, itself the canvas against which the human drama of the Macleans plays itself out. Such was my experience when I caught it for the first time at a screening in Unley Park, Adelaide in 1992.

    The film, told by Norman, whose voice leads us through the unfolding narrative, ends with him, mature, greying and alone, fly-fishing as twilight descends on a darkening canyon. All that remains of his family are their memories, memories that seep into the larger, more mysterious remembrances of things past yet very much part of his soul:
    Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
    And so, as the twilight descends, Norman's final words speak of all becoming one in the story of life each of us writes, as it is also a story written by others of us.

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  6. Remember this little ditty we used to sing in our childhood?

    In these days of seemingly unceasing rain here in Manila, I find myself humming it often. The wet, dreary days and colder evenings (for the past week and a bit) have temporarily put a stop to the morning sing-song of the birds that greet us at dawn and my evening walks, if it has not literally shut out the sunshine each day! But, for some in our community, the rains are welcomed, even celebrated: this wetter clime brings with it a refreshing coolness that ends the hot, humid nights of summer.

    For the many poor in rural and urban Philippines, however, these days of typhoons and depressions bring the wet, cold rains, as they also unleash floods and landslides across the country. Some lose their homes; others, their livelihood. The unfortunate ones lose everything in death. Many fall sick; the weaker ones will fade away. And while the children play in the rains, oblivious to the problems of health, sanitation and safety that will slowly but surely arise like the rising waters, the adults anxiously await the end of this seasonal period of pain and suffering, an all to common sight and experience each year, from June to August.

    In the midst of all this, though, the poor keep hoping. As one of them reminded me during my urban poor immersion in Baseco (a poor urban squatter area in downtown Manila), the rains bring rejuvenation, a sense of things starting anew, like the parched lands thirsting for water. After the rains, the grounds will be fertile, the grass will be green and life will resume again, and the sounds of children will echo throughout Baseco, not as shrieks and hoots from playing in the cold wet, but as those quidditive songs and laughter so charateristic of happy and fancy-free children, for whom life is always a merry-go-round of unbelievable goodness and innocent joy, even with the seasons changing.
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"Bukas Palad"
"Bukas Palad"
is Filipino for open palms
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Peace and welcome, dear friend.
I hope you will find in these posts something that speaks to you of the God who loves us all and who always holds us in the palm of his hand. Blessings!
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Fall in Love, Stay in Love
Fall in Love, Stay in Love

"Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute way final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."

Pedro Arrupe, sj, Superior General, 1965 - 1983

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is a 50something Catholic who resides in Singapore and works for the Church. He is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
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The views I express in these pages are personal. They do not speak for the Society of Jesus or the Catholic Church.
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