We luxuriated in the refreshing breezes while strolling along a beach of fine, white sand.

We spent most of our days lazing in the sun or reading in the shade. During these few days of rest, we let the world float by for just a little longer and more languidly than we usually allowed it to carry us hurriedly along during school time. And many a moment at day’s end, we found ourselves stopping to take in the breathtaking and inexpressible beauty of the sunsets.

During those days, we had time to look at the local sights (both on land and in the water), taste the local food and converse with the local people. In short, we had a delightful time relaxing and resting.

Amidst all this, we continued to live out the fundamental things that make us a religious community, and that so many other Jesuit communities do too on holidays: we prayed and celebrated the Eucharist, as we also gathered together for meals and games, or simply walked under the twinkling canopy of the night, or shared a fruit shake while swapping stories or sang along as someone strummed the guitar.

During this vacation, I realized more than ever before that the real challenge of holidaying as a Jesuit is appreciating villa in terms of our vowed life and mission. This holiday has been formative for me in these ways:

• finding God’s presence in the midst of holidaying. I have learnt that being on vacation can be a timely acknowledgement that this is itself a gratuitous gift by the Giver of all gifts. Being on holiday is an invitation to find God again in the simpler and freer things that already abound where we head off to, be it the people we encounter and the conversations we have with them, or the beauty of Nature that surrounds us, or even the richness of time that we normally find we are sorely bereft of in everyday life.

• deepening my understanding of our preferential option for the poor. What does it mean for me that Jesuits, who claim we desire to serve God in the poor, have the means for a few days of R and R?
  
  This recent holiday by the seaside has taught me that vacations can be opportunities to be in solidarity with the poor and less fortunate. We can do this by vacationing in simpler and meaningful ways, like those who often can barely afford to holiday in places you and I vacation at, let alone have the time or means to do so. This villa awoke in me an appreciation of the riches the poor bring with them when they holiday—the always present abundance of time to rest and the providential and sufficient daily bread to nourish and celebrate life with. But most of all, this villa taught me that the poor are truly rich when they holiday because they relish most of all the company of family or friends they share their holidays with. Likewise, Jesuit villas bring the myriad personalities of our communities together and remind us of this basic fact of all our lives, whether we be lay, religious or priestly: we are first and foremost persons who are always already in the commonwealth of relationships.

• remembering that religious on holidays holiday as nothing more and nothing less than religious. Going on vacation as a religious this time imprinted on me that I do so in no other guise than what I profess myself to truly be—one who has chosen the vowed life. In doing so, I accept that my Jesuit identity is always sacramental, always meant to help other people find the God who gives all that is Good and only asks that we do Good for all humankind by being in solidarity with them in their brokenness, as they too accompany me in my woundedness.

These lessons invite me to interiorize and live them out because they are in grave danger of being forgotten in the consumerist world that religious and priests are inextricably part of. Such a world tells all of us that holidays should be spent in the swirl of self-indulgent pleasure, of spending cash (the more the merrier) by checking out as many local sights in the shortest space of time, gobbling up as much local delicacies as one can stuff oneself with and buying as many local souvenirs as one must. Consumerism’s anthem blares loudly from its ubiquitous and outlandish advertisements: “Just do it! Live it up ‘coz you deserve it!” To be honest, consumerism can be so intoxicating and seductive, even for religious and priests who are as human as everyone else.

May be these lessons I have learnt are part of Ignatius’s wisdom when he insisted that scholastics go on villa: being on vacation is as much about having days to rest and relax, as it can also be a time of continuing formation.

photos by adrian danker, sj

Holidays: these are meant to be days of rest and relaxation, days of just being, if not catching up on the simple pleasures of life. I’m grateful for this respite from teaching in the varsity. These days there is some time to breathe.

However, amidst the holiday things I’m doing, like catching up with friends from the Philippine Province and my own community, reading or watching some videos of films missed at the cinemas this past semester, and just being “lazy” by hanging around and watching the clouds roll by, I am learning something very important about formation work. It is this: as one who accompanies our juniors in their formation, there is always something or other to do, be it going down to visit them during their recent exposure at Navotas, or thinking ahead of new initiatives for the coming year, or even something as ordinary as making time to hang out with them and chat.

In fact, a significant proportion of my holidays has been spent planning the new academic schedule for the second semester of our juniorate programme. Unlike the first semester, it has been harder trying to put the various aspects of the programme—the formal classes in English and Maths, the Humanities and the Aesthetics, even the Spiritual—together whilst trying to best customize this semester’s programme to meet each junior’s needs. Someone commented that it would be far simpler to have a “one-size-fits-all” programme; while this would indeed be simpler and easier, it would not be fair because formation work is about accompanying each one of our men according to their own rhythm of life and faith, and in this way help them to form themselves to the best of their potential. And so, it was indeed tiring—and contentedly right—to spend many a time mulling over the new schedule, as well as meeting the teachers and guest speakers for the various classes, in our efforts to have a better programme for the juniors. Finally, all is in place.

Having said this, I don’t intend to fret about the schedule and how the programme will unfold in the coming weeks. I say this because all we are ask to do in formation work is to simply give our best in our accompaniment by collaborating with the One who is in fact the Master Formattor of us all, the God who calls us into this way of life. He will take care of everything that is the good work He has began. If there is a word that best sums up what I am trying to articulate about being a formattor it is stewardship. As formattors, we have to remember that we are called to be stewards of the vineyard and the nascent but eager workers who come to work in it.

This prayer by Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated in 1980 while saying Mass in San Salvador, captures the idea of stewardship beautifully for all of us, you and I, in whatever we are doing:

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.

Indeed, formation work is stewardship. It is not a 9-to-5 job that I or any Jesuit formattor is called to control and determine. Rather, it is a 24/7 life of Jesuits being and growing together in God's company! Formation work is living a life of accompaniment together with the Master Formattor and one another. Together with God, each of us forms and re-forms one another to become more authentically the Jesuits He calls us to become.

Another way of seeing this is that formation work is a partnership of being. The Jesuit word for the care we are called to have for one another as a community is cura personalis. Formation work is truly cura personalis because what we do for one another, formand (the one being formed) and formattor, is to care for and nurture each other’s vocation and life in the light of each of us being God’s gifts not only to each other and the Church but to the whole wide world.

And so, as our juniorate community prepares to depart early tomorrow morning for a few days of rest and relaxation by the sea this week, our quiet time of prayer that follows and the new semester that begins next Monday, it is indeed right to let go of the new schedule we have planned into God’s hands and let Him lead all of us on, forming us as He wants in His time and ways.

photo by david niblack

Yesterday evening, some of us from Arrupe trooped down to Navotas, which is located by Manila Bay, for a festive gathering hosted by the Pag-aalay ng Puso Foundation (PPF) that coordinated the urban poor immersion for our fourteen juniors and their host families.

With its white beaches, the clean waters of the bay and its almost tropical feel, Navotas was the favored weekend sea-side destination of the well-to-do in the 1960s. This changed during the years of martial law under Marcos. Seeking to escape military skirmishes between government and communist forces in the provinces, the innocent poor fled to Manila in search of livelihood and peace. The only places they could find to establish their homes were undeveloped public spaces like Navotas. And so, they squatted. In time, slums emerged across the city's fair terrain as more poor migrated in search of the good life. The weekend paradise that Navotas was gave way to shanties and pollution. With the passage of time, Navotas became synonymous with abject poverty and rampant crime. The older residents there often speak of their sense of having been betrayed by their fellow citizens as almost nothing was done to care for and develop their life and potential during those difficult years.

After Marcos fell from power in 1986, both government and civil society worked hard to improve the lives of the poor in Navotas. Today, more residents have clean water and proper sanitation, as they also have paved roads in and out of their environs. Their children receive a better education than before; there seems to be the promise of new beginnings for the future generations. Yet, many remain poor as they struggle to upgrade themselves, a struggle I suspect will take many more years for them to rise above their present conditions, which though far better than before remains characteristically depressed because of complex socio-political circumstances and difficult economic conditions.

By being in the reality of life where the poor live and work, we hope our juniors come to better understand our Jesuit commitment to promote faith and justice, especially, amongst and for the poor. Like them, I too spent some time in Navotas when I first came to Manila. My stay there radically challenged me to re-think and re-interiorise what it means to work for the poor as a Jesuit who is called to find God in all things.

I append below a reflection I wrote three years ago upon returning from my time there.

Humbling, grace-filled and affirming are words that come to my mind as I reflect on my time in Navotas.

I stayed with a very, very poor family: the father is an itinerant fish vendor, who often has no fish to sell because of the high cost of buying fish from the wholesalers. There is then little income; as such, they buy what they can afford as and when they need it. Three of their nine children are working; the rest are unemployed. A daughter works in Dubai in the entertainment industry. The eleven grandchildren populate the house; their laughter and good cheer fill the otherwise depressing atmosphere. All around their makeshift home, patched together with wood from discarded crate boxes, are the slums. As I made my way to their home for the first time, I was confronted by the ubiquituos squalor and stench that seem to pervade the environs. A greater shock awaited me: home for the next few days would be one built on stilts above the murky brown and rubbish-strewn waters of the bay.

Theirs is a one-room house. This one space is as much their kitchen and dinning area as it is their bedroom and the children’s playground. Everyone shares the same food, the same floor for sleeping and watching television. The bathroom is rather primitive: a hole that opens to the sea below. You peer through it and decaying refuse and the putrefying stench of decay and body waste greets you. What a way to wake up to! There is no running water; they have to buy it. Often, there’s never enough water to bathe with. Meals were simple and repetitive: fried fish and veggies. Surprisingly, I felt at home, even when I joined them for a beer and some karaoke singing, which I’d never do elsewhere (me sing?!).

I found it painful and disturbing to see and experience their poverty, their hardship and pain, and worse of all, their frustration at the limited, if non-existent, opportunities to live a better life. There seems to be so little hope for them to climb out of the slums and poverty they are in. So much is stacked against them doing better, let alone climbing out of their predicament: an inefficient and ineffective government, a local church that does not seem to have enough muscle and manpower to help, the rich who turn their back on their fellow Filipinos. It broke my heart hearing their stories and seeing their faces.

Yet, I received their love, generosity and happiness; these they shared so selflessly. Finding God in all things. I found him here among these people, not only poor and suffering but marginalized and abandoned. I found God too in simple things mostly, like holding a child, laughing with the people, sharing their simple food, sitting with them to watch Filipino television and watching the breathtaking sunsets over Manila Bay, which for just a little while seem to wipe away all the grime and gloom. How beautiful, peaceful and strangely rich these moments were!

My time in Navotas taught me that I’m indeed poor: I received more than I could give. All I could give was only to share myself. But this seems sufficient for them; to me, they wanted someone to be with them, to be their friend. In times like these, I learnt that all we need give is the gift of ourselves.

I learnt too what it means to be poor of goods and spirit, to have nothing but myself to share, to have no plan or targets to accomplish and to let God lead. Being poor means I have to really open my hands (in Filipino, we call this bukas palad) to our good God and to let him teach me poverty. With poverty comes trust, faith, hope, life’s simple joys and love. Yes, bukas palad means to beg, to ask, to hope that whatever little we get will always be the limitless bounty that is God’s loving providence, not only for me but for the others I’m called to share faith and live life with.

Bukas palad: only then can we begin to live in solidarity with the poor, to have a desire to be with them. In Navotas, I was indeed happy, contended and rich. I felt alive and free. I know I can never and will never be like them, materially poor nor will I have it within me to say, I know what it means to suffer poverty. But now that I know what bukas palad means, I better understand the deeper meaning of my vocation as a Jesuit: it is to come before God with my hands completely open to Him; it is to be grow continually in a spiritual poverty that can only make me more available for the poor. Bukas palad: this radical openness is where my vocation, my vows, my whole being will find its fullest realization and bear rich fruit for the people, not for myself.

If I could, and God grants it, I would like to be bread broken for these poor, and for the many more in the world who long for God but are marginalised, suffering or afraid to let go and let God lead. This is my prayer these days, to be bread broken. I believe this is a meaningful way for me to live my life, and perhaps, to die. My time in Navotas affirmed my vocation; I know what a beautiful thing it is to be called to serve, to lay my life down and just be with—and perhaps, God willing to be like—the poor. Bukas palad, indeed.

Yes, there is indeed a real need for us Jesuits to make ourselves truly available, especially for the poor, the least, the forgotten, and to go to those places that are difficult and that no one else wants to venture to for it is precisely in these spaces that God is there too, crying out for us to be with Him and his people.

Re-reading these lines, I find that what I’d expressed then is truly more real for me today as a Jesuit. They speak too of a greater urgency that we must altogether address to alleviate the poverty so many face and make our world more just.

photos of boys flying kites and a girl with a smile by mark welsh / daily herald