Writing in the Dust: an Ash Wednesday homily

Next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday. I want to share a homily I preached at the Ateneo de Manila Loyola Schools five years ago. The references to the the invasion of Iraq, to the bombing of Bali, and to the situation in Mindanao are somewhat dated, but sadly, not completely out of date. The images I have attached are marvelous iconic depictions of the harrowing of hell. Jesus descends into hell: he enters the most Godforsaken, loveless, desolate of places, to draw the most hardened and hopeless human beings into the light, freedom and joy of God's presence. This, for me, is the meaning of Lent.


A very fine theologian, named Rowan Williams, who was recently made the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, has written a difficult and disturbing book, a slim volume entitled Writing in the Dust, After September 11. On September 11, 2001, Williams was a few blocks away from the World Trade Center, preparing to record a few talks on spirituality. He was interrupted, as you know. He describes the scene after the explosions:

When we finally escaped from our building, it was quite hard to breathe normally in the street: dense fumes, thick, thick dust, a sort of sandstorm or snowstorm of dust and debris, large flakes of soft grey burned stuff falling steadily. In the empty streets, cars with windows blown in, a few dazed people, everything covered in grey snow. (Writing in the Dust, 9)

Later he explains why he entitles his book Writing in the Dust. It was, he writes, because of the “sheer physical recollection of that dense grey atmosphere in the streets, the soft fall of ash and paper, the gritty, eye-stinging wind. All that is written here begins in the dust of the streets that morning.” (Writing in the Dust, 77)

Dust. Ashes. What Williams tells us about dust makes what we will do in a few moments even stranger than usual. Consider: All throughout the year, we busy ourselves cleaning and for some, whitening, our faces. Astringents, facials, papaya soap, appointments with our “derma” are part of our vital “life support systems.” And yet today, we consciously dirty and disfigure these precious kutis porcelana faces of ours. We will allow ourselves to be smeared with ashes, with dust. And dust that is not just the sign of dirt, or of generic mortality. Rather, as Rowan Williams suggests, in this world of ours after September 11, after Bali, after the madness of the bombing in Davao yesterday, dust that is the symbol of violent death, of the destruction and desolation of this crazy violent world we live in. What is the meaning of our strange behavior? Three things, I believe. With these Lenten ashes, we confess. We promise. We hope.

First, we confess. We live in exceedingly dark times. The world teeters on the brink of a calamitous war. Here at home, town halls are burnt, markets and airports are bombed, and 200,000 left homeless in Mindanao; violence—the violence of murder, kidnapping, rape, abuse--is everywhere, in our streets and in our homes. Today, we confess. The ashes of on our forehead are our humble, sorrowful acknowledgment that the darkness of the world we live in is rooted in the darkness of our hearts. Today we acknowledge that, in the end, it’s not the fault of the MILF or of Saddam or Bush or the Abu Sayyaf or Al Qaeda. Today we say, in the end, it is our fault. This is not mass masochism, communal guilt tripping, just plain honesty. Today, we refuse to evade responsibility, to point fingers at someone else, to find convenient scapegoats, to practice our Filipino cultural expertise in palusot. Violence and intolerance, cruelty, pride and utter self-preoccupation: all these are in our hearts and have produced the bitter fruits of this dark world. Today, we confess, we face the truth of ourselves.

Second, today, we promise. “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel,” the priest or deacon will exhort us, as he smears our foreheads with the ashes of truth. As we receive the ashes then, we will pledge ourselves to the inner journey Jesus invites us to in today’s Gospel, the threefold pilgrimage of fasting, almsgiving, prayer. Fasting: not just dieting, but struggling to give up things and patterns we are addicted to, so that we journey from enslavement to our disordered desires towards freedom. Almsgiving: not just giving an occasional coin to the beggar knocking on your car window, but sharing our very selves with the poor and the suffering of the world, so that we move away from suffocating self-absorption to compassion. Prayer: not just prayers, but the daily, bit-by-bit, more-and-more opening up of our inmost hearts to the boundless love of God, so that we journey from frightened isolation to the communion and solidarity that knows I am a beloved child of God and all others my brothers and sisters. Today, we promise. We know that the world is not changed by the brute force of arms, but by the power of those whose spirits are made new. We refuse to remain paralyzed by the self-pitying powerlessness that says hindi ko kaya, ganito na talaga ako, di ko na kayang magbago. Today, we pledge to move on, one small, faltering, but real step at a time.

Third, today, we hope. Rowan Williams, at the end of his book, tells us a second reason why he calls his book Writing in the Dust. Once, Jesus was present when violence threatened. A group of bloodthirsty religious leaders drag a woman caught in the very act of adultery, ready to stone her to death for her sin. When the accusation is made, and Jesus’ approval is sought for the shedding of blood, he does a strange thing. He writes in the dust. Why he does so has been debated by scholars for centuries. But one meaning of his writing is simple: Jesus stops, he pauses, he gives people time to think, to reflect, to hesitate before they carry out the killing. And when he lifts his head, there is release, there is freedom, there is peace. (Cf. Writing in the Dust, 78)

Today, it is Jesus who will write in dust once again, this time on our foreheads. And he will trace in ash the shape of a cross, his cross, the sign of his own violent death, which he met with and transformed by his mercy and forgiveness, the sign then of God’s inexhaustible mercy and forgiveness that alone can make us new. “Now is the favorable time! Now is the day of salvation!” St. Paul cries out as ambassador and spokesman of God in our second reading today. God’s now is not that of an angry teacher giving an arbitrary deadline. Rather, it is the impatient importuning of a lover saying Sige na, ngayon na, bumigay ka na, hwag mo na akong pahintayin, a passionate lover who can no longer wait to be with his beloved, to give his beloved all he can give, all the life and love and peace that he is. Thus we hope. We do not place our security in the transient treasures of this world that can buy many things but cannot transform the death and darkness inside us. Rather, we place our ultimate trust in the passionate mercy of God, which will overcome all obstacles, will make all things new, as it did when it raised Jesus from the dead.

Last Sunday, while at dinner with my family, two nieces, one fourteen, named Sam, the other almost four, named Danielle came up to me. “Uncle Boonie (for that is what they call me),” Sam said, “Danielle has something to say to you.” “What is it darling?” I asked as I embraced her. “Uncle,” Danielle began shyly and then gained confidence, “NO TO WAR, YES TO PEACE!” She then started going around the table, telling all her uncles and aunts, “No to war, yes to peace!” My brother said to her in response: “You know what that means Danielle? That means you stop fighting with your sister!” We all laughed, but that was a moment for us. Of such humble beginnings is peace made.

Brothers and sisters, in a few moments, the ashes will be blessed and our foreheads marked. What we do may seem laughably insignificant in the light of all the darkness that threatens our world. And yet, perhaps, too, from such small beginnings, is peace fashioned. For today, we confess our sin; we promise to seek renewal; we place our hope in the boundless mercy of God in Christ. May our Lenten journey bring forth the peace of the Lord for us, for our world and for our time!


Daniel Patrick Huang, S.J.
March 5, 2003
College Quadrangle
Ateneo de Manila University

50 Years of the Philippine Province: a homily

On Feb. 3, 2008, the Philippine Province of the Society of Jesus will be celebrating its 50th anniversary as a Province. In solidarity with the Province, I share here a homily I preached on January 1, 2008, at Loyola House of Studies.




This coming February 3, 2008, in the middle of GC 35, we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Philippine Province. The Philippines had actually already been a Province for more than a hundred fifty years before the Suppression, from 1605 to 1768. The Jesuits returned to the Philippines in 1859, and for 99 years, first under the Aragon Province, then under the New York-Maryland Province, the Philippines was a Mission, then a Vice-Province. On February 3, 1958, the Philippines regained Province status, with Fr. Francis Clark as its first Provincial. Fr. (later Bishop) Federico Escaler was Socius.

This morning, I studied the Province Catalog of 1958 and was struck by how much has changed. First, they had large numbers of Jesuits in 1958, large numbers of young Jesuits. There were 487 Jesuits connected to the Philippine Province, either as members or applicati! (Today we are 316). There were 64 theologians studying in Woodstock. (Today we have 18 theologians). Among the first year theologians were Tom Steinbugler, Si Reyes, Jim O’Donnell, Terry Barcelon and Francisco Claver. The second year theologians included Pepe Arcilla, Nick Cruz, Mon Mores, and Sim Sunpayco. Joe Dacanay and Rudy Valdes were among the third year theologians, and Frank Glover and Joe Roche among the fourth year fathers! There were 34 philosophers distributed in the three years of philosophy studies in the now defunct Berchmans College of Cebu. (Today we have 19 philosophers). Among those philosophers were illustrious names like Pepe Bacatan, Bert Dy, Ernie Javier, Wally Ysaac, Onie Pacana, Roger Haight, and Ruben Tanseco. There were 21 novices in Novaliches (today we have 14), among whom were Bert Ampil and Ting Samson. Also in Novaliches were 18 brothers, and 27 juniors (compared to our 5 today), among them Loloy Cuerquis, Mat Sanchez, Chito Unson, Ben Sim, and Ben Nebres. And among those in special studies at that time were the young priests Catalino Arevalo, Jaime Bulatao, Serge Su and Roque Ferriols.

The second thing that struck me were the apostolates we had that we no longer have. We had many more parishes than we have today. Bukidnon was still part of the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro, under the Jesuit archbishop James T.G. Hayes, and Jesuits manned more than 25 parishes in Misamis Oriental and Bukidnon, as well as in Zamboanga del Sur. We had two schools that no longer exist: the Ateneo de San Pablo and the Ateneo de Tuguegarao. And on foreign mission, we had three Jesuits in the Vice-Province of Indonesia, Joe Blanco, Gus Natividad and Sammy Dizon, and one, Rudy Fernandez, in Japan.

The third thing that struck me is how the Province has grown in fifty years. Our institutions have certainly grown. For example, in 1958, Xavier University had 2026 students and Ateneo de Zamboanga had only 953. Today, Xavier U has more than 15,000 students and AdZU has close to 7,000. Ateneo de Davao, with only 1677 students then, had only 43 lay teachers; today there are 910 extern teachers serving more than 14,000 students. At that time, Xavier School, Sacred Heart in Cebu, and Santa Maria in Iloilo were not under the Philippine Province (which they are today) and there was as yet no Loyola College of Culion. In 1958, there was no Loyola House of Studies, no Loyola School of Theology, no CIS, no Emmaus, no ICSI, no Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary, no CEFAM, no UGAT, no PJPS, no ESSC, no SLB, no Jesuit Communications, no Jesuit Retreat Houses in Cebu or Malaybalay. The only Social Apostolate institute was the ISO, under Frs. Duchesneau and Hogan; today, there are the 26 Institutes in the SJSA network. There were no Philippine Province Jesuits in East Timor, Cambodia, Myanmar and China, as there are today.

These, of course, are only the most obvious changes. There have been deeper, more profound changes, that we should perhaps reflect on during the course of this fiftieth anniversary year. In the fifty years between 1958 and today, we experienced, among other things, the renewal and upheaval of the Church in Vatican II; the re-discovery of the Spiritual Exercises and Ignatian spirituality; the recognition of the human and the psycho-emotional dimensions in formation; the emergence of nationalism and the drive to inculturation; the radical reorientation of our mission by GC 32 which called us to the undivided service of faith and justice; Fr. Arrupe’s prophetic refocusing of the mission of Jesuit education in his famous man-for-others speech; the broadening of our horizons by GC 34 which called to see lay people as full partners in our ministry.

Tonight is not the time to reflect on those changes and their implications for us today. May I simply invite us to do two things at this Eucharist. First, I invite us to offer thanksgiving. In the first reading, we hear the beautiful benediction the Lord entrusts to Aaron and his sons for the blessing of Israel. “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace.” Surely, we have experienced these blessings as a Province in the past 50 years. The Lord has kept us, and despite our many faults and defects, he has gifted us with sufficient numbers, excellent men, apostolic creativity and effectiveness, a spirit of freedom and openness, and a good community spirit. I have been consoled constantly by the affirmation I receive from other major superiors, about the gifts of expertise, leadership, and spirit that this Province has been blessed with, and which we can share with others in the Church and the Society. I remember during our last session of the Coetus Praevius, when we were discussing issues of formation today, one of the European members of the group said something to this effect: we Jesuits can be so critical of ourselves, yet, the truth is we have good formation--not perfect but good. In that same spirit, tonight, we can say, after 50 years, we have a good Province, not perfect but good, and this because of God’s unfailing graciousness and mercy.

There is a second invitation I would like to make, and it is to pray for a special gift for our Province in the coming jubilee year. I can best explain what that gift is by sharing an experience. Last November, we ended our work as the Coetus Praevius for GC 35 with Mass in the rooms of St. Ignatius in the Gesu. We shared our thoughts and feelings after more than six weeks of working together to prepare for the Congregation.

I was most struck by what the President of our Conference, Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, shared. As I recall, he said something like this. He had come earlier to the Gesu, to meet an old friend, a Spanish Jesuit who had been many years in the ministry of formation. And that Jesuit asked Nico a question that disturbed or at least challenged him. “Nico, do you think that Jesuits today have more spiritual depth?”

That question was specially poignant to me, hearing it asked in the rooms of our father Ignatius, who, was a man of profound spiritual depth. In those rooms, Ignatius worked very hard indeed, laboring over the Constitutions and dispatching numerous letters dealing with the practical details of governance of the Society. But in those rooms too, Ignatius was deeply present to God. In those rooms, he offered the Eucharist marked by abundant tears of devotion and reverent love. From those rooms, he gazed at the stars. There, Ignatius stood before God in complete defenselessness and availability. There, Ignatius encountered and surrendered himself ever more completely to God, in God’s reality, mystery, majesty and love. From that profound encounter and interior union with God flowed all the freshness of energy, creativity, generosity and joyful daring of the early Society.

Spiritual depth: would those words accurately describe Jesuits of the Philippine Province today? We are hard workers, gifted and dedicated apostles, scholars and professionals, but perhaps because we are so few, and the challenges so many and important, there may be a temptation to an overwork that makes us insufficiently attend to the primacy of our relationship with God and friendship with Christ. I say this with much hesitation; I have no right or competence to judge any man’s inner life. Perhaps, I speak thus, because I am describing myself and the call that I feel is being made to me.

But, tonight, contemplating the figure of Mary in today’s Gospel, keeping all things in her heart, reflecting on them, making space for God’s word to deepen in her, we might pray for the gift of spiritual depth, or at least, a renewal in the spirit for this Province. This year, we shall seek to help foster this spiritual renewal, by scheduling Province Retreats on the themes of GC 35. The point is, whatever new challenges and calls the Congregation will present to us, we shall not able to respond to these directives with Ignatian freedom, creativity and joy, if we do not become more deeply united to and surrendered to God.

Enough said. The coming two years promise to be exciting: the General Congregation, a new General, our fiftieth Jubilee as a Province, the 150th anniversary of the return of the Jesuits to the Philippines in 2009. Let us prepare for the new things of God by thankfulness and deeper attention to the life of the Spirit. Happy New Year to us all!

Home is Medicine Enough

When I look back over the past four years, I realize that I have not felt as sick as I feel now. "Sick as a dog," is, for some reason, the phrase that keeps coming back to me as a description of my present situation: fever, sore throat, aching joints, throbbing headache--the usual symptoms of flu. I suppose I should be grateful if this is the "sickest" I have been in a while.

What's interesting is the way so many of us here in Rome have been getting sick. In the past weeks, the Provincials of the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany, and Bohemia, among others, have been downed by the flu. (I told the Provincial of Bohemia that I blame him for my present illness: we sit beside each other in the Aula, and for three days last week, I was exposed to his germs!) This week, it's the turn of the Chinese: John Lee Hua, the delegate for China, and myself, have asked to be excused from the General Congregation sessions. Jojo Magadia has developed a bad cold. And yesterday, when I was brought to the infirmary by Joe Quilongquiling, Fr. Kolvenbach was ahead of me in line to see the doctor! Either the things we are discussing are making us sick, or, more scientifically, the recycled, stale air of the Aula is circulating disease among us.

Yesterday, our very kind Ambassador to the Vatican, Tita Nida Vera, sent over Tinola and Tortilla (along with cherries, oranges, Oreos, shortbread, and real Filipino rice) to the curia for my lunch. She had heard from Joe Q. that I have not been eating, so, in her typically motherly way, she sent all these goodies to coax me into eating. And coax me they did. I was very struck though by the way Joe explained to an Italian lady employee of the curia why the ambassador had sent food. "When you are sick, home is medicine enough." It sounded better in Italian, but Joe was absolutely right.

The Day After the Election

THE DAY AFTER THE ELECTION: Some Reflections



Today is a day of the rest after the intensity of the days preparing for the election of the new General and the emotionally charged day of the election itself. There is so much to be thankful for.

Murmurationes

First, I am deeply grateful for the experience of murmurationes. For four days, from Tuesday to Friday this week, the electors held one-on-one conversations with one another about possible candidates for General. It was a remarkable experience. There was no campaigning or attempt to lobby for a “bloc” or for “interest groups.” People spoke calmly, honestly, carefully, and respectfully, about others or about themselves. We made lists for ourselves of possible Generals and sought to prioritize them, but these changed constantly, as we listened to input from each other. For me this was very telling. No one came with a set idea or a candidate. While we may have differed in what we emphasized in terms of ideal qualities for the new General, what one sensed was a deeply free search for God’s will, ruled only by a love for the Society of Jesus and its mission, and a desire to discover what would be for the Society’s truest good and its more effective service to the Church and to the world.

In the process, I heard about many exemplary Jesuits, and met many of them too. We were obviously only searching for one man, one General; but it was deeply encouraging to hear of and encounter so many fine Jesuits, remarkable because of the depth of their faith, their many natural gifts and achievements, their humility and inner freedom, their insight into and love for the Society, their passion to serve. God has blessed the Society with many good Jesuits.

Election Day

I am very thankful too, for the day of the election itself. We began the day with the Mass of the Holy Spirit in the beautiful Church of the Holy Spirit beside the Curia. The atmosphere of prayer, of opening oneself to the guidance of the Spirit, which accompanied the four days of murmurationes, reached a special point of intensity, I believe, during that Mass. The profound begging for the light of the Spirit so as to make the choice most pleasing to God was accompanied by a ever more peaceful sense of trust and hope in God and his loving guidance.

After the Eucharist, we entered the Aula in silence and remained for forty five minutes more of silent prayer after a fifteen minute wise and moving exhortation from Fr. Gellard. The Formula for the Congregation instructs electors not to make any final decision before this last hour of prayer in the Aula. In those moments of silence, with a sense of great responsibility for the future of the Society, we sat in prayer, using our minds to assess all that we had heard, opening our hearts to our deepest intuitions and to the peaceful confirmations of God, listening, choosing, surrendering.

When the required majority had been reached, and it was clear that we had a new General, spontaneous and prolonged applause broke out. What moved me was this experience again of a deep freedom among us. Whoever we had voted for, it was clear that all sought confirmation of his perception of God’s will through the election process. When it became clear how God’s Spirit had moved the electors, all, in the best spirit of our Jesuit obedience, welcomed this determination of God’s will through human means. I realized, not without a little wonder, that, although I had made my vote based on the lights I had received, I would have accepted in peace anyone the Congregation chose by majority vote as General. I was very consoled to hear others share with me too this same sense of trusting, peaceful readiness to accept the General Congregation’s decision.

We lined up to greet the new General. The Formula stipulates that we do him “reverence” (which suggests hand-kissing, bowing, perhaps kneeling); instead we greeted him with warm embraces. When my turn came, I embraced him with much affection, promising support in any and every way. I told another elector after that: “Clearly the General has to have wide and strong arms, if he has to do all this embracing!”

After the Aula session, we all repaired to the Church of St. Francis Borgia in the curia, for the “official” prayers of thanksgiving and supplication for the new General. Nico—Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, the new General—knelt in front of us, on a specially prepared prie-dieu, while we chanted the Litany of Jesuit Saints and prayed for him. I was standing by the door of the Church. At the end of the service, as Nico walked out of the chapel, he saw me, reached out, and for a brief moment, touched my elbow. It was an ordinary and fleeting gesture, but conveyed such friendship and humanity.

Fools for Christ:excerpts from a homily

July 29, 2007
Ateneo de Manila University
Province Celebration of the Feast of St. Ignatius

What is the first word that comes to your mind when you hear the word “Jesuit?” I’m sure that if we asked each one of you for an answer to that question, we would get some pretty interesting, even unexpected, answers. But I suspect that, for many, one word that would immediately pop into your mind would be “intelligent,” “matalino.” We Jesuits hear it all the time. “Heswita ka? Ay matalino ka siguro.”

I suppose this reputation for being brighter than we actually are is expected. After all, St. Ignatius and the first Jesuits were all Masters of Theology from the greatest university of their time, the University of Paris. Our official Jesuit documents remind us that our special contribution to the Church is that we are called to “learned ministry.” People see our universities and schools and hear about our superstar lawyers, theologians, writers and scientists, and mistakenly conclude that we’re all like them! There is the famous story of the young man in the vocation seminar who was intimidated by the Jesuit reputation for intelligence. “Ay, ayoko nang mag-Heswita. Hindi ko yata kaya. Ang gagaling, ang tatatalino ninyong lahat kasi,” he tells Fr. Mario Francisco. The unforgettable answer of Mario: “Ay, hwag kang matakot. Hindi yan totoo. Konti lang kami.”

Whether Mario is right or not, on this feast of St. Ignatius, and in the light of today’s Gospel in which Jesus proclaims the craziness of the Cross, I believe we are called to remember that however intelligent or talented or competent we are, we, Jesuits and members of the Ignatian family, are called first of all to foolishness. It is not enough that we be known for excellence, important though that may be. I think that in our time, it is more important that we be known as “fools for Christ.”

I have not invented this phrase. It is at there, at the heart of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. In the consideration on the Three Degrees of Humility, which are really the three degrees of love, Ignatius describes the most perfect kind of humility this way: “I desire more to be thought worthless and a fool for Christ, who first was taken as such, rather than to be esteemed as wise and prudent in this world.” (SPEX 167) A fool for Christ: “loco por Cristo que primero fue tenido por tal,” “isang hangal para kay Kristo, na syang unang itinuring na hangal.”

What does this foolishness for Christ mean? Rather than give you a theological explanation, let me share with you a few pictures of this holy Ignatian foolishness.

First picture of foolishness. This is literally a picture, a photograph. On the wall of the parlor the Jesuit Curia in Ho Chi Minh City, there is a large photograph taken over thirty years ago in 1975. A group of around twenty Jesuits are standing around Fr. Pedro Arrupe, on the balcony of the Jesuit Curia in Rome, with the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in the background. If you look closely at the picture you will recognize some familiar faces: Nil Guillemette, a surprisingly slender Felipe Gomez, a thirty-something Roger Champoux. These were the foreign Jesuits expelled from Vietnam by the Communists after the fall of Saigon in April 1975. They had come to Rome with only one purpose: to place themselves at the complete disposal of Fr. General, to be sent anywhere he felt there was need. What foolishness, what utter imprudence! After the trauma of explusion, of being uprooted, rejected, unappreciated, they should have known better, should have learned to be more cautious. And yet here they were, risking again, making themselves available again. Kahangalan!

Second picture of foolishness. Earlier this week, I was in Yangon. Myanmar is a land that has suffered for over forty years under a harsh military dictatorship that has made the country one of the poorest in the world. All Catholic schools have been closed; university students undergo “distance learning” which means they attend classes only ten days a year, after which they take an exam, in order to get degrees that are recognized no where else in the world, because they are obviously worthless. The Church survives under great constraints: to repair the roof of a parish church, one needs permission from the government, and it is accepted as a fact of life that the government regularly sends "agents" to listen to the ordinary Sunday homilies of priests.

In this situation of fear and hopelessness, a small Jesuit community labors. None of them can be there as religious, so each one is officially a "business consultant." Their ministry, as foreign religious, is severely limited. All they can run is a small house for candidates to the Society; and an English Language Institute with less than 200 students. Again, what foolishness! Why stay in Myanmar when you are not wanted, when what you can do is so limited, when life is so hard and the risks so many? And yet there these Jesuits choose to stay, struggling to serve the suffering people of Myanmar amidst so many constraints and limitations.

Third picture of foolishness. Last December, I visited a young Filipino Jesuit priest, Fr. Gabby Lamug-Nanawa, in his place of work in Battambang, in the northern part of Cambodia. Gabby is parish priest of Nikkom, a very poor village. He has about 15 parishioners. In the past two years, he has had to struggle with a difficult, completely unknown language and culture. Last month, though, I was surprised to receive a short SMS message from Gabby, which said: “Dear Danny, I arrived in Cambodia 2 years ago on June 11. I am very grateful for the past 2 years, for I have seen God in the eyes and hearts of people who have never uttered the name Jesus. God is everywhere! Thank you for sending me.” Surely there is something foolish about that text, something abnormal: how can one be so happy amidst hardship, so hopeful amidst a people who do not share your faith, so grateful for being sent to such a mission?

Fourth and final picture of foolishness. In one of our two infirmaries for aging and sick Jesuits, I recently spoke to an old Jesuit, who because of illness, can do very little work, after a life of active and creative service. When I asked him how he spent his days in the infirmary, he told me that loneliness and regret were two constant companions: loneliness, because so many of his friends and contemporaries are dead; regret, because with so much free time in the infirmary, he is haunted by memories of all the times in his long life that he has failed people and failed Christ. And yet, he said he is not overcome by these feelings when they come. He looks to death with peace, because he will be reunited with his friends. He can accept his failures with peace, because he believes that Christ in his mercy will somehow "make good" all his failures. What a foolish old man--placing his hopes on someone he cannot see, looking forward to extinction with peace, even longing?

I think St. Ignatius would be well pleased with his foolish sons, because he would see in them something of his own spirit. He would recognize himself in the foolish availability for mission of the Jesuits expelled from Vietnam; in the imprudent courage and faithfulness to service of the Jesuits in Myanmar; in the abnormal happiness in hardship of the Jesuit in Cambodia; in the immoderate, humanly unfounded trust in Jesus of the Jesuit in the infirmary. True: Ignatius was a prudent administrator who always sought effectiveness in the apostolate and who counseled that Jesuits always practice discreta caritas, prudent, discerning love. But he was also always a fool for Christ, a fool who gave up worldly power and position to follow Christ; who gave away all his money so that he could make pilgrimage to the Holy Land without any source of security but his trust in God; who embraced the sufferings of imprisonment with courage and joy, because as he told a pious lady who had pity on him: “There are not so many fetters and chains . . . that I would not want more for the love of God.” And this is the point: he was a fool because he was possessed by a passionate love for Christ that went beyond reason, that pushed him beyond safety, that made him risk all, if only he could be like Christ and share his saving mission.

Two weeks ago, in Vietnam, Fr. General told us that the Holy Father is worried about what he called the embourgeoisement of religious life: a word that means that we religious (including us Jesuits) do good work, but we look too comfortable, too secure, too domesticated, too safely middle class, too at home in the world. Our institutions run well, are economically viable, do some good, bring us prestige. Which is fine, but . . . the edge, the craziness, the disturbing and inspiring witness of being possessed by a love and a passion that make you out of synch with this world and its ways . . . much of this is gone. Is this perhaps why, although we do well, we often do not capture the imaginations and awaken the passions of the young? If everything, or practically everything in our lives can make sense to a person without faith, if everything can be rationally justified according to the standards of the world, if there is nothing that seems foolish and incomprehensible in what we do and how we live, if nothing in our service or lifestyle disturbs or raises questions, then perhaps we have become too wise.

I am certain, however, that when Jesuits see the availability, the courage, the joy in hardship and the total surrender of our brothers, something deep inside is touched, and we realize that this is what, in our best moments, we want most to be as Jesuits. We see in their folly borne of love and faith something of what we longed to be when we entered the Novitiate years ago. On this feast of St. Ignatius, then, please pray that we Jesuits become truer to our best selves, and become more truly fools for Christ, because we are more deeply possessed by the love of Jesus, who calls us in our sinfulness to be his companions in friendship and mission. Pray that Jesus becomes more real for us; that he becomes, as he was for Ignatius, what is most real, most valuable, worth any sacrifice and any service, no matter how imprudent and foolish that sacrifice and service may seem in the eyes of those without love. Pray that we may be ready to let go of the security and safety of our familiar institutions, careers, works, ways of doing things, for the sake of God’s greater glory. Pray that when people think of Jesuits, they do not just see intelligent and respectable men, but men in love, filled with a passion that makes them a little crazy, daring, different, unconventional, as people in love are, as Jesus and Ignatius were.

Our New General

OUR NEW GENERAL: Adolfo Nicolas, S.J.

The day after the election of Fr. Adolfo Nicolas as Superior General of the Society of Jesus, many of us here in Rome find ourselves deeply grateful for the guidance of the Spirit. We believe in faith that it was the Spirit who led us to choose Fr. Nico--as we fondly call him in our part of the world--as the 29th successor to St. Ignatius. This past week, the newspapers in Italy had come out with lists of possible generabili. It is surely significant that Fr. Nicolas was never mentioned!

A Man of God

Fr. Nico embodies for many of us the primary quality St. Ignatius stipulates as desirable in the man who is to become General: that he be a man “closely united with God our Lord.” “Tell me,” an elector from Europe asked me soon after Nico’s election, “have we elected a saint?” Whatever the answer to that question, many have noticed and wondered at the serenity and joy that Nico radiates. There is a wholeness, a centeredness, a freedom about him that point to spiritual depth.

Yesterday, we walked up the stairs of the Curia to the Aula where Nico would later be elected General. He asked me if I had slept well; I answered that I had, more or less. I asked him, in turn, if he had slept well, both of us knowing, as had become clear on the last day of murmurationes, that he was a strong possibility among the electors. He simply smiled his Nico smile, and said, “Yes. I slept very well. There is always hope.” The genuine peacefulness with which he communicated this, in the face of such daunting possibilities, moved me deeply.

Yesterday afternoon, after the election, I visited him in his new quarters, the famous rooms of the General in the Curia. He said that, at lunch, he had asked Fr. Kolvenbach when this—that is, the reality of becoming General-- would hit him. Fr. Kolvenbach had answered: “Tonight.” This morning, I was surprised to find Nico (that is, Fr. General) knocking on my door, to give me the gift of the chain he had used to hang his GC 35 ID on, since he no longer needed it. I inquired about how he slept last night. He answered with his familiar smile: “Very peacefully.”


A Friend in the Lord

“A joyous man, warm, energetic, and with whom one feels so close!” These words of Fr. Louis Gendron, the Provincial of China, summarize well a second gift Fr. Nico brings to his new office. Fr. Ben Nebres, President of the Ateneo de Manila University and elector for the Philippine Province, speaks in the same vein: "When I think of him, the feelings that come are of affection and friendship. Fr. Nico is many things, but he is above all a companion and a friend. He brings the gift of friendship and encouragement of Blessed Peter Faber. He is a leader who will walk with us and who will invite us to find together, in conversation and prayer, the way that the Lord wants us to follow in our time."

Nor is this sentiment limited to Jesuits. In his letter of congratulations to Fr. Nicolas, Fr. Gabriel Je, the Delegate of the Korean Provincial in Cambodia, describes the delighted response of a lay missionary from Hongkong working with the Jesuits in Phnom Penh. She had met and been favorably impressed by Fr. Nico when he had visited Cambodia last year. On hearing of his election as General, she spontaneously exclaimed: “There is hope for the Jesuits!”

This warm, welcoming humanity of our new Fr. General—“I feel refreshed after talking with him,” one elector from India told me—is a quality that eminently fulfills the second qualification St. Ignatius mentions in his description of the ideal General: “Charity . . . should particularly shine forth from him, and in a special way toward the members of the Society; likewise a genuine humility which will make him highly beloved . . .”


Numerous gifts of person and experience

To lead the Society as General clearly requires many other gifts. “He ought to be endowed with great intelligence and judgment,” Ignatius writes. “Learning,” “prudence,” “experience,” are among the necessary qualifications for governance that St. Ignatius adds to his list.

Fr. Nico, the “wise man from the East,” as some are already calling him, is richly blessed with such gifts that are both personal and the fruit of his broad experience of many cultures and governance on many levels. “Nowhere was it written that we wanted someone from the Orient,” Fr. Gendron observes. “But for the third time in a row, the Society has elected a missionary, like Fr. Kolvenbach and Fr. Arrupe, a Westerner who has spent most of his Jesuit life in the Orient.” There is something providential, surely, in this pattern.

Fr. Nico, European in origin and training, yet with such breathtakingly broad cultural exposure, and indeed exercising leadership for over forty years in various parts of Asia, brings with him crucial perspectives and sensibilities at a time when the Society of Jesus finds itself in major demographic transitions.
As a professional theologian of depth and creativity, he is also well equipped to help articulate for the Society faithful yet fresh and inspiring visions of our mission and religious life today. His years as Director (and at present, Chair) of the East Asian Pastoral Institute in Manila involve a rich experience of respectful and fruitful cooperation with the hierarchies and local Church leaders of many continents. Moreover, because he worked for several years in the pastoral care of vulnerable Filipino and Asian migrant workers in Tokyo, he brings to his office a special care for the poor, whom the Church and the Society of Jesus call Jesuits to have a preferential love for. At the same time, because he has labored for many decades in the increasingly secular milieu of Japan, he also has a profound sensitivity to the challenges of unbelief and religious indifference that are the context and challenge of many parts of the developed world. Finally, as one who has been Provincial of Japan and President of the Conference of Provincials of East Asia and Oceania, as well as former Major Superior of our Jesuit missions in Cambodia, East Timor and Myanmar, Nico is no stranger to the requirements of governance and administration, and brings this rich administrative and leadership experience with him into his new office.

Young at 71

Yesterday, with a glint of mischievous humor in his eyes, Fr. Nico told me that he had never experienced so many Jesuits asking him with such concern about his health. This is, of course, entirely natural. Ignatius realistically lists sufficient “physical strength demanded by his charge,” as the final qualification of the General. And Nico is 71—72 by April.

His age was, frankly, a concern. But interestingly, it became clear to many of us that chronological years were not the most reliable measure of age where Nico was concerned. Paradoxically, one of the oldest among us was also one of the most youthful in energy and spirit. “He has the mind of a young man,” someone told me in admiration. “I have never walked with anyone who walked so fast. I have to tell him to slow down when I walk with him,” a Latin American Jesuit told me.

But perhaps it is best to let the young speak. Bishop Francisco Claver writes: “I was at LHS [Loyola House of Studies, the Philippine Province scholasticate] for supper when we got the news--everybody cheered like we were winning a basketball game!” In nearby Arrupe International Residence, the seventy or so scholastics there have been excitedly gathering to share stories and experiences of the General who, until yesterday, was their Major Superior. Scholastics, mostly in their twenties, from East Timor, Myanmar, China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand have expressed their delight in and appreciation of the choice of the Congregation. Isaias Caldas, a junior from East Timor, wrote to his Regional Superior, Fr. John Mace, thus: “Personally I am excited and overjoyed because this General is someone whom I know personally, a General who always passes by in front of AIR after his lunch in EAPI, a General who once told us during one of his exhortations to the community to make our religious struggles become “big,” [broad in apostolic horizons] not limited only to our worries about prayer and chastity, a General who wants us to think now about what we can do in the future, a General who wishes us to be very good at one thing for, if that is so, we would be very useful in our ministry later, a General who has good humor and is friendly to us scholastics, a General who encourages me to read more and watch good movies like a good Jesuit.”


“Because we are poor, God is our only strength.”

Yesterday morning, in the Aula, when it became clear that Adolfo Nicolas had been chosen, and when he finally left his place among the electors to stand and then kneel in our midst to make his profession of faith, I found myself, to my embarrassment, unable to control my tears. I felt such pity for Nico, as we placed the enormous burden of the governance of the Society on him, and also such gratitude to him, too, for his willingness to accept this office for the sake of the Society. As I wept, I found myself repeatedly praying a single sentence: “Lord, help Nico.”

Today, however, I am more at peace, mostly because I see that the General is at peace too. This evening, Fr. General led us in a Mass of Thanksgiving at the Church of the Gesù. His homily (in Italian interspersed with a few “Italianized” Spanish words!) was deep and moving, radiant with “Evangelical simplicity,” one European Jesuit told me, “without a single excess word.” He reflected on the Servant of Yahweh in the book of Isaiah. Where does this humble servant get his strength to serve? To answer this question, Nico shared an experience he had during his ministry to migrant workers in Japan. A woman, a Filipina, overwhelmed by her many problems, confessed to her friend her confusion and near despair. Her friend, also a Filipina migrant worker, simply said to her: “Let us go to Church. Because we are poor, God is our only strength.” Once again, when I heard these last words, I felt tears rush to my eyes, because it seemed to me that Fr. General had borrowed the words of this poor, vulnerable, faith-filled woman to speak of himself.

“Because we are poor, God is our only strength.” It is surely appropriate, that as we pray in gratitude to God for the gift of our new General, we pray too for him. May God be Nico’s only strength, as he leads us, in wisdom, courage and compassion, in the Society’s service of “God alone and the Church, his spouse, under the Roman Pontiff,” ad majorem Dei gloriam.


Daniel Patrick Huang, S.J.
20 January 2008