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Mindanao as Jesuit Frontier: Lessons from History

JBEC Congress, Ateneo de Zamboanga University Zamboanga City 24 September 2012 Introduction I was invited to share with the participants of this JBEC Congress some insights into the history of the presence and work of the Jesuits in Mindanao. The history of the Jesuits in Mindanao is long and varied, with many twists and turns, and it would be impossible, given the limited time, to provide you with any comprehensive and detailed account of that history. I therefore beg your indulgence and ask you to consider this abbreviated version of that history, one that I hope would enable you to begin your congress in earnest. In summary, this is what I would like to do. First, articulate the framework within which we are invited to read Jesuit history in Mindanao. Second, draw inspiration from General Congregation 35, particularly the attention it gives to the frontiers of Jesuit life and apostolic work. And third, present certain snippets of the history of the Jesuits in Mindanao, stories of these misiones de nuestros amores (these missions of our hearts desires), as one Jesuit missionary put it, under the guise of appropriate lessons drawn from them. I. The Function of Story Telling First, allow me to set a framework for reading the history of Jesuits in Mindanao. I will be telling a few stories, describing in brief narrative form what Jesuits were doing in the past in this the great island of Mindanao (Fr. Miguel Bernad) and highlighting the lessons that I have drawn from these stories for us today. In so doing, I hope to

encourage you to tell each other stories as well, stories of the Jesuits and lay collaborators whom you have known, stories about how Jesuits and you have continued to collaborate in making Jesuit basic education what it is today, and to draw the appropriate lessons from them for the present and for the future. But what is it that we do when we tell stories? What is the function of storytelling? In his study of Paul Ricoeurs philosophy, Richard Kearney helpfully outlines four central tasks of narrative.1 1) First, he says, we tell stories in order to realize our debt to the historical past. 2) Second, Kearney notes that we tell stories in order to respect the rival claims of memory and forgetfulness. 3) Third, we tell stories in order to cultivate a notion of self-identity. 4) And fourth, we tell stories in order to persuade and evaluate action. Implicit in this fourth task, I submit, is a profound engagement with the present and a proleptic concern for the future. What then are the stories we tell each other as Jesuits and lay partners, given the theme of this JBEC congress? What is the context of our story-telling given Mindanao today? I am sure the stories we tell each other are stories that honor the memory of our dead, stories that enable us to negotiate the rival claims of what needs to be remembered and what needs to be forgotten, stories that are crucial to our understanding of who we are, and stories that allow us to gauge in some way how far we have come in our work of education and how far we still need to go, given the shifting circumstances of our ever

Unfortunately, I misplaced Kearneys article when I was writing this paper and can no longer find it. In any case, for a helpful account of the voluminous and diverse works of Richard Kearney, some of which are dedicated to the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, one may profitably consult his page on the Boston College website: http://www2.bc.edu/~kearneyr/RKpublications.htm (accessed at 9:00 p.m., 29 September 2009).

changing times. We probably are not conscious that these are in fact what we are doing when we engage in story-telling. But a celebration such as the 100th anniversary of the Ateneo de Zamboanga University does awaken us to the significance of this basic human need and activity. II. Inspiration from General Congregation 35 Not too long ago, Jesuits met in what we have come to know as GC 35. Their primary goal was to elect a new Superior General for the Society of Jesus. That accomplished, they also discussed various crucial concerns that had to do with Jesuit life and mission. GC 35 in fact sets the context for the life and mission of the worldwide Society of Jesus; in doing so, GC 35 calls us Jesuits and you, our lay collaborators, to pay attention to three things: 1) First, we need to rediscover once again our charism as an apostolic body of Jesuit and Ignatian lay partners, i.e., to rekindle in ourselves the Ignatian fire that kindles other fires (that fire is nothing else but the Spirit of Jesus Christ). 2) Second, we Jesuits and you our lay partners need to discover the new frontiers that pose new challenges to our mission today; we need to hear once again the call that sends us to the new and challenging frontiers of Church and World. 3) Third, we need to renew and deepen among ourselves, Jesuit and lay partners, time-tested bonds of friendship. Fire, Frontier and Friendship: these are the catchwords of GC 35. It is within the context of this triple call set for us by the last general congregation that we are invited to tell our stories as Jesuits and Ignatian lay collaborators.

Given our limited time, I would like to focus my sharing with you this afternoon on the second theme of Frontiers. Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, in his talk to the participants of the first JBEC Congress, quotes the Holy Father, Benedict XVI: I think the key to understanding the word Frontiers is to return to what the Holy Father said when he addressed us Jesuits during the recent 35th General Congregation. Many of you are very familiar with this wonderful speech, when Pope Benedict XVI said to us and, by extension, to all of you: The Church needs you, counts on you, and continues to turn to you with confidence, particularly to reach the geographical and spiritual places where others do not reach or find it difficult to reach. (Allocution, No. 2) The geographical and spiritual places where others do not reach or find it difficult to reach: these places are our frontiers. I do not pretend to know what these new frontiers are for those involved in Jesuit Basic Education. A profound and comprehensive discernment is obviously required of those who form the body of stakeholders of Jesuit schools. But I imagine that in speaking of frontiers it is helpful to attend to the following. First, our Jesuit schools must define what these frontiers are for themselves. Second, Jesuit schools must ask themselves what they need to do to help students, faculty, administration, and the communities that they serve meet the challenges posed by these new frontiers. In recognizing and accepting this call from GC 35, I would like to propose therefore the following points drawn from the stories of our past 153 years. The notion of frontier is an analogous and shifting one and there are lessons to be learned from how Jesuits and their lay partners engaged the frontiers of the past. I have had to limit myself of course to several stories, but hopefully they are stories that tell us the kinds of frontiers that our predecessors of happy memory struggled to engage, with greater or lesser success, given their lights and shadows. We no longer live in that past; but if today

we are able to see farther and better than our ancestors did, it is because we stand on their shoulders, the shoulders of the men and women of the past for whom our today was their frontier... There are two questions that I would like to pose with regard to the theme of Mindanao as a Jesuit frontier. 1) First, in searching the historical past, where can we find some of the frontiers indicated to us in this, to use Fr. Mike Bernads phrase, great island of Mindanao? 2) Second, what lessons can we learn from this consideration of the history of Jesuits in Mindanao that would indicate to us the disposition for and requirements of mission to and service at the frontiers? III. Jesuits and Mindanao: las misiones de nuestros amores 1. Summary of the history of the Jesuits in Mindanao The Jesuits first arrived in these islands in 1581 but were expelled from the Philippines in 1768. They would return in 1859 to a country that was quite different in many ways from the one that they had left 91 years before. On 7 August 1814, Pope Pius VII restored the Society of Jesus to existence in the Universal Church. In 1815, King Fernando VII of Spain restored the Society in Spain; he would allow the Jesuits re-entry into Spains overseas territories several months later. In October 1832, Bishop Santos Gomez Maraon of Cebu wrote a letter to the Spanish monarch, asking that Jesuits be sent to work in his huge diocese which at that time included the whole island of Mindanao. The aim was to expand and revitalize missionary work in Mindanao, especially among the pagan tribes. Queen Isabel II was finally persuaded to formally re-establish the Society of Jesus in the Philippines in 1852.

And so it happened that, on 4 February 1859, ten Jesuits from the Province of Spain and under the leadership of Fr. Jos Fernandez Cuevas left Cadiz for Philippines shores on board the Luisita. On the night of 13 June 1859, they dropped anchor off the city of Manila and finally set foot on Philippine soil again the following day. To go back now to the first of our two questions: what were some of the frontiers that our Jesuit and lay forebears had to contend with? Mindanao: that was the primary missionary frontier that the Jesuits desired to engage in their return to the Philippines. Mindanao was a frontier both geographically and spiritually. Slowly but surely spreading themselves throughout its major districts, the Jesuits first of all ministered to the so-called old Christians, descendants of Boholanos, Cebuanos, and other Visayan peoples who had settled in the northern coastal areas of the island in earlier times. The new frontier however was in the more interior places and highlands, along rivers and in valleys ringed by heavily forested mountains and hills. The Jesuits would seek to evangelize the Tirurays, Manobos, Mandayas, Tagacaolos, Mamanuas, Bagobos, Subanons, and Bukidnons... They also tried to attract to the faith the riverine Maguindanaos, the coastal Ilanuns and the sea-faring peoples of Basilan and the Sulu archipelago: Samals, Yacans and even the Taosugs. The Jesuits, taking over almost all of the missions still administered by the Recollects at the end of the 19th century, characterized their work in the great island as apostolic, because it was work for the Church, patriotic, because it was work for Spain, and civilizing, because it was work for the people. Of this work much has been written. The Revolution would inflict great damage on the Jesuit missions of Mindanao. They were ordered by their Mission Superior to return to Manila in 1898, and only in

trickles would they return to the missions of their hearts desires. Diminished in numbers and in health, they mourned the end of Spanish rule but were determined nonetheless to remain faithful to their missionary mandate, particularly in Mindanao, given the changed political conditions under the American regime. By 1921, Father General Ledochowski had already decided that the Spanish Jesuits were to move to the Bombay Mission in India and that American Jesuits from the Maryland-New York Province would take their place in the Philippines. To assure greater apostolic effectiveness, Mindanao was divided into two mission territories: the northern missions would be taken over by American Jesuits while the southern missions would remain in the hands of Spanish Jesuits. Filipinos would enter the Society of Jesus in increasing numbers and find themselves assigned to these missions. When the Maryland-New York Province was divided into the two provinces of Maryland AND New York, the Philippines came under the jurisdiction of the New York Province. In 1958, the Philippine Province was set up and in a few years Fr. Horacio de la Costa was named the first Filipino Provincial. In time, the Jesuit missions in Mindanao would be reduced to two areas: the Zamboanga Peninsula and the highlands of Bukidnon. The three most important cities of Zamboanga, Cagayan de Oro and Davao would remain to this day the major centers of the Jesuit educational apostolate in this part of the country. 2. Requirements of Mission to and Service at the Frontiers From a consideration of Mindanao as Jesuit frontier, we now need to consider the relevance of this engagement for us today. What lessons can we learn from Jesuit history in Mindanao that would indicate to us the disposition for and requirements of mission to and service at the frontiers? What qualities were required by work on the frontiers then?

a) Generosity Tamontaca (1861), Pollok (1861), Isabela de Basilan (1862), Tetun (1862), Zamboanga (1865), Mercedes (1867), Ayala (1870), Bolong (1896), Davao (1868), Sigaboy (1870), Samal (1870), Sarangani (1875), Mati (1886), Pea-Plata (1896), Manay (1897), Dapitan (1870), and from Dapitan, Dipolog and Lubungan, Bislig (1874), Gigquit (1874), Dinagat (1877), Taganan (1877), Cantilan (1879), Caraga (1881), Cabuntog (1883), Numancia (1883), Tandag (1884), Lianga (1884), Baganga (1884), Butuan (1875), Bunauan (1878), Talacogon (1878), Jtiva (1887), Veruela (1895), Esperanza (1897), Prosperidad (1897), Tolosa (1897), Alubijid (1878), El Salvador (1879), Tagoloan (1887), Balingasag (1887), Jasaan (1887), Gingoog (1887), Sumilao (1889), Linabo (1889), Sevilla (1893), Oroquieta, and Jolo (1878), Cagayan de Oro (1905), Cabadbaran (1913). In pre-revolution times, 36 years after they started the mission of Tamontaca, Jesuits worked in at least 43 missions in Mindanao. Many of these missions, set up by both Jesuit and Recollect missionaries, are now capital cities and major towns in the provinces of this great island. For most of us perhaps, these are just names, names of towns and villages. But each name tells a story, a story of generous Jesuits, priests and brothers, and their lay collaborators, who labored long and hard to form Christian communities in Mindanao. We are allowed I think to boast: what would Mindanao be without the labor of all those Spanish Jesuit missionaries, and later the American and Filipino Jesuits that succeeded them? What would Mindanao be without Guerrico, Juanmarti, Gisbert, Heras, Urios?

Without Hayes, Lucas, Cullen, Shea, Krebs, Cunningham? Without Raviolo, Leoni, and Moggi? Without Alingal, Pacquing, Dagani, Sanchez, Tapiador? Before the Revolution, a full two thirds of the total Jesuit manpower of the Philippine Mission was assigned to Mindanao. In 1898, out of a total of 167 Jesuits, 60 Jesuits (36%) were working in the Manila institutions of the Society, and 107 Jesuits (64%) were assigned to the Mindanao missions. In 1924, Jesuits were responsible for 379 towns and barrios, with a Catholic population of 301,262, and 65 parochial schools. The difficulties that our Jesuit ancestors had in Mindanao were various. Several lost their lives, drowned at sea, or dropped by tropical diseases, or assaulted by those who considered them enemies. They covered long distances and suffered bouts of loneliness and boredom. They had none of those things that we take for granted today: cell phones, computers, planes, buses, electricity, running water, modern toilets, etc And yet the Jesuits did not allow these and other reasons to induce them to abandon the Mindanao missions. Despite the many problems and difficulties, they remained generous in serving the people of Mindanao. The one and only time they left the missions was when the Mission Superior, anxious for their safety, compelled them to return to Manila in 1898, when the Revolution had reached Mindanao itself. We must ask ourselves this question then: in our present context, what does it mean for the men and women of Jesuit basic education to be generous? What frontiers in education today need our generous response, and what kind of generosity is asked of us? b) Flexibility The Jesuit mandate in the Philippines had to do with the evangelization of Mindanao. Jesuits were flexible enough to adjust apostolic goals and strategies by

responding to other needs brought to their attention. Jesuit schools thus became important apostolic instruments of their missionary work. First example: in 1859, the Jesuits, freshly arrived from Spain, were requested to take over the moribund Escuela municipal de Manila. This school, renamed Ateneo municipal de Manila, would drop the appellation municipal during the American regime and become a private institution now known to us as Ateneo de Manila. Second example: in mid-19th century, the Spanish colonial government finally became serious about setting up a system of primary education for the whole country and formed a committee to study the matter. The Superior of the Jesuits and member of that committee, Fr. Jos Fernandez Cuevas, presented a complete plan in harmony with the one used in Spain. He proposed that a school for the training of teachers be established under the direction of the Piarist Fathers (the Escolapios). The Queen however decided to assign the Escuela Normal de Maestros de la Instruccion Primaria to the Jesuits instead. And so it came to pass that the Jesuits showed their flexibility by realigning their priorities and accepted the direction of this institution in 1865. This teacher-training institute would be raised to the status of an Escuela normal superior in 1894. By the time the school lost its government subsidy in 1901, it had graduated 1,693 school teachers and 340 assistants, for a total of 2,013 teachers. But it would be wrong to think that Jesuit educational work in the Philippines was restricted to Manila. In Mindanao, wherever Jesuits found themselves working as missionaries, they labored against daunting odds to open primary schools. These schools would become the parochial schools of later times. Indeed, all three of our Jesuit

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universities in Mindanao started off as parochial schools: Ateneo de Zamboanga, Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan, and Ateneo de Davao. It is not perhaps out of place to point to one parochial school that was founded in Butuan by one of the greatest Jesuit missionaries to work in Mindanao, Saturnino Urios. The Dutch Missionaries of the Sacred Heart would take over the mission of Butuan and continue to run this parochial school. Today, Fr. John Young of the Diocese of Butuan, a Josefino, has achieved a tremendous feat: through his labors, that parochial school is now Father Saturnino Urios University, one of only two universities run by the diocesan clergy in the Philippines (the other being Assumption University in Pampanga). With programs and a new campus that mirror those of our own Jesuit universities here in Mindanao, FSUU is the only school named after a Jesuit missionary in the Philippines, symbol of the love with which the people of Butuan continue to remember Fr. Urios. The question that we must ask ourselves today then: how flexible are we, the men and women engaged in the ministry of Jesuit basic education, in meeting the educational challenges of the times and in serving at the new educational frontiers opened up to us by Mindanao and the world of today? What kind of flexibility is demanded of us so that we may effectively allocate educational resources to service at these new frontiers? c) Alertness and Creativity After the Jesuits first arrived in the Cotabato delta and successfully established a presence there in 1861, they hit upon the creative idea of ransoming the children of slaves from their masters during a time of famine. From these ransomed slaves the Tamontaca reductions would rise. Jesuit Fr. Repetti tells us this story in vivid terms. In 1872 an epidemic of small-pox swept through the region and neither Moro nor Tiruray gave any thought to their crops, and a famine resulted. This forced (slave

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owners) to sell their own slaves not only to reduce the number of mouths to be fed but also to buy food for themselves. This gave the (Jesuit) fathers an opportunity to put into effect an idea which had been advanced by Father (Fernandez) Cuevas in 1861. They obtained funds from the government to buy slave children and prepared a place for them. A committee was formed in Manila to collect alms and all the superiors of the Orders joined in this humanitarian work. The Archbishop gave 4,500 pesos. The first four boys were bought on September 9, 1872, and by the middle of 1875 the number had grown to 60 boys and 30 girls. The boys were under the care of one of the (Jesuit) brothers and the girls under the care of an elderly Tiruray woman who had been baptized ten years earlier. On May 7, 1875, three Religious of the Virgin Mary sailed from Manila to take charge of the liberated slave girls. Fr. de la Costa in his book Light Cavalry concludes this story: As soon as they were of age, they were free to marry. Marriage constituted man and wife free citizens of Tamontaka. After the wedding ceremony, they were led to the Fathers wedding gift: a house, two hectares of land, household utensils, instruments of tillage, food and money until the next harvest. The story of the Tamontaca reductions exemplifies for us two things. First is the alertness of the Jesuits in spotting opportunities to form new Christian communities. Second is the creative way with which the Jesuit Fathers translated opportunity into reality. They were alert to an opportunity that presented itself to them, and they were creative in grabbing that opportunity and responding to it. The question then that we must pose to ourselves: are we alert enough to new apostolic opportunities in Jesuit basic education? What kind of creativity is required of us by the new frontiers of apostolic work in the field of Jesuit Basic Education? e) Openness to New Initiatives In the aftermath of revolution and war, the Jesuits, much reduced in manpower, would nevertheless strike out in new apostolic ventures. The first that must be mentioned is that Jesuits would accept the challenge of chaplaincy work in the Lepers Colony that the American colonial government would organize on the island of Culion. The largest

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Lepers colony in the world at some point, Culion had more than 5,000 lepers needing pastoral care and medical attention. Today the Jesuits are still there, but now under a different set of conditions. Culion today is no longer a Lepers colony but a young and vibrant municipality that has dreams of progress and prosperity of its own. Perhaps the most important new initiative that the Jesuits would undertake in post-revolution and post-war years was that of priestly formation and seminary education. In 1905, the Jesuits accepted the invitation to run and staff the Colegio-Seminario de Vigan in Ilocos Sur. We would be there for 20 years. The Escuela Normal in Ermita was transformed into the Colegio-Seminario de San Francisco Javier. In 1905, Jeremias Harty, the new Archbishop of Manila, entrusted the San Carlos Seminary to the Jesuits and for some 8 years San Carlos would be Jesuit-run. In 1915, five years after the Colegio de San Jose properties were restored to the administration of the Jesuits, San Jose Seminary was opened. It continues to offer signal service to the Philippine Church. In Cagayan de Oro today one finds the St. John Vianney Theological Seminary, the theologate of the bishops of northern Mindanao. Jesuits continue to serve the Mindanao Church through the spiritual formation and theological education of its future priests. The question that we must pose to ourselves then is this: how open are we, the men and women of Jesuit schools, to new initiatives coming from sources in Church and society? Knowing that our schools serve the local Church, we ask: what kind of openness is demanded of us by the new frontiers of apostolic work on the horizon? f) Humility, and therefore Collaboration with Others The post-Revolution Jesuit Mission would suffer a rather prolonged manpower crisis at a time when Jesuits had to carry a terrible burden unloaded on them by historical

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circumstances. The missionary strategy that Jesuits insisted on when they first arrived in Mindanao, i.e., that Jesuits have a monopoly of apostolic work in the great island, had to give way to the dictates of reality; the flourishing of the Mindanao Church demanded that other religious congregations be invited to come. The Jesuits had already brought in the Beatas de la Compaa de Jess, later to become the Religious of the Virgin Mary, to open and run schools for girls wherever this was feasible. And so it came to pass that the Dutch Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus would take over the Surigao-Agusan mission fields in 1908, the French Canadian Fathers of the Foreign Mission Society of Quebec would take over Davao in 1937, the Irish Columbans would come to northwestern Mindanao in 1938, and the American Oblates of Mary Immaculate would take over Cotabato and Sulu in 1939. The question that we must pose to ourselves is this: humbly acknowledging our own limited resources, how willing are the men and women of Jesuit Basic Education to engage in genuine and meaningful collaboration with other institutions and groups across this great island, including the archipelagic sections of the south, so that the challenges of the new frontiers of Mindanao may be met? Concluding Remarks Today, the Mindanao Church is a vibrant church. When the Jesuits first arrived in Mindanao, the whole island was part of the Diocese of Cebu. When Cebu itself was divided into the dioceses of Cebu and Jaro, Mindanao was also divided into two: the northern section (from Dapitan to Surigao) was given to Cebu, and the southern section (from Zamboanga to Davao) was given to Jaro. But in 1910, these two sections of Mindanao would be taken from Cebu and Jaro and reunited to form one new diocese, the

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Diocese of Zamboanga. In 1933, this one Diocese of Zamboanga was divided into the two dioceses of Zamboanga and Cagayan de Oro. Today, these two dioceses have become the parents and grandparents of at least sixteen other Mindanao dioceses: Butuan, Surigao, Tandag, Malaybalay, Davao, Mati, Tagum, Digos, Cotabato, Marbel, Kidapawan, Ozamis, Dipolog, Pagadian, Ipil, Basilan, and Sulu. The misiones de nuestros amores of the Jesuits have now become full-blown local churches The stories you have heard from me this morning form but a small part of the larger history of Mindanao. Mindanao is populated today not only by the Moro communities and the Indigenous Peoples of both Christian and traditional religious adherence but also by the descendants of migrants and settlers who poured into Mindanao by the thousands in the course of the 20th century. In an excellent article written by Michael Costello, the author analyzes the demographics of Mindanao.2 In 1903, he notes that the population of Mindanao and Sulu was 670,833, with a density of 6 to 7 persons per square kilometer! In 1980, the population stood at 10,905,243 with a density of 106.92 persons per square kilometer. In 2000, an internet resource puts the population of Mindanao at 18,100,000 people.3 Today the population of Mindanao has surely crossed the 20 million mark. People and natural resources, including land, the conflicts born out of their relation and interaction, particularly through migration, settlement, displacement of indigenous peoples, etc., have changed the local scene. Mindanao, once known as the frontier land of promise, is now a land of bitter contestation and armed confrontation.

Michael A. Costello, The Demography of Mindanao, in Mindanao: Land of Unfulfilled Promise, ed. Mark Turner, R. J. May and Lulu Respall Turner, Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1992, pp.31-60. 3 Cf. http://www.census.gov.ph/data/sectordata/sr05173tx.html, accessed 11:30 a.m., Friday, 4 September 2009.

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What roles do our Jesuit schools need to play in order to move our people on the road to peace and sustainable development and progress for all? The new frontiers that are marked out for us by the signs of the times are not free from social, political, economic, cultural and environmental determinants. But Jesuits and their lay partners have always been imbued with the evangelical vision, prudent judgment and daring decision-making that enabled them to engage the challenges posed by the new frontiers in their apostolic work. In remembering the past and hoping for a better future, the present is pregnant with many possibilities. Celebrations are occasions for story-telling. And so as we continue to tell our stories, we pray as well for the grace of gratitude for all the good things the Lord has done for us in the course of this year and of the past 153 years. And as the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Ateneo de Zamboanga University continues to unfold, let us pray for two more graces. First, let us pray that we may have the courage to discern the new frontiers of Jesuit basic education in the country in general and in this great island of Mindanao in particular. Second, let us also pray that we may have the requisite kind of generosity, flexibility, alertness and creativity, openness to new initiatives, humility and collaborative spirit so necessary to our triple task of spreading fire that kindles other fires, deepening our friendship, and engaging those new frontiers of apostolic work in Jesuit basic education to which the Lord calls us.

Loyola School of Theology Ateneo de Manila University Campus Loyola Heights, Quezon City

Antonio F. B. de Castro, SJ

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