Contact Us  |  

    Saint Louis University (1911-2011): A centennial legacy of educational mission ad extra

    Jessie M HechanovaBy Jessie M. Hechanova, cicm

    Introduction

    In his monumental circular The Immaculate Heart Missions: A centennial (1862-1962) commemorating the centenary of the CICM, Superior General Omer Degrijse sees the Philippine missions as integral to the one hundred years of the CICM. He further generously notes that in the Philippines “the crowning achievement in the field of school apostolate is Saint Louis University in Baguio.” Thus, in the history of the CICM missions in the Philippines, Saint Louis University (SLU) is truly one important contribution of the CICM to the growth of the people of Cordilleras in the area of providing quality education and Christian human formation.

    Historical significance

    The pioneer CICM missionaries in the Philippines started and complemented their work of evangelization through education. Their main mission strategy, upon their arrival in the Mountain regions of the Cordilleras in Northern Philippines in 1907, was to build churches and open schools in the indigenous communities they engaged themselves in. Their guiding principle was “a mission to transform.” Meaning to say, the CICM presence was essentially a transformative one. Changing the society’s values according to the Gospel principles was the CICM way, which was accomplished more systematically through education.

    Called to conversion, the CICM missionaries constantly applied themselves to the process of improving their lifestyles relative to the needs of their communities, thus making themselves effective witnesses to the Gospel. School apostolate was one invaluable missionary milieu of integral transformation that CICM missionaries long recognized. SLU as a CICM institution maintains that missionary legacy.

    The legacy of SLU as a CICM school can be best appreciated when measured against the backdrop of a remarkable century of missionary service to the people of the Mountain regions in Northern Philippines. That is, for the past one hundred years it has played a vital role in the socio- cultural development and Christian formation of the people of the Cordilleras.

    Originally founded as a small mission school in 1911 by the humble pastor of Baguio, Fr Séraphin Devesse, and eventually established as a college by Bishop William Brasseur and Raphael Desmedt in 1952, and thereafter expanded and elevated into a university beginning in 1963 with competent CICM rectors and presidents – SLU since then has evolved into an important center of education in the Philippines today.

    SLU today

    In carrying out the mission to transform society through education as shown by the early CICM missionaries, SLU today continues to revitalize its missionary calling by expanding its institutional reach through academic programs of international standards.

    SLU is the premier higher education institution of the CICM in the Philippines. It is the largest university north of the Philippines’ capital and one of the largest in the country. SLU has an average student population of 27,000 in the tertiary level spread among its four main campuses, which are well situated in its present 12- hectare total land area. SLU has a proven record of academic excellence with school programs getting the highest level of accreditation in the country. Benchmarked against the international standard of research and teaching quality, SLU is recently ranked among the top 200 Asian universities by the QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) World University Rankings.

    The multicultural and international character of SLU as a CICM institution of higher learning, for which it has consistently received positive rankings, is essentially in keeping with the CICM orientation of mission at extra. Education achieved along the lines of mission ad extra redefines the way society understands and does education today. That is, the mission of education ad extra as envisioned and implemented by CICM schools like SLU can provide a new paradigm for making education finally work for the common good.

    The attainment of the common good is in principle a task ad extra. It involves, first and foremost, a general grasp of what it means to live in mutual respect for one another. It also means the willingness to transcend one’s own interests and thus to be solicitous of the other’s welfare. Mission ad extra is a social orientation to reach out to the other who is in need. That is Catholicity at work ! In an educational perspective ,it implies designing other pedagogical tools, which are universal and inclusive enough to make learning meaningful to every student. SLU, fairly put, has been working towards that direction.

    Indeed, SLU endeavors to provide an inclusive academic environment, where students coming from different cultural backgrounds, foreign countries, and diverse religious beliefs, can meaningfully interact with and learn from one another.

    The university also continues to attract students and scholars from around the world. The presence of such diverse ethnic and social groups in the campus certainly makes SLU an enduring mission area for the CICM to preach the Good News!

    Hence, from the present individualist, consumerist, and exclusivist paradigm of education in society, a missionary education like that offered by SLU’s can radically bring about a Gospel-inspired education in social justice, human rights, and environment preservation towards a sustainable future.

    Aside from the outstanding academic training offered by SLU to the people of the Cordilleras, it has also seriously taken into account its pastoral responsibility as a missionary higher education institution. Following its CICM identity, SLU is commissioned by the CICM, by the Church, and by God to be an instrument and source of hope for the marginalized sectors of society.That is, since SLU advances an education from a Christian perspective, it is incumbent upon its teaching function to lead the way towards the building of the Kingdom of God in the midst of the poor.

    Thus, dedicated to the promotion of the wellbeing of the most vulnerable members of society, SLU as a CICM university has several pastoral institutes as auxiliary offices to the office of the president. That is, faithful to the CICM time- honored mandate “to care for the abandoned children,” SLU has, among others: 1) the Sunflower Children’s Center, which gives psycho-therapeutic intervention and psychological assessment to children with special needs; 2) the SLU Sunflower Centennial Halfway Home for Boys, which provides a protective refuge for boys who are victims of abuse or neglect; and, 3) the Institute for Inclusive Education Foundation, which attends to learners with visual impairment.

    SLU tomorrow

    SLU - the landmark educational institution of the CICM missions in the Philippines as the “Light of the North” and tasked with a mission to transform society - will continue to be a specialized apostolate of the CICM. For it promotes the primary missionary goal of evangelization to the local students as well as to the international students of every culture through inclusive education.
     
    That makes school apostolate a mission priority for the CICM, since evangelization and education are inextricably inseparable. That is, education from a Christian and missionary perspective implies the effective proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to an evolving society, that is, outside geographical and cultural boundaries.

    Accordingly education aims at the integral growth of society into the makings of the Kingdom of God in our midst, where every human person is included and allowed to experience the fullness of life. In other words, CICM education at SLU is ultimately soteriological in that it is concerned with the attainment of salvation through the unity of evangelization and education.

    Conclusion

    True to the CICM calling of conversion, SLU today must take to heart its own institutional life of conversion as a necessary condition of transformation. Transformation at all fronts is by and large a function of conversion, of that change of heart, that purifies the old habits of self-righteousness and indifference to new things.

    In short, at the core of SLU’s transformation is a spirit of renewal that animates it to transform itself and the society it is called to serve. To reiterate: Before SLU can ever dream of transforming the society around it, it has the concurrent task to transform itself so that it can become indeed an instrument of transformation for others.

    Beyond statistics, a century of SLU’s sustained missionary presence necessarily bears witness to the significant impact it has made on the improvement of the people of the Cordilleras.
    It has given them a different way of life that is inspired by the life and message of Jesus Christ. It has taught them compassion and service to society. Finally, it has molded the youth who are entrusted to its care for a holistic human formation according to the values of the Gospel.
     
    The CICM was founded 150 years ago primarily to preach the good news, to establish Christian communities and to take care of the abandoned children and the marginalized. SLU today as a CICM university preserves this CICM mission ad-extra by providing quality education that includes rather than excludes. Joining all other CICM pastoral entities around the world in celebrating the 150th foundation anniversary of the congregation , SLU renews its commitment to be faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, the first missionary and teacher, who commands his disciples : “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” (John 20: 21).

    So that the little ones may understand

    Herman De VriendtBy Father Herman De Vriendt, cicm

    Since I arrived in Senegal in November 1986, I felt that to be at ease “in my Father’s house” (the Church and Senegalese society), I should learn the Wolof language, otherwise I would stay in front the door of this ‘house’. Relying on Article 13.2 of our Constitutions that says “Integration requires that we know the language of the people we serve”, Together with confreres we looked for a suitable teacher and we found one at the Center for Applied Linguistics of Dakar (Dakar University), in the person of Jean Leopold Diouf, a researcher in Wolof. He helped me in my infancy to become a highly qualified expert.

    Wolof is the first national language of Senegal. Despite the fact that only 40% of the population is ethnic Wolof, 85% of the population speaks that language.

    After working two of us, I and Mr. Diouf, we saw that a group of ‘ Wolof secretaries’, could increase the productivity of the work. Thus in December 1990, we founded together with some youth of the parish of Diamaguène a working group. Mr. Diouf trained them in Wolof, a language they spoke well, but they could neither write nor describe it, meaning to say they could not explain its language structures.

    Shortly after that, this working group was named Diisoo Wolof Project (PWD). ‘Diisoo is a Wolof word meaning “dialogue” we wanted to work consulting one another regularly.

    That I may feel at ease “in my Father’s house” is a strong motivation to learn the language of the people to whom I am sent. But more important than my feeling is the people who welcomed me, especially the “little” people, those who have not had the chance to study and learn other languages. Thus the motto of our Wolof Project has become “ SO THAT THE LITTLE ONES MAY UNDERSTAND".

    In view to respect the cultural heritage of the Senegalese people, the Diisoo Wolof project from the beginning of its existence (1990), has endeavored to promote the language by translating texts in Wolof. So it was an opportunity for Senegalese people to read and learn not from a foreign language but through a language that is specific to the local people.

    With Pope John Paul II in his speech at the UN General Assembly to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its founding (October 5, 1995), we read: “Each nation has a ‘fundamental right to exist’, to ‘keep its own language and culture, by which a people expresses and defends what I would call his’ spiritual sovereignty’. “

    With the group Wolof Project, we have worked and are still working on the translation and revision (retranslation 43 and rewriting in the spelling recognized by an official decree) of the biblical, liturgical, catechetical and pastoral texts. Previous missionaries had done a remarkable job. But the language evolves, therefore the need for a revision of the texts. In addition, catechetical and pastoral challenges of today are not those of thirty years ago.

    After some years of existence, we also committed ourselves to training Women in several literacy centers. This is to reach out to young women who had not had the opportunity to go to school regularly. “In search of the little ones, so that they may understand!" 

    Following the previous steps, the Wolof Project has organized for years basic courses for foreigners: missionaries and development workers take in our centers a basic course of three months (December, January and February).

    We notice that requests sent to Diisoo Wolof Project for intervention (oral or written) are increasing from year to year. Since four years ago the Apostolic Nuncio has requested us, on behalf of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, to translate the message to the Muslims for the end of Ramadan. We are asked to prepare liturgical texts on the occasion of ecclesial events, diocesan or national (pilgrimage, ordinations, jubilee etc.).

    For presidential elections (February 26, 2012) several translation requests have arrived on our desk: the message to the nation on the occasion of New Year by the Archbishop of Dakar, Cardinal Theodore Adrien Sarr, the message of the Bishops Conference and interventions of the diocesan Commission for Justice and Peace to support Senegalese citizens in preparing for these elections.

    And for three and a half years, the Diisoo Wolof Project, has embarked on TV shows. We, a group of ten people, broadcast twice a month (the second and fourth Sunday) a TV program of 55 minutes under the name “Laudemus Dominum” on RDV channel (= Dunyaa Radio Vision), entirely in Wolof.

    This program is designed entirely in Wolof, prepared and conducted by Project: we write the script, distribute to the various presenters and rehearse with them, we do the recording, editing, movie rendering and DVD burning , which eventually is given to the RDV radio and television as a finished products. We operate as an “external production house.”

    Note also that although the spoken Wolof is pervasive in society, the written language is not. That’s why our programs are accompanied with subtitles in Wolof: a kind of large-scale literacy.

    Besides the choice of the form (the Wolof as language of communication), our program ‘Laudemus Dominum’ also wants to promote the cause of justice and peace through its content. This content is divided into three parts. In the first part, we present a word of the Sunday liturgy (2nd reading, which is not always developed in the homilies).

    In the second part, we explain the social doctrine from Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical “Caritas in veritate ‘, where he defends the poor, condemns unlimited capitalism, and advocates for environmental protection to safeguard our planet ‘Earth’. In the third part, entitled “Demb ak Tey” (meaning in Wolof for “Yesterday and Today”), we present recent or present events in the news. Besides the events of the local church, this part gives us the opportunity to present several programs such as “Africae Munus,” there is also the Post-Synodal Exhortation on the Church in Africa.

    Does our message reach the “little ones? Quite Difficult to assess with sophisticated polls like in Europe. But word of mouth, we learn something regularly. As an example.

    During a yearly reporting training session of Catholic journalists in Ziguinchor (Casamance - Senegal), the participants were sent to a village in the bush. Suddenly, a village woman recognized one of our news reporters at ‘Laudemus Dominum’ in Wolof, and called her friends. In an 45 instant our reporter was surrounded by a group of women, who began to sing in Wolof: “RDV ko moo yor,” which means: “Radio Dunyaa Vision is leading.” The reason for this fame was the exclusive use of Wolof.

    Leaving the Police station for Foreigners, where I had my residence permit renewed for 2011, a woman recognized me and said: “Sir, I recognize you: it is you who are doing TV and radio programs in Wolof. I am Muslim, but that does not stop me from watching your Catholic programs on TV".

    According to Cicm our constitutions, we are dedicated to the Incarnate Word. Article 12 mentions the letter to the Philippians 2, 6-7: “Jesus Christ emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness “: He came so that we may understand. The Language is the royal door to enter “the house of our Father” and meet the people to whom we are sent, especially the little ones.

    To live in a community

    Jan ReynebeauBy Jan Reynebeau, cicm

    Living in community can be a blessing, or a hell; sometimes a purgatory. Community life leaves no one indifferent. But it can sometimes turn cold. That happens when the warmth disappears. And that rarely happens suddenly. Living in community is done from diversity. Everyone has his personal temperament and sensitivity, personal preferences and aversions. And this often provokes in the other person a reaction of sympathy, or antipathy, or nervousness. These feelings usually fall on us. We do not choose them ourselves. The question is then: what are we going to do with it? We certainly have the freedom to dispose of it.

    Living together is not always easy. Nowhere. Not even in a model family, let alone in society. We live as brothers with one another. Godfried Bomans wrote: “Men are our brothers. But we sometimes get tired of this family.” That is true. We do not have the same af- finity with all our brothers. Moreover, as religious, we often have cultivated an ideal image of brotherhood. And if reality does not match with it, we react by criticizing. If this criticism is not heard and it is not immediately followed by a positive effect, we easily slip into our shell.

    This shell is like a safe cocoon, where unrealized desires and unanswered feelings keep on boiling. If this happens often, and occurs in more than one person, and persists, the dynamic in a community becomes a downward spiral. This does not make anyone happy.

    Itching powder

    It sounds pretty negative. Fortunately, our communities are good communities. However, even communities which are initially good are not immune to latent infections. These begin with symptoms that are at first sight innocent: someone does not come to the table for a meal or does not take the potus anymore; another one locks himself up throughout the day in his room; at a table of four or six people, no one says a single word; two tables almost empty could easily have been made one; others are constantly absent without any notice. This is not a drama if it happens from time to time. In fact, there is no need to chat and talk all the time. I do not always have to “like” everything, and I can at times spend the whole day all alone with myself. And it is certainly acceptable for me to send everyone out for a walk, or send them to hell.

    It would be only if these ‘sometimes’ become a ‘habit’ that one can wonder whether it really promotes the quality of our living together as a community. And if we let things happen like this, would that be the sole responsibility of the rector? Or, are we mutually responsible for each other?

    To be responsible means to respond to the demand and expecta- tion of others to get together as a community.

    Words like intimacy, privacy, freedom, and justice, are here valuable and precious concepts, unless they are invariably preceded by the inflexible adjective ‘my’. In this case, an answer becomes an anti-word. Thus, all communication is suppressed or stifled.

    In fact, communication is precisely the reality around which everything gravitates when it comes to life in common. Good communities are those where confreres talk to each other. And that is more than just putting on hearing aids. Someone said, “I am fine here, but I would like to talk to somebody about something serious. That is exactly what I do not find here.” Another would say, “We are all brothers of each other, but in fact we do not know each other.” Another one would only live again when one speaks about ‘the mission’, because that is what overflows from the heart.

    Openness, communication, and life stories

    The following are three things that we need to pay special attention to in our communities: openness, communication, and life stories. We would like to consider them quickly one after the other. Openness to what is happening in the nearby and the faraway world, good and bad things. But also reciprocal, openness to the joys and the sorrows of each of us, and to what interests others.

    This openness gives us the opportunity to say something between us (communication). It can be serious, but it is not always required. By talking to each other, we get to know each other. Speech and response create animation.

    Lastly, life stories are an ideal way to let the past and present blend together. Today, many of us are old and exhausted. This is only a limited part of a person’s life. The most important part of our life is in the past. Therefore, being able to tell these stories completes the image of who I really am. This is how I would like to be known as a human being; starting today, and not only during my funeral. Perhaps, we could now and then talk about it to one another.


    Celibacy and Natural Family Planning

    Frans De RidderBy Frans De Ridder, cicm
     
    As a first point, I would say: no one is forced to be Catholic. No one is forced to take the vows of celibacy. Celibacy and Natural Family Planning are gifts of our Faith, the way, we in the Catholic Church, experience and live our identity. We are the children of God, or at least that is what we want to become.

    As a second point, I would like to clarify what I understand by “salvation”. For too many people this means: “will I go to heaven?”. First of all, who will go to heaven is God’s business. Many theologians today will say that “hell exists”, yet nobody knows whether in fact anybody has been sent to hell or will end up there. We believe in God’s mercy and goodness. Hence the stakes are not in the first place on what will happen after we die. The stakes are on how I live a meaningful fulfilling really human life today. The stakes are on how to live my life in a divine way, in the way God wants it. Christianity is about divinization of human life: in other words becoming our true selves: children of God.

    I have come so that they may have life

    In John 10:10, Jesus makes a blunt statement. “I have come so that they may have life and have it more abundantly. I tend to understand this as referring to our lives here on earth, consistent with the key-line in the Lord’s Prayer. Your Kingdom come/Your will be done/on earth as it is in heaven. What Jesus is all about is to make us aware that we are the children of God and to help us to live accordingly. This is a journey of constant discoveries, and constantly dying to old ways, nurturing new life-giving ways of living. Mt 16:24-28 (and its parallels in Mk 8:34 – 9:1; Lk 9:23-27; Jn 12:25-26) gives a short description of: The Conditions of following Christ. St. Paul echoes these words in countless texts of his letters: to renounce self, take up the cross and follow me. It means to die to the old self, to leave “self” behind, to become a new creation, putting on Christ. Maybe his letter to the Romans, Chapter 8, is the most eloquent and powerful.

    The cross is not the goal but the way

    There is another very important element needs to be re-affirmed. The goal of Christianity is not the cross. The cross is the way. The goal of Christianity then is to embrace the cross. This does not mean, to look for suffering in a masochistic way. It means to say that, in order to live our life in a human and humane way, we may have to pay a price. The human being is self-centered, “selfish” by nature. Saint Paul in Gal 5:16-21 describes what it means to live according to the “flesh” (=the world’s plan). Right after it, he describes the fruits of the Spirit: Gal 5:22-26. One could also add Eph 4:17-32; Col 3:5-11; Rom 1:18-32. 12:1-2, and many more.

    Here is an alarming sharing by a gynecologist in Belgium. This doctor asked me: “Father what do you think…how many women are not fulfilled in their sexual life?” In order to save my face, I made a guess: “50 %”? He grinned and said: “No, Father, the answer is 90%”.

    It begs the question: “If being sexually genitally active is so fulfilling, then why is there such an alarming, staggering high rate of divorce?”
    Love is not the same as doing what we like. Love is doing what is good for the other and taking responsibility for the consequences. This calls for focusing on the other (dying to the self, dying to what I like). This calls for awareness and discipline.

    The gift of Celibacy

    As priests and religious, we do not pretend that we do not have sexual desires and needs, that we cannot fall in love, that we cannot have a crush on someone. All of us know better! In Marriage Encounter, I learned the “golden rule”:  “To love is not a feeling. To love is a decision.” What matters is not what I feel or like. What matters is what I do!

    For the sake of God’s Kingdom, as people living the vowed life, we can live at peace with our sexuality, without having to enter into intimate (of the marriage-kind) relationships. Nobody has ever died because of sexual abstinence. As human beings, we are not the slaves of our bodily bio-chemistry. This makes us essentially different from the animals. This, once more, highlights the importance of the vow of celibacy in our troubled confused times. Celibacy is of burning actuality. I like to quote Saint Theresa of Avila: “The one who has God, nothing she/he shall want!”

    For those in the vowed life, a deep personal relationship with the living God in prayer or contemplation is a must! I think that, two hours a day is a minimum.

    Natural Family Planning

    Now I raise the question: “Could a similar logic be applied to Natural Family Planning, for the sake of the Kingdom in their family life?” My answer is: YES. Hundreds of thousands of couples worldwide practice it. (Mother Teresa of Calcutta and her sisters have taught the Natural Family Planning (NFP) method to tens of thousands of simple people in India). They are among the happiest couples I know. Among them, there are almost no divorces, no adultery, no abortion: indeed a new abundant life! Too beautiful to be true? Jesus keeps his promises! Can it be done? Is it not too demanding, unreasonable, naive?

    My parents were simple farmers, both had completed elementary school. They agreed to wait until marriage before starting their intimate relationship. They opted for planning their family in the Natural Way, wanting six children. They could do it! When my younger sister was born, my mum was thirty four years old. For many more years, they faithfully practiced the Natural Family Planning. They were people of faith, committed to love Jesus’ dream: Your Kingdom come! Our vocation, which is an invitation coming from our loving God and Father, is: “I am your God, you are my people!” My parents were people of prayer. God was very real in their lives.

    Married people also have to practice celibacy

    Married people are celibate with regard to all other people but their own spouse. They are celibate in their own marriage if, for good reasons, sexual genital intimacy is not indicated. This can be for health reasons, physical absence, Natural Family Planning, sexual fasting. The fallacy in the modern world is: I do what I like! To like is often a far cry from real love. Chesterton coined a wonderful line: “fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”

    Confucius, (551-479 BC) “隨心所欲, 不逾矩” said, “Do what is in your heart, yet do not go overboard!” There are boundaries. And that is, in many situations, the meaning of “the cross”.

    I repeat, nobody is forced to become Catholic or to be follower of Christ. It is an invitation and a kind of pledge for happiness already here on earth. The multimillion dollar question is: “How great is God, or who is your God?”

    To end with a quote from Nietzsche in Viktor Frankl’s book: Man’s Search for Meaning: “He who has a ‘Why’ to live for can bear almost any ‘How’”.

    Or again Confucius: 天下無難事, 只怕有心 ! “Nothing is impossible for the one who has a sufficient motivation”.

    Our CICM Founder, Theophile Verbist, was quoted as saying: “Amanti nihil impossibile est”: “For the one who loves nothing is impossible”.

    Page 7 of 7