So, I've arrived. Home base for this time of tertianship is Loyola House of Studies, situated on the campus of the Ateneo de Manila. All ten of us (tertians, that is) have now arrived, representing the diversity of the Society of Jesus - Croatia, Indonesia, Korea, Malta, Philippines, Vietnam, and the U.S. Always consoling is that even with such diversity, how quickly the common bonds of life in the Society emerge: mutual friends, shared locales.
Yet at the heart of these outward commonalities is something far deeper, far more moving. It is our common Jesuit identity, rooted in a love of Christ known & experienced through the lens of St. Ignatius and the Society, our formation, our shared experience of Christ via the Spiritual Exercises. Enough to inspire a good dose of... well, without sounding too trite and hackneyed, wonder & awe.
Wonder & awe. It is these two words with which I keep describing the past month of journey - from DC to Detroit, from San Francisco here to the Philippines. To state it more concisely (in the words of my wise & dear friend Frank in SF), WOW. To find myself so consistently in Christ's midst in seemingly limitless ways... astounding. And it's always experienced abiding in relationship - with Christ and with those around me. As Hopkins so exquisitely phrased it,
...for Christ plays in ten thousand places.
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.
So it goes. I find myself dog-paddling in this unanticipated astonishment rooted in gratitude beginning this new chapter of my journey... I've already been privileged & buoyed by so great a cloud of witnesses (Heb 12:1). What's next?
God & tomorrow know. The Tertianship Program of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific in Manila begins at 9:00 a.m. Tune in.
No comments:
Post a Comment