I cry as I read the full text of the homily of Pope Francis delivered at The Gesu on the Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola. I remembered especially another Jesuit who had a big influence on me, the late Fr. Rene A. Ocampo SJ. In 1981-83, Fr. Rene spent a lot of time in Cagayan de Oro finishing his PHD in sociology in Xavier University where I was also a Jesuit Volunteer and a philosophy teacher. He was based in Ateneo de Davao then but would be in Cagayan 2-3 days a week. At least one of those days we would have dinner together talking about everything from philosophy to sociology, my love life to the challenges of life, and of course politics to vocation. I consider those days as truly blessed, to be guided in my life choices by a spiritual master like Fr. Rene. When I moved to Manila, he introduced me to the Notre Dame De Vie ladies running the Mother of Life Formation Center where he was also teaching and where I became also a philosophy teacher for the next decade. By that time, Fr. Rene had also moved to Manila where he became Rector of Loyola House of Studies and eventually Jesuit Provincial. Shortly after his term, he got sick and passed into eternal life at too young an age. These lines from Pope Francis reminded me very much of this gentle man who touched so many lives: "It is always pleasant for me to think of the sunset of the Jesuit, when a Jesuit finishes his life, when the sun goes down. And two icons of the sunset of the Jesuit always come to me: one classical, that of Saint Francis Xavier, looking at China. Art has painted this sunset so many times, this ‘end’ of Xavier. Even in literature, in that beautiful peace by PemÀn. At the end, having nothing, but in the sight of the Lord; it does me good to think about this. The other sunset, the other icon that comes to me as an example, is that of Padre Arrupe in the last interview in the refugee camp, when he told us – something he himself said – “I say this as if it were my swan song: pray.” Prayer, the union with Jesus. And, after having said this, he caught the plane, and arrived at Rome with the stroke that was the beginning of so long and so exemplary a sunset. Two sunsets, two icons that all of us would do well to look at, and to go back to these two. And to ask for the grace that our sunset will be like theirs."
Posted on: Thu, 01 Aug 2013 00:31:25 +0000
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