Companionship in the Heart of the Lord

Fr. Joel Tabora, S.J.

College Faculty Assembly
12 January 2006

It is a pleasure for me to greet you at the beginning of this calendar year. Actually, greetings were due at the beginning of the second semester. But such as Ramadan and impossible early-semester schedules forced the postponement of this assembly. Meanwhile, the Christmas and New Years celebrations have intervened. At the end of the year, the alumni celebrated the 59 th Grand Alumni Reunion on 30 th December; its high point may very well have been the election of our Ringo Badilla as the Ateneo de Naga Alumni Association President for this year. Also intervening on December 3 rd was the Feast of St. Francis Xavier, which marked the commencement of the worldwide Jubilee of the First Companions of the Society of Jesus. 500 years after the birth of St. Francis Xavier, 500 years after the birth of Bl. Peter Faber, and 450 years after the death (or heavenly birth) of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the Society of Jesus and its copious apostolic institutions, the Ateneo de Naga University included, are celebrating not only the individual lives of three great Jesuits – Ignatius, a founder and visionary, Xavier, the greatest of Catholic missionaries, and Faber, a gifted spiritual director and paragon of cura personalis – but the companionship that they enjoyed on shared mission as “friends in the Lord.”

We hope that the theme which is providing much inspiration within the Society of Jesus for reflection and renewal shall also occasion similar reflection and renewal here at the Ateneo de Naga University. Thus, companionship – excellence through companionship - is a major topic of this General Assembly. There are other topics which can be explored in the course of the year. Certainly, one could be companionship and vocation – companionship and the will of God that calls me to the profession I practice today. Another could be companionship and mission – companionship that results from sharing the same God-given mission.

Others could be companionship and family, and companionship and friendship.

Companionship and Family

The university recollection that was held prior to the Institutional Christmas Mass focused on companionship and family. Our families are human, and they are normally home to saints and sinners, heroes and cowards, moral paragons and immoral compromisers, the hot, the cold, the lukewarm. The genealogy of Jesus shows that entering this world through his particular family, his particular ancestry and family lineage, he was not spared the relative who was an adulterer, the relative who was the murderer, the relative who was the prostitute. Yet in companionship with these and the rest of humanity, Jesus was called to work out the miracle of the Kingdom through his family – through Joachim and Anna, through Mary and Joseph, transfusing into Jesus' veins the blood of generations of broken yet treasured humanity all the way back to Abraham, no, all the way back to Adam and Eve. Jesus, who through the yes of his mother would say Yes to his Father as the Father's Yes to humanity once for all times in Jesus, and if once for all times, then irreversibly, Yes from the very Beginning, when the Word was with God, and Yes to the very end, when the Word restores all to God in love. The consideration invites us to recognize Jesus as companion in our families and to be companions to one another in Jesus.

Some of us may be content with our families as they are – with all of their foibles and limitations, others may think life would have been kinder if we had been born into other families. With Jesus as companion within our families, what family could be more blessed? In fact within our Church, as families are constituted sacramentally in love, the loving relationship between Jesus and the Church is central, mirrored we proclaim in the loving relationship between the husband and wife. We normally hear this, of course, when lovers like Manny and Mary Anne, Dennis and Jonah, Jones and May celebrate their love in matrimony. Marriages are eternal, because Jesus loves his church eternally, and the church loves Jesus without end. Marriages are exclusive because Jesus loves no other church and the Church loves no other Lord and Messiah. Marriages give life to and welcome children as Jesus gathers and shepherds his Church, passing on to her children life that is redeemed and renewed. We hear this again and again during our church weddings. I am wondering however whether in the companionship of this Jubilee it might be possible to re-focus on the companionship that is marriage, with Jesus as its core, so that the truth of marriage in its day to day experience can be appreciated or confronted and shared – for the family, the church, and our own university community. There is a miracle when out of the ecstasy of love, a child is born, wrapped in love, cradled in a mother's arms, and lifted high in the air by a proud father. There is a miracle when children say their first words, then grow to learn the ABC's and to count from one to ten, there is a miracle when the toddler of yesterday has negotiated the hurdles of education is now on stage receiving a high school or even a college diploma. There is a sacramental miracle that happens each day in the lives of such as Ringo and Janet, Perry and Lyd, Lynette and Boyet, Becky and Sam, Mel and Lina. All are alike, yet none the same, all merging human genealogies, all wrought in sacrifice and pain, all surviving on a mixture of cherished ideals and loving compromises – all illustrating truly the beauty and poignancy of Jesus loving his Church and vice versa, as each day the attempt is made and ever renewed to seek first the Kingdom of God.

Companionship and Friendship

The highest form of companionship is friendship. Our Jubilee invites us to reflect on the friendships that we enjoy in our community. I have mentioned this in the homilies I delivered for the Institutional Christmas Mass and the New Year's Mass. I hope those who were there do not mind my repeating some of the points I made then here.

In our school, eight thousand interact and work together to make this entity called Catholic, Jesuit and Filipino University function on two different campuses. It is hardly possible that we be friends to eight thousand people. Yet coming to Ateneo every day it is also hardly so that eight thousand people remain anonymous and isolated and indifferent to one another. There are some I work with more than others; there are some on whose work my work depends, and others who depend on my work. There are some I function well with, others I don't get along with. There are some I dislike, and others I really like. Some I laugh with, but they are not friends; others I suffer with, and they are friends. Who my friends are and to whom I am friend belongs to life's wondrous mysteries. It is not a relation limited by social class or hierarchy or gender or age. My friend is 17 or 97, a superior, inferior or peer, male, female, macho, effeminate, straight or gay. My friend is the person I am at ease with, the person I choose to eat with, or have coffee with, or play tennis with, or drink beer with. My friend is the person I fall for, or the person I stand for. It is the person whose needs I respond to with a light heart; it is the person who helps me without diminishing me. My friend is the person with whom I can share my dreams, my ideals, my convictions, my fears, my darkness, my lights, the person whom in countess conversations I encourage to be happy, to be loved, to be fulfilled. It is the person I choose to listen to, the person I say sorry to, the person I say “Hi” to with an inner smile! It is the person whose defeats sadden me, and whose triumphs elate me. There is little more certain than a friend; there is nothing in a friend that can be taken for granted.

As we greeted the new year in gratitude, still in celebration of companionship, we said: We thank God especially for friends who broke my loneliness, friends who brought delight to my everyday, friends who convinced me: I do not walk this journey alone. When the going gets rough, my friends are there for me; when the storm is raging, I am there for my friends. I thank God for friends especially in trials of illness, when it is hard to smile; for friends who respond with me to the needs of loved ones in crisis, when tears cannot be held back. For this reason, I thank God for everyday I spend in good health. Too often, good health is not appreciated until it is gone; pain is not dreaded until it is there. I thank God for every day I can work fruitfully with friends, eat heartily, drink merrily, swing the tennis racket, shoot the basketballs, run and swim – for every day I can walk to church, hear Mass, and praise God for the sun, the rain, the moon, the stars – and for being alive.”

The poets and philosophers and theologians may have better ways of expressing the blessings of friendship. It seems to me there may be no better time for doing that than now when we reflect on our companionship in the context of this Jubilee Year. Companionship in families and companionship in friendship account for the most profound of human relations. The best of humanity is found in both, the extraordinary in the ordinary. For which is more profound, more edifying, more uplifting: the man and woman whose companionship brings them to the ecstasy of the nuptial embrace, or two long-time friends facing the challenges of the new day by jogging around the basilica at the crack of dawn? The parents who recall decades of sacrifice as they applaud their son receiving his engineering license, or those friends who recall hurdles overcome in winning housing for an urban poor community? The father who gives his daughter more than she can ever need; or the friend who sacrifices mightily to loan his friend what he urgently needs?

Companionship Threatened

Certainly companionship in the family and companionship in friendship are not to be taken for granted; they are not automatic and not invulnerable; they are subject to the threats of our world. The threats are many: a harsh word thoughtlessly spoken, an encouraging word left unspoken, a misjudgment rashly conveyed, an action prematurely taken, an insensitivity to the feelings of the other, a resistance to the truth of my feelings; beyond these are insidious values “in the air” that reduce love to lust, friendliness to manipulativeness, thoughtfulness to emotionality, impetuousness to decisiveness. So often, what ought to promote family, friendship and love promote the opposite, discord and hate: money, property, inheritance, education, the need of an elder member of the family for care, the carelessness of a younger member of the family in need. One suddenly discovers that years of sacrifice are wasted when the opposite of what one hopes for tragically emerges – rebelliousness, cynicism, indifference, depression. Companionship, be this among members of the family or among the deepest of friends, is constantly in danger of melting way, vanishing, or being undermined by self-interest, vanity, violence – subtle violence, oftentimes not to one's skin and bones, but to one's soul.

In this light, it seems to me, companionship must be promoted and protected in companionship. One must appreciate one's relationships and friendships enough to desire to protect them, and subject them to the appreciation and protection of others, especially of ones own relatives and friends. Shared values must be protected. It is either true or false that persons are more important than things. It is either true or false that one works to live, and does not live to work. It is either true or false, that we are not fetishists of the commodity, we are not idolaters of money, however important money is, but we are servants of human value. It is either true or false, for us here in this community called Ateneo de Naga, that working to break the darkness of ignorance, laboring to break the shackles of poverty, toiling to equip our students with the professional skills to make them productive in Philippine and in global society, no matter how difficult the conditions of this service, are worthwhile – providing for us who ascribe to these values, these goals, a human and spiritual basis for companionship that is also its imperative to persist, persevere and endure. The argument at hand for this are the students we get who can't yet handle the algebra, who struggle making English nouns and verbs agree, who can't yet understand the difference between an argument from human experience and an argument from divine revelation, and the countless students who still stand in line to learn. At the same time, the parallel argument for this are the students, products of our labor, who do become electronics communications engineers, who do succeed at computer programming for industry, who do become excellent teachers, who do perform well in management and in entrepreneurship, and who do marry, beget children, and succeed in society inspired by the motto primum regnum Dei. The argument is love not for “students” in the abstract, nor for just any students abroad, but love for the students who come to us with their strengths and weaknesses, their wealth and poverty, many coming from families we know, wanting to learn, wanting to grow, wanting to be led out of darkness into the light. The parallel argument is a genuine love for those with whom we work in this shared enterprise.

Promoted and Preserved In Companionship

That our companionship must be promoted and preserved in companionship may be a theme for this entire Jubilee celebration. Individually, we can devote ourselves to poverty alleviation through teaching, but the enterprise is much more feasible, much more rational if we can do this in companionship with one another. I may be an excellent math teacher and able to bring a student to handle differential equations, but singularly unable to help a student appreciate a Shakespearean sonnet; I may be an excellent psychology teacher, able to help a student gain insight into the workings of the human mind, but unable to make any student productive in digital animation. I may be able to teach students the skills of nursing and the challenges of civil engineering, but without the infrastructure provided by all of us working together in companionship, I am unable to bring the students to professional excellence. It is together in companionship that we achieve the goals of well-rounded liberal education. Moreover, it is in companionship that I am introduced to the canons of teaching professionalism; it is in companionship that I am encouraged when the task is daunting, uplifted when depressed, helped when in need. It is in companionship that I am able to share my difficulties, my frustrations, my fears – some of them professional, but many of them personal. It is this companionship that we are invited to reflect on, to strengthen, to celebrate this Jubilee year, and to leverage in achieving excellence in mission.

Dr. Torres and Anjo Llorin will help us to reflect on this more. I would like to close with a consideration that I believe belongs to the soul of our companionship, namely, that our companionship is rooted in companionship with the Lord. At Christmas, this is the central message, God is Emmanuel, God is with us, and our companionship is deepest when we understand our own companionship rooted in this companionship with the Lord. It is after all his reign that we serve first, when we seek to break the darkness of ignorance in his light, when we form the freedom of others in his love, when we respond to the needs of the hungry, the naked, the imprisoned, the homeless, the outcaste, the lonely in his kindness, when we act to carry each others burdens and suffer the pains of genuine friendship in his compassion. God is with us, God giving himself fully to be with us in love, inviting us in companionship to be with him-giving-himself fully to us on His Cross, that redeemed and resurrected we may live with him forever in loving companionship. This is what we celebrate at the Mass, is it not? This is my Body...given up for you. This is my blood... poured out for you. Take and eat... me-drawing you together in companionship, restoring you to unending irrevocable ecstatic companionship with my Father.

Companionship and Eucharist

It is in this light that I wish to invite you reflect on our companionship and renew it from the Heart of the Lord at the Eucharist. The Heart of the Lord at the Eucharist is the Heart of the Lord on the Cross. It is a Heart of Obedience, a Heart of Compassion, a Heart of Forgiveness, a Heart of Self-Offering, A Heart of Suffering-Service, a Heart of Life, a Heart of Love. It is a Heart that accepts darkness and death that it might bestow light and life. This is the Heart that beats for us, a Heart, we pray, that beats also in all our hearts uniting us in companionship, in friendship in the Lord, as we give of ourselves fully to our students, in the Lord's Heart. It is my conviction that we shall not be able to renew our companionship here at the Ateneo de Naga unless we rediscover its interior life in the Heart of the Eucharistic Lord. If we are to renew our community, our companionship, our friendship, I believe we must return to the Eucharist where community, companionship and friendship with the Lord are redeemed and made new. Perhaps from me the observation might be made that our participation in our Eucharist celebrations, whether official and institutional, or unofficial and everyday, is not as strong as it ought to be. I pray that this participation be different this year, that we go to Mass at least one more time weekly than we did last year, and that through this increased participation, the Heart of the Lord be discovered not alone in an admired tabernacle far above us, but beating in the hearts of his companions, ourselves, being nourished at the table of the Lord. Nourished in the Lord, we shall be able to re-discover him in our families and in our university, in our relatives and friends, and sustained in our love for those whom we serve here in Bikol. For he is with us, in us, behind us, before us, telling us: “Do this in memory of me.” And it is through him, with him and in him that all glory and honor is given to our Loving Father in our taking up our cross daily in companionship, and following him – primum regnum Dei.