Founded in 1907, the Mirador Jesuit Villa Retreat House in Baguio City, Philippines serves as a spirituality and retreat centre for Jesuits, religious groups, and lay people seeking a place to pray, reflect, and commune with God and nature. In 2021, it opened a Heritage and Eco-Spirituality Park. Fr Rene Javellana SJ, the Archivist of the Philippine Province, writes this reflection.
Are there other creative means to promote the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises?
This got me thinking. Is Mirador Heritage and Eco-Spirituality Park (MH-ESP) eclipsing Mirador Jesuit Villa’s (MJV) initial mandate of promoting Ignatian spirituality and retreats?
I have often preached to the 9am Sunday crowd at the Lourdes Grotto chapel that the whole Mirador Hill is like a church with the sky as a roof, “simbahan na ang bubong ay langit”. I motivate them to keep the surroundings clean and in fact before Mass I have asked people to help pick up trash. I tell them: “Ayaw natin dumihan ang bahay ng ating ina. Ang Grotto ay bahay ni Mama Mary. Hindi bale kung hindi ikaw ang nagtapon ng basura. Sa bahay natin yung kalat ng ating kapatid ay pinupulot natin kasi ayaw natin ng madumi at magulo na bahay.” [We do not want to litter the home of Our Mother. The Grotto is Mother Mary’s home. It does not matter if it isn’t your trash. In our homes, we clean up after our brothers and sisters because we do not want a dirty and messy house.] The exhortation seems to work. Despite the crowds, the Grotto and eco-park are by and large clean and free of trash.
Imagine this: people going to Mirador are entering a sacred space. And to mark this sacredness, Fr Joe Quilongquilong SJ has placed statues of saints and angels, beginning with a bigger than life image of St Joseph and the Christ Child. Some are clearly recognising this sacredness as coins and flowers are spontaneously left by people at the statues. This is what those who visit churches do spontaneously, it is an expression of popular religion and spirituality.
When people visit Mirador and recognise signs of the sacred, are they not perhaps already doing, unknowingly, an Ignatian prayer?
The challenge of our retreat houses is the cost of running it and consequently the cost per day to the retreatants. While MJV keeps cost down so that many can avail of the place, if truth be told, our retreat houses cater to a small segment of the population: priest, seminarians, religious male or female, the educated middle class.
What about everyone else? I like to imagine that they touch on Ignatian spirituality through the experience of the park. Yes, they may experience nature’s beauty and bounty and find many selfie spots, but remember what the Psalmist says: “The heavens declare the power of God and the firmament his glory.” Jesus also said to learn from nature: “Look at the birds of the air … the lilies of the fields.” There is so much of that in MH-ESP. When people look through the Blue Moon gate or the Mirador Peace Memorial toward Lingayen Gulf, their hearts expand, and although they may not have the words for it, they are doing a “Contemplatio ad Amorem” (Contemplation to Attain God’s Love). They have discovered the “via pulchritudinis”, the way of beauty.
I was told the story of a young waiter from La Union employed at Volante Pizza. During the pandemic, he was unable to visit home. So he saved up his tip money for the day he could return home, but he also kept some for himself. Once a month, he would set aside PhP 100 pesos to visit MH-ESP. He would stay from opening to closing. Stopping and resting here and there. At the site where he could see Lingayen and the lowlands of La Union, he would stop and imagine the family he longed to visit and pray for them. He would leave the park refreshed and ready for another week. Dare we say that he experienced the grace of consolation? And consolation is a fruit of the Spiritual Exercises.
I muse that we might probably learn from another park, Disneyland, dubbed “the happiest place in the world”. Walt Disney, its creator, is no longer alive, but his legacy of entertainment, and how he painted a world of good people who always win against the bad, of polite and well-mannered royalty and beauties, continue to resonate. Disney is preaching not through words but through experiences.
MH-ESP is doing that, too. It provides experiences, several and varied. Admittedly, experience can be deepened by awareness and reflection. To meet this need, MH-ESP is developing a “Walk with St Joseph,” a guided prayer walk through the park and its 24 or so stops. At the moment, the guide is under beta testing until the satisfactory steps can be taken to mark the eco park with QR codes that people can scan with their cellphones to pray.
The project is being coordinated with the City of Baguio, with its plans of transforming Baguio into a smart city. MJV is already signed into this citywide initiative as Baguio’s “Eye in the Sky” is already in MJV. But even without the “spiritual scaffolding” of a prayer guide, MH-ESP already invites and speaks to people, and many, including families, are answering the invitation and listening. As they discover experiences at MH-ESP, we can share with them the Ignatian legacy.
Joseph Tetlow, a well-known Jesuit giver and guide of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, said that “Ignatian prayer is what works.” And for many, what works is a walk in the park.
For more information on the Mirador Jesuit Villa Retreat House and Eco Park, visit www.miradorjesuitvilla.com or their Facebook page.