Fr Francis Alvarez SJ professed his Final Vows to the Society of Jesus on 24 March, the eve of the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, at the Oratory of St Ignatius of Loyola, Loyola House of Studies inside the Ateneo de Manila University. The Mass was presided by Philippine Provincial Fr Jun Viray SJ, and the homily was given by Fr Roger Champoux SJ.
Fr Champoux reminded Fr Alvarez: “So Francis, like Mary, allow yourself to be enveloped by God’s favour and be overshadowed by the power of His love, and when, in just a few minutes, you are invited to look up at the Risen Host, gratefully accept the invitation to be a Companion, the one who shares the Bread of Life with his fellow Jesuits and with a world always hungry for the fullness of grace and life in Jesus, the one who invites all of us to share bread along the way.”
His profession of the Final Vows is a manifestation of Fr Alvarez’s desire to share the Bread of Life to a world in hunger. He believes that there is still a growing hunger for God in spite of the growing secularism in today’s world. In a video released by the Jesuit Vocation Promotion team in 2019, he shares, “My calling is to help people get in touch with that hunger and to go deeper into that hunger through the sacraments and through the Bible…I’d like to show people how this God wants to feed this deepest hunger.”
Fr Alvarez started considering a Jesuit vocation when he was a second year BS Management Engineering student at the Ateneo de Manila University. He had everything he wanted in life yet he felt that it was not enough. He wanted to know what else was in store for him. There was a deep hunger for God in his heart. This eventually led him to shift his course to AB Philosophy and to more seriously consider joining the Jesuits.
He entered the Society of Jesus in 1997 and was ordained to the priesthood in 2009. He did priestly ministry for two years at the Philippine General Hospital where he witnessed the love that Fr Maximo Barbero SJ had for the poor and the sick. Afterwards, he pursued a PhD in Theology and Education at Boston College, Massachusetts. In 2018, he underwent Jesuit tertianship in Kenya.
Sharing about his Jesuit journey at the end of the Mass, Fr Alvarez recounted how one line from Psalm 78:19 accompanied him when he worked with JRS – South Sudan during his tertianship: “Can God spread a banquet in the desert?” He was literally in a desert, and though food was not in abundance, he was surrounded by other Jesuits from different countries, and men and women of different faiths all coming together to help war refugees have a taste of peace. It was a banquet, he recalled. That image summarises his life in the Society of Jesus — in times of feast and in times of famine, God was, is, and will always be there spreading a banquet.
