Fifty years ago, the East Asian Pastoral Institute (EAPI) embarked on a new mission through the initiative of Fr Pedro Arrupe SJ, then Superior General of the Society of Jesus. After providing liturgical renewal for missionaries for more than a decade, it changed its purpose in 1966 to providing programmes for renewal and aggiornamento in the spirit of Vatican II.
Are there lessons to be learnt from a silver jubilee? In a typically Jesuit fashion, Fr Renato Repole SJ, Rector of the Arrupe International Residence (AIR), looked back on the recently concluded celebratory activities spread out over the last seven months, and asked himself, “What have we learned and gained from the whole experience? What did it mean for us at Arrupe?”
Filipino scholastic Richard Fernando SJ lived in Arrupe International Residence (AIR) from 1994 to 1995. He went to Cambodia for his Regency, and died in Banteay Prieb at the age of 26 while trying to prevent a student from releasing a grenade at the vocational institute. As AIR celebrates its Silver Jubilee, we remember one of the house’s martyrs.
JCAP Formation Delegate Fr Norris Seenivasan SJ of the Malaysia-Singapore Jesuit Region was one of the early residents of the Arrupe International Residence. As a scholastic, he called AIR home from 1993 to 1997. In 2015, as AIR celebrates its 25th anniversary, he recalls how the house of formation helped him become the Jesuit he is today.
Myanmar Scholastic Pius Than Naing Lin SJ is one of the newest members of the Arrupe International Residence (AIR) in the Philippines. As the international house of formation celebrates its 25th year, he shares how life in AIR is broadening his perspective.
Philippine Jesuit Provincial Fr Antonio Moreno SJ was a member of the first Arrupe International Residence community. As AIR celebrates its 25th anniversary, he shares some of graces and challenges of living in the multicultural Jesuit house of formation that AIR was established to be.
Fr Ignatius Tambudzai SJ of the Zimbabwe-Mozambique Jesuit Province is one of the newest members of the community in Arrupe International Residence in the Philippines. He shares this reflection on his first months living with Jesuits from different parts of the world in this international house of formation as it celebrates its 25th year.
This year marks the 25th year of the establishment of Arrupe International Residence (AIR) as a formation house in Manila for Jesuit scholastics across Asia Pacific. The house was built in 1990 when Fr Daven Day SJ was President of what was then the Jesuit Conference of East Asia and Oceania. It grew from a felt need for a common Juniorate in this part of Asia and began as a house for philosophers, theologians and a couple of juniors.
American Jesuit scholastic David Romero began his Regency in the Philippines, working with Casa Bayanihan and living in the Arrupe International Residence where the community comprises Jesuits of 15 nationalities. His year in AIR left him with a profound sense of gratitude to God for giving him and the others in the community the chance to share their lives together and for what he has learned from these relationships.
The Loyola School of Theology (LST) in Manila recently announced its partnership with the East Asian Pastoral Institute (EAPI) in offering one of its graduate programs in pastoral ministry beginning in August 2015.