British Jesuit scholastic Stefan Garcia was in the Philippines when Tropical Storm Washi struck, and witnessed the destruction it caused. Stefan is half-Filipino – his mother is English and his father is Filipino – and he grew up in Cebu.
He reflects on his recent visit home.
How do we promote reconciliation with creation to our fellow Jesuits in Asia Pacific? With imaginative and powerful images as the members of the Scholastics and Brothers Circle showed in the innovative campaign materials they developed during a workshop on Effective Communications held from December 19 to 30, 2011.
In a speech delivered at the recent Sophia Symposium in Tokyo, Fr Mark Raper SJ, President of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific, argued for a view of education as “formation for decision and for action: education of the head, the heart and the hands”.
Advocating a pedagogy in which reflection is central, Fr Mark sees the role of education as leading students to love the world, to assume responsibility for it, and to acquire tools in order to renew it.
As such, universities need to go beyond the core business of providing education in competence and critical thinking.
Much wisdom can be taught and learnt from stories, and a Jesuit scholastic hopes that his story, “A Fading Dream of an Orphan”, will make people reflect on and act against the destructive nature of war.
The East Asia Theological Encounter Programme (EATEP) in 2012 will be held from April 16 to May 14. The programme, which is in its seventh year, will be held at Seven Fountains, the Jesuit spirituality centre in Chiangmai, Thailand.
Probably our most decisive formation occurred at home when our mothers and fathers encouraged us to take our first steps. Jesuits are no different from anyone else in our stages of growth. We are each responsible for the values and patterns of behaviour we appropriate to ourselves. Yet since much is demanded of them, a Jesuit’s personal formation is necessarily long and deep.
The Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific has released a detailed document on formation for Jesuits for this part of the world.
Entitled “Forming a Contemplative in Action: A Profile of a Formed Jesuit for Asia Pacific”, the document addresses three major questions – What does a formed Jesuit look like? What specific issues does initial formation need to address? What competencies a formed Jesuit for Asia Pacific needs to have mastered?
The Chinese Province is now taking applications for the fifth Chinese International Regency Programme, which begins on August 15, 2012.
The Chinese International Regency Programme aims to make a concrete contribution to the formation of Jesuits with a more global perspective, for future wide-ranging missions. The international regents are also a concrete response from other Jesuit provinces to one of the five apostolic preferences of the whole Society: China.
The second Asia Pacific Theological Encounter Programme (APTEP) will be held from April 10 to May 8, 2012. Conducted by the Indonesian Jesuits, the one-month programme on “Dialogue with Muslims” was first held in 2011. It was born from the positive successful immersion programme conducted in 2009 with 18 Indonesian Jesuit scholastics living in an Islamic boarding school (pesantren) for two weeks.
Scholastic Dino SarmentoSJ looks back on his two years of regency in Railaco, Timor Leste and shares some important, beautiful and truly treasured moments.