“Two years seem to be very short!” This remark by Korean Jesuit Fr Michael Ku captures well what many of the participants of JCAP’s Leadership Development Programme felt after completing module four on May 18. The programme began in Quezon City, Philippines in December 2015, continued in Chiang Mai, Thailand in May 2016, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in November 2016, and concluded with the module on Change and Continuous Learning held a
Ignatian educators from four countries in Asia Pacific recently gathered in the Philippines to learn how to apply communal discernment as an added dimension to the decision making process in their schools.
Joy. That is what 25-year old Crisanto Lacaba feels as he looks forward to the completion of San Ignacio Culion Ecoville at the end of this year. Finally, he and a hundred others living on Culion island in Palawan, all survivors of Super Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda in the Philippines) in 2013, will be able to move into new homes built inland.
“My family can feel secure even when the typhoons come,” he said, remembering his family’s experience when Haiyan destroyed their home situated along the coast of Barangay Osmeña, along with almost 5,000 other homes.
General Congregation 36 (GC 36) dominated Jesuit life during 2016. The theme, “Row into the deep”, was derived from a message of Pope Francis to the Society of Jesus in 2014, echoing Jesus’ call to his disciples to “put out into the deep”. In the Congregation logo, the IHS represents the Society’s boat in the Church; the waves are the troubled seas of our times into which Jesuits are invited to row with faith.
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4 FEBRUARY Opening of Instituto São João de Brito, the Jesuit teacher education institute in Timor-Leste 
Embracing diversity in spiritualityIt was a celebration of spiritual and cultural diversity as representatives of different faith traditions came together for the launching of Sacred Springs, a dialogue institute of spirituality and sustainability located in the Loyola School of Theology (LST) in Manila. 
Charting a new course for the migration networkThe word “discernment” has become all the rage within Jesuit circles following the 36th General Congregation. Fr General Arturo Sosa has even appointed a special counsellor to oversee the process of discernment and apostolic planning in the Society. So it was fitting that the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific’s (JCAP) migration network examined the journey so far and charted a new course at its fourth annual meeting held in Tokyo from March 23 to 26. A new plan for the future was called for. 
Standing up for lifeRebuilding lives and rekindling hope. This is the motto of the Philippine Jesuit Prison Service Foundation Inc (PJPS) based in the New Bilibid Prisons Reservation, the national penitentiary. Like other Philippine prisons, the inmates are crammed in hot, dark and poorly ventilated cells. The prison compound has a capacity of about 10,000 inmates, but it is housing more than 24,000. The overcrowding means the inmates have to sleep in shifts. 
Promotio Iustitiae shines spotlight on the prison ministryThe prison ministry is the focus of the latest issue of Promotio Iustitiae painting, as Social Justice and Ecology Secretary Fr Patxi Álvarez SJ said, a picture of the quiet work Jesuits and lay collaborators have been doing to serve people in prison. “The Jesuits, and the laypeople that they collaborate with, have a longstanding tradition of serving people in prison, dating back to the first companions of Jesus,” said Fr Álvarez. 
Building the Philippines’ first eco-friendly schoolAteneo de Davao University is building a new campus for its senior high school that is being touted as the first environmentally responsible school in the Philippines. The campus has been designed to create a contemporary, sustainable and transformative learning environment following Pope Francis’ environmental directives in his encyclical, Laudato si’. The groundbreaking ceremony was held on February 15 and the school is expected to be completed in May 2019. |