A REVEALING, ENRICHING AND REJUVENATING WORD
USC TRIBUTE TO THE SVD CENTENNIAL

(Homily delivered by Fr. Dionisio Miranda, SVD, University President, on the occasion of the Philippine SVD Centennial celebration, 1909-2009, Church of Sts. Arnold and Joseph, USC Talamban Campus, 17 August 2009).

Ever since I became President of USC I have found myself in a number of awkward situations. One of those cases is today’s, where I am being asked to pay tribute to the SVD – as if I were not myself SVD; simple delicadeza requires that tributes come from someone other than family. To skirt this sense of awkwardness I decided to offer instead a reflection on the SVD centennial theme: we remember, we rejoice, we renew.

WE REMEMBER – THE CLARIFYING AND REVEALING WORD.  In 2000 when I was OIC of MERO (Missiological Education and Research Office) I proposed a long-term plan in anticipation of the SVD centennial.  Those I approached for contribution had similar responses: it was too early, 2009 was years away, there was time enough.  As I predicted, we squandered the time for a seasoned, mature, and critical remembering.  Indeed what do we remember today of the Philippine SVD history, as individuals and province and community – not in the sense of an episodic, superficial and romantic reminiscing, but in the sense of a proud, profound, narrative-based recollecting? Absent a critical history we are nowhere beyond posing the question what we should remember communally in the same spirit of the Jewish remembering: “my father was a wandering Aramean.” On the other hand I can claim to be a young elder, possessed of a significant store of memories, even if private.  History is an abstraction, the same as life, or truth or love.  History is always someone’s history, life someone’s life, truth someone’s truth and love someone’s love. Having little shared and common narrative to elaborate I can only recount the history of the SVD as I participated in it – for example, how it all began for me.  It began for me at Baguio, from a comedy of errors or accidents or, since we are religious, of the mysterious ways of Providence.  For salvation history is essentially no mere recital of facts, but a recall of human events read in the light of a clarifying and revealing word.

WE REJOICE – THE RESONATING AND ENRICHING WORD. We rejoice in the remembering of what the Society has done and become – not only at the spontaneous and personal, but precisely at the reflected and the more communal levels.  More than endings I remember beginnings. I remember my struggles as a young religious-missionary attempting to reconcile myself with my work as formator in a regional archdiocesan seminary, rendered memorable by the quiet support of Fr. Friedrich Scharpf, the confessions to Fr. Alois Lehberger, the camaraderie of Steve Bevans, the apostolic charity of Taschner, and the many seminarians I had accompanied to ordination – reasons all for remembering in joy.  I remember Rome, steeped in the contradictions of the church: antique and modern, conservative and progressive, cohesive and divided – truly a microcosm of the universal church, and truly a collection of insights that both shock and awe.  I remember Hernandarias, in Paraguay where I had to endure the teasing of the kitchen staff as I learned Spanish, Guarani and Brasileiro, before I could enjoy long conversations with them about life, family and friends. I had to accept the idiosyncrasies of a culture so similar and yet so different from mine, before I could appreciate the values that I could now add to my own.  I was continuously making plans for my village communities, only to abandon them because of a constantly changing context, grateful in the end for the flexibility I had learned as a necessary part of mission.  And so I rejoice quietly as I remember the communities I built up, the male and barely literate workers I trained to become my reliable catechists, the movements I shepherded through their petty and critical quarrels, the structures I built up with so little resources but so much goodwill.  As with other memories I rejoice in the many SVDs, collaborators and friends who each added a nuance and dimension to my identity and story in ways they would never suspect.  I rejoice, simply to summarize, in the sense of family and community at Vigan, and a sense of the church at Rome, and a taste of mission at the frontlines, and the books on moral inculturation written in the quiet of Tagaytay.

WE RENEW – THE INSPIRING AND REJUVENATING WORD. I was privileged to have been at many chapters, and therefore had a first-hand view of how the Society periodically renewed itself with the utmost intensity: in 1981 with the revision of the Constitutions, in 1988 when we defined mission along continental concerns, in 1994 when we focused on community as missionary in being religious, in 2000 when we started exploring frontiers of mission, and in 2006 when we finally developed the language of prophetic dialogue and characteristic dimensions.  Renewal on my personal level came in a different form.  Using three decades as benchmark of a working span, I had decided that retirement would be spent on writing the books still waiting to be born – on Filipino Moral Theology as a whole and on various topics which I thought urgently needed exploration. Unexpectedly I was uprooted from familiar ground and transplanted to alien soil called University of San Carlos. My journeying, I was being reminded by the Spirit, is far from ended but newly relaunched.  Then one glimpses what the elderly Abraham must have reflected on about the unfathomable ways of God as he led his family on a fresh migration. At a personal level I was being made to realize, in the new field of academe, the 2006 chapter theme of prophetic dialogue (with non-believers, alternative believers, the culturally different, and the socio-economically and politically marginalized) through the characteristic dimensions of SVD apostolate, namely, mission animation, social communication, biblical apostolate, and justice, peace and integrity of creation.  My renewal is an isolated illustration of other renewals in the life of the SVD, or rather the lives of my of SVDs brothers. All of us are being called to renewal by the ever-inspiring and continuously rejuvenating Word.  

THE SVD IN THE PHILIPPINES.  To put a centennial in meaningful context one should draw up basic parameters, an overarching framework, or reasoned criteriology. As any State of the Nation, or Province, or University Address demands, evaluation begins with a clear set of criteria against which to measure.  From one point of view the SVD metrics would be the various Constitutions since 1875, or the timelines of the SVD in RP since 1909. Or maybe the number of faces lighted up and the range of stories told and changed.  To quote a back-cover blurb, “Stories are a primary means through which we gain understanding. Forest Faces provides an evocative re-telling of personal experiences and reflections enabling better comprehension of the struggles, dramas and tragedies associated with the changes and loss of Philippine forests.”  The book “is a poignant reminder of what has been lost, and a paean for what might be regained. The faces featured in this book reflect the naive, the hopeful, the anxious, the fearful, the complacent, and the frustrated. Their stories talk about the prevailing poverty in the uplands, the search for pragmatic adaptations and mitigation mechanisms in the lowlands, well-intentioned policies with no serious implementation, the continuing illegal and “illegal” legal activities – painful realizations of past wrong decisions made. There is almost always a reflection on the past and what needs to be done today. There are more than 40 faces in this book, yet the stories can easily be appreciated by all Filipinos (and beyond) and valued as an articulation of thoughts and hopes that may lead to action.” [See Forest Faces (Hopes and Regrets in Philippine Forestry) of FAO: Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC), RAP (Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific) Publication 2008/04] Read SVD for faces and Mission for forest, and you have some sense of who we are at 100 years.  We have our achievements and champions; but not all our decisions have been wise or our undertakings successful. Little matter, it is the grander tapestry that one must look to for a deeper appreciation of how true the SVD has been to the mission given to it by God and received by its beneficiaries.

THE SVD IN CEBU. For a different set of metrics we turn closer to our context, the history of the SVD in PHS, which also happens to be mostly the history of the SVD in education.  I need not enter into the details, but only to remind ourselves that the SVD mark 70 years at USC (1935-2009).  Look around the buildings, recall the names of those who gave their lives, imagine the staggering count of students who studied here, graduated as professionals, and contributed to the country in so many ways.  Together we have taught and learned, researched on and shared new knowledge, and reached out to many communities in many, many ways. It is to our alumni to say if they have become more critical learners, independent thinkers and relevant citizens thanks to USC.  Have the SVDs truly opened their eyes to their world in ways others could not, taught them to ask, and frame questions of importance, and showed how they can contribute to the making of a better world of which they are an indispensable part? 
Let me conclude. Then you know why today, even in the absence of statistics, we can be amazed and say to the SVD, “You have truly done a magnificent job!”  But because they are who they are, religious and missionaries, we can predict their answer: “Thanks to God’s grace.”  Thank you, SVD.  May the name of the Lord continue to be blessed in you.  Amen.

» Read Fr. General Pernia's Centennial Homily