buganhi graduation

As I stand before you today I feel I am a redundancy here if not an outright anomaly. Graduation speeches are meant to inspire and to encourage. But I have already done that to them on a daily basis since they were placed under my supervision four years ago. Ask them, for inspiration here comes in daily doses under the form of gentle coaxing and tender prodding, to my so called persuasive pushing and forceful pulling, and should worst come to worst, outright shoving. In my line of work for nine years now I have developed a wide arsenal of tools for this purpose that has earned me evaluations from seminarians as an effective formator as well as the god of lightning and thunder. In this institution you either get inspired by all means and by whatever means or you get expired. Just gazing at my face will already tell them to. And so to inspire them again today is quite redundant. Otherwise I would be perceived as one big nagger or give the impression of someone who has not done his job well when he had the chance for a full four years.

Actually I am more of an anomaly here. The convincing offensive of the graduating classes did not work right on the intended speaker today who should be somebody well versed in philosophy, and they directed it on the first person they could find available and that was me. Trained in philosophy they work through me with precise logic and coherent arguments. Trained in the old school, however, where graduation speakers were either somebody or someone, I did not agree. I held on to that position for a whole week. Two days ago they changed tactics. They set out on a the so-called charm offensive which got me into this podium today.
Having been helped by Polpol and Glenn for this speech, I got an added inspiration last Saturday Night when I saw Ric Simora in a PowerPoint presentation as an infant in a seemingly state of jovial and almost ecstatic nakedness in his crib. No wonder, I thought silently to myself, he seems to enjoy moving around the dormitory in his underwear showing off what seem to look like a one-box abs slowly becoming, probably in two years time, akin to Ambriosius’ six-sack abs. (I did not say pack, I said sack in case you did not hear me well.) You see, when Fr. Ryan and Msgr. Joemarie came, it became clear to us that our standard of measurement here will also have to be adjusted somewhat. This adjustment helps the self-esteem, meaning, “I may be fat, but I don’t feel insecure.”
The inspiration of Ric actually does not hold water as a meaningful and logical consequence of his happy and naked disposition in that crib, but the fact remains that our personal histories have an important bearing in our present reality and also in our future destiny. Nature may have a big say in our present disposition but nurture explains the other half of what we are right now. Seminary formation treats this as an important entity in its formation program.
The Love of Christ urges us. Fine. But it is not that simple as to simply say it, and then they will have it, urged as they were by the love of Christ. The dirty work, my dirty work in the human formation involves in a way discovering and uncovering, before being permitted to be urged by it, about the kind of love they have grown from. What is their experience of love? How did they learn love? What is loving for them? That loving may be a definition or a concept but it is a concept formed by the lavish or by the misguided or the lack of loving experience from their parents. That discovery will define how they would respond to its urgings.
St. Paul from whom we got this verse is an enigmatic person. Those who studied scriptures under me, for good or for ill, may have discovered that it is not that easy to understand Paul’s writings, that you cannot divorce them from the context of their author. To understand what he is writing you have to understand his personality, a personality that was forged by his own personal history as a devoted Jew, delving into his personal emotional characteristics, including his many moods, from love to its extreme form in anger, “a man born under the law” in the Roman town of Tarsus, the Saul who became a “Pharisee of Pharisees” “on the foot of Gamaliel,” and who in the suddenness of his conversion felt the unconditional love of Christ to him who was a persecutor of the early church, a love which he would refer to later in hindsight as “grace upon grace,” both undeserved and unmerited, and who in the height of his missionary work uttered this single important verse which explained the endless journey he took for the love of Christ: “Caritas Christi urget nos.” Then and only then could you understand what that love which urged him meant for Paul – that single strand of experience which became his definition of the love of Christ.
Human formation is an aid to spiritual formation, that very important entity that would spell the difference between a good and a bad priest in the future. But it is human formation that will help them discover their definition, and to some extent redefine, the context of their loving. And this is shown in the variety of responses of your sons to this loving which urges, a definition that you, parents and friends, helped define, with the kind of loving you have once permitted, and are permitting them even now to experience.
As one of the formators I was and am privileged to see first hand this dynamics in their life. So that our beloved bishop may be informed in case he already forgot, I have been in the seminary for quite sometime already. I was already here when these young men were still young promising boys in their first year High School, still innocent, still cute, still adorable but now no more - from the time when they were still kaulomol to the time when they are already kaurogot. Three more years and I would have already spent more time with them than their parents actually did.
I was already there when their clandestine smoking in the dormitory was caught by a combination of methods ranging from CIA, to KGB, to Mossad by their prefect then, the great Fr. Doming. Most of them are no longer here but either by sheer luck or by the grace of God, one of them is still here to graduate. You can identify him because he is now covering his lips with his hand in embarrassment . . . and his classmates are all looking at him right now if indeed he is covering his lips with his hand.
I was here when they climb over the wall to the procurator’s office. In fact, since I slept at past midnight, they waited for me to put off the lights in my room before doing so. I was already here when I caught one of them in pizza hut, in a table for two with a lovely daughter of Eve. For the record I was introduced properly.
I was also here when many of them almost failed in history class which I was teaching then. I have to use the PRISAA football competition as leverage in order that they would study harder. Again, luckily, one of them is graduating today, and to top it all he is applying as a seminary teacher next year. Oh the advantage and disadvantage of being here too long, I am already carrying a lot of historical baggage. When they become bishops later on, they will know what I mean when I will be seen smiling amidst the adulating crowd. I know too many things, so they better give me a good retirement.
But real relationship in the class started when they finally got into college, when my Latin class in pre-college joined their class in first year known as the Buganhi. Here I would like to see in hindsight their growth in love, for theirs was a journey where they have to learn and re-learn love many times over, a journey wherein they have to work and rework their understanding of what real loving is.
They started with exclusivity, a very significant part of the education in loving and responding to its call. Loyalty to one’s group is a must – those coming from high school were distinguished and clearly delineated from those coming from the pre-college as if a dividing line was drawn between them. Thus even the worst of enemies from their High School days namely Polpol and Kano – the angel and the little devil, (I’m adding the adjective “little” in order that you can easily identify who the devil I am referring to) became the best of friends starting that year. Exclusivity became a training ground for what is to become one of the hallmarks of friendship and love – loyalty, loyalty in spite and despite of.
The second phase came as a full blown crisis. The investiture which was for most a happy occasion became for this class a bitter and bloody struggle. Shouting can still be heard with the occasional accompanying sobs even the night just before investiture. It was an event to remember bitter it may be, a drama straight from a telenovela starring Raymund Bello as the best actor who did so well Judy Ann would be so ashamed, with Alexander Amantillo in his best supporting role - a drama of tears, anger, tension and finally reconciliation. Loving grew up from mere loyalty to a genuine concern for each other’s welfare. It was to be the hallmark of peer formation which this class best personified in its beginnings, when the class went out of their way in their concern for a classmate finally convincing him that the best way to help him would be to convince him to go on regency. Real loving can mean getting hurt by the one’s we love. Little by little human love became suffused with the divine. But God, it seemed then was not to remain content with the little, as seen in the way he intervened once more.
The third phase may be quite similar but this time the class took the risk in loving, when loving means taking the extra mile. I was about to send out a classmate. They stood up to bargain. They did not just make a promise but a guarantee that they will be responsible for him and his formation. They made efforts to reach out to him and even to his parents, sensing that the problem may be rooted there. When he did wrong, they would fret and fuss. When it became too much, they came to my room to vent out their frustration in tears and anger, but they themselves felt that it was not that easy to give up on him. This time Glenn Cervantes got the best actor award and Brian Cabunagan the best supporting role for having shed more tears and having shouted louder than the rest. The extra mile proved to be difficult but the loving was done and the loving was learned deep, because now it has learned what it means to commit, for good or for ill, to the beloved, for only when the seed dies to itself can it bear much fruit.
But the learning did not end with a bang. It ended here with the way it started, in the calmness of their community life, in the silent humdrum of daily routine. Like in all love stories, intrigues continue to be exchanged and bearing with each other can be a bit boring. They may be miserable and vulnerable in each other’s sight, but they know they are secure and safe, they know they are in a community that has learned to trust and to respect, a community that has learned to accept each one as they are. Loving may not be always learned with a bang. Loving cannot be always identified with the intensity of emotions and in the wane and tide of feelings. In fact it is tested as to its commitment and steadfastness in the ordinariness of daily life.
I do not know how to end this speech. But I do know that the learning and re-learning of real loving is a journey that continues. One thing I know for sure is that in their age and level they have loved as they could and their journey would continue until they have loved as they should. The presbyters have also come a long way and most of them will continue that journey in college. When they have completed their journey I would like to be there to reflect on their experience. It would be a privilege.
Seminary formation is not primarily academics. It is just one aspect, and probably my presence in this podium in its graduation is an affirmation of that commitment, that the formation of the heart is as important as the formation of the mind.
The love of Christ experienced by St. Paul is at one time so personal, and at the same universal. It is an experience brought about by grace and at the same time a discerning heart. May the graduates all come to experience that stage when they could say deep in their hearts that the love of Christ indeed urges, and be given in the near future that privilege to understand what that loving really consist of and what it means to Paul as an apostle.