talking to the angkan: the alumni of st. vincent ferrer seminary

Two months ago we, the alumni of St. Vincent Ferrer have finally registered ourselves officially as Angkan ni Vicente, Inc.  We are now a juridical person and we have formally established ourselves as a real and legal organization.  Though this is in itself an achievement, I would like to believe that the real achievement lies elsewhere, specifically in your newfound enthusiasm to prop up an alumni organization that comes alive every tenth year and dies out even before the dust of the celebration settles down.  I was a seminarian in the 120^th celebration which saw an enthusiastic gathering of the alumni.  It stayed for a while then it died out. 

I was already a priest when we celebrated the 130^th anniversary.  I was the point man then.  But again organizing the alumni organization was no problem although we had to hurdle a lot of obstacles and to keep up with a lot of idle talk which led us nowhere.  Sustaining it however was again, the biggest problem. 

Then the 140^th came and like all other attempts, it started with so much fanfare, complete with a salaried secretariat to prop it up, but then again it died out with nothing but incomplete and unclassified registration forms as if all of a sudden there was this great earthquake and everyone abandoned the room in an instant.

This year is supposedly our 143^rd year of existence as a school.  It’s not the usual decade celebration, so why the fuss about an alumni homecoming?  No priest, not even the admin is spearheading this movement, neither have we in the admin asked you to do so, so why get to great lengths of propping up what should be dormant still for the next 7 years? 

Now with no pressure, with no one to tell you what to do, without a deadline to beat, and without the direct and immediate involvement of seminary formators, you have finally had the organization approved after 23 years.  And it only shows that most often in life the best help is no help, with minimal assistance most often things fall into place.

Now that we have taken off it is important that we have to learn to fly it.  And consistent with this principle all I want to do now is to give what I consider my two cent worth of advice:

First:  Many times in the past we have been stalled not because we are short of intelligence but because we have lots and lots of it.  We have stalled because we talked too much, we philosophized too much, we reasoned a lot.  Now that is understandable because that is our training.  Now I would like to ask you to let it be.  Trust your pilots.  Surely they will make mistakes, surely there will be some blunder, but relax, it’s going to be OK and they will manage if we let them be.  Not everything in this our organization will be and can be ironed out.  There will surely be a lot of creases to be handed over to the next board.  Just let it be.  It is not the smooth ride that we value at this time.  What is important is we’re flying and hopefully things will just fall in place.

Second, many times we get stucked up and fall because we keep on fighting about ideas - this idea and that idea and those ideas.  We never run out of ideas.  So I propose, for the sustenance of the organization, for the perseverance of our organization let us work on something concrete, something we can touch, something we can see, something we can later call our own.  Organizations persevere because they discovered that their existence have meaning, they have a sense of mission, and together they worked on something concrete.  Last time I vouch on some of our alumni, telling them, why don’t you work on something concrete, like a gym for example, a covered gym.  Surely you will appreciate such considering that some of you are using one weekly.  We have architects among us, we have engineers, we can start it on paper, begin building from the ground up with a basketball court perhaps.  The beautiful gothic cathedrals, thought impossible to build, were built because the whole town decided to work together.  Sense of purpose, a cause bigger than ourselves - this is what unites us, this is what makes us rise above our petty concerns.

So I do not know what you’ll make out with this two cents worth of advice.  Nevertheless I would like to thank you for coming.  I would like to thank the board for making things possible at last, and for believing that something could be done.  It is my hope that more of our alumni will find a reason to come, more of them will find a purpose in coming back to their alma mater.