I am a Filipino regent currently assigned to the Jesuit prenovitiate in Vietnam. I have been here for one and a half years, teaching English to prenovices, as well as assisting in their discernment of vocation and human formation. In this essay, I will draw from my experiences of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) and accompanying prenovices in order to establish the weight of the principle of human dignity even in ministries that do not necessarily or directly engage with the materially poor.

Young as I am in this volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, I often associate discussions on human dignity with social justice–oriented works and ministries, where people whose dignity has been violated are fought for in the streets through rallies and demonstrations, given a voice in the halls of legislation that promise systemic reform, and ultimately helped to move out of their misery through discerned and sustainable care. And rightly so. These are occasions when the human heart, restless for service, burns most brightly in the defense and promotion of human dignity.

However, limiting the scope of proactively affirming human dignity to social justice and development work alone would consequently reduce the very source of this dignity to naught. Wherever a human being exists, that human being’s dignity must be protected, affirmed, and celebrated precisely because doing so gives due glory to God, who has graciously deigned to bestow upon every human person an indelible goodness that comes simply from being. It is in this light that I began reflecting on the principle of human dignity in Catholic Social Thought (CST) within my current context as teacher and companion.

One of my ministry-related anxieties when I first came to Vietnam was discerning the approach to employ in teaching EFL. For one, my pedagogical background was in teaching English as a second language (ESL), which has its own set of methods and strategies that differ from those typically used in EFL contexts. This initial source of anxiety was resolved when I consulted my English education professor at the University of the Philippines, who categorically clarified for me that a foreign language is technically and essentially a second language as well. The more pressing concern, however, was the fact that the English language carries with it a neocolonial and imperial influence—something readily apparent when one considers the respective histories of Vietnam and the Philippines. I knew, therefore, that I needed to be especially conscious in designing my lessons and appropriating materials, so that the quality of EFL instruction my students would experience might proceed from a principled and critical bilingualism. Such an approach views English not as a tool for dominance or as a marker of superiority over others in community and, later, in ministry, but as a pathway toward widening horizons in view of authentic participation in Christ’s universal mission in the world.

What I find dangerous about an unprincipled and uncritical EFL program for Vietnamese men discerning the possibility of a religious vocation is that most off-the-shelf EFL materials are conditioned by Western liberal individualism. This ideology may not be very evident at first glance, but it can slowly seep into the long-cherished values of Vietnamese culture if left unchecked. Even though I have lived in Vietnam for only one and a half years, I have experienced how people prioritize harmony, attentive listening, and indirect communication over aggression, arguing, and assertive self-expression. The culture is also deeply relational, even as it is respectfully hierarchical. Without a well-discerned pedagogical plan, I might inadvertently create in my students an interior split between what they consider their “Vietnamese selves” and their “English selves.” This would risk constituting a betrayal of their human dignity.

One very helpful strategy has been what we refer to in education as literature-based language teaching. Instead of using contrived and unrelated texts to introduce, for instance, a grammatical lesson, this strategy encourages teachers to maximize the potential of authentic literary texts in English as bearers of deliberate, discerned, and purposeful ways of stringing words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs, all under the governance of grammatical categories that students can later unearth as they read and engage with the texts. In this way, grammar is not imposed mechanically but encountered organically through meaning-making, thereby respecting the learner not merely as a recipient of rules but as a person capable of insight, interpretation, and growth. This pedagogical stance already gestures toward an affirmation of human dignity, insofar as it treats students as active subjects of learning rather than passive objects of instruction.

Needless to say, an EFL teacher who employs this strategy in the Philippines must make use of Philippine literary texts in English—that is, prose and poetry originally written in English by Filipino authors. In other words, literary texts in English must always be situated in context. Here in Vietnam, where there is presently a dearth of available literature in English originally penned by Vietnamese writers, the alternative I have discovered since I began teaching is to make use of available literary texts in English by Southeast Asian writers. This has been made possible through an anthology of Southeast Asian writing I received from a friend in the Philippines.

These texts, together with carefully selected British and American works, have fostered not only a richer experience of learning English from a linguistic perspective but also a more nuanced appreciation of literature as a mirror of the human condition. This condition, universal as it may be, is always situated in the concrete particulars of existence—what St. Ignatius of Loyola repeatedly identified in the Jesuit Constitutions as the specific circumstances of peoples, times, and places. In honoring these particularities, literature-based language teaching becomes a quiet yet meaningful practice of upholding human dignity.

In one of my personal exchanges with a brother-Jesuit in the Philippines, he reminded me always to remember that I am not only here in Vietnam as a teacher of English but also as a “formator,” or better yet, a companion to the prenovices entrusted to my care as a Jesuit regent. I believe this conversion of disposition on my part has been effective in cultivating a listening attitude toward each and every prenovice in my EFL class. This has been all the more the case in the human formation sessions I have been handling and in the individual accompaniment I have been doing with the prenovices. This attitude of listening must be one that is open and ready to move along the path of renunciation, so that the person being accompanied can freely emerge as he truly is, warts and all, and be welcomed, supported, encouraged, and affirmed.

What, then, is there to renounce on the part of the companion? Quite a lot: a host of preconceived notions and unconsciously held prejudices that obstruct authentic listening. One such temptation is the impulse to impose one’s own narrative simply because it has proven meaningful or effective in one’s own life, without first allowing the other to articulate his unfolding story. Another is the tendency to reduce the prenovice being accompanied to an imagined future self, while failing to attend adequately to what is actually taking place in his interior life as a human person.

This quality of listening as renunciation resonates deeply with CST’s firm conviction that human dignity precedes all considerations of function and achievement. Just as CST resists reducing the poor to mere recipients of the generosity of the wealthy or capable, or to beneficiaries of social work and development, so too must vocational accompaniment resist reducing discerners to passive executors of what a vocation director might interpret as “God’s will.”

Ultimately, listening that invites renunciation humbles the companion, enabling him to be magnanimous enough to enter into a shared vulnerability in which both he and the one being accompanied stand accountable before the God who calls, invites, and sustains. In this way, such listening not only fosters authentic discernment but also celebrates human dignity as the holy ground in which the seed of vocation is planted—and upon which it is allowed to grow, blossom, and bear fruit. What a joy, indeed, to have been gifted to partake in this beautiful process.

While rooted in my experience of teaching and accompaniment in Vietnam, I believe the points I raised here proclaim a wider truth: the defense and promotion of human dignity are never confined to particular ministries or contexts. More strikingly, I am reminded that wherever I may be sent as a Jesuit, the manner in which I conduct myself—especially in community and ministry—may either strengthen or diminish my own God-given dignity and that of those I encounter. To choose to strengthen rather than diminish, even in small and hidden ways, is to participate faithfully in Christ’s mission, to honor the sacredness of every human life, and to come ever more fully home to one’s truest self. Saint Irenaeus once said it, and I now profess this anew with him: “The glory of God is the human being fully alive.”