SJES ROME

This is a short story of a relatively young and happy Jesuit scholar who did not plan to return to the social apostolate. After a period of joy and labor in the field of academia, education and coaching, I did not expect to receive the call to the coordination of social service and research in Europe and the Near East. The first response was a mix of interest and disquiet.

Shantha Ram is accused of rape and murder of Kanchan Kumari, a 8 year old girl, his neighbor in the jhopari-patti (cluster of huts) along the railway track near the Bihar State Secretariat, Patna. The incident took place on 16.12.2007. Ram went absconding, but was arrested on 07.08.2011 and is in Patna central jail since then.

Miyashita Park is a park located in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward, a major commercial center. Many people experiencing homelessness have stayed in Miyashita Park in small cardboard or other structures since the late-1990s.

“Paradoxically, it is among those who most intimately know the power of death that we find the most stubborn faith in the power of life and, therefore, in the power of the God who is the source of life.”

In 2016, I found myself elected delegation leader to two foreign business trips on behalf a huge government corporation with interest in a variety of business sectors. This came about following my appointment to sit on the Board of Directors of the same the corporation.

I was inspired by those who spoke up against injustice, “who spoke truth to power” and were willing to pay the price, even as I began to reflect seriously on the causes and consequences of injustice.

I entered the Novitiate in Manila in 2003 and at that time I don’t have any other inclination on what particular ministry I will be in except that I was hoping to become a priest someday and might end up in a parish. But little did I know that the apostolate assignments I was given as a novice and as a scholastic would eventually shape my interest and desire to engage in Social Apostolate for the most part of my Jesuit life.

Inspired by a meditation oft-revisited over the course of his life, this prayer by Jacques Couture SJ (GLC) adopts the point-of-view of Jesus, in the expression of his compassion before the crowds found in Chapter 25 of Matthew’s Gospel.

I write this piece on the tenth anniversary of my ordination. Such milestones punctuate our lives. They help us to pause and look back over the paths we’ve trodden. I entered the Jesuit novitiate when I was 31 years old and so brought with me a fair amount of lived experience.

When studying to be an engineer, I was moved by the commitment of the staff of the ATD Fourth World movement, who lived alongside very poor families, struggling side-by-side to realise change for them in society.