A student asked me if I could give a talk while pretending
that it’s my last talk.
Pretend that you’re about to say
goodbye to your students.” I said, “You mean i am to pretend that I’m about to
die?’
“No no, just pretend that you're
going to have your last talk to your students.” All right, I shall try to give
a last talk.
My talk will have 3 parts.
1. My first Jesuit teacher
2. my second Jesuit teacher
3. myself as a Jesuit teacher
The reason I gave 3 parts on Jesuit
teaching is because if I’m going to say goodbye to my students, I would like to
pass a torch on to them. In the first book of the Republic of Plato, one of the
characters in the dialogue describes a kind of a special horse race during a
barrio fiesta.
He says, holding their torches high
and riding their horses they pass the flame from rider to rider. And that
description was often taken to be a metaphor for a certain kind of wisdom the
kind of wisdom that can be passed on from generation to generation. Now, I am
doing something which I find rather dangerous. I am implying that I will pass on
some wisdom. Well perhaps, it’s wisdom. But whatever it is, I’m going to pass
it on.
1. My first Jesuit teacher.
When I was beginning HS in the
Ateneo when I was together with my other classmates in 1-B, first year section
B. We were waiting for our teacher to arrive. We were in the 2nd floor of the
Ateneo bldg. of padre Faura Street. And the corridor outside the room was
rather dark. Then we saw this figure in a white castle???
Later we found out he was an
American. He was a Scholastic; he was to be our class teacher for the entire
school year. Fr. James Gordon Koller. People called him Gordy. We called him
Father Koller. Even when he was not yet a priest, because the Scholastics were
called also Father.
It was an experience for me to have
a Jesuit teacher. He not much older than us. We looked on him more as an older
brother than as a teacher. But an older brother who had discipline.
He was strict but not a taskmaster.
He created an atmosphere which enabled us to discover our inner potentials. We
look upon him more as an older brother. But not an older brother who indulges
our will. But an older brother who knew our potentials even better than us. And
so we looked at him as disciplined. We would discover that we could become
better persons.
When I think back on that one year
under Fr. Koller, I remember many things.That we used to go swimming in
Novaliches in the swimming pool of the Novitiate. That he would tell stories of
his boyhood in Buffalo.Then we would have to make book reports. We would read
books from the library and then we would tell him what we would learn from the
books or share with him our adventures. Because reading a book for Fr. Koller
was to go on an adventure.
But what I learned most in that
year was the English language. Because he taught us English grammar. And he
taught us English grammar by drill, drill, drill.
If we make a mistake in a
composition, we had to rewrite the sentence in the correct version and we wrote
it sometimes 100 times. Sometimes only 50 times. But I enjoyed the drill in
English, because it made me realize that people could use the English language
to express their thoughts and their feelings and that I could use the English
language also, to express my thoughts and my feelings.
Now if we fast forward to the time
when I was about to finish my high school, by that time Fr. Koller was already
in Woodstock, studying Theology. So I wrote him a letter telling him that I was
going to join the Society of Jesus.
And he answered; “Now we belong to
the same family. We have the same spiritual exercises.”
2. My second Jesuit teacher.
My 2nd Jesuit teacher was Fr. Lino
Banayad. People called him Lino. We called him Fr. Lino. Banayad is a Tagalog
word. If you want to tell somebody to take their time you say, "Banayad
lang".
Fr. Lino Banayad grew up in Pasay
and I was growing up in Sampaloc.
Now the people from Pasay and the
people from Sampaloc have a certain kinship. That is to say, we are very
different but there is something similar. I promptly made Fr. Banayad not only
my older brother, but also my idol.
Fr. Lino taught me Latin. Latin was
one of the subjects in 2nd year high school. He taught the class Latin, but he
noticed that I was very eager to learn the language. So he gave me extra
reading material in Latin. I did not tell him the reason why I loved Latin. The
reason was that I wanted to become a priest.
In those days, the mass was in
Latin. And the classes in the seminary were done in Latin. So very early in my
course in Latin I read Cicero and Virgil. And I found out that people could
express their thoughts not necessarily in English.
People could express their thoughts
in Latin. And I found out that I could express my thoughts in Latin. I found
out that the world of language was wider than the English language. I could
open a book and find out in their own words how the Romans thought, thousands
of years ago.
I eventually told Fr. Banayad that
I wanted to become a Jesuit. The real reason was, I thought, if Fr. Lino could
become a Jesuit, I could become a Jesuit too. If Pasay could do it Sampaloc
could also do it.
And he told me, if you want to join
Jesuits because you expect to join a group of men who think highly of you and
respect you all the time and give you praise and honor, if that is why you want
to join the Jesuits, do not bother. You are not going to receive anything like
that if you join the Jesuits. The Jesuits are as hard to get along with as any
other group.
So, if you want to join the Jesuits
because you believe that Christ is calling you, that the Christ on the cross is
calling you, if that is what you believe then you can apply. Then you might be
accepted. And then he took from his desk a book and he opened it. It was
written in Latin. It was St. Ignatius telling what a Jesuit should be like.
He said, “People who work for men
of the world are proud of their livery in other words the clothes, the uniform
of the men of the world. So if one is working for Jesus, he wants to wear the
uniform which Jesus wore. What is the uniform that Jesus wore? Poverty, the
bearing of insults, the love not only of friends but also of enemies.
Now working with Fr. Banayad, I
began to be aware that the Philippines were rich in languages. There are many
languages in the Philippines and each language could be used to express one’s
thoughts and one’s feelings. And so if one wanted to participate in the
richness of what means to a Filipino, he should be open to the languages of the
people he is living with. He should learn the language of the place where he is
assigned. If he is living in Manila, he should learn to talk in Tagalog. If he
is living in the Ilocos provinces, he should be talking in Ilocano. And if he
is in Visayas, he should learn to talk Bisayan.
Now I teach my classes in Filipino
because philosophy is a search for truth and if i search for the truth using a
language that the jeepney drivers, the streetsweepers, and the candy vendors
cannot understand what kind of a search will that be?
3. Myself as a Jesuit teacher.
People ask me, “What are you trying
to do when you teach a Philosophy class?”
The answer I usually give is we all
have a gift of God. The gift of being able to think. But we do not use that
gift. Very often we are not even aware we have that gift. So I try to help my
students to become conscious that they can think and that they can use their
ability to think.
How do I do that?
By trying to create an atmosphere
where they can see and experience the fact that they can think. And that they
will use that ability to think.
Is that hard to do?
Yes it’s very hard. It’s very hard
to teach a class in Philosophy.
Do I succeed in giving the students
a chance to discover their ability to think?
I do not know, only God knows.
But it’s worthwhile trying. When I
began to teach in the Ateneo, the difficulty was that many students thought
they knew all the answers. And they were only waiting for me to give a formula
which they could memorize so they could pass the exams. And it was hard in
trying to get them to, in trying to shake them up so that their brain cells
will start shaking and they will start to think.
Then, the students thought they had
all the answers and I had to make them realize that they did not know the
questions. But now it seems to me that there are many students who believe that
questions are more important than the answers.
There was one of my former students
who wrote an article about me. He intended it to be a rhetorical remark.
He said that for me, the question
is more important than the answer.
If the question is more important
than the answer, then a Philosophy class would be just a collection of
questions.
And a question is like, somebody
once said, is like an open mouth. If you never close your mouth, what is the
use of opening it.
And I would say, “Every question is
an answer and that every answer is a question.” Every question is an
answer. You can’t ask a question unless you have a previous answer: a
previous answer which puzzled you.
For example, if you want to ask a
doctor, what food I should eat for me to become healthy, you already have an
answer. Your answer is that, the doctor knows what food you should eat to
become healthy. And so your question is a sign that you know something, but
part of what you know is that you don’t know everything and so you have a
desire to complete your knowledge. So every question contains an answer and
every answer contains a question.
If the doctor tells you what kind
of foods would be healthy for you, it will make you ask further questions
because after he has added to your knowledge by answering your question you
would notice and realize that there are many more things which you do not know.
For example, why would these foods be good for my health? If
I do not take these foods, would my health be compromised. So every
question contains a previous answer and every answer contains a forward looking
question.
It seems to me that when a person
thinks that the questions are more important than the answer, he often has an
accompanying attitude that the answer is left to the activity of the person asking
the question.
The reason the question is more important than the answer is because they
believe that they do not need anyone to tell them or suggest to them or to
perhaps ask them if they see the same answers that a person who is trying to
talk to them has seen.
They will say, “I have my answer
and you have your answer. We do not have to argue about it.”
Once I had a student who had missed
a written exam and he wanted to take a late exam. So I asked him, “If you want
to take a late exam you can either have a written exam or an oral exam.” He
says, “I would like to take an oral exam.” So after that, we stood there in the
classroom.
And I asked him the first question:
“What is the Neo-Kantian attitude towards the truth?”
He says, “The attitude is that we
cannot know reality. And so it is up to each one to create really what he wants
reality to have for him. Reality is like a dark forest, and each one will make
his own light by making his own being.
So I said to him, “Do you see that
tree out there?”
He says, “Yes.”
“Suppose it is not meaningful for
me to think that the tree is there. Suppose if you tell me there is a tree
there. I tell you it is not meaningful for me to think there is a tree there.
“Yes,” he said.
I asked him, “So what do you think
of that philosophy?” He said, “I think it's a good philosophy because we create
our own meaning.”
Well I said, “Suppose I have a car
and I say it is not meaningful for me to think that there is a tree there and I
drive my car straight ahead. What would happen?”
And he said, “Nothing will happen.”
So I said, “But there is a tree
there.” “No,” He said, “It is not meaningful for me to think that there is a
tree.”
So that made me realize that there
are people who do not admit obvious truths in the name of a Philosophy that one
can create his own truth.
So I have created a small dialogue
between two people. One person is named Look because he is looking for the
truth. And the other person is named Help because he is trying to help Look see
the truth. Because Look believes that man cannot know the truth.
When people ask me, “What is
Philosophy,” I sometimes tell them, “We better just do philosophy and in doing
it we realize what it is. Because philosophy is something we do before we
define it” But sometimes I say, “I cannot just give a definition but i can
point out some elements of a sound philosophy. And an important element is that
Philosopher believes that he can know the truth, that a philosopher is looking
for the truth and when he finds it, often it is a question. A question which is
an answer and an answer which will be a question.
But there are some people who
believe that Philosophy is to create your own answers. Because one cannot know
any objective truth.
So in my dialogue, Look tells Help
there is really no such thing as an objective truth. The only truth is that I
cannot know what is out there. I can know only my own thoughts.
So Help picks up a blade of grass
and asks Look, “What is this?”
Look says, “It is a blade of grass.”
“Was it not a blade of grass before you said so? Was it already a blade of
grass before you said so?”
So Look looks around to make sure nobody, none of his friends are hearing him
because he’s afraid that if he says, “It was a blade of grass even before I
said so,” his friends would think he is not cool. His friends will say, “No it
was nothing before I said so.” “But when I said it’s a blade of grass, I
created the meaning. I have to say that. And my friends would think that I’m
old- fashioned if I do not say that.”
“But why did you look around?”
“Well because,” he said, “I looked
around because if there are no friends around, I can say something true, I
think the blade of grass was there before I said so and if you had never seen
this blade of grass it would still be existing here.”
“Yes.” he said, but he’s talking to
Help and telling him. “You are forcing me to make decisions.”
“To say that I have an objective
knowledge of the blade of grass or to decide to go along with my friends and
say that the blade of grass has no objective reality. It is up to me to create
it.”
But he said, “What is a blade of
grass? It is not important. If you have more important truths, can we know
them? Can we know for example, if abortion is wrong? “Can we know for example,
if there is a God?
Those are very deep questions. But
we begin by being aware that we can know that the blade of grass is a blade of
grass. The blade of grass ties you to reality. If you can know the blade of
grass exists, then you will suspect that perhaps you can know other things
deeper than that.
But if you refuse to begin with a
blade of grass, perhaps you will have a hard time knowing deeper truths.
As it is, you have done two things.
You made a decision to admit that
the blade of grass existed before you said it existed. When you said that this
is a blade of grass you have decided to say that, to admit that there was an
objective reality here. You are bearing witness to the truth. And the second
thing you did was to realize that there was an objective truth which you can
refuse to admit, or you can even refuse to look at. But if you admit, if you
decide to look at the truth then you will see the truth. You will see questions.
You know that there’s a blade of
grass here but you know that the blade of grass exists in a wide horizon of
blades of grass and other exciting things.
If you will ask me, if there’s a
blade of grass, then I will give you an answer.
I will say, “I’m holding
something.”And you have to decide whether you will admit that you can, or
whether you will say that it’s just your thought but whatever you say, the
blade of grass remains a blade of grass.
No matter what you say, the blade
of grass simply, quietly and humbly, remains a blade of grass.
And if you can perhaps someday be
able to bear it, to give testimony to the truth even in the hearing of your
friends, but today you testified to the truth in my hearing. This is a great
step forward.
And now that finishes my third
point.
And I just want one more remark.
The Ateneo color is Blue. Why is it
so? It is in honor of Our Lady, because blue is her color.
When I was in high school at the
Ateneo, the weekly holiday was Thursday. We had classes on Saturday. And the
first period. Saturday was for Religion class. And during that period each and
every class prayed the Rosary.
We even had a saying, “In the
pocket of every Atenean, there is a rosary”.
And years later when I was already
a priest, I was performing the last burial rites of a friend. And after the
burial rites were finished, I noticed that the attending was a familiar face.
He was not my classmate but I realized he was a student at the Ateneo at the
same time that I was.
So I walked up to him and said, “You are from the Ateneo,
are you not?”
And he did not say a word.
He just put his hand into his
pocket and took out his rosary, and I put my hand into my pocket and I took out
my rosary.Mary for you, for your white and blue. We pray you keep us Mary
faithful to you.
END.
