IS MAGNANIMITY DEAD, AND WITH IT THE ATENEAN?

Hi guys! This is a rather long rant that I wrote after yesterday's Military Mass at the Ateneo High School. As you know, our patron saint is Ignatius of Loyola, who was a soldier prior to being the first Jesuit. Incidentally, he is also the patron saint of soldiers. Every year, we celebrate his feast day with a Military Mass, complete with a silent drill from the AHS Honor Guards, and with the rest of the AHS Senior Cadets standing at attention for the duration of the mass. This is in response to an incident I observed during the mass about the students who are deferred from CAT, either because they are varsity athletes or student leaders. Read on, and forgive me for the length of the post.

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IS MAGNANIMITY DEAD, AND WITH IT THE ATENEAN?

In the homily for today’s Military Mass, Fr. Nono Alfonso talked about how Jesus asks the question “Who do you think I am?”, but not in a vain attempt to know what his apostles thought of him. With that brief yet profound question Jesus sought to confront his apostles with the most important issue that they would ever face in their service to Him, and how they respond would determine not only what their values and lifestyle would be, but also their destiny as followers in Christ’s service.

Everyday and in various ways, we too are asked the same question. The question “Who do we say Jesus is?” may perhaps be (rightly or wrongly) transposed with the question “Who do we say Ignatius is?”—Ignatius being a man who strove with all his heart and soul to be like Christ—and in turn may consequently be transposed (again, rightly or wrongly) to the question “Who do we say an Atenean is?”, the Atenean being the beneficiary of the Ignatian tradition of education and spirituality.

I would imagine that the Atenean and consequently the Ignatian answer, wrought in fancy sticker paper and splashed across the front side of the podium in each classroom, is not just to live like a man who exemplifies the 5Cs—Christ-centeredness, commitment, compassion, character, and conscience—but precisely to be a man who exemplifies all these with magnanimity. The word magnanimity comes from two Latin roots: magna, which means great, and animo, which means spirit. Thus, coupled with Ignatius’ fiery passion to serve, as well as his chivalry of character brought about by his experience as a steadfast soldier, the Atenean has much to live up to in terms of greatness of spirit, in serving others humbly inasmuch as in serving God faithfully.

Thus, it was to my utter dismay that during the Military Mass, I saw these ideals crumble before my very eyes. As you know, we celebrate the Military Mass with pomp and flourish reminiscent of Ignatius’ soldierly life, not least his gallant act of wanting to keep on fighting despite being hit with a cannonball that crushed his leg, of being generous enough to want to fight and not heed the wounds. Today however, in the faces of those students who were deferred from CAT and who were thus comfortably seated during the whole affair, enjoying the cool morning breeze while they were slouched in their chairs, I saw neither gallantry nor generosity.

Instead, I saw malice as I saw them make fun of their classmates and batch mates who had to endure more than two hours of standing upright just because they had to. I saw insensitivity as they doubled over in their seats at the numerous students who had to fall out of their flights, buoyed with simultaneous fits of nausea and dehydration. I saw arrogance as they act conceitedly towards the persons in authority, knowing that whatever CAT training they will have they will only have to undergo for one week during their summer vacation—and with Airsoft sessions to boot. And then I saw hypocrisy as they stood up and sang their Hallelujahs at the top of their lungs. They were, after all, still in mass.

Whatever happened to conscience? To character? To compassion? Where is the greatness of spirit that Ignatius and the Atenean are supposed to be known for? And perhaps the most disturbing question of all: why does it have to be the athletes and the student-leaders?

When Ignatius’ leg was broken, the pain must have been excruciating. However, it was through this haze of excruciating pain that Ignatius underwent his conversion from being a vainglorious courtier to a deeply spiritual person. I’m afraid I’m not quite as holy as Ignatius. I caught myself mid-thought wondering how these students would feel if instead of slouching on their chairs, they were the ones who had to stand up for two hours. I caught myself thinking how they would feel if they fell on the ground, overpowered by fits of fatigue and nausea. Pardon my morbidity, but would they still be laughing, if like Ignatius, it was their legs which were shattered beyond repair, along with a lifetime’s worth of dreams for the normalcy of a healthy life?

And yet it is true that God works in mysterious ways, and He does meet us where we are. In my moment of anguished disorbitation, God reminded me why I took the position of being CSO Moderator, and why after four years, I am still here teaching Hamlet and Catcher in the Rye in the Ateneo. They showed a video clip of two Sanggu-related events during the mass, the first one being the voluntary immersion in the Aeta community in Tarlac, followed by the human chain for the Typhoon Frank relief operations. Here I saw the true Atenean and the fulfillment of Ignatius’ conversion and mission, which is to have a great desire to help others not for glory or honor, and not even because it will lead him to God, but because at the end of the day, it is the right thing to do. And when I see how these student-leaders embody this compassionate commitment to their fellowmen, I see the true Atenean: humble in labor, hard at work, generous in love, great in spirit.

How does one then begin to answer the question “Who do you think Jesus is?” Perhaps Hoot from the movie Black Hawk Down puts it best when he says, “They won’t understand why we do it. They won’t understand that it’s about the man next to you, and that’s it. That’s all it is.” I’d like to think that Ignatius the soldier would understand these words perfectly, perhaps to an even deeper degree than any of us could, precisely because in war, the only person one can turn to is a comrade. Perhaps that is the mystery of being a man-for-others: that above all, Ignatian spirituality is about service to others inasmuch as it is about service to God, because if you think about it, God and the Other are inseparable. If we can live to be comrades-for-others in the magnanimous way that Ignatius did, then maybe we can also begin to understand veteran soldier Mark Ranney’s response to his grandson’s question “Grandpa, were you a hero in the war”. His reply? “No, but I served in a company of heroes”.