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Thursday, May 11, 2006

Moving away and going toward



Jomari Manzano, SJ

I have been very busy these days, trotting from one corner to another inside the University campus where I have stayed for the past three years. Just as anybody's experience of going through interim days of going away and moving toward, I find myself at the pinnacle of it.

I am entering another stage of my formation as a Jesuit formand-the regency. For the next two years I will do part time teaching in the High School and full time in Campus Ministry work. This is a stage where I will be fully immersed as a Jesuit worker after an initial five or six years of rigorous preparation, both academic and psycho-spiritual.

I feel like I am standing right in the middle of things. I have started reporting for work since May 2 and since then I have been undergoing an in-service training together with the rest of the faculty. Everyday we are being oriented once again to go back to the basics of the Ateneo High School's philosophy, goals and objectives. Besides, this is also being done as a preparation for this year's visit of the accreditation board (PAASCU).

Simultaneous with these preparations for my regency, I have been reviewing for the second half of my comprehensive exams in the college which I will take this Saturday. I am looking forward at this day as the capstone of my philosophy years. I feel a sense of accomplishment and gratitude to the Lord for all these.

My condition right now concretizes one aspect of Jesuit life, that is, a constant moving away and going toward something which I have not really planned or dreamed of. No matter how difficult often times being in situations like these, I am at the same time stunned and consoled by one realization about myself. Yes, I am standing in the middle of things, a place which I have not planned or imagined before. A place that I do not control yet I see things smoothly moving as if according to a plan. I am surprised by how have been led all along through the constant going toward and moving away. And I like and I am delighted with the things that God has been giving to me.