The Jubilarian Jesuits Series chronicles the stories of three Jesuit priests from the Loyola House Jesuit Community of Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan in Cagayan de Oro City, who are celebrating their jubilees this year. These profiles, penned by Stephen Pedroza, attempt to draw the various facets of their vocation, their ideas of the present world, and the lessons we can learn from their narratives that cut across religions and differences.
Fr Nil Guillemette SJ is an eminent author of religious books, a world traveler, a speaker of many languages, a spiritual expert, and a Jesuit spewing out thoughtful words. In his vocation as a Jesuit priest over six decades, Father Nil has spent 36 years (and counting) in the Philippines, spreading the Gospel through his books, building lasting friendships, and finding joy in living a humble life centered on serving others.
Fr Nil Guillemette SJ, photographed by Stephen Pedroza, in July 2016.
His story begins in the town of Timmins in Ontario, Canada, where a boy named Nil Guillemette wanted to become a priest at the age of eight.
“It’s funny because in those days,” he recounts, “the priests wore sotanas (cassocks), and I asked why these men are having long dresses like that. Somebody told me, ‘because they are married to God.’ Oh my God!”
“That is for me—married to God—what more can I ask for?!” he exclaims.
Growing up as an altar boy at a local church was also an important precursor to his religious journey.
“I got to know the Jesuits when I was 13 years old,” he says. “And for the next eight years, I was boarded in a Jesuit school, under their influence night and day, except for some holidays and Christmas. I noticed they were poor and fraternal. I guess that’s what drove me [to become part of the Society of Jesus] and I wanted to be a priest anyway.”
Fr Nil is a brilliant man, articulate and poetic in his words. His likes and tastes lean toward the direction of the intellectual. He wrote poems and plays, and he published a novel when he was just 15.
During his stay at College de Sacre-Coeur in Sudbury, Ontario, he fell deeply in love with French literature. “I was in love with French literature and I could see myself in the future teaching it. We had a Jesuit priest teaching French literature, who has particularly influenced me a lot,” he relates.
“Later I discovered the Bible as literature and I said ‘Oh, so I have two loves here — literature and the Bible.’ And I discovered God more in-depth. So the Bible really is God’s literature in my passion for the intellectual life.”
He wanted to be a priest spontaneously—“like,” as he puts it, “for a fish to go into the water.”
“I did not have second thoughts about becoming a Jesuit. It was as if I was born a Jesuit,” Fr Nil adds.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, for Fr Nil, was a soaring genius. “He was a scholastic philosopher. He was also an initiator. Thomas tried to express the Christian faith in the classical terminology of Aristotle and he succeeded pretty well. And Thomas Aquinas is a saint!” he proudly reiterates.
Fr Nil admires St Thomas’s art of expressing a complicated principle in modest words.
“He says in a very simple way the most profound thing on earth. For example, to what point God loves? He loves even the demons. He loves them but they don’t Him love back. He maintains pure love,” he says. “Thomas Aquinas became a bit of my hero.”
Fr Nil taught Logic, Cosmology, Philosophy of Man and Religion, and Metaphysics at the University de Sudbury in Ontario, Canada where he served his regency. He took his priesthood vows at the Schol’t de I’Immaculee Conception in Montreal, Canada on June 10, 1967, and his final vows at the Pius X Pontifical College in Dalat, Vietnam on August 15, 1975.
For him, being a Jesuit is simple. “It’s about serving others. Our instrument of service is our specialization, yes, special gifts and strengths. If you’re a doctor, a lawyer, or a businessman, it means you have to give as much as you can. To serve, that’s it. Not to take but rather to give.”
In his discussions on the Original Sin, where our good self is fractured into two — ego and the self — Fr Nil likes to say that there is a war between the two parts of ourselves which we have to conquer.
“Life consists of opening more and more, sharing more and more, and being less and less interested in egoism. It takes a lifetime for that if it goes well. That’s the war for each one of us, to lose our ego and become more giving. We have to open ourselves and be like God who is giving and loving."
He continues: “There is a battle in each one of us, regardless of religion, between egoism and selflessness, and it will manifest in our vocation, in our relationships, in our everyday life. Live very simply. Learn to die with your ego and you will live happier.”
For Fr Nil, the best example to reach God is through the joy of serving others.
However, we are bound to face conflicting forces in our pursuit to become more generous, and for Fr Nil, these forces challenge the millennials the most. “The mass media tells us the same story — to enjoy your life, you’re the center of everything, everything is due to you. It’s a very dangerous message,” Fr Nil warns.
“And yet Jesus said I will not take you from the world, but I will keep you from the world. We have to be contemporary; we have to be one of our fellow citizens and at the same time, not be contended with those false values. It’s a very difficult stance when you meet these bombardments constantly, the anti-values that are contrary to the Gospel. These messages in mass media are very subtle so you have to become aware of it first of all: ‘I accept these values. I don’t accept those. I propose these values. Here’s mine and so forth.’ Only a few people are aware of this war going on. But the mass media is so powerful, they’re not just present; they’re everywhere 24 hours a day.”
The materialism of our day abhors Fr Nil. He yearns to remind everyone about Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si, where the pontiff promoted the simplification of our lifestyle as a way of caring for the creation.
“The mass media promotes materials in order for us to be happy. That’s false. In fact, the simpler we live, the happier we are,” he says. “We need a balanced stance on these matters.”
Keep it simple in the eyes of God, Fr Nil says. He suggests three reflections points.
Firstly, we must look at Jesus Christ. “Learn from Him so that you become inhabited by His values and principles,” Fr Nil explains.
Secondly, we must apply in life, at our own level, what we understand in the values of Jesus. Fr Nil reassures us that the Holy Spirit will guide us.
Lastly, we must trust God. “He’s still in charge. God is victorious already so why should we be afraid of anything? Even death is like coming home for us, with all my brothers and sisters who are there. God is love. God is joy,” he says.
Living in the Philippines for nearly four decades, Fr Nil says that there are mysteries in the Filipino culture he still couldn’t completely understand. Massive corruption in government is one.
“I’m rather protective of the Filipinos. The Filipinos need to develop a sense of nationhood, a sense of unity, where the loyalty to the nation is stronger than the loyalty to friends and family. That takes a lot of time,” he says.
Fr Nil believes there is great potential for progress in federalism for an archipelagic country such as ours. “Once we have a very strong local government, through federalism, I think that’s very good. And I’m speaking of it as someone who has lived in that kind of system in Canada. Federalism will help this country enormously, especially when the local people know that power and social services are within their reach.”
Most of all, he values the friendships he has built in Cagayan de Oro City and in other places in the Philippines. He currently resides at the Loyola House Jesuit Community of Xavier University. “The gift of friendship is what I love the most about Cagayan de Oro City,” Fr Nil says. “It’s the City of Golden Friendship; that’s the first thing you see when you arrive at the airport. There are a lot of good people here. I would like to die here.”
The Society of Jesus has a little cemetery at the Manresa Farm Complex, the agricultural extension campus of XU, located along Fr Masterson Avenue in Upper Carmen. “I have plotted where I am going to be buried there,” Fr Nil smilingly declares.
Fr Nil Guillemette is a well-published author, a world traveler, a speaker of ten languages, a spiritual expert, a Jesuit spewing out thoughtful words. But really, there is another task he needs to accomplish — crossword puzzles. “They are a challenge to my mind,” he laments. Just recently, he got a big book of crossword puzzles. “Oh my God, they’re terrible and difficult,” he exclaims. “I only succeeded in one page, only once.”
In the Canadian town of Timmins, an eight-year-old boy named Nil Guillemette wanted to marry God. Today, at the age of 81, he flips through perplexing crossword puzzles. He knows he has enough to be happy. ∎
[Read Fr Nil's books: Greater Than Our Hearts - God Tales for the Young and Old, Vol. 1 (St Paul’s Publications, 2007), A Gentle Breeze: God Tales ... A Gentle Breeze: God Tales for Young and Old (1989), A Gentle God (St Paul’s Publications), The Scandalous Bible (St Paul’s Publications), Into Deep Water (Claretian Publications) and more.]
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