This year, the Society of Jesus celebrates the Ignatian Year, which marks the 500th anniversary of St. Ignatius’ conversion — that fateful day when Ignatius the soldier, struck by a cannonball, began his transformation into Ignatius the pilgrim. This Ignatian year, Xavier Ateneo also celebrates the 75th year with the Society of Jesus of Fr Joe Dacanay hailed as the Jesuit of the missions and of Mindanao.
As our University Chaplain Fr Gabriel Jose Gonzalez wrote on a profile of Fr Dacanay in 2019, “Fr Joe’s life has been marked by mission from birth. “
At 21 years of age, he entered the Jesuit Sacred Heart Novitiate in Los Gatos, California, USA. He then did his Philosophy studies at Mount St Michael’s in Spokane, Washington. He came to the Philippines, particularly to Ateneo de Cagayan, for regency from 1953 to 1955. He then went back to the US for theological studies at Woodstock College in Maryland. On June 20, 1959, at the age of 34, he was ordained a priest at the Fordham University Church in the Bronx, New York.
From 1961 to 1965, Fr Joe’s priestly ministry started in Mindanao as he taught Mathematics and Physics in Ateneo de Davao. He was briefly assigned to Ateneo de Naga for a couple of years but returned to Mindanao by 1967. This time he was assigned to Ateneo de Cagayan where he taught Physics and acted as Prefect of Discipline. In 1970, he received a mission area assignment at Margosatubig, Zamboanga del Sur. In 1974, he continued his mission work in Bukidnon at Imbatug, Baungon.
In 1975 Fr Joe returned to Ateneo de Cagayan for a year before he continued with his mission area work in Bukidnon for the next twenty years, covering the following areas: Pangantucan, Sumilao, and Musuan. At Central Mindanao University, he served as Chaplain-Campus Minister where he made such a great impact of students that they remain his faithful friends up to this day.
Another brief stint outside Mindanao was at the Jesuit Retreat House in Cebu from 1995 to 1997. He went back to Mindanao particularly to mission areas in Zamboanga del Sur, this time covering Payao, the island of Titay, and Ipil. And from 2004 up to the present, Fr Joe has been home, back at Xavier Ateneo.
Of Fr Joe’s 75 years as a Jesuit, and 62 years as a priest, Fr Joe’s ministry has come full circle as he has now found a home at Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan where he had his very first assignment.
At 96, Fr. Joe’s zeal for missions has not waned as he continues to make himself available to the Xavier Ateneo community by his availability for confessions and masses for university groups on retreats. In non-pandemic times, he has also been available for requests for the anointing of the sick and for funeral masses, many of which requests come from outside the Xavier Ateneo community. In these pandemic times, Fr. Joe exemplifies a sanctified life in his obedience to the prevailing health protocols and in his constantly regular prayer for the Church, the Society, and the faithful. Like Ignatius, Fr Joe, still takes on the challenge to encounter God in all things, and witnessing to the joy of the Gospel and acting on God’s invitation to serve without ceasing and to see all things new in Christ.