Xavier University Red Mass 2012

Someone once asked me, “What keeps a university president awake at night?  What does the Xavier President worry about?  What keeps him preoccupied?  Unsa may gikagu-ol sa Presidente sa Xavier?”  My response to my friend was, “This President is preoccupied with the health of Xavier University.  Whether Xavier is thriving is what keeps him awake at night.  That Ateneo de Cagayan should be flourishing is his constant concern.”

During our Red Mass of the Holy Spirit, I would like to reflect on the Pentecost story and discern the signs of a healthy university.  Maayo nga mamalandong kita sa istorya sa Pentekostes aron makilatis nato ang mga timaan sa baskog nga unibersidad.  The Pentecost story tells us that there are three marks of a thriving university: melding, ministry and mission.  Let us define these three Ms: melding, ministry and mission within the context of the story of the outpouring of the Spirit.

The Pentecost story speaks of a melding into a new community.  The Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2, 7-11) narrate, “They asked in utter amazement, ‘Are not all these men Galileans? How is that each of us hears them in his native tongue?  We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites.  We live in Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, the province of Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and regions around Cyrene.  There are even visitors from Rome … Yet each of us hears them speaking … about the marvels God has accomplished.”

The cry must be the same in a healthy university: ‘Dinhi kanato mga taga Cagayan de Oro, Iligan, Ozamis ug Malaybalay.  Nagagikan kita sa Mirayon, Mambuaya, ug Mambajao.  We are from Camiguin, Surigao and Bukidnon.  We grew up in Mindanao, Visayas and Luzon.  There are even visitors from New York, Korea, East Timor, Myanmar, Canada and France.  Yet each of us hears about the marvels God has accomplished.’

As diverse as we are, the Holy Spirit melds us together.  We are one community.  That’s what we are celebrating today.  We support each other and we become more than the sum total of our individual selves.

You exhibit the gifts I don’t have and I exhibit those you don’t have.  You cry the tears I cannot cry and I laugh the laughter you cannot laugh.  You believe when I struggle with doubts.  I believe when you struggle with doubts.  You smile when I am in tragedy.  I grieve when you are in joy.  Our individual pieces are partial.  Our faith, our hope, and our love are quite incomplete.  But the melding wrought by the Holy Spirit forms us into one faith family.  We are melded into a vast community of mutual support.  Pentecost becomes a revelation and a comfort.  It tells us a mighty truth: that at Xavier University together we sing, more than we sing alone.

And what do we sing about?  We sing gleefully about the marvels God has accomplished.  What we sing about leads us to the second M: ministry.  Saint Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (1Cor 12, 4-16) teaches: “There are different gifts but the same Spirit; there are different ministries but the same Lord; there are different works but the same God who accomplishes all of them in everyone.”  Could there be a better description of a healthy university?  Look around a thriving university and you will note the many gifts, the extraordinary ministries, the care and concern by and for the students, faculty and staff.

There are our PAASCU accredited academic programs in our different schools and colleges, including Level 4 accredited programs in Liberal Arts and Sciences, Secondary and Elementary Education, Business Administration, Accountancy and BS Chemistry.  Level 4 accreditation is the highest level attainable and our XU programs are the only tertiary level programs in Mindanao that have been recognized as Level 4.  There are our guidance and counseling services, our spiritual formation programs because Xavier cares not only for the mind but also for the psyche and the soul, the total person.  There are our athletic programs, for physical fitness, for intramurals among the colleges and for competition with other schools in Cagayan de Oro, Region 10 and the whole nation.  There are our cultural and artistic programs that foster the creativity of our students.  There are our service learning programs which show the real-world application of theories and concepts learned in the classroom and also sharpen the Atenean’s compassion for those who have less in life and who are most in need.  There are our leadership development programs that aim at forming leaders who can be agents and catalysts of much needed social change.

This is the charism of a healthy university.  Any such university, founded on shared and collaborative ministry, serves as a model of “different gifts but the same Spirit.”

That brings us to a sentence in John’s Gospel that speaks of the third mark of a healthy university: “Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’  After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.  Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’” (Jn 20, 20-21)  These words speak of mission, our third characteristic of a healthy university.  They remind us that we are sent to the world to serve.

At Xavier, we have sharpened our sense of mission by specifying the thematic areas of our Research and Social Outreach: Food Security, Health, Environment, Governance and Peace.  Moreover last December, Sendong led us to a new frontier of developing Xavier Ecoville in Lumbia by not only building houses but more importantly by building a blossoming community of Sendong survivors who can face the future with new hope.

Jesus still shows his hands and his side today.  He still bears his wounds in the poor and the downtrodden, in the scars of environmental destruction.  He still testifies to the terrible hunger for God which many people feel, yet which they don’t know how to satisfy.  Jesus still stands before this university, as he does before every faith community, and shows us his wounds.  Each and every one of us needs to tend to these wounds, for Jesus will not allow complacency to set in.  Thus Xavier’s mission continues.

And so, to sum up, the marks of a healthy, thriving and flourishing university are the three Ms: melding, ministry and mission.  These three qualities must be part of Xavier’s past, present and future; its faith, hope, and love; its pride, joy, and challenge; its goal, its destiny, and its Pentecost.

Come, Holy Spirit, … fill the hearts of your faithful … fill my heart … and kindle in us … kindle in me ... the fire of your own Pentecost love … Send forth your Spirit, O Lord … meld us closer to each other… strengthen our ministry … inspire our mission … Renew Xavier University … Renew Ateneo de Cagayan … Renew us so we will always be healthy, thriving and flourishing … Bag-oha kami … Renew us.