As part of its Ruby Jubilee celebration, Xavier University bestowed an honorary doctorate in the humanities on Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio G Cardinal Tagle in a special academic convocation on Aug 1 at the university’s Immaculate Conception Chapel.
“We are indeed privileged to have you as our honoree for we look up to you as a servant leader,” XU President Fr Roberto Yap SJ said to the Cardinal. “We look up to you as a leader formed the Ateneo Way,” he added.
XU’s theme for its Ruby Jubilee celebration is “Forming Leaders the Ateneo Way.”
The Call to a New Evangelization
In his response, Tagle offered three points for reflection based on the Catholic Church’s call to a New Evangelization for the transmission of the faith. He explained the phrase simply by relating the story of the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at a well.
First, he said, Jesus is presented in the Gospel as a traveler who experiences weariness, tiredness and thirst. The Samaritan woman is fetching a jar of water from the well when Jesus, tired from the day’s journey, asks her for a drink.
“The New Evangelization is inviting the Church to be a co-traveler to people in their weariness, tiredness and thirst,” Tagle said.
Given that in Jesus’ time Jews did not associate with Samaritans, the Cardinal echoed Pope Francis’ call to “get out of ourselves and go toward the periphery.”
Tagle bid XU to “go to the wells frequented by our people,” just as Jesus reached out to the woman and spoke to her about the life-giving water.
His second point was on the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, which involved a conversation. He said that like Jesus, the Church comes as a beggar, a listener and a giver.
“Everyone can be a giver to the Church,” he said, adding that the New Evangelization calls for the Church to be a listening Church.
“This is a Church that is not embarrassed to admit its confusion…its lack of answers,” Tagle remarked. He asked, “What type of Church are we? Can we receive? Can we listen?”
Lastly, the Cardinal related that the encounter at the well centered on truth, particularly truth about the woman who was living in sin. Tagle said that Jesus conveyed the truth with much compassion and love that the woman experienced enlightenment and a renewed spirit.
“Let us utter with humility and sympathy a word of truth,” Tagle said. “The New Evangelization is about the truth of God. People will encounter the truth when the ones who communicate it are also truthful.”
While all of these lessons are not new, the Cardinal shared that going back to Jesus makes the mission ever new.
“Evangelization will not become new in fervor…if the evangelizer is not renewed in the spirit of Jesus,” he said.
Ignatius, Francis and Pope Francis
Cardinal Tagle’s speech was not all serious. It was also peppered with humor. He made audiences laugh when he recalled his casual conversations with Pope Francis. He even joked that the Pope is, indeed, a Jesuit because when he gives a sermon, he always talks about three points.
In his personal encounters with the Pope, Tagle mused, “He leads us back to the Gospel and the call to spiritual indifference.” He called on everyone to pray for the Pope and the Society of Jesus.
“We pray that the sons and daughters of Ignatius, Francis (Xavier) and Pope Francis… learn about the truth of Jesus,” Tagle said.
Responding to the call and challenge of the Cardinal, Fr Yap renewed XU’s commitment as a Jesuit institution.
“We recommit today that XU is and always will be an apostolic instrument of the Church,” he said. “We will always strive to foster the ideals of cura personalis, magis, and finding God in all things."
Furthermore, Yap said that XU will apply the three words that Pope Francis gave the Jesuit community at La Civiltà Cattolica to characterize XU as a Jesuit university. These words are dialogue, discernment and frontier.