We Live in a Time of Hope and Change
A Response
Golden Jubilee Awardee 1999
St. Paul University QC
We realize and accept the big challenge that these awards expect us to carry on as we prepare to face the closing of this century, which marks the grandest milestone of our history, and, on the other hand, anticipates the promise of the next millennium.
Experience tells us of the dichotomy of the future as we walk the road the road of change characterized by danger and opportunity, uncertainty and optimism. However, we tend to believe that the future is bright, and often the prophet in us sees it as a superhighway, sans the predicaments of Nostradamus, the man who saw tomorrow.
At our feet lies a shrunken planet which we exaggeratedly call a Global Village. Definitely our sense of dimension and time is wrong. It is as if we are interpreting literally William Blake’s philosophical masterpiece, Auguries of Innocence, to wit:
“To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.”
Breakthroughs in technology, pyramidal corporate structures, make a genie of a capitalistic society to which the world lies subservient. Paradoxically, through the present Information Revolution, the tentacles of such order have unwittingly clamped down reason in the Homo sapiens now being shaped into a singular mass where richness in diversity begins to dissolve and becomes polarized in the belief that modernization will lead us to the Good Life.
Is this the reason why The Hunchback of Notre Dame lost its socio-political theme in a recent Disney comedy musicale? Was it because of money, because the New Order lacks conscience, because tradition is passe? Whatever happened to Markham’s philosophy on Millet’s struggle, in Juan Luna’s Spolarium?
My fellow awardee and I believe that the Good Life that our fast changing world promises us is more than power. Still, we must rely on man’s most powerful tool that is well tested in the long process of evolution and in the quest for advancement, and that is the power of the human mind, its imagination and its reason.
While there is need to explore the world around us , there is equally a need to reflect into ourselves and onto God.
If truth is to be found in inventions and formulas, we must not forget that the foundation of truth is in the Great Book.
A clear mind about the issues of the world will merely lie obscure without a stout heart that accompanies it, and which is willing to deal with its imperfections.
Peace, that inner peace in every righteous person, in order to exist truly, must be an instrument of reconciliation to settle conflicts and erase tensions, and to teach us to live harmoniously with our fellowmen. Only then can true understanding beget justice, compassion. This is a true gain of mankind, but like any other genuine gain, it cannot be attained without pain. This is reality’s finest moment, a common dream come true. That is why we are measured by our fidelity to our dream, however distant that dream is and impossible as it may seem.
Yes, periodicity – when we came and where we are, through an incidence of time and space – is not devoid of a purpose, a purpose that is part of a grand design of the great Creator, the purpose of life itself, the greatest gift of man from God. And as a gift it must grow, grow into a mountain it must, before it is shared.
In sharing that dream, we indulge in vision, hope and prayer which bring us closer to God. We are not only the dominant organism on earth, we are the likeness of our Creator. If there is one that likeness must fit best, it is the Paulinian. Our vision of her is “a perfect woman, nobly planned,” and bright with something of an angel light that shines, but she, too, takes pride in reaching out to the less fortunate. She sits on a swivel chair, walks on the unbeaten path. She shines in competition, to illuminate the vision that the youth is human life’s instrument of perfection.
These awards are a perfect symbol of the immortal relationship between the old and the young. They help bring generations together for common visions and
Aspirations. The old may have earned the natural right to preach to the young, but the young see more clearly the errors of the past and are more willing to rectify them.
As we walk on the road of change to the year 2000 and beyond, and, perchance find ourselves at a crossroad where we hesitate to proceed, let us look back, and there we will find a lamp shining through the portals of our institution – a light that once upon a dark night on a lonely road to Damascus, a stranger found his way to the hearts of men and into the kingdom of Christ. ~
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