The Long Retreat
Flora, Fauna and Faces
Sacred Heart Novitiate: Novaliches



A retreat is a great time to begin noticing the obvious about the spiritual life which includes the wonders of the world around us. So, with trusty camera I attempted to capture some of these wonders on my computer disk. On break days I enjoyed most meeting the other participants. There were a variety of groups here to do the long retreat so there were people literally from every part of the globe. Everyone used English as the language for the retreat so communication was not difficult at all (at least for me-- but no one in the crowd spoke Lakota so I was out of luck!). On the break days the novices organized sporting activities (soccer, volleyball and basketball) so I took out my camera to add excuse to protection!!! Here are some of the things I came up with!

These very beautiful moths land in our staircase every evening, attracted by the light. Once a gecko tried to eat one but it proved too big!!! I'm not sure if they eat sweaters but I can imagine such a garment pretty hard to come by this time of year!!!
Here is a close up of the same moth-- the camera does pretty well at close-ups. I did a little color enhancement of the image with paint shop pro using a moth right outside my door to check for color accuracy!! The florescent lighting shifted the color quite a bit on the original image.

These orchids bloomed during the third week of our retreat. I took the picture right after a brief shower.... note the spider web in the upper left hand corner. Lots of people grow orchids in the surrounding neighborhood.



This is a banyan tree-- it is actually a vine which grows up a host tree for support and begins spreading out from the center with these long air roots. There are all kinds of legends about spirits living in these trees and you should never cut a tree down without asking the spirits first. Several grow on the novitiate property. You can actually swing on the vines (I saw a Franciscan Sister from Italy actually do this-- I didn't have my camera at the time unfortunately).

This is the Novitiate Recycling Team-- they eat what we don't eat (plus some food supplements) and then we eat them. Actually several of the porkers went under then knife during the 30 day retreat!!!



This is Sono, one of three tertians from Indonesia. I could make a joke here about the prodigal sono but I'll spare you.



These are Philippino members of the "Society of St. Camillus." Someone referred to them as the Camillians and I thought it was because they could change color!! My observation that most Philippinos look very young for a long long time is born out with this group. When they eat together it looks like "the kids' table" at Thanksgiving!!!



This is Charlie, who I THOUGHT was the youngest Camillian-- I figured around 17 or so..... it turned out he is one of the older of the group at 27-- the youngest is 26..... the fountain of youth is here somewhere!!!! They call Charlie "Bata" which means "Baby" in Philippino so I'm comforted that even the locals think he looks young!!!

These are the Jesuit Novices who did the long retreat along with the Tertians and the rest of the groups. There was also one Jesuit from Indonesia who belonged to a formation training group. That made 20 Jesuits total on the retreat. Even though I only got to meet the novices briefly the day before the retreat began and during the two break days they were really very kind and hospitable and enthusiastic.
This is James, my next door neighbor, a Holy Cross brother from Bangladesh. He is very funny and has a splendid sense of humor and irony.



My friend John from Fiji. We hit it off right away and he has a very similar sense of humor. As the Russians say: "Even from a far far distance one fisherman can recognize another"!
Some of the participants from the Formation directors group of East Asia who also did the 30 day retreat with us (or we did it with them).



A goose hanging out in the reeds. These creatures are used as watch animals by some of our neighbors and they can me as mean as dogs although they hiss rather than bark!!



A local bull.... I wanted to go closer for the picture but as you can see, there are obstructions on the path and you never know when one of these things will charge you!!! So telephoto to the rescue!!!



General Index of Travel Photographs



The Seal of Creighton University
This page is managed by
Rev. Raymond A. Bucko, S.J.
of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology
at Creighton University.

E-Mail: bucko@creighton.edu

Page Last Updated: July 3, 2002