Philippine Life Experience:
Navotas
September - October 1998
Tertians with PPF Staff
The purpose of this experience as addressed to the tertians by the director: This experience may be seen as an adaptation of the traditional pilgrimage experience. Its purpose is to experience life among the simpe folk who represent the vast majority of people around us, and in this experience to let God speak to us in the lives of these simple people--the same God who calls us in other situations in our lives (in our prayer, in our discovery of our inner selves, in our companionship with one another), but whom we are "challenged" to meet in the "little ones" of today's world. Can we allow God speaking to us in their lives to challenge our own lives? Can we bring what we "hear" to our experience of the Spiritual Exercises?
From the 34th General Congregation's Decree On Poverty
287 14. 5. In order to"feel" [sentir] the anxieties and aspirations of the dispossessed in an Ignatian way, we need direct personal experience. Profound experience is what changes us. We can break out of our habitual way of living and thinking only through physical and emotional proximity to the way of living and thinking of the poor and marginalized.
288 15. a. The lived experience of poverty and marginalization should accompany each Jesuit during his life, even when his main occupation will not be work with the neediest. It is the desire"when occasions arise, [to] feel some effects of [poverty]" that has to motivate our finding time for such experiences. They can be occasions for radical conversion. It was among the poor of the hospitals and slums of Venice and Rome that the first members of the Society"experienced privation and need," but they also came to know that"a life removed as far as possible from all infection of avarice and as like as possible to evangelical poverty is more gratifying, more undefiled, and more suitable for the edification of others." Therefore their desire for each one who would come after them was that"his food, drink, clothing, shoes, and lodging will be what is characteristic of the poor," and that these followers would seek "to reach the same point as the [first members] or to go further in our Lord." From the witness of many companions who live with the poor, we know that, along with the hard lessons of poverty, such experiences bring the evangelical values of celebration, simplicity, and hospitality which so often characterize the life of the poor. Superiors should facilitate such experiences and allow the required time to those who want them.
Navotas housing built on stilts over Manila Bay
From September 29 until October 5, the twelve tertians were guests of the people of Navotas (see map of Manila Region-- Navotas is underlined in yellow and map of Metro Manila). This experience was organized by a non-governmental agency, the Pag-aalyng Puso Foundation Each tertian was the guest of two families, each for 4.5 days.
Street scene in Navotas
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Page Last Updated: January 7,1999
