Date: 11 June2015
Weekly Memorandum No. 2015 – 6.1
TO: AdZUHS Community
FROM: Father Principal
SUBJECT: AdZUHS this week, June 15 – 20, 2015
1. Principal’s Message:
A new school year presents opportunities for various beginnings—new classes, new faces, sometimes new subjects/courses, and often new materials. Newness alone, however, cannot produce transformation. We ourselves must be willing to be caught up in the rebirth that is possible with each new year.
Starting a new academic year gives us the opportunity to make new plans, design new strategies, and implement new ideas. There is a special kind of joy and satisfaction in planning lessons and activities for a new class; for although the subject or grade level is the same, the students are new, and they appreciate the planning that is done for them. Whether one’s responsibility is supervising, teaching, maintaining a building, or managing an office, there is always room for improvement and for new ways to do a good job even better.
We can be proud of what we achieve in the Ateneo—in our classrooms, in our offices—but our achievements are not due to complacency and satisfaction with the status quo. Our program is what it is because a staff of dedicated, aspiring men and women have a common goal—to do what is best for students—and are always looking for ways to achieve that goal.
This year, as in the past, we must concentrate on the processes that spur continuing advancement: evaluating what we have, determining what we can do to improve, and identifying what we need to make those improvements.
1. Characteristic of Jesuit Education (CJE): Jesuit Education includes a religious dimension that permeates the entire education. Religious and spiritual formation is integral to Jesuit education. It is not added to, or separate from, the educational process. In all classes, in the climate of the school, and most especially in formal classes in religion, every attempt is made to present the possibility of a faith response to God as something truly human and not opposed to reason, as well as to develop those values which are able to resist the secularism of modern life.
2.Activities and Events for June 15 – 20 (RIZAL Week Celebration)
a. 15, Monday * Monday Assembly sponsor: Social Studies Department
* 7:30AM Mass: Class sponsor: Gr. 9 Borgia
Moderator: Ms. Mari Flor M. Pamalison
* 7:30 – 8:30 AM: Medical and Dental Checkup for Gr.7 Faber
b. 16, Tuesday * 7:30 – 8:30 AM: Medical and Dental Checkup for Gr.7 Berchmans
c. 17, Wednesday * 7:30AM Mass: Class sponsor: Gr. 9 Briant
Moderator: Ms. I-C P. De Castro
* 7:30 – 8:30 AM: Medical and Dental Checkup for Gr.7 Canisius
* 4PM – 5PM: Reading Test Orientation Grade 7 Moderators
d. 18, Thursday
e. 19, Friday * 7:30AM Mass: Class sponsor: Gr. 9 Lewis
Moderator: Ms. Christian Jade F. Encilay
* 10:00 – 11:45 AM: Reading Test for Grade 7 Students
f. 20, Saturday
3. Faculty Updates:
a. Mr. Erwin G. Pelayo, AdZUHS Athletics Coordinator, is in Singapore, June 4 – 17, 2015, as a technical official (arbiter) in Sepak Takraw at the 28th Southeast Asian Games (28th SEAG).
4. Teach us to Pray: Insights in Prayer
Fr. James Martin, SJ
There is an unfortunate tendency in some Christian spiritual circles to privilege the emotional over the intellectual. Spiritual directors (myself included) often emphasize how God can work through your emotional life – moving you to tears during a Mass, prompting feelings of consolation when reading Scripture, or filling you with joy at the sight of a sunrise. Sometimes this emphasis, however, can lead to downplaying intellectual insights that happen in prayer. But God is just as likely to work through our minds as through our hearts.
One example is having an “Aha” moment while praying with Scripture. A few years ago, I was reading the story of Jesus’ rejection in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:16-30). Almost all the homilies I had heard about this passage focused on how townspeople knew Jesus too well and thus dismissed him. How could someone living among them be the Messiah? But during my prayer, I realized something I had never thought about: Jesus knew them too.
When we know people well, we can usually predict how they might respond to something controversial we might say. Jesus surely knew that his comments could provoke controversy. But Jesus preached the Good News anyway. For me, it was an important realization about the courage required for Christian discipleship. This was an intellectual insight and not one that came with a great deal of emotion. God was just as much at work through my intellect as if God had moved me to tears.
James Martin is a Jesuit priest and author of “Between Heaven and Mirth”, “The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything”, and “My Life with the Saints”.
