THE BAGUIO I REMEMBER (continued)
March
2009
On Mirador by Horacio dela Costa SJ
On the Meaning of Mirador, Fr. Horacio dela Costa SJ writes, and I quote:
This house is called Mirador: Prospect Point.
There have been four stages of its life.
It began as a meteorological observatory, with Jesuit scientists puttering about measuring rainfalls, observing winds, recording the shiverings of the earth, quietly, patiently opening windows into the secret heart of the physical universe.
Then it became a villa house, where Jesuit teachers - in the happy days before summer schools- rested from the labors of the year. They played ball. They prayed to God. They read books and argued about them endlessly, opening the world of ideas and the world of men.
After the Pacific War, when mainland China was closed to the Gospel, this House became a scholasticate, a house of studies for the young Jesuits of the Far east Province. In these rooms, along these corridors, they followed the progress of Christianity from Pentect to Paul VI, opening windows into the life and meaning of the Church.
Today, Mirador has acquired other uses. It is no longer a scholasticate; but is still a villa house for Jesuits; and the Manila Observatory still keeps some of its instruments ticking away on this hill. Groups of priests, religious, lay people come here for retreats. Conferences are held by bishops, scholars, student leaders, journalists, businessmen. Men and women who want time to think, time to reflect on what they are, what they must be or do come here, to this quite hill beneath a quiet heaven; to reflect, to pray to observe the signs or our troubled, yet immensely hopeful, times; to open windows to even broader horizons.
And so, Mirador is still what it was in the beginning: an observatory, a point of vantage. And if this house could speak, perhaps this is what it would say to you: Look out of my windows and try to extend your vision beyond the Gulf of Lingayen to all of Asia. Tey to make out more clearly what God’s plan for all these people is, and for all those - like yourself - seek nothing else but to be of service to man.
Man - the glory of God.
This entry was posted on Saturday, March 14th, 2009 at 12:08 am and is filed under Jesuits, People, The Baguio I Remember. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
omg mirador
this was where i stayed several yrs ago with my parents
we stayed in adjacent rooms and then in the middle of the night, i couldn’t move my arms and legs
i couldn’t even open my eyes fully
it was like there was this force embracing me
when i finally “freed” myself, I knocked on my parents’ wall and told them i wanted to transfer rooms (the walls between the rooms were really thin)
so i dragged my mattress to their room and tried to sleep on the cold floor
i knew something else was going to happen before dawn and true enough, something did
i felt shivers seconds before a dog moaned under our window.
my mom, thinking it was me having a bangungot, leapt across my dad because she was determined to wake me up
(it’s been said that people can die because of bangungot although the term used is acute pancreatitis)
needless to say, none of us got much sleep that night