Ateneo Community gathers together for ReIGNITE: Ignatian Festival 2014
Responding to the Continuous Challenges of Restoration
The year 2014 marks the 200th anniversary of the Society of Jesus’ restoration after having been suppressed for 41 years, from 1773 to 1814. This July, the Ateneo de Manila University commemorates this important period in the history of the Society of Jesus Jesuits and the feast day of its founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola. The celebration which will be the Ignatian Festival 2014 is called ReIgnite and it will look at the calls for restoration in the socio-political, environmental and spiritual contexts.
For the first time since it started in 2012, this year’s Ignatian Festival will be a month-long calendar of activities that will involve all sectors of the community from the students to employees and parents to alumni. Various activities will happen both at the level of each unit as well on a university-wide scale. There will be sessions to find out more about the Society, its history, especially its suppression and restoration, as well as meet Jesuits and get to know their current ministries. Furthermore, there will be recollections, dialogues, fora and workshops that will open venues for individual and group reflections. Mobilizations in the various areas of socio-political, ecological and spiritual have also been organized. Exhibits in different places in the Loyola Heights and Professional Schools campuses will also be put up for the whole month of July.
Two hundred years after the Society’s restoration, Jesuit institutions such as the Ateneo still exist and live up to the ideals that Saint Ignatius founded. The Ateneo community in the month of July, will come together as one to share this celebration and respond to the challenges it faces presently. Thus, ReIgnite is an opportunity to reinvigorate, deepen and affirm the Ateneo’s mission, spirituality and formation.
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