From today's alternative first reading: "A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God! Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low; the rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley. Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
From Brother Superior General's Message for the Jubilee Year: "[The disciples on the road to Emmaus] were so upset and confused that they were unable to recognize Jesus. Jesus tells his friends to stop being foolish and to open their hearts to the upside-down reality of his world. And with that their eyes were opened and they recognized him."
And so the season of Christmas ends as the season of Advent began: with a voice heralding the coming of the Lord, and a promise that this would turn things upside down. Isn't that how we came to see why we are at San Miguel? Because quality education is found in a school where incoming test scores are not always high and the Bridge program is needed? Because students with their own struggles freely care enough about migrants, children at Child Discovery Centre in Kenya, and young men in the Philippines to help provide for them? Because students build and program robots and submit to judging about their engineering work before they even get to run the robot, all for fun, learning, sharing their knowledge with others, and Gummi Bears? Because a senior can write, "[a]s I continued my service I began to look with the eyes of Christ rather than my regular view"? Christ has come, and the world is different. We can see him with us, because '[o]ur schools are called to be experiences of the Reign of God, places where the last indeed are first: welcoming, inclusive, joyful, challenging and responsive to the educational aspirations of the poor" (Brother Superior General's Message).
Live, Jesus, in our hearts!