Mindanaotoday.com | Bond of Brothers!
RAI Bollozos Sanchez
HI there!
After more than two years, the Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan Highschool Alumni Basketball League is finally back.
The XU-ABL aimed to unite all XUHS alumni through the sport many Xavier Ateneans (especially those from the defunct boy school program) loved to play – basketball!
However, since I am not a graduate of XUHS, I envy watching them play basketball.
Nonetheless, I support my friends because despite the fact I only have spent my first year at XUHS.
One of my regrets was not graduating from XUHS. Because of my youthful exuberance, I could not prioritize my academics and was asked to transfer after my first year.
However, since many of my friends from XUHS were my batchmates in Xavier University Grade School, I have not lost and still have contact with them.
But watching in envy, I saw my friends treating their batchmates as BROTHERS.
Then it made me ponder to realize where the brotherhood started.
In 1926, a letter written by Fr. James G. Daly, S.J., initially mentioned the idea of a possible Ateneo in Cagayan, Misamis, since there was no Jesuit school then.
However, in 1927 when the American Jesuits finally established in Cagayan, Misamis, they started a primary school while purchasing another building near the St. Augustine Church for an intermediate school.
Additionally, they rented a house for a Catholic boys’ dormitory that catered to almost a hundred dormers and named it “St. Augustine Dormitory.”
While the Beatas de la Compania de Jesus (now known as the Religious of the Virgin Mary or RVM) converted their convent into a Catholic dormitory for girls, naming it “Sta. Teresita Dormitory.” All because Fr. James T.G. Hayes saw the need for a Catholic school for boys and a Catholic Academy for girls.
However, after Fr. Hayes was appointed Bishop of Cagayan in 1933, he instructed Fr. Joseph L. Lucas SJ to Open the Ateneo de Cagayan for boys.
Together with Lourdes Academy (school for girls), it was opened during the same month that Bishop Hayes was consecrated to the episcopacy in New York in June 1933.
However, the Ateneo de Cagayan was a diocesan school at first under the bishop’s care, with Fr. Joseph Lucas, S.J., Fr. Vincent L. Kenally, S.J, and Kirchgessner SJ as acting directors from 1933 – 1937.
Nonetheless, it was in 1937 that the Jesuits officially accepted the school, and Fr. J. Edward Haggerty was appointed its rector.
You see, in today’s time, many do not know that Xavier University was an all-boys high school.
Nonetheless, my friends and many of my relatives, including me in one instance, experienced the all-boys Xavier Ateneo High School.
While I admit I envy the brotherhood, the history behind how it started could be traced back to the founding of Ateneo de Cagayan.
And since the transition to a COED institution, the fraternity in each alum goes beyond the filial bond.
The Xavier Ateneo High School alumni indeed are “men and women for others” who carried the value of “Cura Personalis,” which is the “care for the person” for “God’s greater Glory!”
To end, I wish to thank XUHS batch 99 for allowing me to experience the unity of friendship and the “bond of brotherhood.”
Kudos to you all! (MT)
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