Treasures that Horacio Left (Part 4 of 4)
Horacio de la Costa is deemed to be one of the most influential professors in the Ateneo de Manila University because of his formidable competence in various fields. He is known for both his intellectual, as well as his spiritual leadership as a professor, historian, writer, priest, and church leader.
Horacio de la Costa attended college in Ateneo de Manila, where he was a student leader, writer and even became the editor-in-chief of the Guidon, the school’s own newspaper. After earning there his Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude, in 1935, he entered the Society of Jesus at the Sacred Heart Novitiate, where he later completed his Master's degree, and eventually pursued further studies in theology and history in Woodstock College and Harvard University, respectively.
At age 55, his responsibilities also went out of the context of being an academic as he was appointed as the first Filipino provincial superior of the religious order, The Society of Jesus. Many of his writings were influenced by his involvement in the religious order, which eventually led to his style of upholding the culture of God and love in poetry.
Horacio de la Costa’s most popular piece, Jewel’s and the Pauper influenced a plethora of academics, poets, students, and the like because of its honesty about poverty and the treasure of our faith in God. This work enriched the culture of spirituality in the Philippines despite the country’s reputation of being poor and our international stature of being a third world country. Horacio de la Costa writes, “We are again one people when we pray. This is our other treasure: our Faith. It gives, somehow, to our little uneventful days a kind of splendor: as though they had been touched by a King.”
This statement of his has a powerful message of the liberating power of prayer in a person’s life. The Philippine culture emphasizes on the power of prayer considering the fact that this country is known to have a highly religious background. However, Horacio does not stop with the influence of religion in a nation’s culture.
De la Costa was also able to encompass the truth that faith, expressed through prayer and love brings people together. Not only does he talk about prayer being a means to experience “splendor” in ones life, but also connects ones life to another, which explains the Filipino’s culture of collectivism and always having the trait of “family.”
De la Costa’s influence in “Jewels of the Pauper” was able to give an image of Filipino culture in terms of both the power of prayer
even amidst suffering, and the unity of people through prayer, all in the name of Christ Jesus. Ultimately, Horacio de la Costa, being a renaissance man of sorts, lived out in excellence everything he was able to study, whether it was living out excellence academically or spiritually.
Excerpt from Horacio de la Costa's "Jewels of the pauper:"
"We claim two treasures only: this pauper among the peoples of the earth hides two jewels in her rags. One of them is our music: it is our common language. We have forty-seven dialects; we understand each other when we sing. The kundimans of Bulacan awaken an answering echo in Capiz; somewhere in the rugged north a peasant woman hushes her baby with a lullaby, and the Visayan listening remembers the can fields of his childhood and his own mother singing the self-same song. (p. 63)
Excerpt of Fr. Dela Costa's speech for the A.B. Seniors Banquet, Ateneo de Manila University, March 1932:
So now, when laughing time is ended,
the music gone that we have heard,
When friendly paths that we have wended
Lie lone with leaves our feet have stirred--
We'll say with smiles and sadness blended
One simple, lingering last word:
Farewell.
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Photos taken from:
http://ateneo.edu/sites/default/files/styles/full/public/De%20la%20Costa%2C%20Horacio%2C%20SJ_0027_0.jpg?itok=151wf3MO
http://www.observatory.ph/2015/05/04/lumen-de-lumine-fr-horacio-de-la-costa-sjs-closing-remarks-at-mos-100th-anniversary-in-1965/