Good morning, ladies and knights of the round tables and the two ladies of the long table.

It has now been a year since we gathered in Davao City, when we came together and declared, remembering the Beatles song, “When we are 64”. Now, a full year after, we are 65.

For many institutions, 65 is retirement age. But we are gathered today on our 65 th year not to retire ourselves but to see where we can still go and why. We are grateful for the year given us by God, a year of life, a year of blessings. In fact today, I am tempted to greet you all with the greeting that the Angel Gabriel said to Mary – “Hail full of grace.” Only I cannot be sure if all of us are full of grace. The reason why I am tempted to say “Hail full of grace” is that, as you know, liturgically, the 12 th of September is dedicated to the Most Holy Name of Mary. We celebrated her birthday on September the 8 th. September 12 th, on the other hand, is called the Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary. And it is under her mantle that I address you today.

We are happy that if we may not be full of grace, we have been graced by God – the grace of life, the gift of life, the gift of growth and development. Last year in Davao, while we did not make big promises, we said that things should change. We should have a particular direction in our retirement plan. This year I am happy to report to you that there have been a few steps that we have made. For instance, we have integrated the Big Brother, Small Brother paradigm into our CEAP Retirement Plan. It means that the schools with bigger resources were able to help those with less.

We also launched the partnership with First Metro Investment Corporation and the Marist Development Foundation. We have the Save and Learn Mutual Funds. We have upgraded the Fund’s back office administration.

We wanted to serve you better and I hope that we have. If we have not, please be kind enough and bold enough to tell us where we were wanting. For we exist for you. If we do not perform our task, you must tell us. Lest we pride ourselves with the assumption that we are doing very well though perhaps we may not actually be doing so.. If our Plan is to continue to grow, we will have to rely on you to tell us where and how we can improve.

There has also been a new form of loan facility for the participants of the Plan. We have put up an interactive CEAP Retirement Plan website and we have a college scholarship program in partnership with SM Foundation. A few steps from the point where we were at in Davao City last year. So now we ask: “Where do we go from here?”

Our Retirement Plan Assembly this year has been titled “Moving Forward.” We are saying that at whichever point we have arrived since last year, we cannot now stand still. We cannot say, “That is enough”, take our bow and quit. That cannot be. This we must not do. If we say we move forward, then we truly must. Aside from moving forward, however, there are a few things that I think we should do, not just in our Retirement Plan but as individuals in the CEAP.

Some of you may have heard of the writer, the religious nun Joyce Rupp. She has written a number of books and released many tapes with very interesting titles. Some of the titles of her works are: Praying Our Goodbyes; Fresh Bread; The Cup of Our Life; Little Kisses of Light; All of Life is A Holy Festival; Walking With Those Who Hurt; Meeting God in Our Transition Times; Befriending the Darkness, Welcome the Light.

It struck me that these are titles of specific segments and stages of a life. Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes. Many of us think that goodbyes are all that tearful. They are but tearfulness is not all that make up our goodbyes. In the view of Joyce Rupp, we must learn to pray our goodbyes. And she says this in the whole dimension of life as a journey. This is why she has that book called Fresh Bread -- for nourishment in our journey. And aside from bread, there is the Cup of Our Life. Then that title about All of Life is a Holy Festival is, I think, one of the more positive way of looking at life. Some look at life as a tragedy, some look at life as a drudgery. But to say that life, all of life is a holy festival , is a very positive attitude. And I believe that it is an attitude that we must learn to take for ourselves.

When we think retirement, we often think really only of the end of our professional life. We think of the many good years that we have had, and say goodbye to them: we retire. But if we consider all of life as a holy festival, even when we step out from the professional years of service, life can continue as a holy festival.

That title “Walking With Those Who Hurt” is also very inviting because in our life as educators, life is not always a paradise. We hurt, and other people hurt. But we must learn to walk together with those who hurt even if we are hurting ourselves.

The three final titles I find rather intriguing for our journey on life because she says that we must learn to meet God in our transition times. Transition times, which means the in-between times, the times between the beginning and the end of a journey. And while she tells that us we must do this, she reminds us that somewhere there is darkness but we must learn to befriend it. And whatever light there is in the midst of the darkness, we need to learn to welcome it.

But one of the other titles that I find very interesting among her works is “May I Have This Dance?” For the older ones among us, we will recognize this as a phrase that men in a dance floor used to say to the women they wanted to dance with. The younger ones among us, who dance -- if they do -- these days, may not know this phrase because today you can just stand up and wiggle and rock and roll and do whatever you want to do. You may not even have a partner.

In times past, however, when a little more formality was in the dance floor, the ladies used to sit in one line, on one side of the hall, and the gentlemen stood on the other side. When the music began, the gentlemen would go to the line of ladies and ask individually “May I have this dance?” And then the dancing would start. I believe Joyce Rupp remember this, which is why she titles one of her books “May I Have This Dance?”

She alludes to the time when God, in the Book of Ezekiel, was talking to the prophet Ezekiel. The prophet was very discouraged and God led him to a valley of dark of dry bones.

In her poem, Joyce Rupp quotes Ezekiel: “Thus says God to these bones, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live.” And her own reflections are these:

“Remember this is now the valley of dry bones.

Here I am, in Ezekiel’s valley, one heap among many.

Just another stack of old dry bones.

Some Mondays feel this way and Tuesdays too.

To say nothing of Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

Most dreams and forgotten pleasures,

sold like a soul to a gluttonous world,

feeding on my frenzy and anxious activity.

But, just when the old heap of bones seems most dry and deserted,

a strong breath of life sits among my dead.

Someone named God comes to my fragments

and asks with a twinkling eye: ‘May I have this dance?’

The voice stretches into me,

a stirring lifts into my heart,

lifting up the bones of death.

Then, I offer my waiting self

to the one who has never stopped believing in me.

And the dance begins.”

Reading this introductory poem of hers in that book of the same title, I thought of us here who are involved in the retirement plan of our individual schools. We, who individually at some point of our life, maybe not yet but at some point will retire. We will feel the old bones creaking in us and wanting to rest. We will feel like Ezekiel in that valley of dry bones and like Joyce Rupp on Mondays, on Tuesdays, on Wednesdays, not wanting to get up anymore because it is so tiring to do so. But in the midst of the tiredness and unwillingness to live, look, the breath of life comes and God says to us “May I have this dance?”

It is a beautiful gesture and invitation from a God who says to us “Yes, I gave you life. Yes, I caused you to live. But do not be frightened of the darkness and the death ahead of you. Do not be afraid. I will be with you. I will dance with you.”

This, I believe, is an attitude that we should have. We should prepare for retirement, yes, but not to the extent that we are gloomy in our attitude. May there be some positive nature to our preparing for that eventual point of retirement.

May I have this dance? I say this we can add to our theme of today. We say we are Moving Forward. We are saying we want to put our retirement plan to another level. And that’s good. We should do that. Surely. Move forward. Go to a higher level.

But I propose we also do something else. Let us dance inward. Even as we are moving forward with the outside activity, we must learn to dance with God inward. And come to a level not necessarily higher but deeper. The intention then for all of us should be not just moving forward but dancing inward and always Godward.

Then, we can have sense to all our preparations. We prepare because that is what is expected of us but the preparation is not only in terms of pensions, and loans, and plans, and funds. It should be the fund of life, how we may truly make our lives meaningful.

So my dear friends, I do welcome you to our Assembly today and to our Convention tomorrow. And later today or tomorrow, may we never forget that we do not journey alone and we do not journey only towards the dark, not just towards death . With every step that we make, there is a God who breathes life into us and continues to come to us. Today, may we enjoy all that will be presented to us. In the inner chambers of the heart, may we learn to listen to the God who comes to us and asks “May I have this dance?”

May we answer YES. And let the music and the dance then begin…

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