The unlikely Ignatian

By Herman M. Lagon

This July 31, as Ateneos and Jesuit schools around the world celebrate the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, I find myself smiling at an irony I never saw coming. The first time I heard his name, I was not looking for a saint. I was a curious teenager chasing stories that sounded too unbelievable to ignore.

Those stories revolved around the “Black Pope,” the Jesuits, and secret plots that supposedly shaped world history. I cannot say I believed all of them. But they certainly captured my imagination. Whether they were true hardly mattered. They fed the curiosity of a young mind that enjoyed asking questions more than accepting easy answers.

Years later, that same curious teenager found himself teaching in a Jesuit school, eventually leading it as its first lay K-12 principal, and writing this column. None of that was part of my plan. Life led me from conspiracy theories about Jesuits to spending more than two decades trying to understand what they were really about. I couldn’t have planned it if I had tried.

Truth be told, I came to know St. Ignatius not only through those stories. I came to know him even more through the people who quietly lived his ideals.

When I applied to Ateneo de Iloilo in 2001, I had the civil engineer’s way of thinking, the journalist’s inquiring mentality, the activist’s hopeful defiance, and just enough confidence to disguise my ignorance. But faith was quite another matter.

To be honest, I was applying for a teaching job, not a spiritual journey. I simply wanted to teach physics, earn a more stable living, and better provide for my family. Everything else, I thought, would take care of itself.

During my interview with Fr. Manny Uy Jr., SJ, I probably committed what most applicants would consider professional suicide. Father Manny asked about my faith. I looked nothing like someone applying to teach in a Catholic school — plain white shirt, shorts, and shoulder-length blond hair.

“Father, I’m an atheist,” I impertinently answered. I waited for his reaction. He never gave me the one I expected. So, I quickly added that I believed I would become a very good science teacher nonetheless, as if that somehow balanced everything I had just blurted out.

Surprisingly, Fr. Manny simply listened, leaned back, smiled the way someone smiles at a young, restless man who still has plenty to learn, and said, “I think we can make this work.” Perhaps seeing a little potential, he said he was willing to hire me, provided I respected the school’s Catholic identity, joined its formation activities, cut my long hair, and dyed it black.

The haircut took me a week to decide on. The rest took years.

Looking back, I think Fr. Manny, who became my lifelong mentor and second father, was never trying to change my hairstyle. He was inviting me into a way of life. I simply did not know it yet. Perhaps he saw something I could not yet see in myself. He never tried to argue me into belief. He trusted that truth did not need to force its way into anyone’s heart.

People often imagine that my faith returned all at once. It did not.

Nobody cornered me after Mass. Nobody handed me apologetics books or told me I had to read them. No one expected me to make the sign of the cross, open a Bible, pray the rosary, or receive Communion. I was never pressured to believe. Instead, I was simply welcomed, questions and all.

No one seemed interested in winning an argument. They were far more interested in walking with people.

What slowly changed me was not a debate. It was watching grace quietly appear in ordinary places — in classrooms, faculty meetings, retreats, outreach programs, shared meals, and conversations over coffee. I began discovering that the Divine often whispers through ordinary people. Most of the people who formed me happened to be deeply grounded and quietly driven. You just wouldn’t know it from the way they treated people. They listened. They admitted mistakes. They kept learning. And somehow, after every conversation, you walked away feeling a little more confident instead of a little less.

I remember watching Fr. Manny pause in the middle of a busy day simply to ask a maintenance worker how his sick wife was doing. It lasted less than a minute. Somehow, I never forgot it. I watched teachers remember birthdays, ask about parents, and notice when a usually cheerful student had become unusually quiet. Their faith was not loud. It showed in smaller things — in the way they prayed, laughed, worked, and treated every person with equal respect.

Maybe it was my skepticism, but I kept looking for cracks. I assumed the kindness would fade once the workday began. It never did. Real role models are not easy to find, and I was blessed that many of mine were close by. The people I saw praying in chapel were the same people I encountered in meetings, classrooms, and hallways. There wasn’t a second version of them waiting somewhere else. That was difficult to argue against.

Then came the retreats I attended because attendance was expected. At first, the silence made me restless. Before long, I found myself looking forward to it. Somewhere along the way, I stopped trying to fill every quiet moment. The silence became welcome. It gave me room to notice things I had been too busy to notice before — including myself.

So did the daily examen. What first felt like another Jesuit practice eventually became the way I try to end each day — with gratitude, questions, and an honest look at myself. I don’t always succeed. In fact, I fail more often than I care to admit. But the examen has taught me that beginning again is part of the practice.

For what was I grateful? Whom did I ignore? When did I listen well? When did my pride speak louder than compassion? Where did God quietly surprise me today? Without noticing it, I was changing. My daughters noticed it before I did. Years later, I watched Ateneo quietly shape them as well. As a father, few gifts have meant more to me than seeing the same values that slowly transformed me take root in the lives of Psyche and Parvane. Not dramatically. Not completely. By grace, we are all still learning, still stumbling, and still beginning again.

I also misunderstood another Jesuit word for years: magis. I thought it meant achieving more — more awards, more titles, more accomplishments. Age has slowly corrected me. Today, “more” means listening a little longer, being a little slower to judge, choosing peace of mind over proving a point, living more fully in the present, and loving people a little better than I did yesterday.

Only later did I realize that none of this happened alone. Grace often works through companions, and I was blessed with many. They were not only Jesuits and fellow teachers. Students challenged my assumptions. Parents entrusted me with what mattered most to them. Office staff, maintenance personnel, security guards, and many others quietly reminded me that dignity is found as much in ordinary service as in leadership. Each, in ways they may never have realized, became part of my own formation.

Fr. Manny Uy Jr., SJ, opened the door. Fr. Ben Nebres, SJ, showed me that brilliance and humility could live comfortably together. Fr. Joseph Haw, SJ; Fr. Johnny Go, SJ; Fr. Danny Huang, SJ; Fr. Marlito Ocon, SJ; Fr. Henry Ponce, SJ; Fr. Xavier Olin, SJ; Mrs. Aurora dela Cruz; Fr. James Martin, SJ; Chris Lowney; and my dear friend Primo Escobañez each, in their own way, nudged me toward becoming not just a better teacher or leader but, hopefully, a better person. Even those I never met personally — St. Francis Xavier, Matteo Ricci, Peter Faber, Christopher Clavius, and Fr. Romeo Intengan, SJ — became companions through their stories, writings, and witness. None of them asked me to become exactly like them. Instead, they reminded me that education is never just about forming minds. It is about forming lives — including the lives of those who think they are the ones doing the teaching.

Even after retiring from Ateneo and beginning another chapter at a state university, I discovered that the Ignatian way of proceeding was something I carried with me. Buildings changed. Colleagues changed. Students changed. The mission did not. If my work today carries any meaning, I owe much of it to the mentors and colleagues who patiently formed me long before I ever realized they were doing so.

Today, I celebrate St. Ignatius with gratitude — not because I have arrived, but because I am still learning. I still stumble. I still ask questions. I still begin again. The older I get, the less interested I am in having all the answers and the more grateful I am simply to keep growing. And for someone who first met St. Ignatius through conspiracy theories instead of catechism, that remains the sweetest irony of my life.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions that employ him or with which he is connected.