The arching new building has 44 double rooms, others are dorms that with double decks could accommodate 40 each for a total of 80. That number plus 120 means a capacity of 200 pax. The new building is self-contained with its own 2 chapels and 2 MPRs, dining and lounge areas, and Spiritual Direction (SD) spaces. It is named Holy Name of Jesus, after the patron of the Society of Jesus and the Archdiocese of Cebu.
On 11 December 2018 on his visit to Cebu, Jesuit Superior General Fr. Arturo Sosa, SJ blessed the JRH-Banawa time capsule at the Archdiocesan Shrine of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Most Reverend Jose Palma, JCD, DD, Archbishop of Cebu, laid the time capsule at the ground breaking ceremony on 12 December, Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of Mexico and the Philippines. This was a happy coincidence since Banawa Hill is located in Barangay Guadalupe of Cebu.
Work began with demolition of the old chapel and clearing of the property before the Covid-19 pandemic struck. Work slowed down because of the three-month lockdown beginning 14 March 2020 and was slowly and painstakingly resumed thereafter. By July 2021, the buildings were substantially complete, except for a touchup here and there. Landscaping had already commenced. A 31 July 2021 blessing and inauguration had been scheduled as part of the Ignatius 500 celebration but was postponed for 2022 as the world awaits for the end of the pandemic.
The new building opens Banawa to an unprecedented vista of Cebu, the Mactan Channel and Mactan Island. It is a distant presence that silently intrudes into one’s space. CCIS-JRH has still to be tested, whether its framing of beauty will attract retreatants and visitors to the place. Already, those who have visited and stayed in Banawa have been enthralled by the beauty around, calling it among the “top 10” Jesuit retreat spaces worldwide.
Ignatius recommended that those doing the Spiritual Exercises live apart in a place near a church or monastery so the retreatant could join the daily liturgies. Although he asked that Jesuits be exempt from common and choral recitation of the Divine Office for apostolic reasons and availability, he must have done so reluctantly. We know he loved music and as Father General, living in the casa professa beside II Gest) he found comfort in the folksongs of a Jesuit brother. He found solace in the liturgy and its beauty, expressed in music, movement, architecture and the visual arts.
He made his vigil of self-offering at Montserrat, an area north of Barcelona known for its spectacular karst mountains, whose peaks resemble the tooth of a saw, hence the name Mont (mountain) Serrat (serrated saw-toothed). The Benedictines were known for liturgy and Gregorian Chant.”
And it was while gazing at the Cardoner River in Manresa that he had his vision of the Trinity, which he describes as “tres teclados,” that is, three distinct musical notes that harmonized as a chord. While gazing at the river, he may have seen the sky reflected on its surface and he was brought quickly heavenward then back to earth again in the communion of love poetically expressed in the Contemplatio ad amorem.
Pedro Arrupe said in an address to Jesuit artists, gathered at Villa Cavalette near Rome, that Ignatius was a poet at heart whose vision ranged from earth to heaven. Ignatius and Arrupe would, we believe, surely appreciate CCIS JRH’s opening of vistas to retreatants, now returning in trickles and in the future in floods to relish (a word much used by Ignatius) the wordless contemplation that Banawa Hill’s vista offers as gift and invitation.
CCIS JRH had its baptism of wind and rain on the evening of Thursday, 16 December 2021, when a Category 4 typhoon named Odette (international name Rai) passed Cebu. Its eye was tracked over Sibonga, a town about an hour’s ride south of Cebu City. Caught in Banawa were some Jesuits from Manila, who huddled in the new wing as 145 to 170 kilometer swirling winds and heavy rains battered the structures. The heritage buildings were damaged the most when winds from the southwest rattled the roof and ripped 15% of it. The new structure fared better although some glass panels were shattered by the strong winds and exposed ceilings on the top floor were blown away. Trees fell or were severely pruned by swirling winds. Even old coconut trees that usually survive typhoons were uprooted or their crowns sheared off.
An assessment of the damage was done the following day, 17 December, and cleaning began.
The new chapel of St. Ignatius remained intact. Its only damage was water seeping under the etched glass doors.
Estimated damage is placed at 3 million pesos and the contractor and engineer of the buildings, who have not completely left the project, are scheduled to begin repair as soon as roads in Cebu are cleared of fallen trees, electrical poles and other obstacles. Odette is a rare occurrence, a similar typhoon hit the Visayas in November 2013, Typhoon Yolanda (international name Haiyan). Hopefully, Category 4s will be rare. And the experience of one before the formal inauguration of CCIS-JRH will set the stage for minor revisions in the design to be implemented in the repairs.
The retreat house’s 400 cubic meter or 400,000 liters of water tank has proven to be a necessary resource in the aftermath of Typhoon Odette. Water service all over Cebu City has been disrupted. Only 31% of the water service had been restored four days after the typhoon. The more than 200 poor neighbors of Banawa have been lining up at CCIS JRH’s gate to fetch water. The retreat house has had this reputation of being a shelter for its neighbors and providing water. A food package program had also been organized to assist neighbors who have lost their flimsy houses, thanks to donors to Banawa. Some 55 poor families have signed up for food aid. The Jesuit presence on the hill is an opportunity to give spiritual solace but also physical aid. Work on repairing the damage caused by Odette was finished long before the much-delayed inauguration, which was scheduled for 11 June 2022. Archbishop of Cebu, the Most Rev. Jose Palma, DD, JCD presided over the inauguration and blessing, assisted by Jesuit provincial, Primitivo Viray, Jr.
Chapel of St. Ignatius Loyola. This chapel is Banawa’s gem. Planned as a quadrilateral, the chapel’s four sides are oriented to the points of the compass north-south, east-west.
Located on the eastern side is the sanctuary in keeping with the traditional ad orientem location of the main altar. The sun rising over Mactan and Cebu and the channel that divides symbolizes Jesus, light of the world. To allow sunlight to enter and also to open a view of the trees beyond the chapel’s sanctuary, triple glass windows act like a “natural retablo,” that frames the outdoors. The view beyond is an invitation for retreatants to contemplate the beauty of God’s creation, a theme echoed in St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises on the Principle and Foundation and the Contemplation to Attain God’s Love (Contemplatio ad Amorem).
The theme of God’s creation as a hymn of praise is echoed in Pope Francis encyclical “Laudato Si,” on the environment. Echoing St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Sun, Pope Francis extols creation as a hymn of praise and exhorts all, especially Christians, to be responsible stewards of creation.
In the chapel are several items from an older chapel demolished to make way for a new, more spacious and light filled one. These are the crucifix, tabernacle and statues of the Virgin Mary and the Sacred Heart. These two statues are similar to the Art Deco style, known as Beuronese after the Abbey of Beuron, founded by the Benedictine Dom Maurus Wolter (d. 1890), and his brother Dom Placidus in 1863. This abbey ran an art school and its principal Benedicitine artists were Desiderius Lenz (1832-1929), Gabriel Wuger (1829-1892) and Jan Verkade. The school designed works in an idiom that fused traditional iconography, with Egyptian, Greek, Roman Byzantine, early Christian art, that resonated with French Art Deco, the rave in the 1920s and 30s.
The cross and the tabernacle in which are kept consecrated hosts (“fruit of the earth and work of human hands”), to which is added a wooden altar from the Oratory of St. Ignatius from Loyola House of Studies are the heart of the sanctuary.
An 18th-century polychromed hardwood statue of St. Ignatius, formerly in the basement of JRH-Banawa’s basement called “catacombs,” has been rescued from obscurity to assume a position of honor at the Epistle or right side of the chapel, facing the sanctuary. This image belonged to the chapel of the Colegio de San Ildefonso, which the Jesuits run. The college’s original location was on the north side of Plaza Independencia and near Fort San Pedro in downtown Cebu’s historic district. Established in the early 17th century, the Italian Jesuit Gianantonio Campioni designed the college and church during the first half of the 17th century. The Jesuits run the college until 1768, when they were expelled from the Philippines. The diocese of Cebu acquired the college buildings and renamed it San Carlos after St. Charles Borromeo, patron of seminaries who pushed for the implementation of the Tridentine vision and program for seminaries. After running the college for a while, the diocese turned over administration to the Dominicans. Fray Mariano Cuartero, OP would be rector of the college until his appointment as first bishop of Jaro, Iloilo in 1860. The Dominicans withdrew from administration when the Vincentians took charge.
