Lessons from History: Fr. Richard Leonard, S.J.

         One can say that my journey to being an Atenean came about in a roundabout fashion. I became a Blue Eagle having been a transfer student from Saint Louis University of Baguio City during the late 90s. From an environment of perennial chilly weather to the stifling heat of the NCR capital, it was definitely not the easiest fit for a “Baguio Boy” to be at the Ateneo. So how can one metamorphosize from being a true “promdi” to a “True Blue”, you may ask? It wasn’t through applying as one of the Cervini dormers in campus (our family had conveniently relocated to the capital), or by enrolling in one of the popular orgs or clubs like AISEC or CELADON, or even by attending every basketball game during the UAAP season; these were merely normal collegiate experiences that every student go through. It was rather serendipitously, but also with mindful deliberation, that I became “Blue” via the process of imbibing and enriching myself through the privileged company and profound lectures of the Jesuit fathers of the faculty; serendipitous because I had no preconceived notion or expectation whenever I enrolled in one of the classes of the fathers. It was through these chanced encounters with the Jesuits that one got a rare glimpse of the unique mindset and philosophy of the Ateneo way, not because of what they preached during communion or taught within the walls of the classroom but because of the exemplary and unique lives and lifestyles that they maintained.

         Though it may be more than twenty years since, I still fondly remember my very first Jesuit teacher. It was Father Leonard (Fr. Richard Leonard, S.J.) who taught the History of the Modern World (Hist 15) which , at that time, was often at the second floor of the old Bellarmine Hall. Very much advanced in years, he would silently pace to the front of the room carrying with him a huge leather bag which he would gently place on the teacher’s desk, open the bulky satchel’s flaps and carefully set his neatly organized class attendance cards, lecture notes, his portable speaker set and a stack of old and worn history books. He would then spend a bit of time fastening the portable speaker on his belt, set the wired headset with a microphone fringing on one of his pinkish ears, and gingerly fiddling with the knobs of his gadget while speaking to the class, “Can you hear me back there?”, “Okay?”, “Okay.”, with a slightly American Brooklyn accent. Each and every class started that way.

         Meticulous and straightforward, Father Leonard, with his whitened crew cut hair, orchestrated his classes in an orderly and often predictable manner. He would spend majority of the time with the current subject matter which often dealt with European and American history within the proximity of the industrial revolution up to the advent of the Second World War, and would always end each of his sessions with a brief review of the history books (thick and hardbound) that he had so laboriously carried to class. Everything about him exuded history and his bony figure, the way he would speak about the horrors of the Holocaust, and how he painted many of the prominent and sometimes undistinguished and unsavory characters of the past only added to this antiquated image. One could not help but be drawn into the graphic and vivid scenes, that, as a magician weaving his spell, Father Leonard would effortlessly conjure up brutal images of archaic warfare played out by European kingdoms then, with a sleigh of hand shift, to the cold, frigid Russian winters of a Gulag prison, and all the while we were deep into the summer seasons in Manila.

          It was arbitrarily through his book reviews that I found Father Leonard’s influence more profound. In his lectures you could see his mastery of and authority for History but it was in his book discussions that you could discover his love for it. Each class he would bring at least 3 to 4 books of varying ages and titles, like an obsessed collector. He would never bring the same book twice (I could only speculate on his vast collection)! It was at the end of one of his classes, where my curiosity got the best of me and mustering up my courage, I approached Father Leonard about one of his books written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (1973), which was a narrative about the Russian labor camp system and author’s personal experiences as a prisoner. This little encounter led me to a love of historical books and it also gave me a rare glimpse of the personal views and private passion of my History teacher. Apart from the grades, the textbooks, and notes, when a teacher inspired us to go beyond what was required of us as students and instilled in us a fervent desire to search for more truth/s past or present, where we were often faced to tackle on subjects much greater and wider than our own understanding, when we invest and divest more of our time, effort and spirit into endeavors that have no direct reward other than its own merits, what became of this “exercise” is not about learning lessons but about growing up as a person. To loosely re-phrase a quote by Pope Francis during his recent visit to the Philippines, “…rather than run(ning) the risk of becoming a museum, that has everything but without knowing what to do with them (ie, lessons)...",  what I got from my encounter with Father Leonard was a deep awakening of the love of learning that had become a part of my own identity. It was just like teaching someone how to fish versus simply feeding him one. It was also in this roundabout way, I felt a deep and abiding belonging and yearning to follow the Ateneo Way, the will and need to strive, to seek and to serve something greater than ourselves.

           It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes. It may even lie on the surface; but we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions — especially selfish ones. (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

           It’s been many, many years since Father Leonard’s passing but I, for one, find that his spirit still lingers on within the grateful spirit of one of his past students.

          
            Oliver Pe, BS Management 1994. Photo courtesy of Mr Pe