Of full stomachs and empty books

August 28, 2024

MANILA – We were created out of nothing, the priest said, and we carry this nothingness within us because we have to constantly be aware of our vulnerability, the fleetingness of our desires, the temporality of our existence. We often confuse nothingness with emptiness, because we are taught that happiness means having every nook and cranny of our lives filled with what we believe are the products of our deepest desires.

This confusion, the priest warned, is dangerous, because we also tend to fill up our emptiness with vice and indulgence—when we might simply be feeling that ancient nothingness, a reminder that we should do nothing alone, that we need each other and God. True emptiness is having all we desire and yet no joy to show for it. Nothingness, on the other hand, is encouragement: It must push us to be Something, and Someone, for others.

The sermon reminded me of a silent retreat I attended last year, where we sat with our Jesuit facilitators at dinner on our final evening. One of them was former Ateneo president, the mathematician Fr. Ben Nebres. He talked about his projects with the Ateneo Center for Educational Development which has been working with public schools since 1997 to help improve students’ academic performance.

Today, his work focuses mainly on alleviating malnutrition through feeding programs in central kitchens in Quezon City and Valenzuela. The programs target a child’s first 1,000 days of life: It is in those days that the brain and body develop, and this development must be encouraged and sustained with nutritious food. No amount of intensive education and nourishment later can substitute for the right diet in those first 1,000 days.

Father Nebres’ motto, in not so many words,