– Marco Carvalho
The Matteo Ricci College will promote on the last Saturday of the month a day dedicated to the institution’s patron, the missionary, scientist, geographer and Italian cartographer who opened the doors of China to the Jesuit missions. Held every year, “Ricci Day” will be celebrated on September 28th and the school – one of two local educational institutions under the aegis of the Society of Jesus – has invited a guest speaker to talk about a new documentary that focuses on the life and legacy of Matteo Ricci.
A renowned astronomer, a distinguished mathematician, prominent geographer, enlightened missionary, acclaimed cartographer, illustrious linguist, great chronicler and esteemed pedagogue. To talk about Matteo Ricci is to evoke one of the most versatile and sophisticated personalities who ever set foot in China and these and other aspects of his life will be granted their share of attention on this year’s “Ricci Day,” an initiative promoted every year by the homonymous College to let the students know who the patron of the institution was and what he did.
Usually organized at the beginning of October, the event was this year anticipated and it will be held on the last Saturday of this month. Principal of the Matteo Ricci College, Irene Cheung, explained to O Clarim that the initiative encompasses several activities, so that the students of the institution can get familiar with the work of the Italian Jesuit: “Every year we have a special day to celebrate and remember our roots. These last few years, we have been promoting the ‘Ricci Day’ in the beginning of October. This year, it will be held on the 28th of September, the last Saturday of September,” Ms Cheung explains. “Every year we organize some games, some storytelling and we enact some plays for our Kindergarten pupils. The students of the Primary Section have some different activities. As for the Secondary students, we usually invite some guest speakers to share their reflections on Father Ricci,” the principal of Ricci College adds.
A year ago, the emphasis of the “Ricci Day” celebrations was placed on the idea of vocation and the discovery of one’s personal or professional own call. This year, the focus of the initiative is once again on the school patron. The College Board invited a guest speaker to talk about a new documentary that addresses the life and legacy of Matteo Ricci: “Last year, we invited a few Jesuit priests and they shared their own vocation stories with our students. This year, our main speaker will tell us all about a new feature documentary about Ricci’s life and legacy,” Irene Cheung told O Clarim.
Inspiring lives
Promoted at the beginning of each new school year, the “Ricci Day” aims to familiarize the institution’s students with the fundamentals of Jesuit praxis and the values promoted by the Society of Jesus, but it is not the only method that the College makes use of to explain to students why Jesuit education is different.
Although most of the students that study in the College were born into non-Catholic families, they all have to be acquainted with the life and work of the Society of Jesus’ three greatest figures: “Accordingly to our curriculum, every Form 1 class will study the life of Father Ricci. The students in Form 2 will study the life of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and in Form 3 they are given the opportunity to get to know a little better the life of Saint Francis Xavier. As for other Jesuit fathers and saints, they are all mentioned in the school handbook,” Ms Cheung says. “The handbook also tells our students about the life story of saints of other congregations and the contributions made by successful personalities, Chinese or others, in fields such as the sciences or politics. The school handbook is something that students use everyday,” the principal of Ricci College further explains.
By resorting to the example of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Francis Xavier and Matteo Ricci, the College aims to convey to the students values and virtues such as diligence, perseverance and altruism, a venture that Irene Cheung defines as a kind of ‘return to the origins’ by the Society of Jesus in regard to education: “We are making an effort to get in touch with our own experience and our own feelings, to promote a spiritual conversation not only with our students, but also within the School Council. We practiced this spiritual conversation last year, after the General Congregation of the Jesuit Worldwide Network advised us to do so. In a certain sense, they are helping us to go back to the roots and the original values of the Jesuit community. We are trying to practice this in our day-to-day administrative work and also help the students gradually,” Irene Cheung asserts.
Matteo Ricci’s life and legacy and the examples given by the leading figures of the Society of Jesus are not, however, the only source of inspiration and the only reference for the School Board led by Irene Cheung. The Bible continues to be seen as a great reference in pedagogical terms, but the institution’s teachers also resort to proverbs or even famous quotations to pass on the values they intend to inculcate in the students whom they teach: “We do the same with Bible verses or even with proverbs or inspiring sayings,” Ms Cheung claims. “We don’t know for sure how many students are, in fact, really influenced by this, but it’s like the water dripping slowly into a sponge or a rock. Even a rock will be changed if a drop of water will continually drop on its surface. We do our best and we believe God will do the rest,” she concludes.
Matteo Ricci College started the new school year with about 1100 students and a problem at hand. The upgrading of the kindergartens’ facilities may affect the capacity of the school to receive new students and force the College to reduce the number of students it may receive in the future, as Irene Cheung explained in an interview published in O Clarim last week.
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