Installation of Msgr. Ramon C. Arguelles as
Parish Priest and Campus Minister of U.P.

Message of President Edgardo J. Angara
during the installation of Msgr. Ramon C. Arguelles
as Parish Priest and Campus Minister of UP
on 8 November 1986
Parish of the Holy Sacrifice
Diliman, Quezon City

In our country today, we are in search of peace to heal the wounds inflicted on the nation by excessive selfishness, mistrust and materialism.

We have a crisis of the spirit because of our alienation from our spiritual moorings. Without an overriding consciousness of the Divine, we easily fall for selfish desires. We get entrapped in our little worlds and that is why we have become uncaring, unresponsive, and unjust.

It is when we depart from the pathways of God that we begin to impair our humanity and render peace remote. We cannot lay the building blocks of peace unless we are committed to dismantle the walls that separate us.

But how shall peace be achieved in our time? Does it begin and end in the conference table? Does not peace begin in the minds and hearts of persons of goodwill?

Peace, therefore, belongs to the realm of the spirit. Peace is what Christianity is all about. Peace is the message of all the great religions of the world which was echoed by the leaders of all the major faiths in Assissi recently.

Christ who is the embodiment of peace teaches that peace is not possible without love, that love becomes real only when there is self-denial, when there is a sincere willingness to rise above one's self.

Self-denial means self-sharing and self-giving. It means reaching out to others and seeing ourselves in them.

Christ showed the way. We remember his words: "love one another as I have loved you." We pray for His grace that we may learn to internalize in out thoughts and deeds the truth of His eternal message.

We also pray that as we welcome our new parish priest and campus minister, Msgr. Arguelles, we may find greater enlightenment under his spiritual leadership to do our share in finding the road to peace and unity.