A message from Father Bienvenido F. Nebres, S.J. to Ateneo Blue Ball 2007:

My warmest greetings to the Ateneo Alumni Association of Metropolitan Washington DC as you come together for A Gathering of Eagles . . . Fly High!, your Induction Dinner Ball on October 20, 2007.

It was a pleasure for me to have joined you at your Dinner Ball in 2005 and it was, indeed, most heartwarming to see all of you and to witness the friendships and camaraderie among you.

I would also like to thank you for your continuing engagement with your alma mater. We see this in your participation in our Annual Homecoming and in the different activities of the University. I would like to thank you, in particular, for your commitment to make a difference for the poor of our country in your GK AAA Washington DC Village in Talanay, Quezon City.

Last August 5, 2007, we launched the three-year countdown to our 150th anniversary, our sesquicentennial in December 2009. We began with a Mass celebrated by Fr. Daniel Patrick L. Huang, S.J., Provincial. My homily on that occasion can be found in the Ateneo website. We also launched the sesquicentennial video and the sesquicentennial logo.

The sesquicentennial is an occasion for us, as the theme of your convention says, to remember and celebrate the Ateneo legacy. We have divided the themes for this three-year countdown using the words of our alma mater song.

2007 – “We Stand on a Hill” – EXCELLENCE

2008 – “Between the Earth and Sky” – IGNATIAN SPIRITUALITY

2009 – “Down from the Hill” – ENGAGEMENT IN NATION-BUILDING

As we join you in spirit in your Ateneo Induction Dinner Ball, I invite you to join us as we seek to live out these themes in our communities and our lives.

May this sesquicentennial be an occasion for us to live out more fully our ideals of excellence, spirituality and commitment to nation-building.

BIENVENIDO F. NEBRES, S.J.
President