Four Hundred Years

  
THE PHILIPPINES, 1981 and 1985, Scott 1537, 1737
a few of this second sheet have missing period after 3 and read P300

The Philippine Islands marked 400 years since the first arrival of the Jesuits with a souvenir sheet (later surcharged) and four stamps. The Jesuits came to the Philippines in 1581, and were expelled after 187 years of work there; they returned to Manila in 1859.

Sacred Heart School - Hijas de Jesus, Cebu City

THE PHILIPPINES, 2007, 50th anniversary issue stamps and mini sheet

While Sacred Heart School - Hijas de Jesus, formerly the Sacred Heart School for Girls, is not currently a Jesuit school, the Jesuit emblem on two of the above stamps and the repeated "Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam" motto indicate a Jesuit origin. In 1953, the Cebu Chinese community asked Fr. Paul O’Brien,S.J. who was the Superior of the Jesuits' China Province Mission to establish a Chinese Catholic middle school.. By 1954, the first 400 students started classes (K-6) under Jesuit educators Fr. Miguel Pardinas, Fr. Francisco Heras and Fr. Eugene Lauzon, in affiliation with the Colegio de San Jose Recoletos. By 1955, Sacred Heart School became an independent school, with separate boys’and girls’ departments. In 1956 Fr. Heras, the recto, requested the Congregation of the Hijas de Jesus to send Sisters to oversee the Girls’ Department. Mother Superior Eloisa Alonso, FI and five companions arrived the same year and tended to the girls on the same campus as the boys. By November 1957, the Hijas de Jesus Community transferred what was to be known as Sacred Heart School for Girls to its present location. Thus came into being the Sacred Heart School - Hijas de Jesus celebrating the Jubilee of its independent existence in 2007, as distinct from the Sacred Heart School - Jesuit, which celebrated its Jubilee in 2005.

The Ateneo de Manila

  
THE PHILIPPINES, 1961, the old Ateneo to the left, Scott 836
1981, Rizal in front of the Jesuit university, the Ateno de Manila, Scott 1534

 
THE PHILIPPINES, 1959, the centenary of the Ateneo de Manila, Scott 810-811

 
THE PHILIPPINES, 1984, the 125th anniversary of the Ateneo, Scott 1730-1731

When the Ateneo was recognized as a municipal institution it bore the municipal coat of arms to which the Jesuit monogram and a biblical motto "Lux in Domino" were added; when the municipality withdrew its support in 1901, a new coat of arms was devised. The above four stamps stamps show both. More

The Manila Observatory

THE PHILIPPINES, 1981, Scott 1535

    
THE PHILIPPINES, 1965, the centenary of the Meteorological Service in the Philippines, revalued in 1970, Scott 922-924, 1069

In response to the need for advance warnings against typhoons, the Jesuits acquired in 1869 Angelo Secchi's recent invention, the universal meteorograph. Federico Faura was put in charge of the observatory. His success in predicting typhoons the following year established the reputation of the Observatory and dependence upon its service by people in the Philippines and the Far East. The Observatory became so important that the Spanish government designated it an official institution and secondary stations were set up throughout Luzon. The Observatory went on to establish a time service, make seismological observations, publish a seismological bulletin, and eventually undertake astronomical studies.

Xavier School, Greenhills, San Juan, Metro Manila

THE PHILIPPINES, 2006, the 50th anniversary of Xavier School
and the 500th of the birth of St. Francis Xavier, Scott 3049

Many Jesuit missionaries who left China in 1949 found a new home and mission in the Chinese community of the Philippines. Eventually, an international group of Jesuits led by the late Frs. Jean Desautels, Louis Papilla, and Cornelius Pineau, set up Xavier School in 1956 in a converted warehouse in Echague, Manila, and welcomed 170 children of Chinese immigrants. The school was named for St. Francis Xavier, the original inspiration behind Jesuit missions in China; the school's Chinese name is Kuang Chi for Paul Hsu Kuang-chi (Xu Guangqi), a 16th-century Chinese nobleman and high court official who converted to Christianity and supported its spread in China. In 1960, Xavier School transferred to Greenhills, San Juan, then only rice fields and grasslands. Within a decade, the outlying areas became home to many Xavier families, evolving into one of Manila's most dynamic Chinese-Filipino communities today. The present campus is a complex of 12 buildings housing over 4,000 students from Nursery to High School. More

The stamps were issued June 6, the date when Xavier first opened in Echague, Manila. The school colors of blue and yellow are the background and a stylized school seal an overarching watermark. (1) The old and new seals are shown on stamp one. The new one, adopted in 1963, features on a blue field two suns representing China and the Philippines with the emblem of the Society of Jesus at the center, and on a red field the checkered black and white arms of Xavier. (2) The new high school building, the first of several facilities constructed during a period of rapid expansion in the 90s, houses classrooms, science labs, a tennis court, library and a multipurpose hall. (3) The bust of Paul Hsu Kuang-Chi on the school campus is a replica of the original in the Xu Guangqi Memorial Park in Shanghai, China. Xavier School is also named for him. (4) The bronze statue of St. Francis Xavier by Virginia Ty-Navarro was installed on the Greenhills campus to commemorate the school's 20th anniversary there. More

Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan

 
THE PHILIPPINES, 1983, the 50th anniversary of the University, Scott 1647-48

Xavier University was founded in 1933 as a high school named Ateneo de Cagayan by Jesuit missionary Fr. James T.G. Hayes SJ, but was destroyed during World War II. Reconstruction began immediately after the war; the College of Agriculture was started in 1953 and the College of Law and the Manresa farm in 1955. In March 1958 the Ateneo de Cagayan received university status and the new name, Xavier University. Today Xavier University has a grade school with over 1,500 students, a high school with over 1,160, six undergraduate colleges with a total enrollment close to 9,000 (Arts and Sciences, Education, Commerce, Agriculture, Nursing, and Engineering), a Center for Industrial Technology for professional technician courses, and three professional schools (Law, Medicine and Graduate School), with a total enrollment of about 1219 students. More

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