Benedictus

I woke up this morning with an earworm stuck in my head. My old alma mater, sung at every assembly in Malay and English, wrapped around the school motto: Simple in virtue, steadfast in duty.

That motto was everywhere. Printed at the top of our exercise books, stitched into uniforms, recited in assemblies with the kind of enthusiastic rhythm only schoolchildren can half-fake. I never paid much attention to it at the time. But lately, those words have been echoing back. Maybe because of what’s happening in the world right now.

It started after Pope Francis died, and the new Pope was appointed. I wasn’t expecting to feel much. But the moment stayed with me longer than I thought it would.

Pope Francis may have had his flaws, but he tried to hold a moral line in turbulent times. He made space for mercy, for humility, for the kind of quiet service that rarely makes headlines. With his passing — and the naming of a Pope who’s taken the name Leo, consciously or not invoking Leo XIII, it feels like the Church is returning to a crossroads it has seen before.

In 1891, Leo XIII issued Rerum Novarum, the encyclical that laid the foundation for Catholic social teaching. It argued, clearly and firmly, that systems could not be separated from ethics. That workers had rights. That inequality was a spiritual failure as much as a structural one. That morality meant nothing if it didn’t extend to the material world.

We’re in another moment like that now. The world is shifting way faster than we can keep up. Socially, economically, existentially. Institutions are crumbling. Attention is splintered. People are exhausted. And beneath it all, there’s that same, persistent question: What do we owe each other?

Which brings me back to the motto that was seared into my psyche after 12 years of convent school. This time, those words have returned, not as some grand life philosophy, but as a quiet reference point.

Simple in virtue. Not simplistic. More like sincere. Uncomplicated by performance. A reminder that goodness doesn’t need to be adorned. Clear-eyed about right and wrong without needing to be loud about it.

Steadfast in duty. Not for recognition. Not as martyrdom. Just a steady, deliberate way of moving through the world when no one’s watching. A commitment to showing up. Doing the work, even when no one claps. Especially then.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I’ve stepped back from social media. Gone quiet on LinkedIn. I needed space to remember what feels real when no one else is looking.

I’m not trying to disappear. Just to recalibrate. To notice how much noise I’ve let in. To return to first principles.

And yes. I know it’s strange to share this here, especially after stepping back from so much else. But this space isn’t about reach. It’s just a quiet place to leave a few thoughts for whoever happens to pass by, in case it stirs something that was waiting to be remembered.

Tulus dengan fadilah, Azam dengan bakti… Just something I’ve been returning to. Time and again.

A kind of petite voie, maybe. Small steps, simply taken. But still, forward.

Love, V