Understanding and misunderstanding Jesuit tradition and thought

  • Thread starter Thread starter choliks
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Happy Feast Day
of Blessed (soon-to-be Saint) Peter Faber,
one of the first Jesuit Companions

"The more one is united with God,
the more abundant blessing will God give
to lowly works which come from him
and are done according to his will.

Do not admire, therefore, the quality
or size of a work which is visible,
but rather the quality and size
of the power from which it proceeds.

Prefer to be full of grace
and to perform small deeds greatly,
rather than to fail to grow spiritually
and to perform great deeds weakly.

The smallest deeds done
with a great blessing of grace last longer
and bear more fruit than the greatest deeds
performed with only a little grace."
(Bl Peter Faber,SJ)
 
Many find Pope Francis’ actions refreshing and inspiring, and are not aware that he is just living out his Jesuit vocation…

Excerpts from the Formula of the Institute of the Society of Jesus, 1540:

*Whoever desires to serve as a soldier of God beneath the banner of the cross in our society, which we desire to be designated by the name of Jesus, and to serve the Lord alone and the Church, his spouse, under the Roman pontiff, the vicar of Christ on earth, should, after a solemn vow of perpetual chastity, poverty and obedience, keep what follows in mind . . .

**He is a member of a Society founded chiefly for this purpose: to strive especially for the defence and propagation of the faith and for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine, by means of public preaching, lectures, and any other ministration whatsoever of the word of God and further by means of the Spiritual Exercises, the education of children and unlettered persons in Christianity and the spiritual consolation of Christ’s faithful through hearing confessions and administering the other sacraments.

Moreover, he should show himself no less ready to reconcile the estranged, compassionately assist and serve those who are in prisons or hospitals and, indeed, to perform any other works of charity, according to what will seem expedient for the glory of God and the common good.**

The Formula of the Institute
Foundational document of the Society of Jesus, 1540*
 
choliks said:
I’d hazard to say, with all due respect to Fr. Ray Blake, that his understanding of Jesuits is rather lacking. So if you based your understanding on his…
Click to expand...
Please amplify your statement. Fr. Blake gave a detailed explanation, so without a similarly detailed rebuttal, your statement would be opinion. I am sure Many Jesuits are Liturgically centered, but on reading the history of many Jesuit missionaries and seeing the Order as it exists today, I can understand the point He is making.
 
Pulvis said:
Please amplify your statement. Fr. Blake gave a detailed explanation, so without a similarly detailed rebuttal, your statement would be opinion. I am sure Many Jesuits are Liturgically centered, but on reading the history of many Jesuit missionaries and seeing the Order as it exists today, I can understand the point He is making.
Click to expand...
I cannot give an extensive OPINION such as his. The problem with Fr. Ray Blake’s article and the bolded part above is that everybody else is outside the order. Unless we belong to the Society of Jesus or the Holy See, we can only infer on what truly is a Jesuit. In the same manner, we can’t make a definitive opinion about the Franciscans, because we don’t belong to that Order. That’s why what I posted, here in this thread, are from Jesuits themselves, so we can see who they are with their own eyes.

Would you like people forming opinions about your own family without even knowing you personally?

To say that Jesuits are non-liturgical is a bit off. First off, the Society of Jesus is an order of clerks regular. It means they are an order of priests. To them, liturgy is a given. It is so ingrained into them that they are required to celebrate Mass daily (privately if necessary). However, they don’t focus too much on liturgy like other institutes such as FSSP or the ICKSP because it’s not the brunt of their charism. But did you know that St. Ignatius shed tears when he celebrated his first Mass?

Sure, the Jesuits have problematic members, but what order is free from such?

PS: try to read the combox below his article.
 
From a Jesuit friend on FB:
On August 7,1814, in the Church of the Gesu in Rome,
after celebrating Mass before the altar of St Ignatius
in the presence of dignitaries and aristocrats
and about 150 surviving Jesuits from the suppressed Society,
Pope Pius VII promulgates the bull “Sollicitudo Omnium Ecclesiarum”
re-establishing the Society of Jesus in the Church.
Click to expand...
Deo Gratias.
+AMDG.
Click to expand...
199th Anniversary of the Restoration of the Society.
Prayer. Thanksgiving. Renewal.
Click to expand...
"Pius, Bishop, Servant of the servants of God (ad perpetuam rei memoriam)…
Click to expand...
In fine, we recommend strongly in the Lord, the Company and all its members to our dear sons in Jesus Christ, the illustrious and noble princes and lords temporal, as well as to our venerable brothers the archbishops and bishops, and to all those who are placed in authority; we exhort, we conjure them, not only not to suffer that these religious be in any way molested, but to watch that they be treated with all due kindness and charity…
Click to expand...
Given at Rome, at Sancta Maria Major,
on the 7th of August, in the year of
our Lord 1814, and the 15th of our
Pontificate."
Click to expand...
I like the bolded part. 🙂
 
From the FAQ page of the Philippine Jesuits:

What does it mean to be Jesuit?

“It is to know that one is a sinner,
yet called to be a companion of Jesus,
as Ignatius was, who begged the Blessed
Virgin to place him with her Son,
and who then saw the Father Himself
ask Jesus, carrying His cross,
to take this pilgrim into his company…”

“It is to engage, under the standard of the cross,
in the crucial struggle of our time
the struggle for faith
and that struggle for justice
which it includes.”
  • from the 32nd General Congregation Decree on “Jesuits Today”
What is the meaning of Jesuit vows?

The Jesuit takes religious vows which are apostolic. He commits himself until death to the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience. This is so that he may be totally united to Christ and share His own freedom to be at the service of all God’s people. And so, the Jesuit formalizes this commitment, by public vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

In binding the Jesuits, the vows set them free:
  • free by their vow of poverty, to share the life of the poor, relying on God’s providence, and to use whatever resources they may have not for their own security and comfort, but for service;
  • free by their vow of chastity, to be men-for-others, in friendship and communion with all, but especially with those who share their mission of service;
  • free by their vow of obedience, to respond to the call of Christ as made known to them by him whom the Spirit has placed over the Church, and to follow the lead of their superiors, especially the Father General, who has all authority over them.
Moreover, following Ignatius they have asked Christ our Lord to let them render this service in a manner that gives them a personality of their own. They have chosen to give it in the form of a consecrated life, placing themselves at the service not only of the local churches but of the universal Church, by a special vow of obedience to him who presides over the universal Church, namely, the Pope.

I’ve heard of priests, but what are brothers?

The Jesuit Brother is a man called by God to the apostolic and missionary work of the Church. He is a man who consecrates the labor of his hands, all his talents, all his life, to the service of God and his neighbor. He does this as a full member of a brotherhood of men with one and the same vision, the SOCIETY OF JESUS. As a Jesuit, he commits himself totally to God by taking the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

When Ignatius and his companions discerned how they were to live their vocation, their experience was already linked to the exercise of priestly ministry. But the required mobility to live out the vocation led Ignatius to accept into the Society a diversity of priests and brothers to share the same vocation and contribute to the one mission. All members are graced with the call to follow Jesus poor and humble.

The Brother’s vocation is to be sent to labor strenuously in giving aid towards the salvation and perfection of the souls of others. Brothers share in and contribute to the one apostolic vocation through the personal call of the Spirit. They can function in any mission proper to the Society. Brothers are intimately involved in every apostolic task of the Society through which this mission is carried out.

Thus, the first and most important contribution of a Brother is the gift of his own self, offered freely in service to the Lord.

What do I do if I am discerning to become a Jesuit?

Continue to pray, receive the sacraments. Get involved in your parish and your school’s religious activities specially in the liturgy of the Eucharist. Write or visit us. We will be happy to accompany in your search. We encourage you to attend our vocation seminar and other activities.
 
Thanks for this, Choliks. I love that first part- what a beautiful image! 😃

Here are a couple of things I have found particularly moving from ‘Papa Frankie’

This was from his Angelus address on August 18th~
[Faith] is not decorating your life with a bit of religion as if life were a cake that you decorate with cream…
Following Jesus means renouncing evil, selfishness and choosing goodness, truth and justice even when that requires sacrifice and renouncing our own interests.

And this from a message to participants in the 47th Social Week for Italian Catholics, that was in the Vatican Press Release on September 13th.

“The future of society … is rooted in the elderly and the young: the latter because they have the strength and youth to carry history forward, and the former because they are the source of living memory. A population that does not take care of the elderly and of children and the young has no future, because it abuses both its memory and its promise.”
 
Oneofthewomen said:
Thanks for this, Choliks. I love that first part- what a beautiful image! 😃

Here are a couple of things I have found particularly moving from ‘Papa Frankie’

This was from his Angelus address on August 18th~
[Faith] is not decorating your life with a bit of religion as if life were a cake that you decorate with cream…
Following Jesus means renouncing evil, selfishness and choosing goodness, truth and justice even when that requires sacrifice and renouncing our own interests.

And this from a message to participants in the 47th Social Week for Italian Catholics, that was in the Vatican Press Release on September 13th.

“The future of society … is rooted in the elderly and the young: the latter because they have the strength and youth to carry history forward, and the former because they are the source of living memory. A population that does not take care of the elderly and of children and the young has no future, because it abuses both its memory and its promise.”
Click to expand...
I loved the Holy Father’s statement on faith. That’s the part that most people don’t seem to want to embrace. Faith is detachment. You don’t have detachment, you don’t have faith.
 
JReducation said:
I loved the Holy Father’s statement on faith. That’s the part that most people don’t seem to want to embrace. Faith is detachment. You don’t have detachment, you don’t have faith.
Click to expand...
Well, Brother, of course people don’t want to embrace it because it means I am not in control! 😛

I remember the day I started the 19th Annotaion, and the Principle & Foundation of the Exercises was given to us~
Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. And the other things on the face of the earth are created for man and that they may help him in prosecuting the end for which he is created.
Click to expand...
From this it follows that man is to use them as much as they help him
on to his end, and ought to rid himself of them so far as they hinder
him as to it.
Click to expand...
For this it is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created
things in all that is allowed to the choice of our free will and is not
prohibited to it; so that, on our part, we want not health rather than
sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, long
rather than short life, and so in all the rest; desiring and choosing
only what is most conducive for us to the end for which we are created.
Click to expand...
I remember thinking "What the (bleep) did I get myself into?! :bigyikes:
Looking back now, it’s funny, because I cannot imagine what my life would be like without Ignatian spirituality, but in the beginning, I really thought I had lost my mind!! :hypno:
 
Oneofthewomen said:
Well, Brother, of course people don’t want to embrace it because it means I am not in control! 😛

I remember the day I started the 19th Annotaion, and the Principle & Foundation of the Exercises was given to us~

I remember thinking "What the (bleep) did I get myself into?! :bigyikes:
Looking back now, it’s funny, because I cannot imagine what my life would be like without Ignatian spirituality, but in the beginning, I really thought I had lost my mind!! :hypno:
Click to expand...
Ignatius put it into a beautiful system called the Exercises. But this concept goes back to Christ himself. Remember last Sunday’s Gospel. If you don’t hate you father and mother and don’t renounce everything you cannot be his disciple.

Jesus makes detachment a condition for discipleship.

People like Francis, Ignatius, Teresa of Avila and Teresa of Calcutta teach us how to be disciples. They provide different road maps. There is no excuse. If you can’t do one method, you have other alternatives.

Speaking to your last point, “I really thought I had lost my mind!”

We require the Spiritual Exercises before making first vows. The last month of novitiate are spent going through the Exercises, even though we’re Franciscan, we have a very special bond with Ignatius. He began trying to imitate Francis. He mentions that in one of his early letters. We see a lot of Francis in his work. When I made them, I was ready for Bedlam by week three. :yup:

The way that we do them is that we give our guys a backpack with supplies and a cabin in the woods. They’re alone. A brother visits daily for the talks and then leaves.

The Exercises are like the blossom on a branch. Christ gave us the seed in the Gospels. The early monks planted it. Then came the Mendicant movement and these friars and water the soil. Finally, along comes Ignatius and creates the bouquet out of the blossoms.
 
The Jesuit, Pope Francis, and the Poor
by Samuel Gregg

Since the first Jesuit pope’s election earlier this year, the words “poverty” and “the poor” have acquired fresh resonance inside and outside the Catholic Church. Of course the Catholic Church has always devoted special attention to the materially poor and otherwise suffering. And with Pope Francis, one senses he is the real deal regarding poverty. There is not a trace of champagne socialist or middle-class lefty about the man. (Read More)
 
You know you’re a Jesuit when…
  1. You hear the word “visitation,” and you don’t think Mary and Elizabeth. You think Provincial.
  2. You use the following words in normal conversation and suddenly realize that people have no idea what you’re talking about: primi, secundi, socius, manualia, manuductor, ordinandi, informatio.
  3. You are, on the other hand, quite concerned, and not without reason, that you’ll accidentally use the word “extern” among externs.
  4. You compare villas.
  5. You know that the four secret keypad numbers to 50% of the front doors of Jesuit residences in this country are the date when St. Ignatius Loyola… well, you know.
  6. You’re talking to a novice and he tells you something about his novitiate that strikes you as surprising, and it takes every last bit of willpower, and every last ounce of self-control not to say, “When I was a novice…” But you say it anyway. Because you’re a Jesuit and you can’t help it. Then you tell him all about your novitiate, which you entered the year he was born, and he tries to look interested.
  7. You nod in sympathy when someone tells you he feels like he’s in the Third Week.
  8. You are unsurprised when, upon visiting another Jesuit community, you discover that your guest room is furnished with a lime-colored, plastic-covered wooden chair from 1973, a gray metal desk that is only slightly smaller than a battleship (and whose top drawer contains three pencils, two sheets of community stationery, a paper clip and a Jesuit catalogue from 1997), a pillow whose color could charitably be described as “beige,” towels that could be easily mistaken for extra-large dishcloths, and a ten-foot wrought-iron floor lamp that you think is objectively the ugliest lighting fixture in the Assistancy, which is equipped with a 25-watt lightbulb, which, when you turn it on before bedtime, doesn’t work, and so you decide to go looking for the closet where the spare bulbs are kept, on your own because you don’t want to wake the minister up since it’s so late, and when you quietly close the door so as not to disturb anyone in the community, you realize you’ve just locked yourself out of your room.
  9. You wonder what Father General would say if he saw all the clothes hanging in your closet that aren’t clerical shirts or black suits. So one day you decide to throw some out because you want to be more faithful to your vow of poverty. Then, as you’re cleaning out your closet, you realized that it’s silly to throw them out because you might need them later on, and might have to buy replacements, and so it’s actually more in keeping with poverty to hold onto them. So you keep them. But you still worry about Father General seeing your closet anyway.
  10. You love some of your Jesuit brothers as much as you could ever love a blood brother. Well, not every single one of them, but so many that you find it hard to believe how blessed you are.
  11. You know that entering the Jesuits was the best decision you ever made.
  12. You hope your death card photo won’t be too awful.
From: thejesuitpost.org
 
I’m slowly taking baby steps around Ignatian spirituality. I went into the deep end with an 8 day directed retreat. My spiritual director had to keep reassuring me that I wasn’t surrounded by self delusional egomaniacs who spent all day trying to get god to talk to them. Reading about the early days of st ignatius’ conversion didn’t help. I actually went back for another 8 days because I liked my director. She suggested a spiritual director in my city who just happens to be a faithful companion of Jesus. Another wonderful supportive woman. So I’ve decided to slowly explore ignatian spirituality with her, with the understanding that Aquinas is my first love, and no one touches my rosary.🙂
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top