“According to the GC 35, where does the Spirit lead the Society of Jesus today?”
“Where do you wish to take me, Lord?” This was the question St. Ignatius asked himself in the Spiritual Diary. After going through the GC35 document, I too asked the same question to myself. When I read the decrees of GC35 it was very clear that the Spirit is leading the Society in the right path to face the new challenges of the modern world. The Spirit alight the Jesuits to understand their identities, the problems of today’s world and address them courageously.
After two months of sincere search for God’s will, deep communication with one another and fervent prayer, the GC 35 has formulated six decrees to lead the Society in today’s world. The six degrees shows how the Spirit pastures the Society to face the modern world. This paper analysis how the Spirit leads the Society through the decrees of GC35.
The Decrees of GC 35
1. With Renewed Vigour and Zeal
The decree recounts the consoling experience of the encounter with the Holy Father, expresses our grateful sense that the Vicar of Christ has confirmed us in our mission, and generously outlines a concrete response to Pope Benedict’s invitation. We renew our commitment to be men “sent to the frontiers” by the Church, but always united in heart and mind to the Church and with a special affection for the Vicar of Christ.
2. A Fire that Kindles Other Fires: Rediscovering Our Charism
The title of this decree is a quotation from St. Albert Hurtado, S.J. The Decree is a meditation on the meaning, the relevance, and the beauty of our Jesuit charism in the Church today. The decree also answers the question ‘Who is a Jesuit today?’ The GC35 had come up with this:
We, the Jesuits, are called to alight all things with the love and justice of God. The grace that Jesuits have received is:
• To be with Jesus
• To go with Jesus
• To look on the world and the creation with the eyes on Jesus
• To love the creation with the heart of Jesus
• To enter into its depths with the unlimiting compassion of Jesus.
This challenge invites Jesuits to work as a global society with a universal mission, without dropping their own local situations. It all makes a renewed demand on Jesuits to know themselves as the contemporary companions of Jesus at the service of the poor. It demands them to have a right relationship with God, with one another and with creation. It encourages them to a fire that kindles other fires. It demands them to transform through ministries to the marginalized.
3. Challenges to Our Mission Today. Sent to the Frontiers
Confirmed in our sense of identity and renewed in our sense of our place in the Church, we confront the many challenges of the world today in mission. This decree makes a societal analysis of our contemporary world and responds how we can face the challenges of modern world. Today we are living in a global world, a world with the advancement of science and technology communication and transportation, amazement and entertainment. But still half of the world population lives in miserable and gloomy conditions. Globalization has marginalized individual cultures and widens the gap between the rich and the poor. The poor became poorer and the rich became richer in this globalized world. Another crucial concern of the time is religious fundamentalism. Faith in God is increasingly being used to divide people and communities.
Even though this is the current situation of the world the GC35 is optimistic that there is a growing consciousness of interdependence of all people in one common heritage. It is hopeful that globalization will not marginalize people. It has found out that there is a search for a cosmic religiosity and solidarity even going beyond religious and cultural boundaries. There is a cry for a just peace and growing eco- consciousness is very evident among nations and peoples.
In this globalized world of secularism, marginalization and environmental devastation, this decree calls on Jesuits to help live out, with Jesus, the Biblical meaning of justice, i.e., the building of “right relationships” with God, with others, and with creation. The societal analysis of the contemporary world made the Society to make special global preferences. The Spirit has led the Society to face the modern challenges through the following decisions and directions.
Globalization
Today we live in a globalize world where globalization comes as a massive force that excludes and exploits the poor. Whether we like it or not we have to accept it. The GC35, demands that we make an objective investigation into the varied manifestation of globalization.
Ecological Missions
Today, nature is facing a big threat from human intervention. The drive to exploit energy sources and other natural resources is damaging the earth, air, water and soil. Pollution is increasing day after day. Massive deforestation, deposits of atomic and toxic waste are causing death and untold suffering to humanity. The GC35 has urged the Jesuits and their collaborators to have a love for nature and creation and to stand for their due justice. It emphasized the need to consider the environmental destruction as a moral question and to cultivate and celebrate our inter connectedness with nature and cosmos at large. It invites all people through preaching, teaching and retreat direction to appreciate more deeply our covenant with creation.
Global Preferences
Africa
The GC acknowledges the Society’s responsibility to present a more integral and human vision on Africa. All Jesuits are invited to solidarity with the Society’s mission in this continent.
China
The GC also acknowledges the importance of China mission. The Society wants to continue its respectable dialogue with its people because it is an important key for a peaceful world. Also the people here long for a spiritual encounter with God in Christ.
Intellectual Apostolate
The GC calls for strengthening and renewing the intellectual apostolate as a privileged means for the Society. Advanced studies for Jesuit must be encouraged and supported throughout formation.
Inter- provincial Institutions
The GC reaffirms the commitment of the Society to the Houses and common works of Rome as an apostolic preference of the universal Society.
Indigenous peoples, Migrants and Trafficked
The GC 35 realistically responded to the problems of the indigenous, migrants and trafficked peoples. The GC proposes to form ‘Work Groups’ of Jesuits and collaborators to accelerate the empowerment of these peoples. The GC also requests to take a compassionate solidarity with the internally displaced and trafficked people.
4. Obedience in the Life of the Society of Jesus
In the light of our contemporary context, this decree reflects on the Ignatian roots of our obedience and provides practical implications for our daily Jesuit life. We can only live our identity and mission today if we deepen what Ignatius always felt was our distinctive mark as a religious order in the Church: our obedience to superiors, and our obedience to the Holy Father through the Fourth Vow.
5. Governance at the Service of Universal Mission
This decree discusses governance on the Province and local levels. It emphasis on the renewal of Central Governance, for the sake of a more universal, more agile response to global challenges. With our changing demographics and with the global challenges we face, we can only respond effectively if the structures of Jesuit governance are renewed.
5. Collaboration at the Heart of Mission
This decree addresses new challenges that have arisen in our pursuit of collaboration: the sustaining of Jesuit identity of apostolic works, the need for formation for collaborative mission, the building of new networks of cooperation.
Conclusion
Where does the Spirit wish to take us through GC 35? Will theses decrees bring about renewal in the life and mission of the Society of Jesus? I truly believe that if the Spirit is behind the formulation of these decrees, surely the same Spirit will help us to implement them in our lives and apostolate. Let us feel free to ‘rewrite’ and translate each document into our own situations, with concrete steps towards implementation. In other words, these decrees will only be truly instruments of the Lord’s leading Spirit if, we discern what they will concretely mean for our personal lives, our lives as communities, and our apostolic planning. GC 35 began a spiritual journey. Let us continue this journey in the Lord, guided by his Spirit, and in communion with our Jesuit companions.
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