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Jesuit heritage and an Ignatian ethosAbout the Jesuits About the JesuitsThe Jesuits belong to a Catholic religious order called the Society of Jesus. This group was founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola over 450 years ago (1540). Since that time, Jesuit priests and brothers have lived an amazing story of serving the Church in new and unexpected ways. People on the move, ready to change place, occupation, method - whatever will advance their mission of service. Jesuits are expected to do anything or go anywhere to live this out. Today that "we" has expanded to include men and women who share the vision of service to faith and to the justice that faith demands.1 Jesuit ministriesThe Jesuit Order has always been renowned for its educational and missionary work. But for the last 450 years, it has also been committed to grass roots work in social services and advocating for structural change. This work is referred to as the Jesuit Social Apostolate. Throughout the world, Jesuits and their co-workers are involved in a broad range of social programs - from direct grass roots involvement with the poor and the disadvantaged, through to social institutes that reflect on the social concerns of particular communities and the broader society and structural change. Jesuit Social Services’ work is underpinned and informed by the Jesuit justice tradition and Ignatian heritage. In keeping with this our work on the ground enables us to learn what the challenges and unmet needs are and we undertake research, policy development and advocacy to address these. The Jesuit Order takes this commitment to tackle injustice very seriously. Within Australia other social ministries include the Corpus Christi Community at Greenvale, a community of homeless alcoholic men, and the work of a small number of Jesuits working directly with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, in Western Sydney, Darwin and beyond. An important work of the Jesuit Order throughout the world is the Jesuit Refugee Service. Jesuit Social Services also works with refugees, migrants and displaced people through our settlement and community building programs. Ignatius LoyolaIgnatian spirituality is based on the spirituality of Iñigo Lopez de Loyola, later known as Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Ignatius was born in the Basque region of northern Spain in 1491. He was a person of many gifts: personal courage, leadership ability, strong and charming personality, and skills of diplomacy. God led Ignatius through a serious leg wound at the battle of Pamplona, reading the life of Christ and the lives of the Saints, the failure of his own plans for serving God, studies at several universities, and suspicion from the Church, to gather like-minded university students and, in time, found the Jesuits. Ignatius had such devotion to Jesus that the order was called 'Companions of Jesus‘, though it has come to be known in English as the Society of Jesus.2 The Spiritual Exercises and the Constitutions of the Society of JesusFrom the time he was wounded at Pamplona, Ignatius carefully noted the movements of God’s spirit in his life and his response to them. These thoughts of Ignatius, the layperson seeking God, were to become the Spiritual Exercises. They are the story of his spiritual journey and religious experience. The spirituality of the Spiritual Exercises continues to transform the lives of women and men, Religious and lay, who desire greater freedom to give and receive love more generously. Under God's guidance and with communal reflection, Ignatius and his companions translated their vision into apostolic strategies, namely: to choose to be with Christ, as servants of his mission, to be with people where they dwell and work and struggle, to bring the Gospel into their lives and labours. As ‘friends in the Lord’, Jesuits are sent on challenging missions. The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus set down what it means to be a community on mission. Ignatian SpiritualityInigo Lopez de Loyola, (St Ignatius Loyola, 1491-1556) like a poet, could feel and express deeply the experiences common to all people. Though some of his experiences were mystical in nature, as a practical person, he could without delay set about translating them into constructive ways to help others. Being alive and open to the world, he possessed the rather rare capacity to synthesise, for to him everything could be used in some way to give glory to God. After what can be viewed as the first phase of his life, 1491- 1521, the experiences of Ignatius centre on a cave at Manresa, Spain. This was a period of twelve months, March 1522 – February 1523, in which he suffered much from self-doubt and guilt for his past indiscretions - against himself, others and society. This was also an experience in which God was very active and influential in his life. Out of this experience, Ignatius wrote his famed Spiritual Exercises; many years later he translated these earlier spiritual experiences into what it might mean to live in friendship in religious life, the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. Under his guidance, and with communal reflection, his companions translated that vision into apostolic strategies, namely… “To choose to be with Christ as servants of his mission, to be with people where they dwell and work and struggle, to bring the Gospel into their lives and labours” (No7, GC. 34). All people working in Ignatian ministries today are also invited, if they so desire, “to be with Christ as servants of his mission, to be with people where they dwell, work and struggle and to bring the Gospel into their lives and labours”. Integral to all Ignatian ministries is Ignatian spirituality and its “way of proceeding”, a reflective and Christ-centred approach to life interlocked into the relationships and processes of the every day. The reflective process is founded in the dynamic of experience, reflection and action expressed in prayer, decision-making and daily life - a process that is open to all people, in any culture, at any time.3 Catholic Social TeachingWhat is it?Catholic Social Teaching sums up the teachings of the Church on issues of justice between groups in society. It seeks to bring the light of the Gospel to bear on the social justice issues that arise in the complex network of relationships in which we live. Catholic Social Teaching promotes a vision of a just society that is grounded in biblical revelation, the teachings of the leaders of the early church, and in the wisdom gathered from experience by the Christian community as it has tried to respond to social justice issues through history. A formal body of international Catholic social justice teachings for the modern era has developed since the nineteenth century. SourcesCatholic Social Teaching is part of the discipline of applied moral theology and draws on all four major sources of insight used in Catholic ethics: Scripture; reason; tradition; and experience. ElementsThe social teachings are made up of three distinct elements: principles for reflection; criteria for judgment; and guidelines for action. Each has a different level of authority. The key principles for reflection are sometimes called perennial principles because they apply across every time and place. They are highly authoritative, but also rather abstract and general. International Church documents identify just four of these principles: human dignity; the common good; subsidiarity; and solidarity. The guidelines for action can vary for different times and places. Uniform guidelines for action aren’t feasible because societies differ greatly, and they are always changing, creating new situations with different problems and possibilities. Guidelines for action always depend on practical judgments made with the information available at the time. There is often scope for legitimate differences of opinion among believers on social justice issues. The criteria or norms for judgment can be thought of as connecting or mediating between the highly authoritative but necessarily general and abstract principles for reflection, and the need for action guidelines in concrete social situations. They are less authoritative than the principles for reflection but more so than the guidelines for action. Universal and particularCatholic Social Teaching operates at both the international and at the local level. 1 Australian Jesuits website - http://www.jesuit.org.au/who-are-we/who-are-the-jesuits |