General Congregation 33 (1983)

Appearing below, the first decree promulgated by the 33rd General Congregation (an event convoked to accept the resignation of the Jesuits’ superior general) presents the views of the congregation’s delegates on the state of the Society of Jesus “in today’s world.” It consists of a brief introduction and conclusion but is primarily divided into two, large parts. Part I looks at the “companions of Jesus,” particularly in their life in the Church, in the Spirit, in communion with coadjutor brothers, and in poverty as well as their training for ministry. Part II considers how those companions are “sent into today’s world.” The decree’s second part looks at the apostolic experience and challenges, the papal calls, and other aspects. The decree expresses the delegates’ observation that “there is more need at the moment to put into practice what has already been asked of us than to produce extensive declarations or new decrees.”

For more from the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, please consult this page.

Introduction

1. In accepting the voluntary resignation of Father Pedro Arrupe, who spent himself tirelessly for 18 years shaping the Society’s apostolate and inspiring its spiritual life, the 33rd General Congregation was conscious of living through a time of special grace and importance in our history. His moving decision followed by the joyful election of Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach encouraged us from the outset to embark on our work with firm convictions of hope and continuity.

2. We have borne in mind the significant events that have marked the life of the Church and the Society in the years following the Second Vatican Council. In the light of the Church’s teaching and the exhortations addressed to us by recent Popes, considering the needs of our times and the postulates sent by our fellow Jesuits, we have wished to verify, specify more accurately, and confirm the orientations given by General Congregations 31 and 32.

3. While examining the state of the Society and reflecting more deeply on our experience, the limitations and constraints of our religious life and apostolic labors became evident. Returning to our Ignatian sources, the desire to offer ourselves to the greater service of Christ our Lord grew within us. And in our docility to the action of the Spirit, we have wanted to share with the whole Society the results of our deliberations.

4. We believe there is more need at the moment to put into practice what has already been asked of us than to produce extensive declarations or new decrees. For “love shows itself in deeds rather than in words.” Accordingly General Congregation 33 wanted to take up only those questions that seemed more urgent, together with some specific matters entrusted to it.

5. As it began its deliberations, the Congregation took note of the need for greater unity among us, the unity which comes from the Spirit of Jesus and which should express itself in brotherly love and a vision shared by all Jesuits of the Society’s mission today for the glory of the Father.

Part I

Companions of Jesus Sent into Today’s World

A. Life in the Church

6. Seeking to lead a life worthy of the vocation to which we have been called, the Society commits itself again to serving the Church in her teaching, life, and worship, and helping here to offer to the world “all that she herself is, all that she believes.” In the spirit of St. Ignatius, we wish to show our commitment “not less but rather more in good works than in words,” for the edification of those with whom we work, so that we may become more generous servants of the people God has gathered for the world’s salvation.

7. The General Congregation therefore recalls with gratitude that from its very beginning the Society has existed “to serve the Lord alone and the Church, His spouse, under the Roman Pontiff.” Now, in a spirit of faith, our Society confirms again the traditional bond of love and service which united it with the Roman Pontiff. We wish to respond to his desires expressed on various occasions and to carry out his missions. At the same time we intend to cooperate with the College of Bishops in its service of the Gospel.

8. So many Jesuits in our day are bearing witness to this fidelity toward the Church and the Roman Pontiff; in all parts of the world they are fulfilling with constancy the missions entrusted to them, and some indeed are suffering persecution, even in prisons or internment camps. We are not unaware that recently our fidelity under certain circumstances has not been perfect and has caused concern to those who exercise pastoral office. Accordingly, we seriously urge all members of the Society, for the good of the whole Church, to consider how we may grow in that obedience which is profoundly rooted in both truth and love. Looking to our future life and apostolate, we wish to encourage all to foster a truly Ignatian readiness for active collaboration with the Supreme Pontiff and all who share pastoral office with him. The General Congregation is conscious of the difficulties and tensions which often accompany the apostolate in today’s world. Accordingly, to find solutions in so serious a matter, it asks Father General to promote further studies enabling him to help and guide Jesuits in teaching doctrine and in their pastoral activity. He should also provide that, in a way suited to our times, the “Rules for Thinking with the Church” be applied in the light of the Second Vatican Council. Finally, let the entire Society seek to incorporate itself more and more vigorously and creatively in the life of the Church so that we may experience and live its mystery within ourselves. Thus we may be indeed for the people of God servants of the joy of the Lord.

B. Life in the Spirit

9. We will be better able to serve the Church, the better we learn through experience to hear the Holy Spirit, since “we believe that the same Holy Spirit present in Christ our Lord and in the Church instructs and guides us in the salvation of our souls.”

10. In recent years a renewed consciousness concerning our religious life has been felt throughout the Society. The decrees of GC 31 (8, 13–17, 19) and GC 32 (2, 4, 11) as well as the writings of Father Arrupe have developed a spiritual doctrine at once profoundly rooted in the Gospel and our tradition and yet one which responds to the challenges of our times. This renewal manifests itself especially in the new impetus given to the Spiritual Exercises and to apostolic discernment. The commitment to faith and to justice, the service to the poor, and especially the willingness to share their life, have been an invitation to the whole Society to embrace a more evangelical way of life.

We also recognize deficiencies in the way we have lived our commitment. These difficulties are frequently due to overwork, to a kind of monotony in our religious life, to a lack of spiritual vitality within our communities—all of which impoverish our encounter with God. This means we must continually renew our efforts if we are to enter more deeply into the meaning of our life as Jesuits: men totally committed to the glory of God and the service of others.

11. As a consequence, the General Congregation invites all Jesuits to strive, personally and communally, toward an even greater integration of our spiritual life and apostolate. Following the example of St. Ignatius, a Jesuit’s life is rooted in the experience of God who, through Jesus Christ and in the Church, calls us, unites us to one another, and sends us forth. The Eucharist is the privileged place where we celebrate this reality. Only to the extent that he is united to God so that he be “led gladly by the divine hand,” is a Jesuit “a man on a mission.” In this way, he will learn to find God in all things, the God who is present in this world and its struggle between good and evil, between faith and unbelief, between the yearning for justice and peace and the growing reality of injustice and strife. But we cannot achieve this familiarity with God unless we set aside a regular time for personal prayer.

12. If we are to hear and respond to the call of God in this kind of world, then we must have a discerning attitude. For us Jesuits the way of discernment involves: the examination of conscience, prayer and brotherly dialogue within our communities, and the openness to superiors that facilitates obedience.

13. We cannot attain this discerning attitude without self-abnegation. Sign of our joy at the approach of the Kingdom and result of a progressive identification with Christ, who “emptied himself being born in the likeness of man,” this abnegation is required by the Spiritual Exercises: to divest ourselves of “self-love, self-will, and self-interest.” It is only through detachment from all we have and are, that we can receive all from God in faith and give ourselves wholly to others in love. Without such an attitude we cannot present ourselves as interiorly free enough for the authentic service of Him who calls us.

Today our interior liberty will show itself in:

– a greater availability on the part of the whole Society as well as the individual Jesuit which will enable us to respond, in obedience, to the cultural differences and changes in our modern world;

– a rhythm of life which allows us to maintain our commitment to the world and still gives us space for solitude and silence, as well as for necessary relaxation and joyous celebration within our communities;

– a self-transcendence rejecting that individualism which inhibits integration into community life, necessary both for the expression and support of our faith.

14. The Society possesses a spirituality which gives us the way to live day by day as companions of Jesus. That way has been clearly spelled out in the booklets Readings from the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Jesuit Religious Life. The 33rd General Congregation is convinced that the reading and practical application of these excerpts will greatly help toward the renewal we seek and give us that “hope which does not deceive” as we face the demands of our time.

C. Life in Common with the Coadjutor Brothers

15. We do not serve the Lord and the Church as isolated individuals but rather as men who have offered their lives to follow Christ “by living and dying in the Lord with and in this Society” as its members. The kind of body St. Ignatius envisioned can hardly exist if all of its members do not share fully in its life.

16. With regard to the brothers, we wish to remind everyone that throughout the Society’s history they have provided a witness to the gospel in their religious lives and made a great contribution to its apostolate through their hard work. In recent times the lives of the brothers have become more adapted to modern conditions: more appropriate formation has been arranged, the range of apostolates has been widened, and the equality of all companions as brothers together is better lived.

17. For its part the Congregation, while sharing the concern expressed in many parts of the world, once again proclaims and affirms the incalculable value of the brothers’ vocation, through which the Society develops its mission to the full. The Society needs the brothers, first of all for themselves and then for their labors, for the sake of both its communities and its apostolates. They share in the same religious commitment and take on work that is complementary to that characteristic of priests, thus effectively helping the Society to achieve its one and only goal. Being all members of the same body, we complete and enrich one another so that we can imitate the way of life offered by the Son of God to the disciples who followed him. This is why the Congregation considers that the absence of brothers is a serious defect and that we cannot remain satisfied with the present situation.

18. We are aware of the difficulties that prevent the Society from receiving fresh vocations and that arise in part from present-day social and cultural conditions. While acknowledging the seriousness of these problems, we nevertheless believe they can be overcome provided that all of us—scholastics, brothers and priests—set about the implementation of the decrees of the last two General Congregations and take seriously their practical implications. Consequently the 33rd General Congregation directs that:

– Provincials, with the help of the brothers, should examine the situation in their provinces and take all possible steps to promote brothers’ vocations. Everyone should take an active interest in this work.

– Apostolic communities with brothers, according to the directives of Decree 11 of GC 32, should be fostered as the most effective means of strengthening the sense of being part of one mission and of increasing the high regard we have for one another.

– Particular care should be taken with the spiritual, doctrinal, technical, and personal formation of the brothers in accordance with the directives of Decree 7, n. 7 of GC 31 and other norms of the Society.

19. Finally the Congregation openly declares that we must change our attitudes so that our behavior toward one another in the Society is not ruled by human standards prevailing outside, but by the example of Christ who came not to be served, but to serve. Then we shall be able to welcome brothers into the Society, for they are indeed given to us by God.

D. Training for Mission

20. The very great difficulty and demands of our enterprise oblige us to give careful attention to questions of formation. In recent years formation has received a new thrust from the decrees of General Congregations 31 and 32, and from Father Arrupe’s direction. The best way of maintaining progress along these lines will be the Society’s resolute implementation and more thorough appropriation of the directives received, keeping in mind the Church’s recommendations. There should be faithful adherence to the General Norms for Jesuit studies and the Regional Orders which apply them; particular care should be taken to assure the integration of the spiritual, communitarian, intellectual and apostolic aspects of formation.

21. To be credible witnesses to the Gospel today and servants of the Church faithful to St. Ignatius’s spirit, we need solid religious training, serious studies, and genuine integration into the apostolic body of the Society. Moreover the demands of our mission today touch not only the young men in formation, but all Jesuits, even the formed, who have to look for ways to meet these demands by pursuing their own “continuing formation.”

22. The 33rd General Congregation asks Father General to continue to promote the quality of our formation, for both brothers and scholastics, particularly by giving help and encouragement to the formatores and by fostering widespread collaboration and the exchange of experiences in this area. It also earnestly invites all Jesuits to take to heart the task of attracting vocations to the Society, especially by prayer and the example of their lives as individuals and in community.

E. Life in Poverty

23. The Spirit of the Lord has called us to be free, so that we can enter into full communion with our brothers and sisters and dedicate ourselves totally to the integral service of the human family. Such freedom, however, as we learn in the Spiritual Exercises, cannot be separated from poverty. In fact, without poverty, such freedom cannot exist.

24. One of the decisions that this Congregation was obliged to make concerned the confirmation of Decree 12 of the 32nd General Congregation. The Congregation urges all superiors to promote both the spirit and the execution of this Decree, as well as Decree 18 of GC 31.

25. Changes in our administrative structures have helped us greatly in recent years to live a more authentic Ignatian poverty. In many instances, a greater equality among our communities in their manner of life has resulted, along with a more ready desire to share our material goods and to experience more fully the actual living conditions of the poor. Still we recognize we have not yet fully assimilated into our lives the profound implications of those decrees, nor have we always been led, under their inspiration, to the transformation of our personal and community lives, as well as of our apostolic activity, that they propose. We must therefore strive with new heart to become truly poor with Christ poor so that we can really be said “to preach in poverty.”

26. The situation of the poor, who live today in a world where unjust structures force the greater part of the human family to exist in dehumanizing conditions, should be a constant reminder to us that God takes the part of the poor, according to that salvific design revealed in Jesus Christ who “came to proclaim the Good News to the poor.” In recent years, the Church has summoned us to a greater solidarity with the poor and to more effective attempts to attack the very causes of mass poverty.

27. For these reasons, we urge every Jesuit to make these decrees part of his life by faithful observance of the norms they propose for our personal and communal lives which, in their modesty and even frugality, should offer a striking contrast to the spirit of “consumerism” that pervades so many societies. In sharing our goods with the poor, we should look first to those whose needs are greatest so that we do not remain untouched by their hardships and anxieties. In our apostolic works, we should try to combine a desire for evangelical simplicity with the necessary concern for efficiency. In our choice of ministries, the spirit of gratuity proper to our Institute should be carefully kept in mind so that “the exercise of those ministries which, according to our tradition, were provided gratuitously should not be abandoned too easily.”

PART II

Sent into Today’s World Introduction

28. The way of life we have described above is an essential condition, particularly today, if we are to identify ourselves with and follow the One who has been sent. It is also an essential requirement if we are to work effectively for the fulfillment of His mission.

The General Congregation, recognizing that every Jesuit is identified as one who has been “sent” and at the same time wishing to respond to concerns expressed by the universal Society, has paid particular attention to the meaning of our mission today. We do not pretend to present a definitive exposition of this issue. Still, we have tried to reach a better understanding of what the Lord, through the mediation of the Church, has asked of us that we might give ourselves to this work without reserve and “that we might hear anew the call of Christ dying and rising in the anguish and aspirations of men and women.”

29. The experience of the Society’s apostolic efforts in recent years, expressed in reports and postulates that have come to us from around the world, enables the 33rd General Congregation to address with both confidence and humility the topic of our mission today. We speak with confidence because we believe the options made by the 31st and 32nd General Congregations have been in conformity with the renewal inspired by the Second Vatican Council, the Synods of Bishops, and the teachings of recent Popes. We speak with humility because we recognize the difficulties of the task and our own failures to respond wholeheartedly as religious priests and brothers to the challenge of integral evangelization in our modern world.

30. First we review briefly how we have carried out our mission as expressed by the 32nd General Congregation: “to engage, under the standard of the Cross, in the crucial struggle of our times: the struggle for faith and that struggle for justice which it includes.” We then look at the challenge of the modern world in the light of the calls addressed to the Society by recent Popes which help us to focus our mission. Finally, looking to the future, we attempt to discern how we might best fulfill this mission in some of its specific implications.

A. Our Experience

31. In keeping with the requests of the Popes and the mind of the Society itself, the 33rd General Congregation continued the review of our mission, especially with regard to papal concern for integral evangelization and the proper role of a priestly order. We have found these years an experience of grace and conversion for us as individuals and as a body. We have made serious efforts to address realistically the issues of atheism and indifference in our secularized world. Our religious life has been enriched by the opportunity to “labor with” Jesus in the greater service of the Kingdom. This closeness to the Christ of the Exercises has brought us closer to the poor with whom he identified himself. At times it has also brought us the persecution for his sake that he promised his followers. Our service of faith and promotion of justice has made the Society confront the mystery of the Cross: some Jesuits have been exiled, imprisoned, or put to death in their work of evangelization. Some have been prevented from attending this Congregation.

32. But we who engage in this mission are sinners. Our reading of Decree 4 of GC 32 has at times been “incomplete, slanted and unbalanced.” We have not always recognized that the social justice we are called to is part of that justice of the Gospel which is the embodiment of God’s love and saving mercy. We have not learned to enter fully into a mission which is not simply one ministry among others, but “the integrating factor of all our ministries.” We have found it difficult to understand the Church’s recent emphasis on changing the structures of society, and what our proper role should be in collaborating with the laity in this process of transformation.

33. In all honesty, we must also acknowledge that this new understanding of our mission can lead to tensions both in the Society and outside it. Some have at times emphasized in a unilateral fashion one aspect of this mission to the detriment of the other. Yet neither a disincarnate spiritualism nor a merely secular activism truly serves the integral Gospel message. Our experiences of recent years have made us increasingly aware that the more a Jesuit is exposed to situations and structures alien to the faith, the more he must strengthen his own religious identity and his union with the whole body of the Society as represented by the local community to which he belongs.

B. Challenging Context

34. As we implement our mission, the Exercises invite us to contemplate the world of today with the loving gaze of the Three Divine Persons, that we may be drawn to understand its needs as God does and offer ourselves to share in His work of its salvation. As expressed in the Institute, the mission of the Society consists in the integral salvation in Jesus Christ of all women and men, a salvation begun in the present life and brought to its fulfillment in the life to come. In this mission, the promotion of justice is today a matter of growing urgency in the Church’s work of evangelization; this dimension of our apostolate must therefore be fostered with particular care.

35. Our contemplation of the world reveals a situation frequently hostile to the spreading of the Kingdom. The dominant ideologies and systems—political, economic, social, and cultural—often prevent an adequate response to the most elementary aspirations of the human family at both national and international levels. A pervasive materialism and the worship of human autonomy obscure or obliterate concern for the things of God, leaving the minds and hearts of many of our contemporaries cold and empty. This both reveals and causes a profound crisis of faith that expresses itself in an atheism at once theoretical, practical, and institutional. Lack of respect for a loving Creator leads to a denial of the dignity of the human person and the wanton destruction of the environment. Massive poverty and hunger, brutal oppression and discrimination, a frightening arms race and the nuclear threat: all offer evidence of sin in human hearts and in the core of contemporary society.

36. Yet even as we consider these things, we observe other signs of the times that encourage us and give us hope. There is throughout the world a heightened sense of the solidarity of the human family and a rising consciousness, especially among the young, that conditions of misery and oppression cannot be tolerated. The Church, enlivened by the Second Vatican Council and expressing itself in new forms of community and parish life, is more and more engaged in works of peace and justice. Many of the world’s religions and cultures are experiencing a new vitality; and there are indications of a growing search for meaning, sometimes expressed in more profound reflection and in prayer.

C. Papal Calls

37. It is in this context that we Jesuits hear the calls that have come to us from recent Popes. Their calls give apostolic orientations to our mission today, and must illumine, enrich, and specify the options before us. As we opened the 33rd General Congregation, we heard Pope John Paul II tell us: “The Church today expects the Society to contribute effectively to the implementation of the Second Vatican Council.” Moreover he repeated the mandate to confront the problem of atheism and cooperate in that profound renewal needed by the Church in a secularized world. He invited us to adapt our traditional apostolates to the different spiritual necessities of today, singling out the renewal of Christian life, the education of youth, the formation of the clergy, the study of philosophy and theology, research into humanistic and scientific cultures, and missionary activity. He encouraged us to pay particular attention to ecumenism, relations with other world religions, and the task of authentic inculturation. Finally the Pope, speaking of our apostolate, again drew our attention to the need to promote, within the Church’s evangelizing action and in conformity with our priestly and religious Institute, “the justice, connected with world peace, which is an aspiration of all peoples.”

D. Confirmation

38. In the light, therefore, of requests coming from the whole Society, the needs of the world, and the Church’s teaching, the 33rd General Congregation readily receives the calls which the Pope has made to the Society, and commits itself to a full and prompt response. At the same time, we confirm the Society’s mission expressed by the 31st and 32nd General Congregations, particularly in the latter’s Decrees 2 and 4, which are the application today of the Formula of the Institute and of our Ignatian charism. They express our mission today in profound terms offering insights which serve as guidelines for our future responses:

– the integration of the service of faith and the promotion of justice in one single mission;

– the universality of this mission in the various ministries in which we engage;

– the discernment needed to implement this mission;

– the corporate nature of this mission.

E. Our Way of Proceeding

39. If we are to fulfill our mission, we must be faithful to that practice of communal apostolic discernment so central to “our way of proceeding,” a practice rooted in the Exercises and Constitutions. This way of proceeding calls for a review of all our ministries, both traditional and new.

40. Such a review includes: an attentiveness to the Word of God; an examen and reflection inspired by the Ignatian tradition; a personal and communitarian conversion necessary in order to become “contemplatives in action”; an effort to live an indifference and availability that will enable us to find God in all things; and a transformation of our habitual patterns of thought through a constant interplay of experience, reflection, and action. We must also always apply those criteria for action found in the 7th part of the Constitutions as well as recent and more specific instructions concerning choice of ministries and occupations or tasks to be avoided. This process, undertaken in the local community, province, or region, leads to apostolic decisions made by superiors, after normal consultation and with accountability to Father General.

41. But such an effort runs the risk of failure unless we attend to the practical conditions required for its serious application. These conditions, to be given special attention both in initial and ongoing formation, include: deeper involvement in the lives of the people around us in order to hear “the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted”; a regular exposure to new situations of life and thought which oblige us to question our way of seeing and judging; a gradual assimilation of that apostolic pedagogy of St. Ignatius; a well-informed use of social and cultural analysis; and an inculturation which opens us to the newness of Jesus the Saviour in the evolution of every people, and thereby prevents us from absolutizing our perceptions and actions.

42. Definitions alone cannot clarify the apostolic directions of our mission. Such clarity can only come when we are faithful to the process and conditions of communal discernment and to the lived experience of religious men striving to labor with Christ in serving the Kingdom. For we will then understand better how the service of faith and the promotion of justice are not two juxtaposed, much less conflicting, goals but a single commitment which finds its coherence and deepest expression in that love of God and love of neighbor to which God calls us in the One Great Commandment. One cannot act justly without love. Even when we resist injustice we cannot prescind from love, since the universality of love is, by the express desire of Christ, a commandment that admits of no exceptions.” To attain this universal love, we must continually learn how to seek God in faith, both for his own sake and as the abiding source of all justice and love. Striving for God’s reign here on earth with works of justice, love, and peace, we also know we are foreshadowing the new age which is to come.

F. Some Applications

43. As we continue to respond to our mission, as described in paragraph 38, traditional apostolates take on fresh importance, while new needs and situations make new demands on us. The essential ministries of preaching the Gospel, fostering sacramental life, giving the Exercises, teaching, formation of the clergy, the work of catechetics, the promotion of Christian communities, and evangelizing those who have not yet heard of Christ —all should contribute to strengthening the faith that does justice.

44. Of great importance among the ministries of the Society are the educational and intellectual apostolates. Jesuits who work in schools of whatever kind or level or who are engaged in non-formal or popular education can exercise a deep and lasting influence on individuals and on society. When carried out in the light of our mission today, their efforts contribute vitally to “the total and integral liberation of the human person leading to participation in the life of God himself.” Research in theology and philosophy, in the other sciences and in every branch of human culture is likewise essential if Jesuits are to help the Church understand the contemporary world and speak to it the Word of Salvation. The opportunities and responsibilities of these apostolates require a change of heart and an openness to human needs around us; they also demand a solid intellectual formation. Jesuits in these fields and our men in more direct social and pastoral ministries should cooperate and benefit from one another’s expertise and experience. Finally, the Society should promote the apostolate of the social communications media which, like education and intellectual work, reaches large numbers of people and so permits “a more universal service to humankind.”

45. Among new needs and situations we list, without any attempt to be exhaustive, certain problems that call for our special concern since they have been mentioned frequently in the postulates. While a number of Jesuits have already been working for years in these areas, the General Congregation now wishes to bring them to the attention of the whole Society:

– the spiritual hunger of so many, particularly the young, who search for meaning and values in a technological culture;

– attacks by governments on human rights through assassination, imprisonment, torture, the denial of religious freedom and political expression: all of which cause so many to suffer, some of them fellow Jesuits;

– the sad plight of millions of refugees searching for a permanent home, a situation brought to our special attention by Father Arrupe;

– discrimination against whole categories of human beings, such as migrants and racial or religious minorities;

– the unjust treatment and exploitation of women;

– public policies and social attitudes which threaten human life for the unborn, the handicapped, and the aged;

– economic oppression and spiritual needs of the unemployed, of poor and landless peasants, and of workers, with whom many Jesuits, like our worker priests, have identified themselves in order to bring them the Good News.

46. As an international body, the Society of Jesus commits itself to that work which is the promotion of a more just world order, greater solidarity of rich countries with poor, and a lasting peace based on human rights and freedom. At this critical moment for the future of humanity, many Jesuits are cooperating more directly in the work for peace as intellectuals, organizers, and spiritual leaders, and by their witness of non-violence. Following the example of recent Popes, we must strive for international justice and an end to an arms race that deprives the poor and threatens to destroy civilization. The evangelical call to be genuine peacemakers cautions us to avoid both naiveté and fatalism.

G. Prerequisites for Credibility

47. The full realization of the Church’s mission after the Second Vatican Council calls us to sincere collaboration with the bishops, with other religious, with the diocesan clergy, and with other Christians as well as with people of other religious faiths.

In particular, we must work more closely with lay men and women, respecting and supporting their distinct responsibility and vocation in the Church and in the world. Recent experience teaches us we can make a real contribution to forming a truly apostolic laity as well as receive from them great strength in our own vocation and for our mission. The renewal of Ignatian spirituality in certain fields (Exercises, Christian Life Communities, etc.) can help deepen this mutual collaboration.

48. The validity of our mission will also depend to a large extent on our solidarity with the poor. For though obedience sends us, it is poverty that makes us believable. So, together with many other religious congregations, we wish to make our own the Church’s preferential option for the poor. This option is a decision to love the poor preferentially because there is a desire to heal the whole human family. Such love, like Christ’s own, excludes no one but neither does it excuse anyone from its demands. Directly or indirectly, this option should find some concrete expression in every Jesuit’s life, in the orientation of our existing apostolic works, and in our choice of new ministries. “Only when we come to live out our consecration to the Kingdom in a communion that is for the poor, with the poor and against all forms of human poverty, material and spiritual, only then will the poor see that the gates of the Kingdom are open to them.”

49. Finally, in all our ministries, our work will only be credible if the practice of justice is evident in our personal lives, our communities, and our institutions. In this way we can contribute to promoting that justice in the Church which is a necessary condition for evangelization.

Conclusion

50. In the task of announcing the Gospel, faith in Jesus Christ is first and last. It is a faith which comes alive only in works of love and justice. Our mission as Jesuits has, from the outset, been to seek the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls. Confirming “the service of faith of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement” as the contemporary expression of that mission, we look to the future and renew again our commitment in “a communion of life and work and sacrifice with the companions who have rallied round the same standard of the Cross and in fidelity to the Vicar of Christ, for the building up of a world at once more human and more divine.”

We confidently call upon the intercession of the Queen and Mother of our Society for the complete fulfillment of this mission, imploring her with our Holy Father Saint Ignatius to “intercede for us sinners with her Son and Lord and to obtain for us the grace so that, in conjunction with our own efforts, we may change from weak and sad individuals to strong and happy ones for the glory of God.”

Original Source (English translation):

Jesuit Life & Mission Today: The Decrees & Accompanying Documents of the 31st–35th General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, ed. John W. Padberg. St. Louis, Mo.: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2009, General Congregation 33, Decree 1, “Companions of Jesus,” pg. 439–455 [1–55].

The delegates to the 33rd General Congregation, in the following decree, confirm the experimental policies on poverty that were put forth by a decree promulgated by the Jesuits’ previous general congregations. As a result, the decree asks that the Holy See likewise confirm these new policies.

For more from the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, please consult this page.

1. The 33rd General Congregation, having taken into consideration the replies from the province congregations concerning the experience of the decree, closely examined in its entirety Decree 12 of the 32nd General Congregation, which had been approved “experimentally” by the Holy See.

4. Having carefully considered all these matters, the General Congregation definitively confirms Decree 12 of the 32nd General Congregation and asks, according to the mind of the 32nd General Congregation, the confirmation of the Holy See with regard to nn. 22 and 42 of Decree 12.

3. The Congregation affirms that Decrees 18 and 12, of the 31st and 32nd General Congregations respectively, fully respond to the demands of the poverty of our Institute in today’s circumstances.

4. With the promulgation of the new Statutes on Poverty (Sept. 8, 1976, AR XVI, 911 ff.), nn. 37-39 of Decree 12 of the 32nd General Congregation (“Norms of Transition” and “Recommendations to the Commission for the Revision of the Statutes on Poverty”) cease to have effect. The statutes, as such, possess the authority of ordinations of Father General and in future may be reviewed when and insofar as may be opportune.

Original Source (English translation):

Jesuit Life & Mission Today: The Decrees & Accompanying Documents of the 31st–35th General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, ed. John W. Padberg. St. Louis, Mo.: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2009, General Congregation 33, Decree 2, “On Poverty,” pg. 456 [56–59].

The following decree from the 33rd General Congregation provides changes to the Formula of the General Congregation, the governing rules for the assembly of Jesuits. In particular the decree outlines how the congregation’s composition would be determined. The policy set forth by this decree responds to a request issued by a decree from the 32nd General Congregation that the apportionment of delegates be set “according to criteria which are not only quantitative but also qualitative.”

For more from the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, please consult this page.

1. #1. Formula of the General Congregation 6, 3°–4° is changed in this way:

1° From provinces where the number of members remains less than 0.5% of the total membership of the Society of Jesus, one elector will be sent to the general congregation who is a professed of four vows elected by the province congregation.

2° From provinces where the number of members is at least 0.5% but remains less than 1.4% of the total membership of the Society, two electors will be sent to the general congregation: the provincial ex officio and another professed of four vows elected by the province congregation.

3° From provinces where the number of members is at least 1.4% but remains less than 2.4% of the total membership of the Society, three electors will be sent to the general congregation: the provincial and two other professed of four vows elected by the province congregation.

4° From provinces where the number of members is at least 2.4% but remains less than 3.2% of the total membership of the Society, four electors will be sent to the general congregation: the provincial and three other professed of four vows elected by the province congregation.

5° From provinces where the number of members is at least 3.2% but remains less than 4% of the total membership of the Society, five electors will be sent to the general congregation: the provincial and four other professed of four vows elected by the province congregation.

6° From provinces where the number of members is at least 4% but remains less than 4.8% of the total membership of the Society, six electors will be sent to the general congregation: the provincial and five other professed of four vows elected by the province congregation.

7° In a province where the number of members is at least 4.8% of the total membership of the Society, seven electors will be sent to the general congregation: the provincial and six other professed elected by the province congregation.

#2 The distinction between an independent vice-province and a province is no longer held and those independent vice-provinces currently existing by this decree become provinces.

#3. For the purpose of calculating the number of members in each province in #1, those who are applied (applicati) are counted as members of the province to which they are applied.

2. Formula of the General Congregation 6, 2° is changed to include among the electors both general counsellors who are not general assistants and regional assistants.

3. Other special norms which may be necessary both in the Formula of the General Congregation and in the Formula of the Province Congregation in order to render nn. 1 and 2 properly effective will be set down by the Superior General with the deliberative vote of those members of the General Curia who have the right to attend the general congregation by virtue of office at least ad negotia.

4. Those points set down in nn. 1 and 2 will be submitted to a new examination in the next upcoming general congregation. They remain in force, however, until they are legitimately changed.

Original Source (English translation):

Jesuit Life & Mission Today: The Decrees & Accompanying Documents of the 31st–35th General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, ed. John W. Padberg. St. Louis, Mo.: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2009, General Congregation 33, Decree 3, “On the Composition of the General Congregation,” pg. 456–457 [60–72].

The follow decree notes the changes to be made to the Formula of the General Congregation. It also grants the superior general with the authority to make additional changes to the formula “that have to do with the handling of substantive matters insofar as needed” before the next general congregation.

For more from the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, please consult this page.

1. In the Formula of the General Congregation, n. 12, #1:

The second sentence is to be changed in this way:

“Its members, to be drawn as far as possible from among those to participate in the congregation from each of the assistancies, will be named by the superior (or vicar) general with his council and after the respective regional assistants have been heard.”

In the same paragraph a third sentence is to be added:

“It is permissible for the electors to indicate to the superior (or vicar) general some names from their own assistancy suited for this committee.”

2. In the Formula of the General Congregation, n. 42, #4: At the end of the paragraph, after “applied,” these words are to be added:

“or region to which he is assigned.”

3. In the Formula of the General Congregation, n. 130, #2: After the words “for peace and union,” these words are to be added:

“best equipped to proffer counsel on behalf of the entire Society.”

4. In preparing methods and a process for handling substantive matters, in anticipation of the 34th General Congregation, Father General is empowered to change some parts of the Formula of the General Congregation that have to do with the handling of substantive matters insofar as needed and he may do so with the authority of the 33rd General Congregation, after obtaining the deliberative vote of those members of the General Curia who have a right by reason of their office to attend a general congregation.

Original Source (English translation):

Jesuit Life & Mission Today: The Decrees & Accompanying Documents of the 31st–35th General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, ed. John W. Padberg. St. Louis, Mo.: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2009, General Congregation 33, Decree 4, “On the Formula of the General Congregation,” pg. 458 [73–78].

Following a “diligent review” of materials related to the provincial congregations, the delegates of the 33rd General Congregation issued the decree appearing below. The decree states that since “no grave harm” had resulted from Jesuits participating in the congregations who had yet to take final vows the policy would continue. It also suggests further study on who might participate in the provincial congregations going forward.

For more from the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, please consult this page.

The 33rd General Congregation, in fulfillment of a mandate from the preceding General Congregation and as a response to the recommendation of the Cardinal Secretary of State in an appendix to a letter sent to Father General (May 2, 1975) with regard to the decree of that General Congregation “On the Province Congregation,” after having carried out a diligent review of the norms and determinations in n. 11 of that decree, made this determination:

1° Since the application of the norms of the 32nd General Congregation concerning the participation of members not yet in final vows in the province congregation occurred only twice and indeed within a brief span of time, and yet no grave harm in fact arose from that experience, but on the contrary an impetus to union and integration of all the members in the life of the Society emerged, and since new harm is not to be expected from the application of these norms over not too extended a time and with proper attention, the norms and determinations in Decree 14, n. 11, of the 32nd General Congregation should continue in force and will be reviewed by the next General Congregation.

2° In order that this review may proceed in the proper way, Father General should see that the necessary studies are conducted in due time. With the help of these studies, other questions which touch on participation in the province congregation and which were proposed by the province congregations recently conducted, especially that concerning the abrogation of a limit on the participation of formed coadjutor brothers in a province congregation as it is connected with the priestly character of the Society, will have more light shed on them and can be properly solved.

Original Source (English translation):

Jesuit Life & Mission Today: The Decrees & Accompanying Documents of the 31st–35th General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, ed. John W. Padberg. St. Louis, Mo.: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2009, General Congregation 33, Decree 5, “On the Province Congregation,” pg. 459 [79–81].

The delegates to the 33rd General Congregation empowered the superior general with certain authority to act after the congregation closed. The following decree articulates those areas, which are in keeping those given by previous congregations to the superior general.

For more from the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, please consult this page.

Powers Which Were Granted to the Superior General at the End of the General Congregation

The 33rd General Congregation grants to the Superior General:

1° That he is empowered, after obtaining the deliberative vote of those fathers of the General Curia who have a right ex officio to attend a General Congregation, and without prejudice to the powers given him in other decrees, to abrogate or modify decrees of past General Congregations that seem not to be in accord with the decrees of this 33rd General Congregation.

2° That he is empowered, after obtaining the deliberative vote of those fathers of the General Curia who have a right ex officio to attend a General Congregation, to abrogate or modify regulations of the Formulas of the General Congregation, the Province Congregation, the Congregation of Procurators, and the Congregation of Provincials that seem not to be in accord with the decrees of this 33rd General Congregation.

3° That he himself, for a just reason, can suppress colleges and professed houses, with the deliberative votes of the general counsellors and the provincial of that province in which a college or house to be suppressed is located, and after consulting the regional assistant.

4° That he may approve of the minutes which could not be communicated with the fathers of the Congregation in accordance with the norm of the Formula of the General Congregation, n. 142, #4, 1°.

5° That in accordance with the norm of the same Formula of the General Congregation, n. 142, #4, 2°, in the decrees of this General Congregation he can:

a. make corrections that seem obviously needed, and reconcile contradictions, if any are detected (according to the mind of the Congregation and, after having ascertained the deliberative vote of those fathers of the General Curia who have a right ex officio to attend a General Congregation).

b. to edit the decrees with regard to style.

Special Powers That Are Granted to the Superior General in View of the Early Entrance into Effect of the New Code of Canon Law

1. The 33rd General Congregation empowers the Superior General, after he shall have listened to the advice of experts and obtained the deliberative vote of the general counsellors:

1° If need be, to seek dispensations of the Holy See from laws of the new Code of Canon Law soon to take effect, in order to preserve the substantials of our institute.

2° In so far as it may be necessary, to compose decrees by which those elements that the new Code of Canon Law demands should be contained in Constitutions (cf. canon 587, #1) may be inserted in our legislation and that are not found in these or in decrees of general congregations that are still in effect. These decrees will be submitted to examination by the next General Congregation.

3° Insofar as is fitting for the good government of the Society, to adapt our law to the demands of the new Code. These regulations are to be submitted to examination by the next General Congregation.

2. The Superior General is given the mandate to prepare by suitable studies for a review of our own law and of our privileges, to be completed by the next General Congregation.

Original Source (English translation):

Jesuit Life & Mission Today: The Decrees & Accompanying Documents of the 31st–35th General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, ed. John W. Padberg. St. Louis, Mo.: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2009, General Congregation 33, Decree 6, “On Powers Granted by the General Congregation to the Superior General,” pg. 460–461 [82–93].

At the Mass opening the 33rd General Congregation, Pope John Paul II offered the following homily. The pontiff declares a special interest in the Jesuits’ gathering, as the “General Congregation is an event that is destined also to have some important repercussions in the life of the Church.” He remained at the Jesuits’ Curia (or headquarters) after the liturgy to meet with each delegate.

For more from the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, please consult this page.

September 2, 1983

“I implore you therefore to lead a life worthy of your vocation. Do all you can to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you together.” (Ephesians, 4, 1-3)

My very dear brothers:

1. I am happy to find myself in your midst, as you have wished, to concelebrate the Eucharistic Sacrifice and in this way to beg for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit’s gifts on the General Congregation that you are opening. In this occasion, the words of Paul to the Ephesians, that you heard in the first reading, take on a prophetic meaning. And it is with these same words that I address myself to you with heartfelt emotion. Just as the Apostle did, so I too exhort you to conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the vocation you have received, to preserve attentively unity of spirit by the peace that binds you together.

In greeting you I greet all the Jesuits of the world, engaged on every frontier in the life of the Church: indeed this is a great family, called by a special vocation to serve the Name of Christ, with a total availability for all the concerns of this Kingdom. At this moment, I feel it is present right here, united by the same calling of the Spirit, that Christ spills out from his breast upon you, as on all the Church: “From his breast shall flow fountains of living water.”

In this spirit of an outpouring of hearts, in an attentiveness to the divine activity, today the General Congregation begins. It is an official action in the life of your religious family, an important moment to live in unity of spirit. This is a unity of “ecclesial spirit” because you are rooted vitally in the Church, one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, that you have pledged yourselves to serve with total fidelity, with an awareness that it is a universal sacrament of salvation through the riches of truth and divine life that it imparts to mankind. A unity of the “Ignatian Spirit” because that special charism, one that makes the Society a privileged instrument of the Church’s action at all levels, is the all embracing and distinctive element that the Founder himself wanted for your activity and your mission.

And this unity is born out of one faith, one baptism, one Christian and religious vocation, that is its logical and austere flowering. It is nourished by the trinitarian, theological reality, that is, by the life of the one Father, the one Lord, the one Spirit. And today, we are experiencing that in a special way: “One body, one Spirit, just as you were all called into one and the same hope when you were called.”

Here you have the theological and spiritual roots of today’s events. For having offered me the consolation of experiencing them together with you I give you my heartfelt thanks, my very dear brethren.

2. This General Congregation takes on, then, a special importance by reason of its twofold objective. In the first place, it must provide a successor to the revered Father Arrupe. I am delighted to greet him here in person and to express to him the gratitude of all for having continued to sustain the Society by his example, by his prayer, and by his sufferings.

Your Congregation has, in addition, the task of setting the orientations, of spelling out the guidelines in the years immediately ahead so that there may be an ever better realization, in the special circumstances of the present moment, of the ideal of the Society as it is set forth in the formula of your Institute: “To serve as a soldier of God beneath the banner of the Cross … and to serve the Lord alone and the Church, his spouse, under the Roman Pontiff, the vicar of Christ on earth.”

Such a twofold task is certainly weighty; and it is important that you should keep in mind the orientations and recommendations that my revered predecessors, Paul VI and John Paul I, communicated to you on the occasion of your most recent Congregations, and that I myself expressed to you on the occasion of the meeting of your Provincials in February of last year. They are orientations and recommendations that retain their full weight and that you should have in mind in the work of the Congregation in order to guarantee the happy outcome on which the vitality and development of your Institute depends. Hence the need to call on the Holy Spirit: “Come, Holy Spirit, and fill the hearts of your faithful.”

3. Your General Congregation is an event that is destined also to have some important repercussions in the life of the Church. This is why I take an active interest in it. The Society of Jesus is still the most numerous religious order; it is spread out to every part of the world; it is engaged, for the glory of God and the sanctification of men and women, even in the most difficult fields and in key ministries that are of great benefit to the service of the Church. On that account, very many keep their eyes on you, whether they be priests or lay persons, religious men or religious women; and what you do often has some reverberations that you do not suspect.

Thus my predecessors have many times underlined the vast influence that the Society’s actions exercise in the Church. In particular, Paul VI, of revered memory, did not hesitate to state that “a very special bond links your society to the Catholic Church; your fortune in a certain measure, has an impact on the fortune of the entire Catholic family.” If this responsibility weighs on all the members of the Society of Jesus, it weighs today in a special fashion on you who have been chosen as members of this General Congregation. This is why the Pope in this moment is especially close to you in prayer with his best wishes and his fatherly encouragement. And he repeats this with the words of the Letter to Ephesians: “I implore you … therefore to lead a life worthy of your vocation. Bear with one another charitably, in complete selflessness, gentleness and patience …. Do all you can to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you together.”

4. To this end, I am certain that you will keep well in mind the providential nature and the specific purpose of the Society. As I have said, it is engaged in a wide range of difficult ministries. In the course of the meeting with the Provincials in February of last year, I had rapidly sketched out a picture of the activities that you have been called to exercise: involvement in the renewal of Christian life, in the spread of authentic Catholic doctrine, in the education of young people, in the formation of the clergy, in deepening of research in the sacred sciences and in general even of secular culture, especially in the literary and scientific fields, in missionary evangelization.

For this array of such differing apostolic tasks, in forms that are both traditional as well as new, in response to the needs of the times that have been underlined by the Second Vatican Council, I address once again to you my words of encouragement, with full confidence, “just as you were all called into one and the same hope when you were called.” The Pope counts on you, he expects so much of you.

5. On that account, the very special link that the Society maintains with the Pope, who is responsible for the unity of the Church in its entirety, assures to the Society itself an effectiveness and certainty when it expends itself, with full availability and complete fidelity, in the struggle on all these fronts of ecclesial action, today as in the days of its origin.

At that moment, your Founder, desirous of dedicating himself totally to the service of Christ the Lord, at the same time as his first companions, under the mysterious guidance of Providence made his way to Rome, in the days of Pope Paul III, in order to place himself completely at the disposition and to accomplish the missions that the Pope would point out to him, and to do that in the place that he would determine; you know how Paul III accorded a very willing reception to this proposal, while seeing in it a special sign of divine action.

In this perspective, the “fourth vow” takes on a special meaning. It certainly does not tend to put a check on generosity, but only to assure a sphere of activity that is deeper and broader, in the certainty that the most inward and most secret motivation for this religious obedience, of this bond with the Pope, is that of being able to respond in the most incisive way and with a much greater dedication, “immediately, without delay without any manner of excuse” to the needs of the Church, in apostolic fields both old and new.

While expressing to you my thankfulness for all that the Society has accomplished during more than four centuries of fruitful activity, I am sure that I can continue still in the future to rely on the Society for support in the exercise of my apostolic ministry and to count always on your faithful collaboration for the good of the entire People of God. You know that the Pope is with you and prays for you so that, in constant fidelity to the voice of the Spirit, the Society of Jesus may continue to draw from God’s grace the strength and drive to carry on its vast and varied apostolate.

6. The Church has always considered your Society as a group of religious, prepared spiritually and doctrinally, who are ready to do what is asked of them in the context of the Church’s universal mission of evangelization.

The Supreme Pontiffs throughout the centuries have not failed to entrust these missions to you, looking at the most urgent needs of the Church and trusting in your generous availability. To limit myself to the most recent times, I wish to recall the mission that my venerable predecessor Paul VI committed to you on May 7, 1965, “to resist atheism vigorously with united forces,” a mission which I urgently repropose to you, for as long as this “tremendous danger that hangs over humanity” continues.

In November 1966, after the Second Vatican Council which had just ended, the same Pope asked you to cooperate in that deep renewal which the Church is facing in this secularized world. And I myself in the above-mentioned discourse to your Provincials, confirmed that “the Church today expects the Society to contribute effectively to the implementation of the Second Vatican Council, just as, at the time of Saint Ignatius and also afterwards, it strove with every means to make known and to apply the Council of Trent and to help in a special way the Roman Pontiffs in the exercise of their supreme Magisterium.”

To this end I invited you, and today I renew this invitation, to adapt to the different spiritual necessities of the present day “the various forms of the traditional apostolate that even today retain all of their value” and to pay ever greater attention to “the initiatives which the Second Vatican Council especially encouraged,” like ecumenism, the deeper study of the relations with non-Christian religions, and the dialogue of the Church with cultures. In this regard, I am acquainted with and approve your commitment to inculturation, so important for evangelization, provided that it is joined to an equal commitment to preserving Catholic doctrine pure and intact.

7. Speaking of your apostolate I did not fail at that time to call to your attention the necessity that is found within the evangelizing action of the Church to promote the justice, connected with world peace, which is an aspiration of all peoples. But this action must be exercised in conformity with your vocation as religious and priests, without confusing the tasks proper to priests with those that are proper to lay people, and without giving in to the “temptation to reduce the mission of the Church to the dimensions of a simply temporal project … (to reduce) the salvation of which she is the messenger … to material well-being.” This is the magnificent field of an apostolate open before you, to work with renewed zeal, faithful to the mandate received from the Pope, under the leadership of the new Superior General, and in close collaboration among yourselves.

The generous realization of this ideal will increase ever more your apostolic thrust; it will help you to overcome the difficulties that in the mysterious plan of Providence are usually connected with the works of the Lord; and it will raise up numerous vocations of generous young men who, listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit, desire also today to consecrate their own lives for an ideal which deserves to be lived and thus to cooperate actively in the divine work of the redemption of the world.

8. The redemption of the world! Indeed, it is here that your General Congregation is being held by coincidence with the extraordinary Holy Year during which the Church tries to live more intensively the mystery of Redemption; your vocation consists precisely in seeking to follow Christ, Redeemer of the world, by being his collaborators in the redemption of the entire world; consequently you should excel in the service of the divine King, as stated in the offering that concludes the Contemplation on the Kingdom of Christ in the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius.

My very dear brothers! May this be, for you, the special fruit of the Jubilee Year: a renewed drive in your vocation, that invites you above all to a personal conversion: “Open wide the doors to the Redeemer” to allow penetration by the love of Christ and by his Spirit, bringing to pass what is said in the petition that Saint Ignatius recommends in the second week of the Exercises: “to know the Lord intimately in order to love Him and to follow Him evermore closely.” Intimate knowledge, strong love, and the closer following of the Lord are the soul of your vocation. In other words, you ought to be a Society of contemplatives in action who strive in every way to see, to know and to experience Christ, to love Him and to make Him loved, to serve Him in every way and in all things and to follow Him even up to the Cross.

On the other hand, one does not know the Lord—and you who are masters of the spiritual life teach that to others—without at the same time placing oneself with total docility and abandonment, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, whom Christ has poured out over humanity as a majestic and ever flowing river. As we have heard in the Gospel of Saint John, Christ calls us to come to Him and drink: “If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink.” This thirst should impel us to enter into intimate contact with Christ in order to contemplate with Him the Heavenly Father and thereby to draw strength, light, perseverance, fidelity in exterior action.

In order to reach this state of contemplation, Saint Ignatius demands of you that you be men of prayer, in order to be also teachers of prayer; at the same time he expects you to be men of mortification, in order to be visible signs of Gospel values. The austerity of a simple and poor life should be a sign that Christ is your sole treasure. The renunciation, with joyful fidelity, of ties of family affection should be a further sign of your universal love which opens your hearts in purity of spirit to Christ and to the brethren. Obedience on the grounds of faith should be a sign of your close imitation of Christ who was obedient even to death on the Cross. Union of minds and hearts in a fraternal community life that overcomes any possible differences or conflicts should be an example in the Church, in this year when we celebrate not only the Jubilee of Redemption, but also the Synod of Reconciliation.

I also ask you that the young men who are recruited to your Society be formed from the novitiate on in this renewed spirit of commitment to exemplary religious life.

9. That, my very dear brothers, is what the events of today suggest to us for common reflection. I hope that in this General Congregation, which is taking place in the Jubilee Year of Redemption, you may truly follow the voice of the Holy Spirit that calls you to “do all you can to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you together.”

Together with this fidelity may generosity in the service of Christ the Lord and of the Church, his spouse, in union with his vicar on earth, be the characteristic of every true Jesuit. May it be the impetus to the works of the General Congregation that starts today. May it be the commitment of the government of the new General you are about to elect. All this the Church expects from you. The same expectation is shared by the Pope who participates in this solemn ritual, who unites himself with you in fervent prayer and who blesses you by imploring with you:

“Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of your love.”

Original Source (English translation):

Jesuit Life & Mission Today: The Decrees & Accompanying Documents of the 31st–35th General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, ed. John W. Padberg. St. Louis, Mo.: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2009, “Holy of the Holy Father to the Members of the 33rd General Congregation in the Chapel of the General Curia,” pg. 465–470.

The 33rd General Congregation opened with a concelebration with Pope John Paul II. The members of the congregation offered the following remarks to the pontiff.

For more from the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, please consult this page.

September 2, 1983

Most Holy Father,

As we begin this solemn celebration, may I express to Your Holiness, in the name of all here present, our heartfelt thanks!

Thanks for allowing us to meet you on the very first day of our General Congregation.

Thanks too for inviting us to join you in this Eucharistic Sacrifice, at which we invoke the blessings of the Holy Spirit on our work in the days to come.

Thanks moreover for coming all the way from Castel Gandolfo to our own Headquarters, which will be the scene of our labors.

We are deeply moved by this gesture of great good will. Rejoicing with us are all the members of the Society of Jesus: the men who are serving in every part of the world, and—I may add—those that have attained the bliss of heaven; chief among them, our Father Saint Ignatius, who will see in this great event a further confirmation of that special bond that commits the Society to the Vicar of Christ, and which he regarded as the “principle and chief foundation” of our order.

When Ignatius and his first companions came to Rome, their hearts were ablaze with a twofold love: love for Christ, the eternal and universal King, whom alone they wanted to serve; and love for all humanity, to whom they wished to bring the Good News and the grace of Christ. Not knowing where they might best achieve their purpose, they approached the universal Pastor of the Church, and from him received instructions and a mission.

We too, in our day, come as their successors, our hearts ablaze with a twofold love: love for Christ the Lord, to whom we have consecrated—and would consecrate ever more fully—our lives; and love for the people all around us, who are in the grip of such dire need, both spiritual and material, and to whom we want to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ, his grace, and perfect wholeness. Having in mind our special vow of obedience to the Supreme Pontiff with regard to missions, we approach Your Holiness for instructions and a mission.

Our General Congregation has in view: first, to elect a Superior General who will receive from the Pope the missions that he can in his tum entrust to members of the Society, while he watches over their faithful accomplishment; second, to enact decrees that can help in the carrying out of missions: by promoting the renewal of our interior life from which flows the effectiveness of external activity, and by wisely planning our apostolic efforts.

We do realize, Holy Father, and we readily admit our limitations and shortcomings. But there is in all of us a solid and sincere will to be faithful to our vocation.

The best witnesses to this are the great number of our brothers who in every quarter of the globe and in every field of apostolate are toiling strenuously for the cause of Christ.

There is witness too from those who, while subject to unfriendly governments and deprived of religious liberty, strive by all means to exercise their ministry, though faced with the gravest difficulties, such as have prevented some from being present on this occasion, like the Provincials of Bohemia, Slovakia, Lithuania and Romania. A very special witness is borne by those dearly loved brothers who are suffering persecution for the sake of Christ, like those in China and Vietnam who have recently been condemned to prison or the concentration camp, because of their loyalty to Christ and to his Vicar on earth.

To call them to mind on this solemn occasion is for us both a duty and a grace. To have before us their example will be an inspiration to imitate their steadfastness in faith and in love. To offer up their sacrifice in union with the Eucharistic Sacrifice which we are about to celebrate around this altar, is to reinforce our plea for an abundance of heavenly graces—as a pledge of which, Most Holy Father, we have your presence in our midst today and the apostolic blessing which we humbly request.

Original Source (English translation):

Jesuit Life & Mission Today: The Decrees & Accompanying Documents of the 31st–35th General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, ed. John W. Padberg. St. Louis, Mo.: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2009, “Address of Homage of Fr. Paolo Dezza to Pope John Paul II,” pg. 471–472.

At the 33rd General Congregation, Fr. Paolo Dezza offered the following remarks in accepting the resignation of Pedro Arrupe as superior general. Arrupe had suffered a debilitating stroke in 1981. Dezza extends, on behalf of Jesuits everywhere, “an official and public expression of the Society’s esteem, affection, and gratitude” to Arrupe. Arrupe was the first to resign as superior general. He died in 1991.

For more from the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, please consult this page.

September 3, 1983

First of all, I want to welcome all of you and to thank those who have accepted our invitation to join us for this truly extraordinary session of the General Congregation. Yesterday with great joy the General Congregation began its work with the Mass of the Holy Spirit concelebrated with the Holy Father who so kindly wanted to be with us and to meet each delegate personally. This morning, however, with no joy we gathered to accomplish another task, that of accepting the request of our beloved and revered Father General concerning his resignation from office. It was the intention of the General Congregation, which we now fulfill, to hold this special official session in order to offer Father General the homage of our profound gratitude for and recognition of all that he has accomplished during his eighteen years as General. In taking this action the Congregation is sure that it is expressing the desires and sentiments of Jesuits everywhere and in particular that it is responding to the request of many postulates from Province Congregations which asked that, on the occasion of this resignation from office, there be an official and public expression of the Society’s esteem, affection, and gratitude to Father Arrupe. For this reason we have wished to lend greater solemnity to this function by inviting others to be present, first of all the members of the General Curia who throughout these years have been firsthand witnesses of the untiring activity of Father General, then representatives of the Roman houses that constitute a part of the Society which lives and works close to Father General and, by their international character, represent the whole Society in a special way.

There are so many reasons for gratitude toward Father General. Gratitude in the first place for the example that he has always given us of religious virtue. He is a man of God, of prayer and of mortification—a model of those virtues which are proper to every Jesuit and which ought to characterize the General as he is described by St. Ignatius in Part Eight of the Constitutions. Another motive for thanks is the fact that in these eighteen years he has dedicated himself totally to his office without letting anything else occupy and scatter his energies. He has been animated by an ardent love for the Society that he has been able to inspire in others. And it is this total dedication to his office, this intense love for the Society, that prompted him to visit every part of the world in order to become personally acquainted with individual Jesuits and apostolates, in order to see concrete situations and difficulties, in order to encourage, to comfort, to inspire. Parenthetically, I would like to mention the letter which the fathers of the Vice-Province of Slovakia sent to me and from which I read only a sentence yesterday. There is another passage of the letter in which they dwell at length on the visit that Father General paid them some fifteen years ago and that has left in them such a deep impression and a stimulus for generous loyalty to their vocation in spite of the difficult conditions in which they live. And it was precisely at the end of one of these long and tiring journeys on which he spent himself without reserve for the Society that he was struck by the illness from which he is still suffering.

But it is not only the prodigious amount of work he has done that is the reason for our gratitude, but also the spirit that has given life to all this labor. Father Arrupe’s election as General coincided more or less with the close of the Second Vatican Council and his term of office covered the difficult postconciliar period. During this time the Church undertook the task of self-renewal and updating in all sectors of its corporate life, one of the most important of which is religious life. Already before the Council, in the immediate postwar period, there was a widespread perception of the need of such updating. I remember the well-attended special Congress of 1950, called by the Holy See to promote appropriate modernization of religious life. I recall the various papal documents that appeared in the years following the Council and the decree, Perfectae Caritatis. Father General was in full agreement with the line indicated by the Council, precisely in the challenging effort to reconcile what is enduring, and therefore unchangeable, in the charism of the Society with the demands of the current situation in the life of the Church and of the world. This is a difficult and delicate task and it is no wonder that in so many areas there was a difference of opinion. Nor is it surprising that many concrete directives were criticized, especially when false interpretations or exaggerated applications of some directives led to abuses that Father General himself often deplored. But no one has ever criticized—or could ever criticize—the generous dedication that animated his work of adapting the life and apostolate of the Society to the demands of today’s world.

The very request to resign his office, which Father General had already offered three years ago, is a confirmation of his commitment to renewal. Those who were in the 31st General Congregation will remember the lively debate about the life term of the General. On one side were the reasons set down in the Constitutions in favor of a generalate for life. On the other, were the difficulties arising from contemporary developments in the modern world that make a life term of office much more burdensome. These considerations have led the Church to set limits on the office of bishops, who are invited to resign at a certain age. The question naturally arose about what we should do.

And from that long and profound discussion came the solution of retaining the generalate for life but providing the possibility of resignation when age, health, or special circumstances indicate that it would be suitable for the General to leave office. It was a solution which appeared to be the best one theoretically, but I remember someone asking: But can it ever be put into practice? Father General wanted to demonstrate that this solution could indeed be put into practice, and he courageously wanted to set the example. While still in good health despite his advanced years, he took the decision to offer his resignation. Even if Father Arrupe’s desire could not be satisfied at the time—and then the painful stroke came which brought on his present infirmity—along with his example of generous detachment, he wanted also to give us, as he continues to give us, his example of inner resignation. This truly edifying example has merited the praise of the Holy Father in his allocution of February of last year to the Provincials and again yesterday in his homily and has won the admiration and respect of the whole Society. Not only will Father General continue to help the Society through his prayer, his example and his sufferings, but also, even in his present state of enforced inactivity—I might almost say of enforced silence—he continues to speak, to act, to animate, to encourage. He does this through his writings, his books, and other publications which make his thoughts live in our midst, not only in the Society, but also outside the Society where especially some of his letters have been particularly effective for good.

It gives me pleasure to recall here a personal episode. On the day after the death of Pope Paul VI in 1978, his private secretary, wishing to give me some memento of the Pope, presented me with the Holy Father’s copy of the Ordo Paenitentiae which served as a reminder of our weekly meetings for confession. After the Council, new liturgical formulas were approved for the various sacraments and a new Ordo Paenitentiae was published in Latin. It was permitted to use this after publication, even though not obligatory, until the date set by each Episcopal Conference after the appearance of translations in various languages. Now, I was accustomed to use the Latin form of absolution, so one Saturday evening just after the Latin text of the Ordo Paenitentiae appeared, I pronounced the formula of absolution according to the new form. The Pope looked at me; he had not expected this. On the following Saturday he showed up for confession with his own copy of the new Ordo Paenitentiae so that he could read for himself the act of contrition which was not obligatory but suggested in the new Ordo. And from that day until the last confession a few days before his death, he always came with this Ordo Paenitentiae. It was a precious memorial for me especially when, on leafing through the volume, I found so many interesting letters and notes of the Holy Father. And there I found a copy of Father General’s letter on the integration of the spiritual life and the apostolate, which Father General had published just about a year previously. The Pope had obviously kept it at hand. He liked it and put it in this book which was one he also used for prayer and meditation, showing this way that he had read and reflected and meditated on that letter of Father Arrupe, so giving us the consolation of knowing the influence of the wise words of Father Arrupe that were helpful even to the Pope himself.

On this occasion of our public expression of gratitude and homage we wanted to offer something that Father General could have close to hand and that would be a perpetual reminder of this occasion and of the filial affection of all those present. But after some discreet enquiries as to what might please Father General, I discovered that anything he was given would very likely be passed on within a few days as a gift to someone else. However, there was one thing which would really please him: an autographed message from the Holy Father that he could keep as a constant reminder. The Holy Father granted our request and just yesterday signed this photograph, endorsing in his own hand the words he used when speaking of Father General in his homily yesterday morning, so that Father General can preserve this personal message from the Pope which confirms the close union and affection between them.

Tomorrow we shall conclude this act of gratitude and homage to Father General in the cathedral near the Chapel of La Storta, so dear to Father General because of the well known vision of St. Ignatius, which Father General had restored with the help of the whole Society. There we shall concelebrate Mass with him, praying that the Lord will reward him abundantly for all the good he has accomplished on our behalf and that He will console and support him in his painful illness.

Original Source (English translation):

Jesuit Life & Mission Today: The Decrees & Accompanying Documents of the 31st–35th General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, ed. John W. Padberg. St. Louis, Mo.: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2009, “Address of Gratitude and Homage of Fr. Paolo Dezza to Fr. Pedro Arrupe,” pg. 473–476.

Arrupe suffered a debilitating stroke in August 1981, during his sixteenth year as superior general of the Society of Jesus. Rejecting Arrupe’s preferred replacement, Pope John Paul II appointed Paolo Dezza as the Jesuits’ interim superior until a general congregation could gather to elect Arrupe’s replacement. Greeting the delegates, Arrupe was confined to a wheelchair and could not speak. The following remarks—offering words of welcome and offering his resignation—were read on Arrupe’s behalf. Arrupe was the first superior general to resign from office. He died in 1991.

For more sources from Arrupe, please visit The Arrupe Collection. For more from the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, please consult this page.

September 3, 1983

Dear Fathers:

How I wish I were in a better condition for this meeting with you! As you see, I cannot even address you directly. But my General Assistants have grasped what I want to say to everyone.

More than ever, I now find myself in the hands of God. This is what I have wanted all my life, from my youth. And this is still the one thing I want. But now there is a difference: the initiative is entirely with God. It is indeed a profound spiritual experience to know and feel myself so totally in his hands. At the end of eighteen years as General of the Society, I want first of all, and above all, to give thanks to the Lord. His generosity toward me has been boundless. For my part, I have tried to respond, well knowing that all his gifts were for the Society, to be shared with each and every Jesuit. This has been my persistent effort.

In these eighteen years my one ideal was to serve the Lord and his Church—with all my heart—from the beginning to end. I thank the Lord for the great progress which I have witnessed in the Society. Obviously, there would be defects too—my own, to begin with—but it remains a fact that there was great progress, in personal conversion, in the apostolate, in concern for the poor, for refugees. And special mention must be made of the attitude of loyalty and filial obedience shown toward the Church and the Holy Father, particularly in these last years. For all of this, thanks be to God.

I am especially grateful to my closest collaborators, the General Assistants and Counsellors—and to Father O’Keefe in the first place—to the Regional Assistants, the whole Curia, and the Provincials. And I heartily thank Father Dezza and Father Pittau for their loving response to the Church and to the Society, on being entrusted with so exceptional a task by the Holy Father. But above all it is to the Society at large, and to each of my brother Jesuits, that I want to express my gratitude. Had they not been obedient in faith to this poor Superior General, nothing would have been accomplished.

My call to you today is that you be available to the Lord. Let us put God at the center, ever attentive to his voice, ever asking what we can do for his more effective service, and doing it to the best of our ability, with love and perfect detachment. Let us cultivate a very personal awareness of the reality of God.

To each one of you in particular I would love to say—“tantas cosas”: so much, really.

From our young people I ask that they live in the presence of God and grow in holiness, as the best preparation for the future. Let them surrender to the will of God, at once so awesome and so familiar.

With those who are at the peak of their apostolic activity, I plead that they do not burn themselves out. Let them find a proper balance by centering their lives on God, not on their work—with an eye to the needs of the world, and a thought for the millions that do not know God or behave as if they did not. All are called to know and serve God. What a wonderful mission has been entrusted to us: to bring all to the knowledge and love of Christ!

On those of my age I urge openness: let us learn what must be done now, and do it with a will.

To our dear brothers too, I would like to say “tantas cosas”—so much, and with such affection. I want to remind the whole Society of the importance of the brothers; they help us to center our vocation on God.

I am full of hope, seeing the Society at the service of the one Lord and of the Church, under the Roman Pontiff, the vicar of Christ on earth. May she keep going along this path, and may God bless us with many good vocations of priests and brothers: for this I offer to the Lord what is left of my life, my prayers, and the sufferings imposed by my ailments. For myself, all I want is to repeat from the depths of my heart:

Take, O Lord, and receive: all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All I have and all I possess—it is all yours, Lord: you gave it to me; I make it over to you: dispose of it entirely according to your will. Give me your love and your grace, and I want no more.

Original Source (English translation):

Jesuit Life & Mission Today: The Decrees & Accompanying Documents of the 31st–35th General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, ed. John W. Padberg. St. Louis, Mo.: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2009, “Message of Fr. Pedro Arrupe to the Society,” pg. 477–478.

At a Mass at La Storta, these remarks were read on behalf of Pedro Arrupe. General Congregation 33 marked 18 years that Arrupe had served as superior general, and the Mass was “a farewell and a conclusion” for Arrupe, who had suffered a debilitating stroke in August 1981.

For more sources from Arrupe, please visit The Arrupe Collection. For more from the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, please consult this page.

September 4, 1983

It is in many ways fitting that at the conclusion of my ministry as Superior General of the Society of Jesus, I should come here to La Storta to sing my “Nunc Dimittis”—even though it be in the silence imposed by my present condition.

The veteran Simeon, at the close of a long life of service, and in the magnificent splendor of the Temple of Jerusalem, attained his ardent desire when he received the child Jesus in his arms and drew him to his heart. In the very modest chapel of La Storta, Ignatius of Loyola, when about to begin a new life of service as Founder and first General of our Society, felt himself drawn to the Heart of Christ: “God the Father placed him with Christ his Son,” according to his own earnest prayer to the Virgin Mary.

I would not dare compare myself to these two outstanding servants of the Lord. But I can affirm that I have always had a great devotion to the experience of Ignatius at La Storta, and that I am immensely consoled at finding myself in this hallowed place to give thanks to God on arriving at journey’s end. “For my eyes have seen your salvation.” How often in these eighteen years I have had proof of God’s faithfulness to his promise: “I will be favorable to you in Rome.”

A profound experience of the loving protection of divine providence has been my strength in bearing the burden of my responsibilities and facing the challenges of our day. True, I have had my difficulties, both big and small; but never has God failed to stand by me. And now more than ever I find myself in the hands of this God who has taken hold of me.

The liturgy of this Sunday seems just made to express my sentiments on this occasion. Like St. Paul I can say that I am “an old man, and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus.” I had planned things differently; but it is God who disposes, and his designs are a mystery: “Who can divine the will of the Lord?” But we do know the will of the Father, that we become true images of the Son; and the Son tells us clearly in the Gospel: “Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.””

Father Lainez, from whom we have the words of the promise: “I will be favorable,” proceeds to explain that Ignatius never understood them to mean that he and his companions would be free of suffering. On the contrary, he was convinced that they were called to serve Christ carrying his cross: “He felt he saw Christ, with the cross on his back, and the eternal Father by his side, saying to him: ‘I want that you take this man as your servant.’ And so Jesus took him, saying: ‘I want that you serve us.’ Because of this, conceiving great devotion to this most holy Name, he wished to call our fellowship: the Society of Jesus.”

This name had already been chosen by the companions before they came to Rome to offer their services to the Pope. But it received a very special confirmation from the experience at La Storta. One can notice a close relationship between the phrases employed by Lainez and those of the Formula of the Institute approved by Julius III: “Whoever wishes to enlist under the standard of the Cross as a soldier of God in our Society, which we desire to be distinguished 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.”

What was for Ignatius the culmination and summing up of so many special graces received since his conversion, was for the Society a pledge that it would share in the graces of the Founder in the measure in which it remained faithful to the inspiration that gave it birth. I pray that this celebration, that is for me a farewell and a conclusion, be for you and for the whole Society represented here, the beginning of a new period of service, with fresh enthusiasm.

May the collaboration of the whole Society in the renovation of the chapel of La Storta be an abiding symbol and an unfailing inspiration for a united effort at spiritual renewal, trusting in the graces whose memory is enshrined in La Storta. I shall remain at your side with my prayers.

Like St. Ignatius, I implore the Virgin Mary that we may all be placed with her Son; and that as Queen and Mother of the Society she be with you in all the labors of the General Congregation, and especially in the election of the new General.

Original Source (English translation):

Jesuit Life & Mission Today: The Decrees & Accompanying Documents of the 31st–35th General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, ed. John W. Padberg. St. Louis, Mo.: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2009, “Homily of Fr. Pedro Arrupe at La Storta,” pg. 479–480.

In their first ballots, the delegates of the 33rd General Congregation elected Peter-Hans Kolvenbach their new superior general. After, the former the vice-provincial of the Near East offers this homily.

For more from the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, please consult this page.

September 16, 1983

As we take up again the work of the General Congregation, the Lord invites us this morning to lose our life for His sake and take up the cross, our own cross, and follow Him. This word of the Lord should in no way call forth in us somber reflections on our weaknesses and shortcomings, our limitations and failures, even if these are, in fact, our cross.

The Gospel serves to remind the General Congregation that the great majority of Jesuits are men who, following the example of St. Ignatius, desire to lose their life in order that their brothers and sisters—all men and women—may live by the true life, the life of God. Without doubt the General Congregation must pass laws and decrees, but this legislative labor has only one purpose: to liberate the energies of love for Christ, that are alive in the Society, so that they may bear abundant fruit. Through all the deliberations and decisions of the General Congregation there should be always present among us the Jesuit who is willing to lose his life so that Christ may live in his brothers and sisters. It is this Jesuit whom we represent and it is for him that we labor in the General Congregation so that he be able to fulfill the Ignatian ideal of his life.

Finally, the Lord invites the General Congregation to carry its own cross and lose its life in order to follow the lamb wherever He goes. What St. Ignatius presupposes in the meditation on the Kingdom is still fully true today: so many Jesuits are ready to work and watch. But the magis of the Kingdom consists in working and watching as it pleases the divine Majesty, working and watching only when the Lord deigns to choose and admit me to such a state and way of life. The postulates that the Society has entrusted to the discernment of the General Congregation reveal the intense desire of Jesuits to live the Paschal Mystery today so that others may come alive. The General Congregation is called to lose its life in desiring for the Society—through its decrees, initiatives, and projects—only that which pleases “the divine Majesty.”

Through the intercession of St. Ignatius we offer this Eucharistic prayer, beseeching for the General Congregation the blessing of God the Father, through his Son Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Original Source (English translation):

Jesuit Life & Mission Today: The Decrees & Accompanying Documents of the 31st–35th General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, ed. John W. Padberg. St. Louis, Mo.: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2009, “Homily of Father General,” pg. 482.

The members of the 33rd General Congregation gathered at St. Peter’s Basilica to celebrate Mass, with their new superior general offering this homily.

For more from the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, please consult this page.

October 15, 1983

During this Eucharist which the General Congregation is celebrating for the reconciliation of all men and women in Christ, the Lord speaks to us through his Beatitudes. As if alone containing the key to all Jesus said and did, the Beatitudes are the only example of our Lord’s teaching among the mysteries of his life that St. Ignatius invites us to meditate and contemplate. Following in the steps of St. Ignatius, the last General Congregation asked the Society to make sure that all its service of faith as well as its promotion of justice was carried out in the spirit of the Beatitudes. Under the guidance of the Exercises we want to spend a few minutes turning the Lord’s Beatitudes into prayer.

To be genuine this prayer on the Beatitudes needs to follow the Lord’s example and be based on a communion in life and death with the poor and those who weep, with the hungry and those who suffer in war, with the persecuted and those who are victims of injustice. The man who absorbs the Beatitudes in prayer is never just an observer. Nor does he merely share in the suffering he observes; he finds that he is responsible for it. All his sinful cooperation—in thought, action and omission—shows he is in partnership with the people described in the Exercises, in words only too appropriate today, as blind creatures who die and go down to the hell which man in his hatred makes for himself. With great clarity the last General Congregation summed up the responsibility we all share: today we can make the world a more just place, but we do not really want to do so. And Father Arrupe added: we can no longer regard inequality and injustice as the inevitable hazards of nature; they are the results of our own selfishness. Only by confessing our fault, only by acknowledging our wickedness in changing the life-giving force of the Beatitudes, locked in the heart of every person, into a death sentence; only then will the Beatitudes become part of our flesh for the reconciliation of all men and women.

This true communion with the deeper history of humanity is also the source of our confidence that we can “save souls” by unveiling to them the true face of God in Christ on the Cross. This Epiphany of the Lord, who is meek and the maker of peace, poor in the depths of his being and merciful to the very end, persecuted and crucified, shows us just how far God will go to remain faithful to his Beatitudes of love and to what horrible lengths man will go in his curse of hatred. “Raising my eyes to Christ nailed to the Cross, I shall ponder within myself.” Underneath all forms of wretchedness and injustice we always find the blood-stained face of Christ crucified, but—mystery of faith—his embodiment of the Beatitudes also enables us unfailingly to find the seeds of reconciliation. “When I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all to myself.”

And this is the call of the Eternal King, our one Beatitude. The Lord wanted to need us to reconcile men in his Name. The Exercises ask us as disciples to follow the Master in the greatest poverty, but they do not cast us in one mold nor do they exclude any way of life or type of work in order that we may be truly poor, makers of peace, persecuted for the justice of the Kingdom. The Eternal King makes us the keepers of the Beatitudes today, ministers of reconciliation, so that we can change the curses of the first Adam into the blessings of the new city of God where men and women are reconciled with God and enjoy his gifts and pardon. Only when we come to live out our consecration to the Kingdom in a communion that is for the poor, with the poor, and against all forms of human poverty, material and spiritual, only then will the poor see that the gates of the Kingdom are open to them. The poor are certainly not happy in their deprivation any more than the persecuted are happy in their oppression. The Beatitudes do not license us to make misfortune sacred or to adopt a resigned attitude in the face of human suffering. Today more than ever the Beatitudes can only be proclaimed and their message of universal reconciliation only heard if they become a vital force in everyday life and action, as they were for the Lord. They must be seen to be at the service of men and women, all brothers and sisters of the Lord, in the very places where life, death, and hope in the future are at stake, hope for peace through the blood of his Cross.

So our Eucharist becomes an election of love in the Ignatian sense. We come together round the Lord’s table which no one leaves hungry after receiving the Bread of Life like the bread we need each day. In our communion at this Mass we consecrate ourselves to the Paschal Mystery which is lived by the poor of the Lord; the peacemakers, the merciful, the meek of heart, the persecuted, the oppressed for his Name, until he comes to reconcile a new earth and a new heaven in his lasting Beatitude.

Original Source (English translation):

Jesuit Life & Mission Today: The Decrees & Accompanying Documents of the 31st–35th General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, ed. John W. Padberg. St. Louis, Mo.: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2009, “Homily of Father General in St. Peter’s Basilica,” pg. 483–484.

Fifty-three days after it began, the 33rd General Congregation closed on October 25, 1983. The delegates had passed only six decrees (the 31st passed 16, and the 34th would pass 26). But, for the first time in the history of the Society of Jesus, the delegates had accepted the resignation of their superior general and elected his successor. The new general, Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, offered this homily to close the congregation.

For more from the 33rd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, please consult this page.

October 25, 1983

The gospel of this final Eucharistic liturgy of the General Congregation is not only the central point of all Christian action, but—especially after Anthony the Copt—it is a word of life that every religious vocation seeks to fulfill, radically and existentially. It is no wonder that this dialogue between the Master and the man on his knees contains the salient features of this intensive period with the Lord that the General Congregation has been living for 54 days.

“Master, what must I do?” Each delegate recognizes himself in this prayer. Each one has been willing to spend his own precious time in praying, speaking, and listening in order to insert the work of the Society in the eternal project of the Master who alone grants a share in life. To spend our own time, in order to question the Wholly-Other and to address questions to so many others who speak to us—more than we believe—in the name of the Lord.

Listening to the teaching imparted to us by John Paul II in this chapel at the beginning of the General Congregation, and listening to so many words and so many silences which echoed the experiences of the whole Society, each delegate has shared in the Ignatian discernment with the best that is in him. In this Eucharist let us pray to the Master that the General Congregation may continue in the whole Society, thanks above all to listening to our witness and to meditating on its documents, and that our hearts may continue to be restless until His divine Majesty may be served.

In answer to our prayer: “Master, what must I do?” the Lord has replied: “You know the commandments.” This 33rd General Congregation is intensely characterized by that which we already know and by that which the Society has observed from its earliest days. Hence the confirmation of the decisions of the preceding General Congregations, the promulgation of the laws that are indispensable for the government of the Society, the specification of the preferential options of our apostolic activity and of the foundations of our religious life. By calling the commandments of our religious consecration by their proper name, this General Congregation has recalled beyond all ambiguity or compromise the ministry of the Jesuit priest and the great vocation of the Jesuit brother, devotion to the Church in its apostolic visibility and constructive fidelity to the magisterium, poverty dedicated to the service of the Lord’s poor, and the urgency of real apostolic needs to which every Jesuit should respond. Let us pray to the Lord in this Eucharist that by repeating in the commandments all the love of the Society for its Lord, it may attain a fresh gospel transparency and clarity in its religious commitment with an undivided heart.

However, despite all this legislation, “There is one thing you lack:” the Lord asks us to forsake material security by selling our own goods and giving ourselves to his poor, and to forsake all legal assurance in order to focus our whole existence, in the insecurity of the paschal ways, on this man of Nazareth who is the Word of God. A unique document of the General Congregation to express this unique word of love. It is aware, in accord with the warning of Father Pedro Arrupe, “that in our day words do not gain credibility, and thus we must incarnate them and live them.” This document thus says everything, free of any inflexibility or narrowness, by entrusting the authenticity of the mission we are to accomplish and the integrity of our religious consecration to the impulsion of the Spirit who will help our fellow Jesuits to incarnate and live these words in very diverse situations, often painful and complex, where his divine Majesty has wished to place us.

Let us pray to the Lord in this Eucharist that he not let us go away sad like the man of the gospel, but with the paschal joy that no man can take away, because by means of this 33rd General Congregation the Lord has given to the Society a new life and because he who alone is good has been good to us in Rome.

Original Source (English translation):

Jesuit Life & Mission Today: The Decrees & Accompanying Documents of the 31st–35th General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, ed. John W. Padberg. St. Louis, Mo.: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2009, “Homily of Father General at the Close of 33rd General Congregation,” pg. 485–487.