Search Results for: van der Aa

Pedro Arrupe’s first official visit to England and Scotland as the Jesuits’ superior general took place in January 1970. This was not the first visit to England by a leader of the Society of Jesus, as Arrupe notes in the homily below. Arrupe delivered these remarks at the Farm Street Church in London, a Jesuit […]

Pedro Arrupe delivered a stirring and personal address to the celebration hosted by the Eucharistic Youth Movement in September 1979. In the edited text below, Arrupe provides examples of his own experiences of the Eucharist—from witnessing a miracle at Lourdes to witnessing the aftermath of the atomic explosion in Hiroshima. “Our Lord, through contact with

Mutio Vitelleschi, born to a noble family in Rome in 1563, entered the Society of the Jesus only after securing permission from Pope Gregory XIII. The Jesuits elected Vitelleschi their sixth superior general in 1615. His generalate saw worldwide expansion in missions and in membership to some 15,000 men but also an increase in the

After the Spiritual Exercises, perhaps until the publication and translation of his “autobiography,” the writings of Ignatius were perhaps best known for this letter, commonly known as the “Letter on Obedience” to the Province of Portugal. Generations of Jesuits heard it read at table once a month in their refectories. Ignatius writes here during a

The Society of Jesus—much like “all well-organized communities or congregations”—appoints a person “whose proper duty,” according to the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, “is to attend to the universal good.” For the Jesuits in particular, the superior general’s “duty is the good government, preservation, and growth of the whole body of the Society.” (Rather