Search Results for: Four

The official Directory of the Spiritual Exercises was published in 1599. The directory was the culmination of study and experimentation through commissions over the course of four generalates. A committee appointed by the Fifth General Congregation of the Society of Jesus (1593-94) appointed the committee that ultimately produced the official directory. To mark the occasion, […]

The delegates at the Second General Congregation of the Society of Jesus gathered in the summer of 1565, in part, to elect a success to Diego Laínez as the Jesuits’ superior general. They chose Francis Borgia, a former duke of Gandía. Borgia became the third superior general, “smitten by the sword of responsibility.” Borgia delivered

Five months after Ignatius’s death on July 31, 1556, Jerómino Nadal gave two talks to Jesuit scholastics in the Collegio Romano. The talks came at the request of Diego Laínez, who served as the vicar general of the Society of Jesus following the death of Ignatius. Nadal explains, in the following excerpts, to the men

On May 22, 1965, the delegates at the 31st General Congregation of the Society of Jesus elected Pedro Arrupe as the Jesuits’ 28th superior general. Like the order’s first general, Arrupe was a native of the Basque region of Spain, born in Bilbao on November 14, 1907. He attended medical school in Madrid at the

The issue of priestly vocations within the Society of Jesus, according to the following letter sent to all the Jesuit major superiors, is a troubling matter “much too serious to ignore or set aside.” Arrupe sent his letter on July 11, 1973, a time when worldwide membership in the Society of Jesus had dropped from

The following address—delivered by Pedro Arrupe to the English scholastics at Heythrop College in January 1974—serves as a challenge for “the young men of the Society” to embrace their vocation with a total commitment. “Jesuit Vocation,” Arrupe states, “is essentially a call to commit ourselves to Christ and His work.” He implores the men: “Please

Pedro Arrupe delivered the following remarks at a meeting of all the brothers in Jesuit houses in Rome. His topic is “the problem of the Brothers,” a topic also addressed previously by the Jesuits’ 31st and 32nd general congregations. The problem that Arrupe sees is how to “understand a little more deeply the value of

The Jesuits of the Province of Turin met in Genoa in December 1973, in order to make preparations for upcoming 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus. At this meeting, Pedro Arrupe first delivered the following remarks on “the simplicity of life,” which he considers “the measure of our spirit of poverty, the practical

At a meeting of the major superiors in the Jesuits’ African Assistancy in March 1972, Pedro Arrupe delivered the following remarks on the missionary vocation within the Society of Jesus. The group had gathered in Cameroon, just a year after the establishment of the African Assistancy. A Jesuit missionary, Arrupe argues, had a two-fold purpose: