Search Results for: Quick

“This task of direct evangelization by the preaching of Jesus Christ remains essential today and must be continued,” stated Decree 4 from the 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, “since never before have there been so many people who have never, heard the Word of Christ the Savior.” Four years after that gathering […]

The Ignatian Center for Spirituality in Rome closed a five-week conference on Ignatian Spirituality on February 18, 1978, with Pedro Arrupe delivering the following remarks. The Superior General of the Society of Jesus based his remarks on a phrase from the Jesuits’ Formula, approved by Pope Julius III in 1550.  For Arrupe, the phrase “To

Gaspar Loarte published The Exercise of the Christian Life in 1557 (just a year after the death of Ignatius de Loyola) as the Spanish Jesuit served as the rector of a Jesuit college in Genoa. The slim volume provided prayers, meditations, and general advice to Christians who desired to live a more devout life. Exemplifying

The final decree promulgated by the 34th General Congregation articulates the delegates’ views on the combination of “certain attitudes, values, and patterns of behavior” that forms the “Jesuit way of proceeding.” Among that way’s components, according to this decree, are a “deep personal love for Christ,” being a “contemplative in action,” being part of the

Pope Paul VI addressed the delegates to the 32nd General Congregation on December 3, 1974, noting similar “joy and trepidation” to when the last congregation began nearly a decade before. Looking to the assembled Jesuits, the pontiff declares, “there is in you and there is in us the sense of a moment of destiny for

Pope Pius XII delivered the following remarks at an event to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Society of Jesus. The ceremony took place in Rome in the Hall of Benediction on April 27, 1941, the day Greece surrendered to the Nazis. Pius spoke following remarks by Wlodimir (Włodzimierz) Ledóchowski, the superior

In July 1940, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the foundation of the Society of Jesus, Pope Pius XII issued the following apostolic letter to Wlodimir (Włodzimierz) Ledóchowski. Pius notes to the superior general how the Catholic Church “is deeply indebted to your religious society for its glorious record of service.” The letter chronicles some

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

Francis Borgia, in this letter to the Jesuits in Aquitania, in the southwest of France, provides advice on how best to preserve the spirit of the Society of Jesus. The order’s “rapid growth” reminded Borgia of how “the little grain of mustard,” once “fixing its roots” and “sending forth its branch and steam,” could become

A Neapolitan woman had started a home for six or seven abandoned girls, whom she brought to the Jesuit church for the sacraments. She rented a house next door to the Jesuits, where the girls’ windows looked onto the men’s rooms. When she refused to move, the Jesuit superior, Alfonso Salmerón, threatened to deny the