અંતરાગ્નિ Antaragni: Ignatian Spirituality ,Gujarat: Sharing about spirituality in the context of India, especially in Gujarat. Indian spiritual traditions can contribute a lot to the search for meaning and deep experience of the Supreme being.
Friday, August 28, 2015
Monday, August 24, 2015
COURSE ON SPIRITUAL DIRECTION
01. COURSE ON SPIRITUAL DIRECTION
Dear Rev.
Fr. Provincial,
We are conducting a
one-month Course on SPIRITUAL DIRECTION to Spiritual
Directors, Formators and Retreat Directors from 12th April to May 11th, 2016 at De Nobili College, Pune.
The First
Preference is given to our Jesuits
and so the announcement is made first to our Provincials. Soon we will be
sending the invitation to individual Jesuits, whose email Ids we have.
Please encourage
our Jesuits and others, whom you think will benefit, to participate in
the course and equip themselves better in their ministries.
Please find the
details in the attachment.
Your Brother
at your Service,
Fr.
M. Kulandai Raj Sj (mobile: 09849954148)
Andhra
Province
Free education by the jesuits.
concept of gratuity a hard and tortuous journey from the time of Ignatius until the present.Jesuit schools became more of a privilege limited to the middle and upper classes.
Wanting to open a New English Medium School Read this reflection
Gratuity in
Ignatian Education:
Then and Now
This article
is taken from Jesuits 2006 John P. Foley S.J
Ignatius was
absolutely convinced of God’s Providence with regard to the Society of Jesus.
He referred to the special Providence by which God would take care of
everything. He assured us that the more we trusted divine Providence, the more
abundant blessing it would pour upon us. Ignatius wanted us to rejoice in our
limitations. He taught that our fragility is the means for Providence to become
present.
From the
very beginning, it was one of the characteristics of how he and the Society
operated. For him it was a test of our apostolic integrity; people will listen
to us only when we can show them that we have nothing to gain from what we are
calling them to.
When the
first Jesuit school was founded in the city of Messina in 1547, gratuity was
the solution for the Jesuits to remain faithful to their resolve not to charge
for ministries provided. Ignatius commissioned his secretary, Fr. Polanco, to
provide examples of how the schools might be funded: by the city as happened in
Messina and Palermo; by some prince, as in Ferrara and Florence by their
respective dukes, or as in Vienna by King Ferdinand; by some private
individual, as in Venice and Padua by the prior of the Trinity; by a group of
individuals, as in Naples Bologna and elsewhere.
Thus not to
charge for education was a corollary to one of the most fundamental graces Ignatius
received; to give freely what one has freely received, to minister without
worrying about benefit and without support of gold or silver, concepts almost
totally foreign to the ways we are
taught to see things in today’s world.
When Polanco
wrote the program: “First of all, we accept for classes and literary studies
everybody, poor and rich free of charge and for charity’s sake, without
accepting any remuneration.”
When the Collegio
Romano opened in the Eternal City in 1551, the sign over the door read, “School
of Grammar, Humanities and Christian Doctrine, Free.” This concept of gratuity
was revolutionary at the time. It is one more way in which from the very earliest
days the Jesuits were true innovators. They refused to charge tuition for the
same religious motives that from the beginning led them to refuse payment for
any of their ministries. This fact made Jesuit schools financially attractive
to parents and local governments and was a powerful factor contributing to
their initial success.
For the
first 150 years the schools were supported by begging, an activity Ignatius
exercised constantly and in many different ways from the time of his conversion
until the end of his life.
But times
change and new circumstances demand adaptations. However, as the number of
schools increased (by the end of the sixteenth century the Jesuits were
founding six new schools a year), the possibility of staffing with Jesuit
teachers became more and more difficult, slowly but surely lay people began to
take their places. Lay people with familial obligations need a fixed income to
sustain themselves and their dependents.
The school
became tuition driven: the greater cost to educate, the more the school had to charge.
And so it was the world over until in many cases accessibility to our Jesuit
schools became more and more of a privilege limited to the middle and upper
classes.
Fast forward now to 1955 and the country of Venezuela,
Spanish Jesuit Fr. Jose Maria Velaz sought a solution to the fact that so many
people in that country and so many others were excluded from private Catholic
education because of its having become so expensive. Refusing to buckle before
this cruel reality, he searched for a way to serve those being left behind in
Venezuela. He was convinced that there must be another way to resolve the
problem.
In response
he founded the first Fe y Alegria
schools which to this day are meant to be a religious alternative to the public
system. He confronted the same problem that Ignatius and the first Jesuits did
when they ventured into the educational field. His solution was also original
and creative: let the State continue to pay the salaries for the teachers; the
central office of Fe y Alegria would
beg for the means to buy the construction materials to build the different
schools; the parents and students would commit to working on weekends to build
the new structures for their sons and daughters.
In fifty
years now, Fe y Alegria has expanded
to 13 countries in Latin America and educates over half a million students
yearly who otherwise would be excluded because of the restraints of tuitions.
Forty years later, the US Jesuits confronted the same difficulty where
they wanted to open a school in the most populated area of Chicago. When the
Provincial told us who were organizing the new venture to “go out and see how
you’re going to fund the school,” the three of us looked at each other and
decided we needed some radical new innovative idea. So we hired a consultant
and asked him for some solutions on “how to fund a school in the inner-city”
What was our amazement when that same consultant returned about two weeks later
and simply asked, “What if everyone had a job?” We decided to test the idea. We
went to the Jesuit alumni who were active in the Chicago business community and
knocked on the doors. We told them our story: the Jesuits wanted to open a
school in the inner city and they wanted to fund the school by having the
students work on a rotating basis one day a week. We were overwhelmed with the
response from our alumni.
Frankly it seemed that people were so desperate for
new idea in the educational field that it was enough that the Jesuits were
going to try something different for them to get behind it. It was almost too
much to hope for. Until the students went out to work that first day. We were
not at all sure it was going to be effective.
Some of the
companies did in fact call us that first day, but it was to thank us for
sending the students. It became an opportunity for the company to get involved
and respond to the needs of the inner city; the employees were proud to work
for a company that became part of such a program; it generally lifted morale in
the business places and made employees feel that they really were contributing
in a concrete way to make the world better.
The idea that student have a job was
the seed that made it possible in 1966 to return to the original gratuitous vision of Ignatian
education, as it was practiced both at Messina and at the Collegio Romano. With
that suggestion we were able to restore the notion of gratuity and incorporate
it into the fundamental structure of Cristo Rey Jesuit High school.
Without
knowing it, Cristo Rey was applying what Ignatius mandated over four centuries
ago. Basically, the Cristo Rey formula is the integration of two seemingly
distinct institutions: a school and a temporary employment agency. To be a
student at Cristo Rey a young person must be able to hold a job. By going to
their assignments at different contracted places of employment in the city five
days a month, each student earns over seventy per cent of the cost of his / her
education, thus permitting the school to charge a relatively modest amount, the
remaining third of the cost, to each student.
We have
discovered that it does infinitely more. In a word the self-esteem of the
student goes sky-high. This student never even thought it within the realm of
possibility that there would be a place for him there. All of a sudden, this
student and his peers see that they are welcome there and can function effectively.
These fifteen year olds begin to realize
that that world of business is accessible to them, that there are options for
the future. Now it makes sense to go to school and to finish. There really is a
worthwhile goal to pursue and it really is possible to attain it. The Cristo
Rey model has given birth to a network of eleven schools in the country.
Foundations have their eye on us. They like what they see and they want
us to succeed. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has given us the biggest
grant they have ever assigned to a faith-based institution. The Cassin Educational
Initiative Foundation has also invested heavily in our future. These and other
financial backers are our modern day equivalent of the princes and dukes of
Ferrara and Florence.
For those of
us who are involved in it, besides the excitement we often feel the need to
kneel before what is happening. There is something sacred about this whole
thing. The total is very definitely more than the sum of the parts. The Spirit
is unmistakably present.
Just like
any successful economic model, it has to be continually revised and probably
re-created. As the needs and circumstances change, so do the solutions we try
to provide. Our forefathers in Jesuit education tried to provide different
answers at different times, according to the situation. We always have to be
innovative and create new answers. The challenge is to preserve that spirit of
dynamic creativity.
Four and a half centuries ago, Ignatius tried to be faithful to
the grace he received to maintain our ministries free of charge. Each
generation of Jesuit ministries, including education, must discover its own
solution and create its own way of being faithful t our founder’s desire. How
are we faithful to gratuity today?
There are no
pat answers, no one-size-fits-all. Each generation has the obligation to
produce their own solution because that’s the only way to remain vital. Is it
easy? Is there an easy answer? Not at
all but it wasn’t easy Ignatius either begging on the steps of the church of Santa
Maria del Mar in Barcelona. Our fragility is the means for Providence to become
active.
The concept of gratuity has made a
hard and tortuous journey from the time of Ignatius until the present. Happily it is making a new
appearance to that basic commitment of Ignatian abandonment to what the Lord
provides. May we have the courage to embrace it?
John P. Foley S.J taken from the Jesuit
Year Book
Inbox
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COLLABORATION bears Spiritual Fruits in Canadian Jesuit High School
We in Gujarat Had a number of meetings and seminars on collaboration.
A retreat can change people to organize themselves to collaborate:
An example below.
Please respond to this.
I expect a short response to this report in blog Antaragni.
devasia
COLLABORATION bears Spiritual Fruits
in Canadian Jesuit High School
How can the mission of the Jesuits be fulfilled as the number
of Jesuits declines?
St. Paul’s High School, Winnipeg,
Manitoba Canada has been wrestling with this question since 1970’s. From having a Jesuit Faculty
with three lay teachers, we are now a lay faculty with three Jesuit teachers.
Jesuit/ lay collaboration has evolved from grudging necessity to a welcome
witness to the universal nature of the Ignatian vision. Similarly, 30% of our
students are not Catholic: today this is seen as a richness that calls us to a
deeper collaboration.
Great example of how collaboration
can bear excellent fruit lies in the spiritual renewal which has transformed the
school. In the year 1988 Ignatian Year, the Winnipeg Jesuit
Community offered the Spiritual Exercises (Annotation 19) to our faculty, of
which one-third took them. A significant number of the faculty now had a
language and a common experience base in the spiritual life. This became the
fertile soil for future spiritual programs developed for students.
Our major spiritual
programs – Christian Life Community (CLC) –
Kairos – the Freshman Retreat – and the Spiritual Exercises – are guided by the
faculties who have done the Exercises.
In 1992 the arrival of a Jesuit
Scholastic Alan Fogarty, SJ recalls it was not easy to begin the CLC. “There was some resistance
among the lay faculty and even in the Jesuit community. I was beginning to feel
that the time was not right, when three grade nine students said they wanted to
form a CLC group and asked me to head it.
The then Mr. Fogarty’s group began to
meet weekly, engaging in
faith sharing, spiritual conversation, prayer and outreach, the
hallmarks of C.L.C. Within two years there were 8 groups of 8-12 students
meeting weekly, each guided by a faculty member. Today about 15% of our student
body are members of a CLC group. Groups typically start in grade 9 and stay
together, with their faculty moderator, for 4 years.
The
Kairos retreat experience, is an intense four-day retreat which focuses on affirmation of the person and community building. Like
CLC and, indeed, like the Spiritual Exercises, the student’s personal encounter
with the Lord Jesus is the basis of building a community which proceeds to
action in the world to build up God’s Kingdom.
One of the features of Kairos is that
it is conducted primarily
by students who have themselves made the retreat. St. Paul’s now has three
Kairos retreats each year; 75% of our graduating students have chosen to make Kairos.
A key element of CLC, Kairos, and all our spiritual programs is that we ensure
that they are authentically Catholic, and at the same time are open to all our
students and their faith backgrounds.
We have non- Christian students whose
parents went to Jesuit schools in India, Lebanon, and around the world. We try
to imitate the generosity of Mother Theresa who looked for the beauty of God in
people of every tradition.
Hindu
student Ankur Nagpal ’04 was a member of
CLC, participated in Kairos, and made the Exercises. He said ‘St Paul’s has
made me take into consideration ‘human interest’ at a whole new level. I no
longer think that I am insignificant in helping out people. CLC and Kairos have
made me realize to an extent that my vocation will
certainly revolve around helping people. The best way of doing this is
through my decision to study medicine.
Mehdi
Seidgar ’01 a Muslim student commented “An aspect of St.
Paul’s High School that really impressed me was how openly I was accepted into
the community. As an active member of CLC and the Kairos retreat, I learned
that as human beings, our differences are minuscule.” As a student director of
a Kairos retreat, Mehdi shared his faith and talents with 35 other boys. He
says that going to St Paul’s deepened his own faith: “I
attribute who I am as Muslim today to my time at the school.”
Raed Joundi, whose father attended
the College of St Joseph’s in Lebanon, said, “CLC was important to me as it set
a time apart to allow myself and fellow members to relax review the week, and
recharge for another.”
Raed,
who is also Muslim, attended Kairos after “extensive pushing and
prodding” from his friends. He said,
“Kairos was not at all what I expected. It
gave me great insight into the spiritual workings of those around me, but most of all, opened an otherwise unopened window into my
own beliefs, thoughts, experiences, life, and faith. Kairos was crucial
to the understanding of myself and was a vital part of my St Paul’s education.
Orienting boys into our school has
always been a challenge:
they come from twenty-five or thirty different and elementary schools into a
very big high school, and many are not Catholic.
Our awakening spiritual senses challenged us to respond to the boys’ spiritual
and communal needs and so
in 2002 we introduced the
Freshman Retreat.
For two nights and a day in November,
the boys are conducted through an intense experience of
prayer and community building. They are divided into groups of six
students, each led by senior students. While the retreat is overseen by faculty
members and parents, the actual work with the boys is done exclusively by senior students. The experience
includes community service work, modeling talks by senior students, faculty
members and local clergy, Mass, and opportunity for the Sacrament of
Reconciliation and the close binding experience of “camping out”.
We have found the impact on our
students very positive.
Student
Brendan Arniel commented, “The retreat was awesome.
All of us really came together as friends and classmates. It broke down any
barriers that we had. I really felt welcomed into the school community.”
Here our challenge is not one of
integrating them into the school community but, rather, one of preparing them to move into
the greater world and, we hope, be agents for the building up of God’s Kingdom.
We felt, though, that we have needed more direct spiritual preparation for
their life beyond high school.
The
response was right under our noses: the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius are
the foundation of the formation of Jesuits. St. Ignatius developed the
Exercises to be given to lay people! So we decided to offer the Exercises to our
graduating students.
Our main challenges in doing this were: adapting the language
and particularly the images of the Exercises to a post-modern teenage retreatant;
finding in-house directors, for the Exercises require one-on-one spiritual
direction with weekly meetings; and finding time for these meetings.
We recently met with a group of retreat alumni.
Tom
Robertson ’03, a member of our first group, told
us, “I did the Exercises because Kairos made me hungry for more. I wanted more
to encounter God in my daily life.”
Dan Brick ’04 and Josh Fernando ’04 agreed. All found that the retreat experience,
while challenging and sometimes difficult, was very rewarding.
Dan reflected. “I have found that the routine of daily prayer has continued into my
life. Every day, doing the Examen, I can step back and look at how am I
responding to God…or not.”
Josh said, “My whole life is different I try always to listen to Jesus and to
respond. Sometimes he seems to shout, sometimes to whisper. He’s my friend my
brother, my helper.”
Tom summed up for all the alumni when he said, “My Kairos experience and particularly my
Exercises experience validated my faith, made it tangible, personal and real. I
now can live my faith in daily life, not just in a retreat centre or at mass or
at prayer.
These alumni represent the latest
fruit of our school’s Jesuit-lay collaboration. Perhaps some of our alumni will
go on to follow a vocation to the priesthood or religious life. But our hope is
that all of our graduates, whatever
their path in life, will have the tools and the motivation, God willing, to be ‘contemplatives
in action”; to seek God in all things, and to build up God’s kingdom in
word and indeed.
Johnston Smith
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