Scripture Readings

• First Reading: Deut 30:10-14

• Responsorial Psalm: Ps 16 (15):1-2a+5, 7-8, 11

• Alleluia Verse: John 15:4, 5b

• Gospel: John 12:23-26

Reflection on Today’s Feast

By Fr. Sean Hagerty, SJ

A few short days after I entered the novitiate in 2012, the director of novices had all the new guys read Formulas of the Institute of the Society of Jesus. The plural “Formulas” is not a typo; the first formula was submitted to Pope Paul III in 1540, and the second was an updated version approved by Julius III ten years later in 1550. The formulas are short documents that roughly express the mission of the Society of Jesus. While the 1550 version is a bit longer and more specific, the central message remains the same – the Jesuits were founded to be of service to Christ and his Church, and to lead the men in the Society to a closer union with God. The formulas both open with perhaps one of the most rousing lines of any foundational document:  

 “Whoever desires to serve as a soldier of God beneath the banner of the cross in our Society, which we desire to be designated 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, should, after a solemn vow of perpetual chastity, poverty, and obedience, keep what follows in mind.”   

 As I looked around at my novice classmates, I was shocked that such different men were called to join the same order. Before entering the Society, I had served as an Army officer and deployed with an infantry battalion as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I then spent a short time in the corporate world before entering the Society. My classmates had very different experiences from my own. One, after graduating from Holy Cross, spent a year in JVC and then went to Yale Divinity school. Another was from a small island in Micronesia who had spent a few years teaching on one of the larger islands. A few of the novices in the house had joined right after college, while others had significant professional experience. We were a bit of a motley crew, and had it not been for the Society, it is unlikely our paths would have crossed. Yet, all of us were now seeking to enter vowed life in the Society and serve the Church. How could such different men serve in a single organization? 

 There is an old joke about Jesuits, “if there are five Jesuits arguing, there will be six opinions.” The joke is funny because it is a bit true, Jesuits are a diverse group of well-educated men who often hold different opinions. Yet, we all are motivated by the desire to serve Christ and his Church. So, perhaps it is unsurprising that the same diversity is reflected in the saints and blessed of the Society.  

 The Jesuits can claim 52 saints and 147 blessed, a staggering number considering the Society was only founded in 1540. Each one of these men is unique, they lived their Jesuit vocation in varied ways:

There was St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, a Jesuit brother and mystic, who served as the porter and spiritual companion at the Jesuit College in Mallorca. St. Edmund Campion was a respected professor who left a comfortable position to return to England where he was martyred for providing sacraments to Catholics in hiding. St. Alberto Hurtado dedicated his life to serving the poor and downtrodden in Santiago, Chile. St. Robert Bellarmine was one of the greatest theologians of his era, yet remained humble, and is a Doctor of the Church.

The list goes on. However, all of them responded to the call to serve under the Banner of Christ. Christ called them each, in a particular way, to serve him. While their lives may have been different, they were nonetheless brother Jesuits.  

 There is a misconception that there is a “right way” to be a disciple, a single path to holiness. What the Jesuit saints and blessed show us is that Jesus’ call is unique to each person, and as he has called us he will give us the grace to follow.              

Fr. Sean Hagerty, SJ is the Assistant Director and Promoter of Vocations for the USA East Province. Of all the Jesuit saints and blessed, his favorites are Edmund Campion and Miguel Pro.

Previous Reflections

November 5, 2021 – By Fr. James Martin, SJ

Last summer, while on vacation with some of my brother Jesuits, one of them told me a beautiful story.  When he was working as a novice in his Province’s “infirmary,” the place where the sick and elderly Jesuits live, a Jesuit priests in his final days said to him, “You’re part of my hundredfold.”

The elderly Jesuit was referring to the passage in the Gospel of Mark (10:30) where Jesus promises a “hundredfold” reward for anyone who makes sacrifices for him, for anyone who gives up “houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields,” in order to follow him.  The Jesuit in the infirmary had given up a great deal, as we all do, but had been rewarded a “hundredfold.”  My friend was one of those blessings.

When I think of the “hundredfold” in my own life, the first things that come to mind are not the obvious blessings: my Jesuit vocation (the greatest blessing in my life) or my ministry as a writer (which I enjoy more than I thought ever possible). Rather, it’s something more unexpected: my Jesuit friends.

When I first read the vocational literature as a young man interested in the Society, I knew that I would be living in a Jesuit community, though I had only the vaguest notion of what that meant!  What I didn’t know, and what the literature couldn’t have promised, is that I would have so many Jesuit friends, people with whom I’ve become very close and have now known for 30 years. It has been a tremendous and unexpected blessing.  I like to tease some of my closest Jesuit friends that we really are like brothers: we love each other and sometimes drive each other crazy! 

Among those Jesuit brothers are the Saints and Blessed of the Society of Jesus, whose feast we celebrate today.  For my Jesuit brothers are not simply those I know on earth, or have lived with, or have vacationed with; they are also those who have gone before me, and who are now my “patrons and companions,” as Catholic theology has it.  These brothers both serve as my examples in the Jesuit life and pray for me from their posts in heaven. 

Some I feel especially close to: St. Ignatius Loyola (of course) as well as St. Francis Xavier, perhaps the two most “famous” Jesuit saints.  But then there are others perhaps not as “well known” to the general public, but to whom I have equally strong devotions.  To begin with, St. Peter Faber, the gentle and humble college roommate of Ignatius and Xavier in the 1500s, and the man who became the Jesuit whom Ignatius said best understood the Spiritual Exercises.  “Take care, take care,” said Peter, “never to close your heart to another person.”  When I read that in his Memoriale, his lifelong journal, it cemented my love for him.

Or St. Claude la Colombière, a 17th-century French Jesuit.  Claude was the spiritual director to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, who was gifted with visions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but who initially wasn’t believed by the sisters in her Visitation convent, in Paray-le-Monial, France.  Despairing over her sisters’ lack of faith in her, she heard Jesus promise to send her his “faithful servant and perfect friend.” A few months later Claude arrived, to begin his Jesuit “tertianship,” the last stage of Jesuit training.  In a short while he became her spiritual director.  And isn’t that a beautiful goal for all of us?  To be Jesus’s “faithful servant and perfect friend”?

Another favorite is St. Alberto Hurtado, the incredible 20th-century Jesuit who worked with the poor in Chile, founding the “Hogar de Cristo” (Hearth of Christ) which today serves more than 25,000 people a year living in extreme poverty.  St. Alberto was a tireless Jesuit who wrote, taught, directed retreats and, for good measure, founded a magazine called Mensaje. still published today. A multitasker (and magazine editor) who was deeply contemplative.  

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of learning about the Jesuit saints and blessed. All these men, my friends who are living, and these holy Jesuits who are in heaven with the God they served so faithfully, are part of my own “hundredfold.”May they be part of yours too.