Probably our most decisive formation occurred at home when our mothers and fathers encouraged us to take our first steps. Jesuits are no different from anyone else in our stages of growth. We are each responsible for the values and patterns of behaviour we appropriate to ourselves. Yet since much is demanded of them, a Jesuit’s personal formation is necessarily long and deep.
Ignatius Loyola’s gift to the Church was about choice: how to make the best decision in our lives. In the celebrations for Ignatius Loyola the readings speak of choice and of the mission that follows the choice. Ignatius invites us to say ‘no’ to the self that is focused on itself: the surface self, the small, fearful, insecure self. By contrast the Gospel reveals the sacred, unique, individual self, the person created and sustained in life by God, loved as a son and daughter, whom Jesus wants to be saved.
The Society of Jesus has administered Colégio de São José at the request of the Bishop of Dili since 1993. However, CSJ is and continues to be a school of the Diocese of Dili. Direction of CSJ will revert to the Dili Diocese at the end of 2011, but our work in education in Timor Leste will continue.
Fr Mark Raper SJ has issued a statement in Timor Leste regarding the Society’s position on Jesuit education in the country.
The Jesuit mission in Asia Pacific flows from a centuries old vision. In 1540, the very same year the Jesuits were approved, Francis Xavier was sent to Asia. He arrived in Goa in 1542, in Japan in 1549, and died at the border of China in 1552. Now Jesuits in Asia Pacific number almost 1800, including those still in training. They serve in some 15 countries of this region, both in the intensely populated countries of Asia and in tiny Pacific nations.