[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Celebrating the feast of the Founder is a moment of grace, for we become once again inspired to follow his example and at the same time we are invited or challenged to live out our call as teachers in accompanying our students. This year the celebration of St Ignatius feast is very special as the Society of Jesus celebrates the triple jubilee:
450th death anniversary of St Ignatius;
500th birth anniversary of St Francis Xavier; and
500th birth anniversary of St Peter Faber –
All three were room-mates at the University of Paris and they are the founding fathers of the Society of Jesus. Ignatius, known as Inigo, sent out his men, true to his name (Inigo means ‘fire’) to ‘set the world on fire’ and to give the world a facelift. Francis Xavier had just about 48 hours to get ready to leave for India and never to return back to Rome and he arrived in India within a couple of years after the Society of Jesus was founded. One of his first activities was to found a school in Goa for the Portuguese colonialists and for the native Indians. Peter Faber, the first Priest of the Society of Jesus, set out to Europe to infuse new life wherever he went and to enliven the continent.
Madurai Province is joyful to celebrate two more jubilees – The added celebration is the 350th death anniversary of Robert de Nobili who came to the Madurai Mission and was a pioneer both in religious dialogue and in reformation of Tamil language and 400 years of Madurai Mission.
In the august presence of teachers who train people for the corporate bodies, it is nice to contemplate the Society of Jesus (originally known as Company of Jesus) as the biggest corporate body, in fact a Global Company, in the world with nearly 20,000 share holders having franchise in about 110 countries and with millions more as collaborators. Yet, this corporate body is one which looks at the world with a differing lens:
- In the first place this is a corporate body which was founded with no specific programme and with no money. But today it has become a model for administration. Not only the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, composed by the Founder St Ignatius of Loyola, has been prescribed as the text book in Indian Institute of Management, Gujarat but many leading corporate bodies study the administrative set up of the Society of Jesus, especially the information filing system, the administrative communication, and the decision making process.
- The strength of this corporate body is the formation of the recruits. You might be surprised to know that nearly 2/3 of the Constitutions is devoted to the formation of the Jesuits – But only about 80 pages are written about administration. The rule is that of the spirit – One should be moved by the need in the world and one should be sent on a Mission.
iii. The focus of administration is leadership formation. Again this is in contrast to the company or corporate practice. In the corporate world it is the top-down leadership where less than 1% would be leaders who take decision for the company but in the Company of Jesus it is bottom-up leadership where more than 99% of the Jesuits are expected to be leaders. The basic assumption is that all are potential leaders. Once the leader is well formed, he would master as well as manage the situation he is thrown in effectively.
- The basic principle of this leadership-formation could be summarized into four words, namely, self-awareness, ingenuity, passion, and heroism. A leader should be aware of himself – with all his weakness and strength. He grows on his strength and he is not afraid of addressing his weakness in order to overcome it. His ingenuity consists in overcoming his prejudices in order to do what is needed and not what he wants. Once he is sent on mission he puts his heart and soul into the work – He is able to love what he does, if he cannot do what he loves. In this commitment he acts heroically since he emerges as a man of magis – to do ever better and ever more. He does not settle down with what he has even if he becomes the best, as he tries to do better than the best. All these are imbibed from the 30-day silence, done twice in life, known as the Spiritual Exercises. He is also expected to pause twice a day to examine his way of proceeding in life – to become conscious of his failure as well as success. This is the course correction needed in daily life.
- Every member of this Company is aware that he is not only a man for and with others but the people he is serving, especially the students he is moulding, should become men and women for and with others. They should be there where the people need most and they should become the voice of the voiceless. They become not leaders of authority but leaders of service. He/she is aware that they are not simply on the success-race, since nothing fails like success (due to complacency) but they become the yeast of transformation in the society. He/she becomes convinced that ‘the inner determines the outer’. That is, it is not the world of consumerism out there that should suck them in but the world of values formed within for transformation of the society should be the dynamic force to lead them on.
All along the Jesuits have been working for the human equality and dignity. When education was available only for the affordable and the rich, Ignatius founded a school in Rome and offered free education. His followers were fighting to prove that the slaves in the plantation of the South America are very much human beings equal to their European colonialists. In this tradition in the 80s the Jesuits took the ‘preferential option for the poor’. If the chosen students are bright and brilliant, and they pass out from our institutions as intelligent and capable, it is no merit for the Jesuits or for the Jesuit education. If the incoming students are poor – socially, intellectually, financially – and if they are turned out to be efficient administrators and effective leaders of the people, then it is the credit to the Jesuits and to their education. There is cry everywhere for the so called ‘merit-based’ education – The marginalized should be the merit-based people for the Jesuits and the Jesuit collaborators. For social justice is as important and vital as the quality of education. Only when there is social and financial equality out there we could talk of ‘merit’ based on IQ. Hence it is our challenge as well as privilege to choose the least in the society and to turn them as the best in the society.
On the occasion of celebrating the feast of the Founder of the Society of Jesus let us follow his as well as his co-founders’ example. They were all graduates of the University in Paris but it never occurred to them in the beginning to found a school or university. They were, instead, preaching in the streets and tending the sick in the hospital and begging their food from door to door. All that was in their mind was they should serve the needy and the neglected and the marginalized. Even when they founded educational institutions their intention was not taking in the best and churn them as the best but instead to take in the poor but to enrich and empower them as the efficient administrators who would be effective leaders in the society. Hence it is a reminder for us, as we celebrate the feast of St Ignatius, to do likewise in our context and in our time. May the Man of Magis continue to inspire us.
Francis P. Xavier, SJ
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