by JOHN F. KAVANAUGH S.J.

Time magazine called it the “decade from hell.” I would not go quite that far, but the first 10 years of the new century surely signaled an erosion of confidence not only in institutions, but perhaps also in our very selves. Casting a glance at each year, I am struck not so much by the top news story as by harbingers of opportunity and threat for the new century.

The year 2000 was marked by the delayed election of President George W. Bush after intervention by the Supreme Court. The peaceful transition despite electoral chaos proved for many once again that democracy works. It could also be seen, however, as the beginning of a mounting distrust of the political system we relied on.

The atrocities of September 2001 were not only the beginning of a war on terrorism; they also marked the beginning of our nationwide feeling of terror. The assault on symbols of two things so close to our national identity-great wealth and great power-exposed us to a vulnerability that would be intensified each year as our wealth and power failed to provide the security we thought they had insured.
The year 2002 revealed the full range of scandal in the Catholic Church. The scandal of sexual abuse by priests and the coverup by some bishops continued to haunt the decade with lawsuits, the outlay of millions in settlements and the departure of many members of the laity wounded by a sense of betrayal and angered by ecclesial priorities. We are still faced with a daunting choice. Do we retrench or do we reform?

In 2003 the United States, having taken on the Taliban the previous year, invaded Iraq. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein and our tenuous claim of victory will likely cost over a trillion dollars. The terrible cost to life and limb for America’s soldiers and Iraq’s civilians may yet weigh more heavily on us if we have opened the way not for peace in the Persian Gulf but for a 100-year war.

The years 2004, 2005 and 2006, though marked by images of torture at Abu Ghraib or terrorism in Madrid and London, are inextricably bound together as testimonials to our seeming powerlessness before great physical and moral evil. A tsunami killed 200,000 people in a flash. A hurricane devastated a great American city. Thugs slaughtered 200,000 in Darfur.

In November 2007 the journals Science and Cell revealed that researchers in Japan and Wisconsin had successfully derived pluripotent stem cells from adult skin cells. Although most people still think of embryos when they hear about stem cells, this new procedure offers the most promising breakthrough in regenerative medicine. The mapping of the human genome early in the decade has opened previously unknown paths to human healing. It has also raised the specter of genetic manipulation, enhancement and modification of our species.

The year 2008 was the year of financial collapse. Earlier rumblings from the ethical failures of Enron and its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, erupted into a full-blown earthquake. An almost dogmatic faith in the market and blind reliance on financiers dissolved in a decade when stocks would fall 25 percent, median family income would drop, millions of jobs would disappear, and huge corporations would go bankrupt.

Amazon, at the end of 2009, reported that for the first time, electronic books for its Kindle device outsold physical books during the Christmas season. Ray Kurzweil, a creative computer zealot who thinks that artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence by mid-century, has himself unveiled an e-reader program that will be available for personal computers, the iPod Touch and the iPhone. The exponential growth in computer technology points to a revolution in journalism, medicine, politics, communication and life itself. While most of us celebrate the change, critics like Lee Siegel, in Against the Machine, warn us that we are already becoming an electronic mob, bereft of personal substance and any interior life.

Whether Siegel is right or not, his worry about the loss of personhood, it seems to me, is well founded. But that problem is not new. Perhaps the very fault and fall in Eden turned on the acceptance or rejection of our vulnerability as only human persons. In the present day, it is just that the stakes are so much higher. An unchecked human longing for control, whether in geo-politics, money, power, religion or the domination of nature, makes every new opportunity a treacherous new temptation.

John F. Kavanaugh, S.J., is a professor of philosophy at St. Louis University in St. Louis, Mo.

If you have too much to do, with God’s help you will find time to do it all.

For a half-century Jesuit Father Peter Canisius led the Catholic Reformation in Austria, Bavaria, and Bohemia. For that reason he is reckoned an apostle to Germany, second only to St. Boniface. With stupendous energy he preached and taught in parishes, reformed and founded universities, wrote many books including popular catechisms, restored lapsed Catholics, converted Protestants, preached retreats, and found time to care for the sick. In his last thirty years traveling more than twenty thousand miles on foot or horseback, St. Peter Canisius spearheaded the renewal of the Catholic faith in southern Germany.

Peter Canisius revitalized Catholic life and teaching at universities in Ingolstadt and Augsburg. He founded new ones at Prague and Fribourg. In all four cities his preaching and catechizing won the hearts of Catholics and attracted nominal Protestants to the church. In Vienna his personal care for plague victims made him a most popular figure. Thus, when appointed diocesan administrator, he was in a position to revive the city’s long decadent Catholic community.

After 1555, Peter Canisius published his famous Summary of Christian Doctrine and two smaller catechisms. These books generated the Catholic Reformation as Luther’s catechism had spread Protestantism. Canisius’s catechisms also helped launch the Catholic press. During the saint’s lifetime they were translated into fifteen languages and reprinted more than two hundred times.

In the late sixteenth century, when open hostility typified relations between Catholics and Protestants, Peter Canisius advised charity and moderation. He opposed theological debates with Protestant leaders and, in general, discouraged discussion of Catholic distinctives such as indulgences, purgatory, and monastic vows with Protestants. He believed such efforts only heightened division and embittered relations. He articulated his views in this letter to his Jesuit superior:

It is plainly wrong to meet non-Catholics with bitterness or to treat them with discourtesy. For this is nothing else than the reverse of Christ’s example because it breaks the bruised reed and quenches the smoking flax. We ought to instruct with meekness those whom heresy has made bitter and suspicious, and has estranged from orthodox Catholics, especially from our fellow Jesuits. Thus, by whole-hearted charity and good will we may win them over to us in the Lord.

Again, it is a mistaken policy to behave in a contentious fashion and to start disputes about matters of belief with argumentative people who are disposed by their very natures to wrangling. Indeed, the fact of their being so constituted is a reason the more why such people should be attracted and won to the simplicity of the faith as much by example as by argument.

In 1591, Peter Canisius suffered a stroke that nearly killed him. But he recovered and devoted himself to writing for six more years until his death in 1597.

Let my eyes take their sleep, but may my heart always keep watch for you. May your right hand bless your servants who love you.

May I be united with the praise that flows from you, Lord Jesus, to all your saints; united with the gratitude drawn from your heart, good Jesus, that causes your saints to thank you; united with your passion, good Jesus, by which you took away our guilt; united with the divine longing that you had on earth for our salvation; united with every prayer that welled from your divine heart, good Jesus, and flowed into the hearts of your saints.

—Peter Canisius

Excerpt from Voices of the Saints by Bert Ghezzi. 

by Paul Brian Campbell, SJ

A peasant came running up to a holy man, who was resting under a tree. “The stone! The stone! Give me the precious stone!”

“What stone?” asked the holy man.

“Last night I dreamed that I would find a holy man who would give me a precious stone that would make me rich forever,” replied the peasant.

The holy man rummaged through his bag and pulled out a stone. “He probably meant this one,” he said as he handed it to the peasant. “I found it on a forest path a few days ago. You can certainly have it.”

The man looked at the stone in wonder. It was a diamond, probably the largest diamond in the whole world; he took it and walked away. All night he tossed about in bed, unable to sleep. Next day at the crack of dawn he woke the holy man and said, “Give me the wealth that makes it possible for you to give this diamond away so easily.”

[Several years ago I found this story on the Fairfield University website. I went back just now to find it and was unable to locate it… but I tried.]

New Year’s resolutions are much maligned nowadays. Some people feel that they’re a waste of time. I think it’s admirable that people want to accomplish something positive, turn over a new leaf, and become a better version of themselves. So why do so many New Year’s resolutions fail?

I can only speak for myself. My resolutions often fail for two reasons: I think I can do it on my own and I think it can be “once and done” instead of ongoing. As for thinking that I can accomplish my resolutions on my own, I tend to forget one tiny little detail: I can do nothing without God! In her book, Simple Acts of Moving Forward: A Little Book About Getting Unstuck, Vinita Hampton Wright reminds us that “Sooner or later God figures in.” Personally, I prefer sooner rather than later. Ultimately, that’s why I go to Mass on Sunday and receive the Eucharist – it’s my way of admitting repeatedly that, at my deepest level, I am incapable of sustaining myself: “but only say the word and I shall be healed.” People in twelve-step programs know this well: change can only come with reliance on a higher power.

As for thinking that this can be “once and done,” I too often forget that Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) Not “take up his cross once” or “take up his cross for a little while” but “take up his cross daily.” At first that may sound like a downer, but when we realize that following Jesus doesn’t end with the cross but with Resurrection and new life, we can find the patience, endurance, and determination to remain committed to our goals even in the face of hardship.

And so, have a happy new year. And with the help of God’s grace, may we resolve each day of the new year to become the people God knows we can be.

This article is written by Joe Paprocki, author of A Well-Built Faith

Father General received a warm welcome by the Provincial, Fr. Emmanuel Mumba, Fr. Klaus Cieszynsk , the honorary chaplain at the airport and Fr. Charles Chilinda, the director of Loyola Productions, on his first ever visit to Zambia-Malawi Province.

The young girls presented him with flowers. He is attending the Conference of Jesuit Major Superiors of Africa and Madagascar (JESAM) before visiting other missions in Southern Africa.

by Jim Manney

Ignatius thought that a particular type of ignorance was at the root of sin. The deadliest sin, he said, is ingratitude. It is “the cause, beginning, and origin of all evils and sins.” If you asked a hundred people to name the sin that’s the origin of all evils, I’ll bet none of them would say ingratitude. They would say pride or disobedience or greed or anger. The idea that we sin because we’re not sufficiently aware of God’s goodness probably wouldn’t occur to too many people.

By emphasizing gratitude, Ignatius was saying something about the nature of God. God is the generous giver, showering us with blessings like the sun shining on the earth. If we truly understood this, we would return God’s love with love. We wouldn’t sin. Gratitude is a good word for this fundamental quality of our relationship with God. Ingratitude, our blindness to who God truly is, is thus the root of all sin.

Ignatius had a particular experience of sin that may have contributed to the high value he placed on gratitude. For a time, he was tormented by morbid scrupulosity. He didn’t think his sins had been forgiven, so he tried to drive out his guilt and shame with heroic ascetic practices. He fasted, he prayed for hours, he let his hair grow-but these things only made matters worse. It got so bad that he entertained thoughts of suicide. Eventually, Ignatius threw himself on God’s mercy and found peace. He saw himself as a sinner but as a loved sinner.

In his short story “The Repentant Sinner,” Leo Tolstoy tells of a man, a great sinner, who calls out to God for mercy just before he dies. He arrives at the gates of heaven, but they are locked. The apostle Peter explains that a sinner such as he can’t enter heaven, but the man reminds Peter of his sins-he denied Christ three times after swearing to be loyal. Peter goes away and is replaced by King David, who also says that sinners can’t enter heaven. The man reminds David that God had mercy on him despite his many sins, including adultery and murder. Finally the apostle John arrives. You are the beloved disciple, the man says. You wrote that “God is love” and “Brethren, love one another.” Surely, you must let me in. And sure enough, John embraces the man and escorts him into heaven.

That’s the purpose of the first week of the Exercises-to bring us to see that we are loved sinners. Seasoned preachers and speakers know that they’ve done a good job if people can take one idea away from their talk. If you take one idea away from the Spiritual Exercises, this is the one: you are a sinner who is loved by God.

Adapted from God Finds Us: An Experience of the the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola.

From his very first words as Bishop of Rome, our new Pope Francis revealed a gracious respect for the religious belief, freedom of conscience and dignity of each person – values and behaviour so essential for Christians in Asia Pacific. His first blessing was a simple, modest acknowledgement of the conscience of each person: “Since many of you are not members of the Catholic Church, and others are not believers, I cordially give this blessing silently, to each of you, respecting the conscience of each, but in the knowledge that each of you is a child of God. May God bless you!”

His choice of the name Francis speaks to a desire for peace, for reconciliation with creation and for respect of the poor. “For me he is the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and safeguards creation. In this moment when our relationship with creation is not so good – right? – He is the man who gives us this spirit of peace, the poor man … Oh, how I wish for a Church that is poor and for the poor!”

Francis of Assisi reportedly urged his followers, “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel. And, if necessary, use words.” It appears that Pope Francis is similarly encouraging by his first actions as much as by any words, reminding us of the calling of the Church today. He is demonstrating what every Jesuit knows from the Spiritual Exercises – that “love ought to manifest itself more in deeds than in words” (Spiritual Exercises, No. 230). As Jesuits, we are committed to serving others “by the ministry of the word, by spiritual exercises and works of charity”.

Pope Francis has chosen the motto “Miserando atque eligendo”, meaning lowly but chosen; literally in Latin ‘by having mercy, by choosing him’. It is the motto he chose as Bishop, and is taken from the homilies of the Venerable Bede on Saint Matthew’s Gospel relating to his vocation: “Jesus saw the tax collector and by having mercy chose him as an Apostle saying to him: Follow me.”

In his homily at his inauguration, Francis urged his listeners to care for creation, for one another and for our own selves. As we conclude our Lenten waiting, a time of inner silence and preparation, let us give thanks for the encouragement and insight revealed in the words and actions of Pope Francis.

Mark Raper SJ
President, Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific
March 26, 2013