Shall I accept that job offer? Is this the person I should marry? Should I go to graduate school? How can I help a child in trouble? Such decisions perplex us. How do we choose?

Ignatian spirituality has long been associated with discernment-the art of discovering how best to respond to God in daily life. For centuries, people have used St. Ignatius Loyola’s rules for discernment to help make wise choices and sound decisions.

The first principle is a desire to choose the good. As St. Ignatius put it: “our one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better leads to God’s deepening life in me.” St. Ignatius’s other rules for discernment help us make choices from among attractive alternatives. Of particular importance are the inner movements of our hearts. The Ignatian rules for discernment provide a disciplined and systematic way to reflect on our feelings as we respond to God and to the events in our daily lives. They give us “the gift of the reasoning heart,” in the words of David L. Fleming, SJ, the noted Jesuit spiritual writer.

Ignatian discernment rests on the conviction that God speaks directly to each of us. We can have confidence in our own experience of God as we develop eyes to see and ears to hear.

Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi

 “Grand Ricci”, Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi, Guests of Honor in Shanghai

• On May 11, 2010, the digital edition of the Grand Ricci, the largest Chinese-foreign language dictionary in the world, was unveiled in Shanghai.

• This event took place on the date of the four hundredth anniversary of the death of Matteo Ricci (May 11, 1610), pioneer of cultural interaction between China and the West.

• Scholars invited to address the newly founded “Xu Guangqi-Matteo Ricci Dialogue Institute” at Fudan University joined the “Association Ricci” for the May 11 event, celebrating a new era of intercultural dialogue founded on the mutual appreciation of the diversity of our tongues and traditions.

A Story that Reaches across Time and Space

Communication between cultures does not mean giving up one’s mother tongue or traditions. Rather, a sincere effort at cross-cultural communication leads to a renewed appreciation of our own heritage and that of our cultural counterparts. Encyclopedic dictionaries play a major role in cultural dialogue, as they are the repository of the wisdom and memories enshrined in our languages, and allow us to navigate from one world of thought to another. The Grand Ricci, a Chinese-French Encyclopedic Dictionary is the most impressive expression of such a vision.

The Grand Ricci was authored by the Ricci Institute of Paris and Taipei. Its paper edition was published in 2001, but its roots go back to lexicographic research started in Shanghai and Hebei around 1880, and its actual editing started in 1949. With the unveiling of its DVD edition on May 11, cultural interaction between China and the West enters a new phase.

The unveiling of the DVD and the corresponding event are the fruit of the efforts pursued since 2002 by the “Association Ricci”, a not-for-profit network of Sinologists, entrepreneurs and volunteers dedicated to making the Grand Ricci a cultural bridge between China and the West.

Overture of Sino-Western Communication 400 Years ago

More than 400 years ago, Matteo Ricci, a scholar from the Italian Renaissance, came to China, showing great interest and respect for Chinese culture. His legendary friendship with Xu Guangqi, a high ranking Chinese Official and a respected scientist from Shanghai, created a bridge for cultural exchanges between China and the West in the fields of astronomy, cartography, mathematics and philosophy, among others.

Western science and ideas imported to China by Matteo Ricci stimulated Xu Guangqi’s scientific passion and made him the leader of Western Learning in the late Ming Dynasty. Likewise, with the help of Xu Guangqi, Ricci succeeded in becoming a most respected figure in Chinese language and culture. Their works are at the forefront of today’s scientific and cultural communication. This is why the four hundredth anniversary of the departure of Matteo Ricci and his friendship with Xu Guangqi well deserve to be celebrated in Shanghai.

The Grand Ricci– From Shanghai to Shanghai

In the last years of the 16th century, Matteo Ricci began working on a Portuguese-Chinese dictionary. From then on, the Europeans’ passion for Chinese culture, language and literature manifested itself through lexicographic endeavors.

In the late 17th century, Louis XIV, King of France, sent several missions to China, created a whole new path to Sinology and strengthened the relationship between China and Europe.

In accordance with Matteo Ricci’s mission and spirit, for over 50 years the “Ricci Institutes” persisted in the work of researching, compiling and revising lexicographic material. Building directly on the extensive lexicographic research and publications conducted by Jesuits from 1880 to around 1937, especially in the famous Zikawei (Xujiahui) compound, in Shanghai, they started the Grand Ricci’s editing work in 1949. The Ricci Institutes are the direct heirs of this tradition.

During the Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945), Father Zsamar, a Hungarian lexicographer, formed an ambitious project – to compile a Chinese encyclopedic dictionary in five languages: Hungarian, English, French, Spanish and Latin.

In the summer of 1952, the research group went to Macao and began the original compiling work, soon transferred to Taichung and then Taipei (Taiwan). For a few years, there were more than 30 foreign researchers and 20 researchers whose mother tongue was Chinese working hard on the project. The first task was to make index cards according to information they had collected. They compiled around 2,000,000 cards kept in boxes. However, the revision process took much longer than was originally planned…

The interaction between different teams of specialists allowed for a continuous enrichment of the material. But the departure of elder researchers and the lack of financial resources made it difficult to go on. Under the leadership of Father Yves Raguin, a renowned Sinologist, the Chinese-French Dictionary team was the steadiest one; it was able to publish an abridged version of the original project, the Petit Ricci, in 1976, and continued its research, doing pioneering work on Chinese characters’ etymology.

At the end of 1980’s, the Ricci Institutes in Paris and Taipei turned to computing and setting up a large lexicographic database. Over 200 specialists were mobilized for final revision. Finally in 2001, the Grand Ricci was published in Paris. The Association Ricci has also signed a partnership with the Beijing Commercial Press to publish a Mainland Chinese Edition of the Grand Ricci in 2012.

The Grand Ricci–A Chinese Encyclopedia in French

The Grand Ricci–A Chinese Encyclopedia in French

The Grand Ricci is like a luxuriant tree, with its two giant roots penetrating into the fertile soil of French and Chinese languages respectively. It integrates both the diversity of Chinese and the accuracy of French. It pays close attention to the history of both languages and to their cultural references.

There are up to 13,500 characters and 330,000 words included in the seven volumes of this encyclopedic dictionary. Each character has a rich array of translations, showing how meaning evolves with time. For all characters the level of language is indicated (colloquial or formal usage, literary form or epistolary style), for ease of use by every reader. The vocabulary has been compiled, revised and classified into 200 specialized subjects (astronomy, Buddhism, medicine, finance…). Not only characters and expressions representing Chinese cultures are included, but also those translated from western arts and science.

And to meet the demands of different users, a specialized volume of the Grand Ricci was edited for easy retrieval: users are offered different options (pinyin, bushou, entry word…) to facilitate their search. And characters are also arranged by 420 different pronunciation parts. Every part begins with a check list of characters with the same pronunciation.

The Grand Ricci is more than a dictionary – it is an encyclopedic database that covers all fields of knowledge and all aspects of Chinese culture.

A new chapter in a 400 years-long story: the Grand Ricci DVD Unveiling Event held on May 11th 2010 in the Shanghai Museum

On May 11th 2010, the day of the 400th anniversary of Matteo Ricci’s death, in presence of Mr. Thierry Mathou, Consul General of France in Shanghai and Mr. Massimo Roscigno, Consul General of Italy in Shanghai, the DVD Unveiling Event marked another milestone of cultural and scientific exchange between China and the West.

The Grand Ricci DVD weighs only 16 grams, but contains the 9,000 pages of the paper version, which weighs 16 kilograms. The digital Grand Ricci will provide faster and user-friendlier search options to find the characters according to individual practices. Thus sciences and technology contribute to facilitate the understanding of one of the most ancient Chinese esthetical traditions : Writing.

300 guests were invited to the event, including corporate sponsors of the Grand Ricci, prominent personalities from the cultural and economic spheres, officials, as well as local and international media. After the presentation of the DVD, music was played on a rare instrument, the Cristal-Baschet. Guests also had the opportunity to view the “Matteo Ricci Exhibition” organized by the Italian Marches Region in the Shanghai Museum.

Giving a New Meaning to the Xu-Ricci Encounter

Guests of the “Xu-Ricci Dialogue Institute”, Fudan University, School of Philosophy also joined us for the unveiling. The newly founded Institute held its initial encounter on this same anniversary day. Initiated by friends and actors in the Grand Ricci endeavour, it aims to explore new models of interaction between cultural and spiritual tradition, and to give a renewed meaning to the term ‘dialogue’ through international encounters and research projects. Prominent scholars from Europe and the United States gathered at Fudan with foremost Chinese academics from Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing and Canton.

The reunion is a testimony to the way cultural dialogue today implies continuous attention to the riches of our languages, the creativity of our thought model and the interaction between all the actors of the “economy of knowledge”, to give meaning and direction to the global community that together we are shaping.

The May 11 event

• showcased the richness of the Grand Ricci digital edition

• made its mark as a cultural and musical event in Shanghai

• allowed for a gathering of prominent friends of the Grand Ricci endeavour and major proponents of cultural and scientific interchange between China and the West.

We are not “lost in translation”: the true spirit of translation is to love and understand other countries’ languages and cultures, thus permanently enriching and reviving the flux of intercultural communication. This is what we together testified to when gathering on the evening of May 11th.

Sponsors of the Grand Ricci DVD

We warm-heartedly thank the following institutions that have made this endeavor possible and thank in advance our future sponsors.

 

• Année de la France en Chine

 

 

• Assemblée nationale (Réserve parlementaire)

 

 

• Centre national du livre

 

 

• Compagnie de Jésus, Province de France

 

 

• Compagnie de Jésus, Province de Chine

 

 

• Conseil pour la culture (Taiwan)

 

 

• EDF

 

 

• Fondation BNP Paribas

 

 

• Fondation Chiang Ching-Kuo

 

 

• Fondation EDF

 

 

• Groupe BNP Paribas

 

 

• Hermès

 

 

• Maverlinn Ltd

 

 

• Ministère des affaires étrangères (France)

 

 

• Oeuvres pontificales missionnaires

 

 

• Publicis

 

 

• Sanofi Aventis

 

Press Contact*:
“Association Ricci”: Chia-Lin Coispeau, [email protected] , cell : 138 1611 0533
* : For “Xu-Ricci Dialogue Center”, press contact: Prof. Li Tiangang, [email protected]

A Lesson in Service and Sacrifice

What we remember-and honor-on Memorial Day is heroic sacrifice. We acknowledge those who nobly gave of themselves, even unto death, for a purpose they believed was greater than themselves. Since the days just following the end of the Civil War, Americans have gathered in late May to honor those who died in military service to their country. In the spirit of the day, we can also recall, honor, and pray for all those we know who have lived lives of service and sacrifice for the good of others.

Read more about living heroically.

Sacrifice is more than suffering

One definition of sacrifice is “the destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else.” Though suffering is always a part of sacrifice to some extent, seeking suffering for its own sake is not sacrifice. Sacrifice implies giving up one good for a higher good. For example, a child gives up a day of play to visit an ailing grandparent, or a parent sacrifices watching a favorite television program to help a child who is struggling with homework. Life in the family is full of opportunities for service and sacrifice.

	Read one man’s story of service to others.
	Raise your kids to make a difference.

Jesus: the perfect example of sacrifice

What counts in this definition is the phrase “for the sake of something else.” Is that “something else” worthy of the sacrifice we make? True sacrifice is always at the service of life. We learn this from Jesus, who made the ultimate sacrifice and remained faithful through his Passion, death, and Resurrection. Jesus’ greater purpose for this sacrifice was our well-being-that we might have life and have it abundantly.

Reflect on St. Paul’s life of love and sacrifice.

This Memorial Day, as we remember all who have served and sacrificed on our behalf, let us not forget what Jesus was willing to give up for us-and the lessons we can learn from that perfect example of sacrifice. 

Father Louis Gendron blesses a Matteo Ricci statue in a Catholic university in Taipei

The Chinese province of the Society of Jesus hopes that Father Matteo Ricci, the pioneering Italian Jesuit missioner to China, and his Chinese collaborator Paul Xu Guangqi can be canonized together.

Father Louis Gendron blesses a Matteo Ricci statue in a Catholic university in Taipei

This is not only in line with the modern Church’s trend of cooperation between priests and laypeople, but would also encourage young Chinese men to think of a religious vocation and perhaps even join the Jesuits, said Father Louis Gendron, the provincial.

“It is a rare thing in Church history for a foreign missioner and his local collaborator to be proclaimed confessor saints together,” said the American priest.

The Jesuit Chinese province began helping the Holy See with the sainthood cause of Father Ricci (1552-1610) in early May. His native Macerata diocese in Italy re-launched the process in January after it had lost some impetus following the initial phase concluded in 1985.

Shanghai diocese, the birthplace of Xu (1562-1633), plans to start the sainthood cause for the Ming imperial official and has urged local Catholics to pray for this.

To mark the 400th death anniversary of Father Ricci, the Chinese province has also printed prayers for the priest’s sainthood cause and for vocations to the Jesuit order.

Although the Jesuits’ Chinese province covers a large area, only a few of the 200 Jesuits who serve here are ethnic Chinese, said Father Gendron.

In the past decade, only three from Taiwan joined the congregation.

A Jesuit social center in West Bengal, eastern India, has introduced 36 women to ways to protect environment.

Teachers and village animators take an oath to protect the earth

The center, Udayani (awakening) Social Action Forum, organized a workshop May 21 for leaders of self-help groups from Kolkata and Baruipur to discuss issues of environmental protection.

Sunita Korali, a woman animator said, they have a responsibility to educate villagers on how environment destruction can affect lives.

“We waste a lot of water. But we can use the wasted water for cultivating seasonal vegetables in the kitchen garden,” she said. They plan to use bio-fertilizer in their rice paddy cultivation, she added.

Participants ended the workshop taking an oath holding lighted candles, saying they will not “hurt the earth” and always work to “care for her.”

Paromita Dutta, another women animator, said her group would avoid artificially flavored drinks and food. They will also work to ensure that streetlights are switched off early and complain against old vehicles that emit too much smoke.

Pratima Chakraborti from Baruipur said, as a village animator, she wants women to be conscious of ecological concerns. She targets some 300 women in her group that meets every fortnight.

She wants to stress the need of planting saplings and refraining from felling trees. “It would be hard for us to stop using plastic, but we would try to reduce its use,” she added.

Jesuit Father Irudaya Jothi, who directs the center, said the 35th General Congregation of his Society of Jesus mandated members to work for environmental protection.

“We wished to start the process from the grassroots level,” he said. The center hopes to organize more such training programs in villages, he added.

Jesuit Father Cedric Prakash

AHMEDABAD, India (UCAN) – A Jesuit activist and NGOs have asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to help rehabilitate people displaced by two dams before even more areas are submerged.

Father Cedric Prakash and others told Singh that increasing the height of the dams in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat states would displace more families.

The priest directs a human rights center, Prashant or tranquility, in Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s commercial capital.

Their May 7 letter said 80 percent of the Maheshwar dam in Madhya Pradesh has been completed but barely five percent of 70,000 people displaced were rehabilitated.

In the case of Sardar Sarovar dam in Gujarat, most of the 30,000 displaced have not been rehabilitated.

The letter said Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan has reportedly requested Singh to lift the suspension of construction work “based on his personal guarantee that rehabilitation will be done.”

Gujarat Chief Minster Narendra Modi has requested for help in raising the heights of Sardar Sarovar to 138.6 meters despite his government’s inability to use “waters available at 121.91 meters’ height,” the letter said.

The letter also reminded Singh of his promise in 2006 to rehabilitate within three months all displaced by the Sardar Sarovar project. “But it remains unfulfilled even in 2010,” the activists said.

If further construction on dams “proceed based on unfulfilled promises and political expediency, there is little hope of resettlement of the poor sacrificed at the altar of poor planning,” the letter said.

Such a move would also mean “corrupt governance” not being held “accountable to the laws of the nation and the unassailable values of human and fundamental rights,” it added.

A karate session for children at the Xavier Centre for Migrant workers

AHMEDABAD, India (UCAN) – A Jesuit program in Gujarat has come to the rescue of school dropouts and neglected children by helping them sit for school examinations and continue their studies.

Dhanyalxmi Malete had completed third grade at a primary school in Bapod near Vadodara, but could not read the local Gujarati language she spoke. So she joined the Xavier Centre for Migrant Workers on the outskirts of Vadodara three years ago for its non-formal education.

The 13-year is now among 29 students, who sat for the fifth grade examinations of the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) in March. Now they are awaiting the results.

Malete said she is “sure” she passed the exam and is now preparing to enter the eighth grade in March 2011 by skipping the seventh.

The centre is educating 87 students from socially and economically deprived families. All of them are Hindus.

Her classmate Rajesh Sureshbhai Bharwad said he had “lost interest in studies” because his teachers “had no interest in teaching.” But the Jesuit center has “revitalized his interest,” he told UCA News.

The Xavier Education Trust, which runs the center, has been managing a pre-school program for the last 10 years in the area.

It started the five-days-a-week, non-formal school program in 2004 “to educate dropouts and ensure that no one remains illiterate,” said Father Jolly Nadukudiyil, who manages the program.

He said Gujarat has thousands of migrant workers and a great many of their children are lacking an education.

School principal Sister Fatima Lopes from the Daughters of the Cross said the “task is very challenging.” The children are interested in education “but not their parents.”

The center also runs personality development programs and organizes karate and dance classes. One of its 11-year-old students, Prakash Kunwarji Solanki, recently won a karate competition.

Jesuit Father Michael Kelly

BANGKOK (UCAN) – May 11th is the 400th anniversary of the death of Matteo Ricci (Li Madou) the legendry Jesuit who was born in 1552 and died in 1610. His life and the example of his approach to China have been a matter of constant fascination, study and research, not least in the last six months with three international conferences – in Taipei, Paris and San Francisco -assessing his significance.

He is not only someone novel in Catholic missionary approaches. He was the first to propose and successfully live a completely fresh way for the West to engage with China. Fascination with his achievement extends well beyond Church circles.

But why did he not simply replicate the example of Francis Xavier, credited with baptizing tens, if not hundreds of thousands across Asia? Born in the year Xavier died (1552), Ricci followed a completely different path.

Where did this come from? His mentor was Alessandro Valignano (1539-1606), his Jesuit novice master in Italy and later Superior in Asia, who hand picked him and a few others to pioneer a completely different approach to the Church’s mission in Asia: “an Indian Catholicism for India, a Japanese Catholicism for Japan, a Chinese Catholicism for China.”

A painting of Father Matteo Ricci

To achieve this – and Ricci is the most vivid instance and most successful embodiment of it – the Christian missionary has to undertake a journey: into the minds and hearts, language and culture, symbols and sensibility of those he or she seeks to evangelize. And, coming out the other side, a new account of God’s presence in the world, the meaning of Jesus and the life of the Church can unfold.

But what was the trigger for such an adventurous departure from common missionary practice that put Christian faith and European culture together.

Clearly, the imagination of Valignano was essential. He thought outside the square of European culture. And the enterprising genius and dazzling linguistic facility of Ricci made a spectacular Renaissance man into a stunning global figure.

But maybe one other possible element in this unfolding is the brief window of opportunity that opened at just the time Ricci arrived in China, entering Middle Kingdom through the Portuguese colony of Macau. It was just these years – the 1580s – that witnessed the eclipse of Portuguese colonialism, which provided a powerful and confining boundary.

It was between 1580 and 1640 that Portugal completely lost its presence and initiative as an expanding colonial empire. In those 60 years, Portugal was run by Spain and Portuguese management of their colonies lapsed. Arriving in China when he did meant that his time of engagement with Asia and China was one free of colonial baggage and the resentment that always came to Europeans who were seen as the enemy. Portugal’s time as the dominant colonial power in Asia and China was finished.

As colonialists, the Portuguese don’t get good press. And deservedly so. When Saint Francis Xavier visited Batavia (today’s Jakarta) in the 1540s, he was so appalled by the behavior of the Portuguese that he felt compromised in preaching a Gospel they were meant to exemplify. So he moved on.

But in 1582, with Portugal a spent force, Ricci could arrive with a clean slate: He was not encumbered by that connection as he began his engagement with Chinese scholars and administrators eventually reaching the Imperial Court. As a Catholic country, the Portuguese Kings accepted spreading the Gospel (which mostly meant also imposing European culture) as part of their challenge. Francis Xavier came to Asia as missionary sent not by the Pope so much as someone who set out from Europe following a personal request by the Portuguese King to the founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola. Not so Ricci.

It is part of Ricci’s enduring significance that he models a missionary approach whose context and presuppositions have never been more relevant than they are today. In Asia, liberated in the last 60 years from the burden of any identification with Europe, its politics and cultures, Christianity is in the right space to further develop Valignano’s dream and the practice of Ricci and his companions in China, Vietnam and India: Christianity and Church life that are “an India Catholicism for India, a Japanese Catholicism for Japan and a Chinese Catholicism for China.”

–

Father Michael Kelly SJ is executive director of UCA News since Jan. 1, 2009. He has worked in radio and TV production since 1982 and as a journalist in Australia and Asia for various publications, religious and secular.

A poster from the Matteo Ricci exhibition

SHANGHAI, China (UCAN) – Catholics are hoping that Paul Xu Guangqi, the first Catholic in Shanghai, may also be proclaimed a saint along with Father Matteo Ricci.

Italian Jesuit Father Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) and Catholic Chinese imperial official Paul Xu Guangqi (1562-1633) collaborated closely in Beijing to translate Western texts on mathematics, hydraulics, astronomy, trigonometry and geography into Chinese.

They also translated Confucian classics into Latin so as to introduce the dominant Chinese philosophy to Europe.

Father Ricci arrived in Beijing in 1601 and the Chinese emperor allowed him to stay in the capital until his death on May 11, 1610. His native Macerata diocese in Italy re-launched the process of his beatification in January.

Some Shanghai Catholics told UCA News that they hoped Xu could also enjoy the same honor, as their diocese would begin a similar process soon.

Jesuit Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian of Shanghai, 94, is known as a “fan of Xu Guangqi,” Church sources said.

They pointed out that the bishop has included “Guangqi” in the names of many diocesan organizations including the publishing house, social service center, formation center, a school and a home for the elderly.

Xu, a Shanghai-born bureaucrat, agricultural scientist, astronomer and mathematician of the Ming dynasty, first met Father Ricci in 1600 and was impressed by his knowledge and holiness.

Xu was baptized three years later and took on the name of Paul. He then invited another Jesuit priest to spread the Gospel in his birthplace. His family became the first Catholic family in Shanghai.

Xu died in Beijing in 1633 and was buried in today’s Xujiahui district in downtown Shanghai, where his family used to live. In 1847, Jesuit missioners built their missionary headquarters on a large piece of land in Xujiahui.

Ricci exhibition in Shanghai

Father Ricci and Xu translated Euclid’s Elements, the mathematical and geometric treatise by the Greek mathematician, and their work is on display at the Shanghai Museum from April 3-May 23.

Shanghai is the second stop of the touring exhibition titled Matteo Ricci: An Encounter of Civilizations in Ming China, which would coincide with the Shanghai World Expo, which runs from May to October.

The exhibition has attracted crowds of visitors, including local priests, nuns and laypeople. They described it as “worth seeing” and “very fruitful.”

Maria, a laywoman told UCA News that she was moved at seeing many books, musical instruments, religious statues, priests’ garb of the 16-17th centuries, as well as Father Ricci’s first catechism book in Chinese, a world map he drew, and an ancient costume worn by Confucian scholars at the exhibition.

“As Catholics, we have to understand [that Father Ricci] contributed not only to the local Church, but also to the development of science and culture of China,” said Maria, who said she had read Father Ricci’s biography.

The exhibition is organized by Italy’s Marche Region, which covers Macerata, to mark the death anniversary of Father Ricci and the 40th anniversary of diplomatic ties between China and Italy. The 113 exhibits come from museums in mainland China and Italy.