This year, the Society of Jesus around the world celebrates the 200th anniversary of Restoration. To commemorate this, all the Jesuits and the related Ignatian families are called to a deeper reflection and renewal of our vocation in following Christ.

Xavier House-Ignatian Spirituality Center, faithful to Ignatian tradition in this juncture of history, wants to follow the inspiration of St. Ignatius to draw out the treasure of his legacy for our times. Taking this opportunity, we are going to organize an Ignatian Spirituality Conference as the summit of this celebration.

In this Conference, apart from the keynote speeches by renowned international speakers, there are also a selection of workshops with various interesting and practical topics to foster spiritual conversations and further learning.

We cordially invite you to join this Ignatian journey, to share, refresh and reflect together in this meaningful gathering. We hope that this conference also serves as our ongoing and deepening journey to God, with Ignatius as our guide and companion.

Conference Overview

Official Website: http://goo.gl/yqo8RG 

Auxiliary Bishop Thaddeus Ma Daqin, who has been under de facto house arrest since 2012, is to remain in detention.

The influential bishop, who defied the government in July 2011 when he became the first bishop to publicly quit the state-backed Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, should continue his “repentance and reflection,” officials told clergymen and nuns attending a “learning” class last week in Shanghai. Shanghai diocese suspended Bishop Ma’s priesthood ministry for a period of two years, leading his followers to believe he may be released soon.

“Government officials said explicitly in the last class that Bishop Ma has to continue his repentance and reflection,” a source at the class told ucanews.com. “So this means that he is not coming out to lead the diocese.” Now being held for a third year, the classes are jointly organized by the local diocese, the Communist Party’s United Front Work Department and the Religious Affairs Committee of Shanghai.

The premise of the classes is to “enhance [the] national, legal and civil awareness” of nuns and clergy who, through their evangelization work, are in touch with many social groups. A diocese notice also claims the classes are aimed at assisting with “a correct understanding” on the independent Church’s relationship with China and patriotism. The notice also instructed attendees to “arrange their work ahead, be punctual and not to take leave”.

Source.

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When and where was the first Mass offered in America? No one living today knows the answer to this intriguing question. But we can summarize what we do know about the first Masses in various parts of the New World.

Some legendary accounts of the life of St. Brendan, who was a priest, say he set off in a small boat on a journey to the Isle of the Blessed, sometime around A.D. 512, along with 14 monks and priests. After they landed on Saint Brendan’s Island-wherever that was-he celebrated Mass. There are people who say that elements of the legends of the journey demonstrate that the Irish did have some knowledge of the northeast Atlantic coast of America, so if St. Brendan or some other Irish seafaring priest did arrive there, he would certainly have offered Mass, as he is said to have done in nearly every other place he visited (including, as the legend goes, on the top of a whale in mid-ocean).

Remains of a Norse settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows, on the island of Newfoundland, were discovered and excavated in the 1960s. The settlement dates from around A.D. 1000. It was probably not the only settlement the Norse set up in the region, and it was likely that it served as a sort of permanent outpost for shipping lumber and furs to Greenland and perhaps further east. The size and number of buildings suggest that as many as 150 people lived there.

Icelandic bishop Eric Gnupsson, who had been based in Greenland since 1112, “went to seek Vinland” in 1121-presumably to minister to some of his far-flung Catholic flock-but nothing more was reported of him. If he succeeded, he surely offered the first Mass in the New World, perhaps at L’Anse aux Meadows or at another Norse settlement. With the approval of the Norwegian king, a bishop for Greenland was set up and the see was established in the settlement of Garðar. The first bishop, Arnaldur (Gnupsson’s immediate successor in Greenland), arrived there in 1126 and began construction of a cathedral, devoted to St. Nicholas, the same year. The last bishop served until 1378. Archaeologists have excavated the ruins of the cathedral, a cross-shaped church built of sandstone.

Source.

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Father Adolfo Nicolás SJ, who has been Superior General of the Jesuits (the Society of Jesus) since 2008, has announced his intention to resign. Having recently reached the age of 78, Fr Nicolás says he has received the approval of his advisers (Assistants) and has informed Pope Francis that he intends to convoke a General Congregation for the latter part of 2016. That will be occasion when his resignation will be formally submitted and his successor will be elected.

In a letter to the entire Society of Jesus, dated 20 May 2014, Fr Nicolás wrote: “Reflecting on the coming years, I have reached the personal conviction that I should take the needed steps towards submitting my resignation to a General Congregation.” He continued that he would therefore convoke the 36th General Congregation towards the end of this year, with a view to it taking place during the final months of 2016.

Fr Nicolás recently visited the Jesuits of Guyana – a Region of the British Province – when he was en route to Mexico (read more). He is due in London next month when he will attend part of the celebrations to mark the 400th anniversary of the founding of Heythrop College, University of London.

Adolfo Nicolás was born in Villamuriel de Cerrato, Palencia, Spain, on 29 April 1936 and entered the Jesuit novitiate of Aranjuez in 1953. He studied at the University of Alcalá, where he earned his licentiate in philosophy. In 1960, he was assigned to Japan where he studied theology at Sophia University in Tokyo. He was ordained to the priesthood on 17 March 1967.

From 1968 to 1971, Fr Nicolás studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, from where he earned a doctorate in theology. Upon his return to Japan, he was made professor of systematic theology at Sophia University, teaching there for the next 30 years.

Fr Nicolás was appointed Director of the East Asian Pastoral Institute at the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City, Philippines, in 1978 – a post he held for six years. He then went on to serve as rector of the theologate in Tokyo before being appointed as the Jesuit Provincial of Japan. Following his term of office as Provincial, Fr Nicolás remained in Japan, doing pastoral work among poor immigrants in Tokyo.

In 2004, Fr Nicolás returned to the Philippines after he was appointed President of the Jesuit Conference of Provincials for Eastern Asia and Oceania. A native Spanish speaker, Fr Nicolás is also fluent in Catalan, English, Italian, French, and Japanese. He was elected Superior General of the Society of Jesus at its 35th General Congregation in Rome on 19 January 2008.

by John W. Martens

“He was made known to them in the breaking of bread” (Acts 2:33)

There is a richness to the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus that makes it difficult to consume it in its entirety or to exhaust its sustenance. Even seemingly minor details nourish the reader in surprising ways. Emmaus itself, the village to which Cleopas and the unnamed disciple are journeying, appears elsewhere in the Bible in 1 Mc 3:40. It seems to bear little connection to Luke’s notice of the city, but there are intriguing links.

Emmaus was the site of Judah Maccabee’s great victory over the Seleucid general Lysias and the army of Antiochus Epiphanes in 166 B.C. Judah’s army “marched out and encamped to the south of Emmaus” (1 Mc 3:57), and against great odds the Maccabees prevailed over the Seleucid army. The goal was to purify and restore the Temple, which ultimately resulted in the establishment of Hanukkah, but the means by which this would be accomplished was military battle. At stake was the freedom to live and worship as Jews. Prior to the battle Judah says, “And now, let us cry to Heaven, to see whether he will favor us and remember his covenant with our ancestors and crush this army before us today. Then all the Gentiles will know that there is one who redeems and saves Israel” (1 Mc 4:10-11).

Judah’s hope was that the Gentiles would come to know that it was God who gave Israel victory, that it was God who was Israel’s redeemer. A variant of the Greek verb for “redeem” used by Judah is used by Cleopas as he walks in sadness toward that same village of Emmaus, the site of one of Israel’s greatest military victories. He speaks to the stranger beside him (Jesus), telling him, “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”

Is Luke telling us, by using the same Greek word, why Cleopas and the other disciples had such a hard time comprehending Jesus’ crucifixion? Compared to Judah’s crushing military victory, which was proof that “there is one who redeems and saves Israel,” did not Jesus’ mission, which ended on the cross, appear to be an abject failure?

It is here that the radical witness of Jesus and the church would be shaped: God’s redemption would be like nothing they had imagined. It would be made known along the road to Emmaus but in a way that renounced the weapons of war and embraced the food of hospitality. The recognition of the risen Jesus, mysteriously hidden to Cleopas and the unnamed disciple, occurred “when he was at the table with them” and when “he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.”

But it must be said that even though Cleopas and his companion did not initially recognize Jesus and were immersed in hopelessness, they still invited the stranger to eat with them, to share their table. It was this act of simple hospitality that led to the breaking of the bread and the opening of their spiritual eyes. Jesus was with them; the victory had been the resurrection.

The breaking of the bread takes us both backward into the life of Jesus and forward into the life of the church. For the Emmaus story uses the same language as the story in Luke of the feeding of the 5,000: “Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd” (9:16-17). This miracle certainly points toward the eucharistic celebration, but we ought not to ignore the basic acts of hospitality and physical feeding by which and through which spiritual nourishment can take place.

And so the breaking of the bread on the road to Emmaus also points forward to the need for hospitality in the life of the church, the means by which Jesus is seen in the face of the stranger and the spiritual nourishment of community, through which we share the Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ. Because Jesus had been raised, the church dedicated itself “to the breaking of bread” (Acts 2:42, 46), in which hospitality and spiritual nourishment are combined to make clear that he is the one through whom redemption has come.

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn. Follow him @BibleJunkies.

Just when the burden of administrative work was slowly choking the life out of me, when sinking deeper into the teaching ministry seemed to me a nightmare, I attended the Workshop on Ignatian School Leadership (WISL) International. I was one of 31 leaders and administrators of Jesuit schools in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Timor Leste and Cambodia at the workshop, which was focused on Administrative Leadership: Ignatian Discernment and Decision-Making.

Being invited brought me much excitement, remembering how meaningful my last experience was. However, I went to the WISL extremely tired. My job as Assistant Principal demanded so much from me that I was neglecting my responsibilities as a wife and mother. I was running on empty. Looming on the horizon were bigger responsibilities. Resigning seemed the best choice, because it was the easiest.

Talking about the Examen: (L to R) Fr Stephen Chow SJ (Hong Kong), Fr Christopher Gleeson SJ (Australia) and Fr Plinio Martins SJ (Timor Leste)
Talking about the Examen: (L to R) Fr Stephen Chow SJ (Hong Kong), Fr Christopher Gleeson SJ (Australia) and Fr Plinio Martins SJ (Timor Leste)
I learned through this year’s WISL though that the Ignatian paradigm demands we filter our life experiences through the lens of faith, as our facilitator, Fr Johnny Go SJ, so articulately described. Decision-making in the Ignatian sense does not mean finding the easier, more convenient way out. Ignatian decision-making involves a constant discernment where we “invite God, who cares deeply about what we do, into the decision-making process” and, through this, we “find the freedom to make the best choice”. Thus, as an Ignatian educator, I am invited not only to make good, nuanced, and well thought-out decisions, I am invited to make discerned decisions where I am not the only one deciding but where I allow God to decide with me. Here, learning to “let go and let God” is a requirement. And we all know how difficult that is.

Ignatian discernment is only possible if we embrace what St Ignatius of Loyola called a leadership of reflection and action. The many times I felt lost at work were when I focused too much on the “action” at the expense of the “reflection”. Since work never really stops, then I rationalize that I cannot stop to pray. Surely, I get more things done, but I fail to see how I sacrifice a very important part of my work: understanding who I am and what I hold dear, and how what I do should be consistent to God’s call for me to be the best person I can be. It is only during times when I am “forced” to be quiet and reflect – like during the WISL – that I realize the price I have to pay for this sacrifice: I begin to see my job as “work”, and not anymore as a vocation that God has personally called me to.

During the workshop, one of the most significant prayer experiences I had was when I contemplated Jesus Christ in front of me. I was looking at him as he carried his cross. He too was looking at me. What struck me was how his look was the gaze of a lover towards his beloved – yes, even while burdened by his cross. He never complained; he just contemplated me with much love. I realized then and there that he was calling me to do the same: carry my own cross, but to do it with much love. It is the love for what I have been called to do and the love for the God who has called me that will allow me to become, as the song goes, “his heart today”.

It is also encouraging to know that I am not in this alone. I was with 30 other participants but I am sure they only represent the thousands in the world working for Jesuit educational institutions who are constantly invited to create space for God in their own workplace. Through their sharing, I was reassured by companionship and support – both indispensable for this ministry – and given a reality check that, in spite of the challenges, grace is still present. Who am I to grumble about whining parents, for example, when many of my colleagues from other countries fear for their lives when report cards are given out? Even through them, I hear the Spirit telling me: there is much grace in your life already; you only have to seek it out.

The grace of the WISL for me was to see how my job would always seem like work if not seen through the lens of faith. If I do not see it as a vocation, a call to love, I cannot and will not find meaning in it. As an Ignatian leader, I cannot go on with my role without pausing for reflection and prayer. I harvest the fruits of the WISL now as I have been appointed to a bigger, more demanding role at school. Resigning is still the easiest option, but the more convenient choice is not necessarily the best one from the Ignatian viewpoint. The best option is that which is the most loving, the most life giving, the one that will draw me and others closer to His heart – even if it entails carrying our own cross. Personally, the best option is for me to try to do my best in my new role, knowing I am still, and primarily, a mother and wife at home. The WISL has helped me put things in the proper perspective – proper because it is not only mine, but God’s as well.

The Workshop on Ignatian School Leadership was held in Tagaytay City, Philippines, from March 10 to 14, 2014.

Pope Francis has proclaimed two of his predecessors, Popes John XXIII and John Paul II, as saints of the Roman Catholic Church at a ceremony in St Peter’s Square.

The open-air event was watched by up to a million people at the Vatican and on giant screens positioned around Rome, while millions more watched on television around the world.

At the beginning of the canonisation ceremony, Pope Francis greeted and embraced Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, his predecessor, who has looked increasingly tired and frail since his resignation last year.

It is the first time in the history of the Catholic Church that two living Popes have presided over the canonisation of two of their predecessors.

“We declare and define as saints the blessed John XXIII and John Paul II,” Francis said in a Latin prayer from an altar in front of St Peter’s Basilica.

He was flanked by foreign dignitaries, various royals and hundreds of cardinals and bishops.

In what has been dubbed “the day of the four Popes”, the Vatican confirmed that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI – who last year became the first pontiff since the Middle Ages to resign – was to be in attendance at today’s event.

Thousands of pilgrims slept out in St Peter’s Square and surrounding streets overnight in order to reserve a prime spot for the ceremony, which was expected to last for about two hours.

Catholics from all over the world have gathered in Rome for the unprecedented double canonisation, with a huge contingent from Poland, the homeland of the John Paul II.

Polish women in traditional national dress, boy scouts and girl guides and priests and nuns waved the red and white flag of Poland as they walked towards St Peter’s Basilica.

From an altar in front of the Basilica, Pope Francis will be flanked by scarlet-clad cardinals on one side and foreign dignitaries, including heads of state and royalty, on the other, when he leads the ceremony to canonise his two predecessors.

More than 10,000 members of the security forces have been deployed for the event, the biggest Vatican occasion since the funeral of John Paul II drew millions of people to Rome in 2005.

There has been a festival atmosphere in the city this weekend, with groups of priests banging drums and singing songs, special services held in more than a dozen churches and flags from across the world displayed by the faithful.

A group of priests from Chile carried two large cardboard cut-outs of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII, enabling people to take “selfies” of themselves with the soon-to-be made saints.

Pope Benedict, who lives in a former convent in the grounds of the Vatican, will be among 150 cardinals and 700 bishops who will “concelebrate” with Pope Francis and take part in the canonisation ceremony.

“We will all be happy to have his presence” at the ceremony, Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said.

It is unprecedented for two living Popes to preside over the canonisation of two of their predecessors.

During the ceremony, the head of the Vatican’s saint-making office, Cardinal Angelo Amato, was expected to ask Pope Francis three separate times to include John XXIII and John Paul II among the saints of the Roman Catholic Church.

The three repeated requests for canonisation “signify the importance of this celebration,” the Reverend Federico Lombardi said.

Pope Francis was then expected to say: “For the honour of the Blessed Trinity, the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the increase of the Christian life, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own, after due deliberation and frequent prayer for divine assistance, and having sought the counsel of many of our brother bishops, we declare and define Blessed John XXIII and John Paul II be saints and we enrol them among the saints, decreeing that they are to be venerated as such by the whole church.”

Relics of the two former Popes were then due to be held up – for John Paul II, a vial of his blood, and for John XXIII, a piece of skin taken from his body after it was exhumed for his beatification in 2000.

Among the dignitaries on the guest list were 24 heads of state and 10 heads of government, including the kings and queens of Spain and Belgium, and Lech Walesa, the founder of the Solidarity labour movement in Poland, which enjoyed staunch support from Pope John Paul II and helped bring down Communism.

By Tom Phillips, Liushi, Zhejiang province, The Telegraph, UK

It is said to be China’s biggest church and on Easter Sunday thousands of worshippers will flock to this Asian mega-temple to pledge their allegiance – not to the Communist Party, but to the Cross.

The 5,000-capacity Liushi church, which boasts more than twice as many seats as Westminster Abbey and a 206ft crucifix that can be seen for miles around, opened last year with one theologian declaring it a “miracle that such a small town was able to build such a grand church”.
The £8 million building is also one of the most visible symbols of Communist China’s breakneck conversion as it evolves into one of the largest Christian congregations on earth.

“It is a wonderful thing to be a follower of Jesus Christ. It gives us great confidence,” beamed Jin Hongxin, a 40-year-old visitor who was admiring the golden cross above Liushi’s altar in the lead up to Holy Week.

“If everyone in China believed in Jesus then we would have no more need for police stations. There would be no more bad people and therefore no more crime,” she added.

Officially, the People’s Republic of China is an atheist country but that is changing fast as many of its 1.3 billion citizens seek meaning and spiritual comfort that neither communism nor capitalism seem to have supplied.
Christian congregations in particular have skyrocketed since churches began reopening when Chairman Mao’s death in 1976 signalled the end of the Cultural Revolution.

Less than four decades later, some believe China is now poised to become not just the world’s number one economy but also its most numerous Christian nation.

“By my calculations China is destined to become the largest Christian country in the world very soon,” said Fenggang Yang, a professor of sociology at Purdue University and author of Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule.

“It is going to be less than a generation. Not many people are prepared for this dramatic change.”

China’s Protestant community, which had just one million members in 1949, has already overtaken those of countries more commonly associated with an evangelical boom. In 2010 there were more than 58 million Protestants in China compared to 40 million in Brazil and 36 million in South Africa, according to the Pew Research Centre’s Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Prof Yang, a leading expert on religion in China, believes that number will swell to around 160 million by 2025. That would likely put China ahead even of the United States, which had around 159 million Protestants in 2010 but whose congregations are in decline.

By 2030, China’s total Christian population, including Catholics, would exceed 247 million, placing it above Mexico, Brazil and the United States as the largest Christian congregation in the world, he predicted.
“Mao thought he could eliminate religion. He thought he had accomplished this,” Prof Yang said. “It’s ironic – they didn’t. They actually failed completely.”

Like many Chinese churches, the church in the town of Liushi, 200 miles south of Shanghai in Zhejiang province, has had a turbulent history.

It was founded in 1886 after William Edward Soothill, a Yorkshire-born missionary and future Oxford University professor, began evangelising local communities.
But by the late 1950s, as the region was engulfed by Mao’s violent anti-Christian campaigns, it was forced to close.
Liushi remained shut throughout the decade of the Cultural Revolution that began in 1966, as places of worship were destroyed across the country.
Since it reopened in 1978 its congregation has gone from strength to strength as part of China’s officially sanctioned Christian church – along with thousands of others that have accepted Communist Party oversight in return for being allowed to worship.

Today it has 2,600 regular churchgoers and holds up to 70 baptisms each year, according to Shi Xiaoli, its 27-year-old preacher. The parish’s revival reached a crescendo last year with the opening of its new 1,500ft mega-church, reputedly the biggest in mainland China.

“Our old church was small and hard to find,” said Ms Shi. “There wasn’t room in the old building for all the followers, especially at Christmas and at Easter. The new one is big and eye-catching.”

The Liushi church is not alone. From Yunnan province in China’s balmy southwest to Liaoning in its industrial northeast, congregations are booming and more Chinese are thought to attend Sunday services each week than do Christians across the whole of Europe.

A recent study found that online searches for the words “Christian Congregation” and “Jesus” far outnumbered those for “The Communist Party” and “Xi Jinping”, China’s president.
Among China’s Protestants are also many millions who worship at illegal underground “house churches”, which hold unsupervised services – often in people’s homes – in an attempt to evade the prying eyes of the Communist Party.
Such churches are mostly behind China’s embryonic missionary movement – a reversal of roles after the country was for centuries the target of foreign missionaries. Now it is starting to send its own missionaries abroad, notably into North Korea, in search of souls.

“We want to help and it is easier for us than for British, South Korean or American missionaries,” said one underground church leader in north China who asked not to be named.

The new spread of Christianity has the Communist Party scratching its head.

“The child suddenly grew up and the parents don’t know how to deal with the adult,” the preacher, who is from China’s illegal house-church movement, said.

Some officials argue that religious groups can provide social services the government cannot, while simultaneously helping reverse a growing moral crisis in a land where cash, not Communism, has now become king.
They appear to agree with David Cameron, the British prime minister, who said last week that Christianity could help boost Britain’s “spiritual, physical and moral” state.
Ms Shi, Liushi’s preacher, who is careful to describe her church as “patriotic”, said: “We have two motivations: one is our gospel mission and the other is serving society. Christianity can also play a role in maintaining peace and stability in society. Without God, people can do as they please.”

Yet others within China’s leadership worry about how the religious landscape might shape its political future, and its possible impact on the Communist Party’s grip on power, despite the clause in the country’s 1982 constitution that guarantees citizens the right to engage in “normal religious activities”.

As a result, a close watch is still kept on churchgoers, and preachers are routinely monitored to ensure their sermons do not diverge from what the Party considers acceptable.
In Liushi church a closed circuit television camera hangs from the ceiling, directly in front of the lectern.
“They want the pastor to preach in a Communist way. They want to train people to practice in a Communist way,” said the house-church preacher, who said state churches often shunned potentially subversive sections of the Bible. The Old Testament book in which the exiled Daniel refuses to obey orders to worship the king rather than his own god is seen as “very dangerous”, the preacher added.

Such fears may not be entirely unwarranted. Christians’ growing power was on show earlier this month when thousands flocked to defend a church in Wenzhou, a city known as the “Jerusalem of the East”, after government threats to demolish it. Faced with the congregation’s very public show of resistance, officials appear to have backed away from their plans, negotiating a compromise with church leaders.
“They do not trust the church, but they have to tolerate or accept it because the growth is there,” said the church leader. “The number of Christians is growing – they cannot fight it. They do not want the 70 million Christians to be their enemy.”

The underground leader church leader said many government officials viewed religion as “a sickness” that needed curing, and Prof Yang agreed there was a potential threat.
The Communist Party was “still not sure if Christianity would become an opposition political force” and feared it could be used by “Western forces to overthrow the Communist political system”, he said.

Churches were likely to face an increasingly “intense” struggle over coming decade as the Communist Party sought to stifle Christianity’s rise, he predicted.
“There are people in the government who are trying to control the church. I think they are making the last attempt to do that.”

Jesuits across Asia Pacific have planned various activities to commemorate the bicentennial of the Restoration of the Society of Jesus. In 1814, Pope Pius VII ordered the restoration of the Society, which had been suppressed in 1773 by Pope Clement XIV.

Globally the year-long celebration of the bicentennial began on January 3, at the mass for the feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, which Pope Francis celebrated with fellow Jesuits at the Church of the Gesù in Rome.

In a letter dated November 14, 2013, Father Adolfo Nicolás, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, wrote, “I pray that our grateful commemoration of this 200th anniversary of the Society’s reestablishment might be blessed with a deeper appropriation of our way of life and a more creative, generous and joyful commitment to give our lives in service for the greater glory of God.”

Encouraged by the Father General to commemorate the anniversary “with humble and sincere gratitude to the Lord, with a desire to learn from our history, and as an occasion for spiritual and apostolic renewal”, many of the planned activities cater to both Jesuit communities and their lay partners.

Symposia, seminars and assemblies are planned, as well as reflections and retreats and community celebrations.

In March, the Matteo Ricci Institute in Macau will hold a seminar focused on understanding the Suppression in Europe and reflecting on the Suppression from the perspective of the Chinese Province. The institute will also host a 3-day international symposium in October that will focus on the history of the Restoration in east-central Europe, Russia, China and the United States. There will also be a three-day symposium in Hong Kong.

The Korean Jesuits are also planning a symposium, to be held in the second half of the year, and all communities will set aside time for reflection and renewal.

The Malaysia-Singapore Region will have a seminar with lay collaborators in May, with Jesuit historian Fr Tony de Castro SJ as the main presenter, and a retreat later in the year.

The Japan Province will mark the anniversary with province assemblies – on July 31 for the Jesuits in the western area, and on December 26 for those residing in Tokyo.

The Australian Province will be publishing various writings on the Suppression and Restoration, while the Thai Region is translating some Jesuit books into Thai.

In Indonesia, papers from a seminar held in December 2013 have been published in a book for lay partners. A reflection gathering is planned in Yogyakarta in March, and celebrations in July and October with lay partners.

For the Philippine Province, the bicentennial was an opportune time to develop the Province roadmap. Several activities are planned throughout the year including conferences and talks on the Suppression and Restoration of the Society, art exhibits, plays, a roadshow of Jesuit music and a major concert. A video, 200 Years after Restoration, was produced and released in January.

The Vietnam Province also celebrates in 2014 the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Jesuits in the country. For the bicentennial, the Vietnamese Jesuits have planned Province retreats, a study on Jesuit history, a recollection for collaborators, and a talk in the scholasticate.

Myanmar and Timor Leste will mark the anniversary with retreats.

Here is an anecdote from Alan Watts’, “The ‘Mind-less’ Scholar”

I remember D. T. Suzuki’s address to the final meeting of the 1936 World Congress of Faiths at the old Queen’s Hall in London. The theme was “The Supreme Spiritual Ideal,” and after several speakers had delivered themselves of volumes of hot air, Suzuki’s turn came to take the platform. “When I was first asked,” he said, “to talk about the Supreme Spiritual Ideal, I did not exactly know what to answer.

Firstly, I am just a simple-minded countryman from a far away corner of the world suddenly thrust into the midst of this hustling city of London, and I am bewildered and my mind refuses to work in the same way that it does when I am in my own land.

Secondly, how can a humble person like myself talk about such a grand thing as the Supreme Spiritual Ideal?… Really I do not know what Spiritual is, what Ideal is, and what Supreme Spiritual Ideal is.”

Whereupon he devoted the rest of his speech to a description of his house and garden in Japan, contrasting it with the life of a great city. This from the translator of the Lankavatara Sutra! And the audience gave him a standing ovation.

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