I am Fr. Mauki, a Tanzanian Jesuit from the Eastern Africa Province of the Society of Jesus. I joined the Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS) team in Malta to consolidate the pastoral accompaniment of JRS for African asylum seekers amid migrants present in Malta. After working for fifteen months with JRS, I have experienced that my having joined the Jesuit Refugee Services was to embark on a faith journey. I have discovered that God is giving me the privilege of assisting the forced migrants and through them experiencing God’s blessing.

Listening to the immigrants’ stories and frustrations in the detention centres has been the intervention I can provide to aid in lightening their hearts’ burdens. As a pastoral team, the only way we can help detainee migrants is to listen to their stories, instill hopes and offer a realistic approach to their problems. Most immigrants tell me that Mass in the detention centre is the only thing that gives them hope. Nobody can afford to take that away. They feel that God will not abandon nor forget them. For many, the Church is a sign of hope in the midst of an alien and hostile environment.

Working with immigrants has strengthened my faith. I have realized that God is present even in life’s most tragic episodes. The immigrants I encounter in detention have a profound faith conviction, a faith that can move mountains. I have seen immigrants who have discovered God as their only help and comfort in exile. I am amazed by their mysterious capacity to believe in God amidst many seemingly unjust situations. Many immigrants speak about Jesus as their only refuge and hope. During my pastoral care in detention, I try to penetrate their world and be with them, even if it is that I be present and silent. A vibrant hope I discover among the immigrants leaves me with a question: Do I bring hope, or do I find it there?

The hope I see among the immigrants is grounded in suffering. It is a grace that gives strength. The challenge for me is to search for and find the seeds of hope, to allow the same hope to continue to grow. In the present situation at the detention centres, pastoral care is a sign of hope and comfort for the people. I have also encountered immigrants who have abandoned their faith. They cannot fathom a loving God who has allowed them to be in detention for eighteen months and being rejected for asylum. The more the immigrants stay in detention, the more difficult it is for them to live out the virtues of their Christian faith.

My role is to search for and find the seeds of hope and to fan the feeble spark into a flame. Immigrants need to see light at the end of the tunnel. Christ offers a larger picture, a meaningful story of suffering, sacrifice and hope within which to situate one’s life. It is for this reason JRS Malta seeks to accompany, serve and defend the rights of asylum seekers and forcibly displaced persons who arrive in Malta. Forced migrants are victims of a violation of basic human rights. JRS Malta cannot ignore issues of protection and human rights violations in the context of forced migration.

Beatus Mauki SJ

Dar Manwel Magri

Mons Carmelo Zammit Street

Msida MSD 2020

Malta

[email protected]

When Ignatius, Faber, and Laínez came in 1537 to Rome, Ignatius had discovered in the centre of the city, in the vicinity of the Capitol, a small church of Our Lady with the holy image ‘Madonna della Strada’. Time and again he instructed the Fathers to say Mass there. He longingly hoped for an opportunity to acquire that church. It was not so beautiful, but ideally situated as starting point for pastoral activities in the city.

This opportunity resulted from Father Codacio who had got that premises in hereditary tenancy on August 19th 1540, and had attained on November 18th the benefice of the parish St Maria della Strada. With the family Camillo Astalli who owned that complex Codacio worked for the transfer of the church with the holy image to the young Order. On May 15th 1542 Ignatius was inaugurated solemnly in the possessions of the sanctuary, whereas the parish pastoral was shifted to St Marco. It was the first church in the possession of Jesuits.

At the beginning of February 1541 the First Fathers had moved from the Piazza Frangipani into an old, narrow house. It stood opposite the small church and was rented for thirty Scuds annually. By demolition and new building the Professed House and the Church Il Gesù arose from those beginnings. Only under Francisco de Borja, the third General of the Order, was laid the foundation-stone for the building of Il Gesù on June 20th 1568. Architect was Jacopo Vignola, the successor of Michelangelo. The building dragged on for sixteen years until 1584.

Vignola had meanwhile died (1573). Giacomo della Porta was the last and most important building master. Il Gesù is considered as masterpiece of the Baroque in the perfect merging into each other of architecture, plastics and painting.

In this church is in front on the left side the Grave Altar of St Ignatius of Loyola. On its right is venerated the holy image ‘Madonna della Strada’. In the Professed House of the Jesuits just beside Il Gesù the three rooms once inhabited by Ignatius are still shown in their original form. Only the walls are covered with silk wallpapers.

To the building of Il Gesù contributed many donors. The chief patron was Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (who died at the beginning of March 1589). Farnese was Vice-Chancellor and led the state affairs since 1538. For full fifty-five years he belonged to the College of Cardinals. He took part in seven conclaves, often in the role of the ‘pope maker’. He was the ‘Grand Cardinal’, who was unmatched in experience and insight, generosity and charitableness for the poor. Uncommonly rich, he was devoted to the arts, the sciences, and the humanists. To the recent Society of Jesus Farnese was a generous promoter and an influential advisor. The Order owes him its main church Il Gesù, and the Roman Professed House.

by UCAnews 

China’s first exhibition center dedicated to Father Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) has opened in Zhaoqing, the place where the Italian missionary first set foot on the mainland.

Acting director of the Paris Ricci Institute, officials from the Guangdong provincial cultural bureau and Zhaoqing city attended the opening ceremony on Sunday.

The new Matteo Ricci Cultural Exchange Exhibition Center details the life of the Jesuit priest, known as Li Madou to Chinese people, through an array of exhibits and written accounts.

The center is located near the ruins of the first church and Jesuit house that Fr Ricci and his confrere Fr Michele Ruggieri were allowed to build after they arrived in China in 1583. The church, called “Xianhua Temple” out of respect for Buddhist custom, was dedicated to the Blessed Mother.

At that time Zhaoqing was the capital of Guangdong province.

The location of the church was next to a 500-year-old Buddhist pagoda on the banks of the Xijiang (West) River, from where the two missioners arrived by boat.

Father Gabriel Li Jiafang of Jiangmen, who attended the opening, hoped the exhibition, which is designed to boost tourism, would make more people aware of the missionary and the Catholic faith.

“The local Church has provided historical material such as books and written records for the Ricci exhibition center which is managed by the city museum. A replica of a Ricci statue owned by the parish is also erected there,” the pastor of Zhaoqing’s Immaculate Conception Church said.

Other exhibits include Fr Ricci’s writings, items of clothing, scientific instruments and astronomical data, to help visitors understand his background, his six years in Zhaoqing (until 1589) and his contribution to cultural exchanges between East and West.

A special feature, around 30 clocks made in Europe between the 17th and 20th centuries, impressed Fr Li.

“Though these clocks are not relics of Fr Ricci, they commemorate his contribution in introducing Western clock-making techniques that influenced the development of Zhaoqing’s clock industry,” he said.

by Jim Manney 

There’s an old saying that we should “pray as if everything depends on God, work as if everything depends on you.” It’s been attributed to Ignatius (though there’s no evidence that he said it), and many think it captures the Ignatian spirit: turning it all over to God in prayer and then working tirelessly and urgently to do God’s work. I prefer to reverse it: “pray as if everything depends on you, work as if everything depends on God.” This means that prayer has to be urgent: God has to do something dramatic if everything depends on me. It also puts our work in the right perspective: if it depends on God, we can let it go. We can work hard but leave the outcome up to him. If God is in charge we can tolerate mixed results and endure failure.

Ignatius writes about work and human effort in a letter to an aristocrat named Jerome Vines, whom I imagine was a busy, hard-charging, Type A character who was getting upset about the fate of his many projects. A busy man, Ignatius writes, “must make up his mind to do what he can, without afflicting himself if he cannot do all that he wishes. You must have patience and not think that God our Lord requires what man cannot accomplish.” He concludes with this: “There is no need to wear yourself out, but make a competent and sufficient effort, and leave the rest to him who can do all he pleases.”

by Paul Brian Campbell, SJ 

A farmer’s daughter duty was to carry fresh milk to customers in various villages, one of whom was a priest. To reach his house, the milkmaid had to cross a good-sized stream. People crossed it by a sort of ferry raft, for a small fee.

One day the priest, who performed worship daily with the offering to God of fresh milk, finding it arrived very late, scolded the poor woman. “What can I do?” she said, “I start out early from my house, but I have to wait a long time for the boatman to come.”

Then the priest said (pretending to be serious), “What! People have even walked across the ocean by repeating the name of God, and you can’t cross this little river?” This milkmaid took him very seriously. From then on she brought the priest’s milk punctually every morning. He became curious about it and asked her how it was that she was never late anymore.

“I cross the river repeating the name of the Lord,” she replied, “just as you told me to do, without waiting for the ferry.” The priest didn’t believe her, and asked, “Can you show me this, how you cross the river on foot?” So they went together to the water and the milkmaid began to walk over it. Looking back, the woman saw that the priest had started to follow her and was floundering in the water.

“Sir!” she cried, “You are uttering the name of God, yet all the while you are holding up your clothes from getting wet. That is not trusting in God!”

The Society marks 450 years in Macau in 2012. On August 24, 1562, Frs Luís Fróis SJ and Giovanni Battista Del Monte SJ arrived in Macau to take up residence and embark on apostolic work. The two Portuguese Jesuits helped the two diocesan priests who were ministering to the 5,000 inhabitants of Macau, among whom were 600 Portuguese.

They had arrived with Diogo Pereira, a successful merchant, who had been appointed Portuguese envoy to the court of Beijing. They were provided lodgings first in the residence of Guilherme Pereira, brother of Diogo and benefactor of Francis Xavier. Later, they were also welcomed by Pedro Quintero, and it was he who would offer funds for the construction of the first Jesuit house in Macau.

The Jesuits awaited instructions regarding the embassy to Beijing until late in 1565, when they received word from the Jesuit Provincial, António de Quadros, to erect a permanent residence of the Society in Macau. They began to build at the end of December 1565.

The first bishop of Macau (1568-1581) was the Portuguese Jesuit Melchior M Carneiro, who founded a leprosarium and the “Santa Casa da Misericordia”.

*** *** *** *** *** ***

The Beijng Center appoints new director

French Jesuit Thierry Meynard SJ takes over as the International Director of The Beijing Center (TBC) from August 1, 2012. He will succeed Fr Roberto Ribeiro SJ, who is stepping down after completing his three-year term as international director.

“I have seen TBC growing along the years into a unique place for teaching and research on China,” said Fr Meynard, who is a Professor in the Philosophy Department at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China, where he has been teaching since 2006. He is also Vice-director of the Research Center on the Introduction of Western Learning in China.

The Beijing Center logo“TBC has offered an in-depth knowledge of Chinese language, culture and society to hundreds of students, and the TBC alumni are today engaged in China in many different ways. We shall continue our mission to provide a rigorous training in understanding China and to foster academic exchanges between China and the world.”

Fr Meynard first arrived in China in 1988 and brings with him enormous experience through his work in higher education and life in China, in understanding Chinese culture and bridging Chinese and Western cultures.

He obtained a PhD in Chinese philosophy from Peking University in 2003. His publications include The Religious Philosophy of Liang Shuming, The Hidden Buddhist, Confucius Sinarum Philosophus (1687), and The First Translation of the Confucian Classics. He was the editor of Liang Shuming’s Thought and Its Reception, and Teilhard and the Future of Humanity.

Yunan tripThe Beijing Center was founded in 1988 by Fr Ron Anton SJ, who ran the centre for a decade before passing the reins to Fr Ribeiro. Initially conceived as a standard Study Abroad Programme, TBC has expanded in unexpected directions, into scholarship, publications, a varied menu of programmes.

TBC makes its resources available to students seeking to study in Beijing, to scholars seeking to explore the history and culture of China as it relates to other cultures, and to professionals seeking to understand and to build relationships with contemporary China.

The history of the transit of Venus and its observers is well documented. Just go through the ‘Past transits’ menu at the top of this page, which will take you on an interesting voyage through time. Of all the historical observations of the transit of Venus, an important group of observers usually doesn’t get much attention: the Jesuits. These Roman Catholic priests of the religious order Societas Iesu had a keen interest in mathematics, astronomy and natural sciences as a result of their apostolic spirituality. In their educational and missionary activities scientific work had an important place, because of their frontier spirit and their vocation to “find God in all things”. At their schools, colleges and universities they often established an astronomical observatory to study the universe and make meteorological observations. At the time of the eighteenth century transits of Venus (1761 and 1769) a quarter of all observatories was run by Jesuits and half of all clerics working on science were Jesuits. In their scientific work as well as apostolate they show how faith and reason harmonise well and are just the two sides of the same medal: the search for Truth.

Among the more well-known Jesuit observers of the transit of Venus are Maximilian Hell, Leonardo Ximenes and Joseph Xavier Liesganig. The Jesuits observed the transit from their colleges on the European mainland and rarely undertook expeditions. Maximilian Hell is one of the few Jesuits who travelled in the eighteenth century specifically to see the transit in its entirety (remarkably, on the invitation of the protestant king Christian VII of Denmark and Norway). Still, among the reports of observations from far flung places are also accounts written by Jesuits. They operated from the observatories in mission countries, where the Jesuit order had established missions to spread both the Christian faith and western science. The Imperial Observatory of Beijing for example was run by Jesuits, but the transit of Venus was also observed from other missionaries in Asia, like Tranquebar and Madras.

In between the two eighteenth century transits, the Jesuit order was suppressed for political reasons in Portugal, France, the Two Sicilies, Parma and the Spanish Empire. A couple of years after the transits, in 1773, the society was suppressed altogether by Pope Clement XIV under secular pressure. This ended all observatories, although some of the priests continued their work in the now nationalised institutions.

On June 5 and 6, 2012 the planet Venus will pass in front of the Sun for the last time this century. Millions around the world will witness this rare astronomical phenomenon.

In 1814 the Society of Jesus was restored, and the number of new observatories was again on the rise, especially in mission countries. They pioneered in systematically making astronomical, meteorological and seismological observations in Africa, Asia and Central and South America. Among the observers of the 1874 and 1882 transit of Venus are again many Jesuits, with prominent names like Stephen Perry and Pietro Secchi who both joined national expeditions.

The science versus religion controversy was instrumental in the foundation of Jesuit observatories in the nineteenth century, and it also played an important role in their closing in the twentieth century. After the 1960s, the priorities of the Society of Jesus moved toward work for faith and social justice. As a result, practically all Jesuit observatories have been closed in the last forty years and only a handful is still in operation today. Still, we owe a lot to the Jesuit scientists of the past, who with an apostolic zeal helped western science spread the world, and who made some valuable contributions in the study of the transit of Venus.

Father Gerald R. Blaszczak (born 1949) was fascinated by the openness, the social involvement, the intellectual search, the real piety and the friendship of the Jesuits at their High School in Dallas (USA) at the end of the sixties. He entered the New York province and studied New Testament and Islam mysticism. He started teaching at the newly opened Jesuit theologate in Nairobi (Kenya), became Novice Director of his Province and was responsible for “Mission and Identity” at the Jesuit Universities of Fordham (New York) and Fairfield (Connecticut). Father General appointed him as director of the new Curia Secretariat for the Promotion of Faith (which will involve also Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue and Ignatian Spirituality).

Mary Ward founded a religious community for women dedicated to active service, drawing on the Society of Jesus as an organizational model.

Mary Ward was born to a Catholic family in North Yorkshire, England, just a few years before the defeat of the Spanish Armada. The family was determined to practice the Catholic faith in spite of the ongoing hostility. In 1589 the family home was burned down, but Mary and her sisters were saved by her father.

At the age of 15, Mary Ward felt called to religious life. Ward entered the Poor Clare convent in Saint-Omer in France. At the time the only option for religious life for women was in cloistered communities. Mary Ward, however, wanted to give active service to God and others. Thus began her extraordinary journey.

At the age of 24, Mary gathered a number of companions and formed a religious community. In creating a structure for her religious community, Mary Ward drew on the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. Church authorities, however, were implacably opposed to the idea of religious women being active in any ministry outside of the enclosed walls of the cloister.

The community grew in the face of severe opposition. They ministered to imprisoned and persecuted Catholics openly on the European continent, secretly in England. Mary was imprisoned by the English government and later by the Inquisition in Rome. While she was personally admired, Mary Ward’s congregation was suppressed in 1630. There was also an effort to destroy all related documents so as to erase the memory of Mary’s work. Returning to England in 1642, Mary died surrounded by a few companions in 1645. Although she was continually frustrated in her dreams, Mary Ward never lost confidence in her relationship with Jesus.

Mary Ward’s legacy survives today in the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary worldwide, and in the newly renamed Congregation of Jesus in England.

Quote: “Women in time to come will do much.”

PC’s, mobile phones, mp3 players, tablets… they are everywhere, today’s tools for the information revolution, carriers of books, magazines and news. And the Society of Jesus? We are and will be there.

The progress and innovation is happening so fast it can seem quite terrifying to us – because we are not internet natives. But to those who were born into this web-driven world, it is second nature. So how do we integrate, what can we offer, what needs to change, how do we go about it and how can we offer something hat will capture the attention of a browsing public?

Between the 19th and 23rd April web masters and communication officers from many European Provinces, as well as representatives from the US, got together for the annual European Jesuit Webmasters’ meeting in Lewes, England, and put our heads together to discuss all this and more – sharing experiences, know-how, questions and difficulties. Professional presentations from experts in their fields fuelled discussions in between sittings.

Austin Ivereigh, journalist, commentator and author and former spokesman for the Archbishop of Westminster demonstrated how can we prepare ourselves and other members of the Church to effectively participate in media discussions on neuralgic issues in an era of 24-hour news. He is the founder and coordinator of ‘Catholic Voices’.

Jane Hellings, director of the fundraising and management division of Kingston Smith amply stressed the importance of branding in developing recognition, trust and long-term relationships with donors.

Matt Malone SJ, who served as associate editor of ‘America’ magazine, and who has accumulated a wealth of experience in the world of in-depth journalism and publishing presented an insightful hour on ‘The great migration? – Transitions from print to digital’.

JP Morrison, Headmaster of St Ignatius College in Enfield, London, presented the realities and experiences of digital natives (young persons born into a world where digital media were already well established), particularly the experiences of the students in this north London school.

Nick Austin SJ, who teaches moral theology at Heythrop College, University of London, proposed a way of taking on this new world, whereby individual’s real freedom and relationships would not be damaged, and all of this through the virtue of temperance.

John Dardis SJ, President of the Conference of European Provincials, joined us too, leading workshops which extracted goals related to Jesuit presence in the digital media and means by which to achieve these goals within the next few years.

Our appeal is for Jesuits Europe-wide to:

• Embrace and take on this digital world as a frontier which our presence cannot overlook.

• Invest in human resources and finances for this work, so that we can be present and effective.

• Listen to the needs of your publics.

• Become familiar with digital media, and do not be afraid to change the way things have been done for so long.

• Look out for news value in your work and supply the communications office with the material they need.

• Ironically, web masters and communications offices are often left to work in isolation and with too few resources – support, participate, consult, work together!