Many Canadian Jesuits began their religious life on 15th August, but nowadays the anniversary is usually marked on 31st July. This year the solemn Mass of St Ignatius Loyola was celebrated at St Isaac Jogues Parish, Pickering, and on behalf of the class of 1964, Fr Michael Czerny S.J. preached the homily after readings about Elijah meeting God at Horeb (1 Kings 19:4-9a, 11-15a), Knowing Christ and pressing towards the goal (Philippians 3:8-14), and Tips for following Christ (Luke 9:57-62).
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Mid-August 1964, a bunch of guys entered the Jesuit novitiate in Guelph and now, as if all of a sudden, it’s our Golden Jubilee. But the class of ‘64 are not the only ones celebrating. Tim Hortons, too, was founded in 1964, and their slogan for the occasion is “50 years fresh, 50 ans et toujours frais”!
The five of us
As for the five of us a half century ago, I believe that the words of King Solomon would best serve as our slogan: “I am a very young man, I don’t know how to go out and how to come in” (1 Kgs 3:7). And so it was:
Our eldest, Paul Desmarais, was 19 years of age minus a week when he began novitiate. He took final vows as a Brother in 1986. He works in sustainable and sustaining agriculture, as the founding director of the Kasisi Agricultural School in Zambia.
John Govan, ordained in 1974, Master Retreat Director at the Ignatius Jesuit Centre in Guelph where all of us began our Jesuit journey 50 years ago .
John Perry, ordained in 1974, now teaching at the Kofi Annan Institute for Peace and Conflict Transformation in Monrovia, Liberia.
Michael Czerny, ordained in 1973, bringing the Gospel to public life, now as socius to the President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Rome.
And our youngest, Len Altilia, was 17 years of age plus 2 weeks when he arrived in Guelph. Ordained in 1974, an educator of youth and formator of younger Jesuits, he is the President of St Paul’s High School in Winnipeg.
As well as the four of us
In Africa I learned that the stages of life aren’t really as separate as we here seem to think. Those who are waiting to be born, those who’re moving around on earth, and the Ancestors who have gone ahead – we’re tightly linked with one another in bonds of mutual care and responsibility.
And so the Golden Jubilarians aren’t only the five of us you see on the altar, but very much include our four Ancestors who were unfortunately in too much of a hurry to move on:
– Eric Maclean (born: Montreal 1943 – ordained 1973 – died: Montreal 2007), lifelong high-school educator and administrator, Provincial (1990-96).
– Daniel Phelan (born: Regina 1946 – ordained 1974 – died: Toronto 2008), pastoral worker, spiritual guide, most discrete and gentle counsellor.
– William Addley (born: Halifax 1943 – ordained 1974 – died: Toronto 2012), socius to two Provincials and then Provincial himself (1984-90), pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes.
– James Webb (born: Halifax 1944 – ordained 1973 – died: Pickering 2012) lifelong social apostolate in Canada and Jamaica, Regional Superior there and then Provincial here (2008-12).
With their presence and intercession, the nine of us rejoice and give thanks and now turn to today’s word of God.
A call always fresh
Proverbs like “a stitch in time saves nine” or “early to bed and early to rise…” are usually good advice about how to get along, given the way things are. But in today’s Gospel, the proverbs of Jesus about the birds and the foxes, about the dead and the plough – and St Paul considering everything else as garbage, though he used a stronger word not usually repeated in Church – are meant to rattle us free to embrace the radically “fresh” Good News of the Kingdom. I hope you feel shaken loose to listen, as in 1964 we seemed to be, when responding to God’s call.
The prophet Elijah begins by confessing the truth: “I am no better than my ancestors.” It is the same truth we find when the 32nd General Congregation raises the question, “What is it to be a Jesuit?” and begins the answer with, “It is to know that one is a sinner …”
Elijah then walked for forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God. And there he was invited to encounter God himself: “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” And there was a great wind … and there was an earthquake … and there was a fire … and finally there was “a still small voice, a sound of sheer silence”. And Elijah wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave to meet the Lord. And the Lord concludes by telling Elijah, “Go …”
Elijah’s story is so very moving to listen to, my dear friends. Even more, it suggests a pattern of vocation experience. So for Jesus, the baptism in the Jordan and the encounter with the Father and the Holy Spirit … forty days of temptations in the desert … and throughout His ministry, acceptance of His mission which was to be the Cross. And so too the fifty years of the nine of us, beginning with a calling followed by long formation, encountering the Lord, and receiving and living the mission.
In Elijah we may be able to read out the characteristic spirituality of a Jesuit vocation, with its double charge or mandate: to be ever attentive and ready to encounter God, and to be energetic and zealous in carrying out the mission the Society entrusts to each one. We sometimes sum it up as contemplative in action and finding God in all things.
With fidelity, perseverance and much Divine help, this can become the story of a whole lifetime. “No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” For the plough is light and the oxen unruly; if the ploughman daydreams or gets distracted, the furrow becomes crooked. And this leads to another historic occasion we are marking this year.
The plough wobbled
Besides nine Golden Jubilarians and another fourteen Jubilees ranging from 80 years in the Society to 25 years in priesthood, we are also celebrating the 200th anniversary of the restoration of the Society of Jesus.
The Society of Jesus was founded in 1540 and, 233 years later, there were about 22,500 Jesuits worldwide.
In 1773, the Society of Jesus was reluctantly suppressed by Pope Clement XIV who explained, enigmatically, that “… the Society is no longer able to produce the very rich fruits and usefulness for which it was founded …”
In 1814, thanks be to God, the Society was restored by Pope Pius VII. Thus, when our class entered the novitiate, it was exactly 150 years since the restoration. In 1964, the Upper Canada Province counted 475 members, and in 1965 the Society of Jesus world-wide just over 36,000 Jesuits. Both totals have proven to be the high-water mark.
If you consider the numbers declining since 1965, it may well be worth accepting the reason given by Pope Clement and turning it into a real question for reflection and evaluation: “Is the Society still able to produce the very rich fruits and usefulness for which it was founded?” The evident diminishment may be a different kind of suppression. Yet it makes possible for something new to be born, along the lines of a Society of Jesus within a larger Ignatian family including religious congregations, the Christian Life Community and individual Christians, all inspired by St Ignatius and all serving the People of God in various ways. Primarily, though, over the past 50 years we have witnessed, participated in and contributed to the working out of the renewal of the Church launched by the Ecumenical Council Vatican II in those same early 1960s. And as a whole century is usually needed for solid reform to take hold in the Church, we’re barely half-way there towards a full restoration. In this spirit, we pray for Pope Francis!
Fresh and grateful
For the five or rather nine of us, to be a Jesuit is to know that we are sinners yet called to be companions of Jesus as Ignatius was … and to engage, under the standard of the Cross, in the crucial struggle of our time. With St Paul we find our true right-standing in Christ – straining forward towards the Omega of the Resurrection. Let us “press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus” ad maiorem Dei gloriam.
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(All photographs are by Trevor Scott, SJ)