Column 78 Jesuits go out to the desert to pray
By ROBERT F. DRINAN
When 78 men come together
voluntarily to pray for eight days in silence, it is a phenomenal event. That's
the number of Jesuits that gathered together this year for their annual
retreat, and no one considered it unusual. Jesuits of the eastern provinces
have been gathering for some years at the former Jesuit novitiate at
Wernersville, a town near Reading, Pa. It is an event with lingering spiritual
effects. I found it awesome and inspiring to be with these Jesuits. They are
men of distinguished accomplishments. They have the same feelings of
frustration and failure that every middle-aged Catholic has at the apparent
decline in the institutional church.
Wernersville, once filled with 250 Jesuit novices and seminarians,
is now almost empty, like scores of similar institutions across the
country.
The novitiate prompted thousands of memories of the day when
religious life was rigid in its rules and when Catholicism was portrayed as a
religion under siege. What changed? Was there a reaction against the excessive
formalism? Or did the country become so pervasively secular that religious
institutions and especially vocations to the priesthood came to be perceived as
almost irrelevant.
Few clear answers were available to the Jesuits who prayed for the
eight days. They were led by the skilled direction of Jesuit Fr. George
Aschenbrenner, former novice master and noted expert on the spiritual exercises
of St. Ignatius. But if there were questions and misgivings about the future of
the Society of Jesus and even the church in America, those concerns were
temporarily set aside. The first obligation of everyone is to pursue
self-sanctification, and the Jesuits showed by their unbroken silence and
impressive devotion that they recognize that. If holiness is one's desire, God
will bring about whatever results he wants from the prayers and aspirations of
those who believe in him.
In retreat, one almost inevitably sees one's failings: excessive
attachment to learning, addiction to worldly things and an obsession with
trivia. Even a few days without the often inconsequential pursuits of daily
life makes vivid the centrality of holiness, the abiding presence of God and
the beauty of the invisible church, the mystical body of Christ. By the second
day of the retreat, everything else seems unimportant and even banal. Why, why,
the retreatant asks himself, can't this attitude be retained? From previous
experiences, the person who has solemnly set aside eight days to pray in
silence knows that he will relapse into what the spiritual writers used to call
"effusio ad exteriora" -- a scattering of one's energies on external things.
Silence amid the hills of central Pennsylvania produces insights
and revelations. Indeed, one feels that the truths revisited have never really
been seen before. The mysteries of the cross and resurrection hit one as if
they were new revelations. How could I have been this blind and deaf? Where
have I been? I have allowed the world to drown out the voice of my creator,
redeemer and sanctifier.
But the periods of realizing acutely the presence of God recede to
the disheartening realization of the frightening problems God's church faces in
America. Is the decline, even the disintegration, of the organized church due
to the neglect and lack of holiness of those in charge? If there were a
collective admission of guilt and sincere conversion by church professionals,
would the devotion of the once faithful be revived? Would the millions of
fallen-away Catholics return? Hard and imponderable questions. But they are
inescapable for those who pause to consider their own responsibility for a
church that is stumbling and groping in a world that deems belief in the
supernatural to be irrelevant or even foolish.
The retreat in Pennsylvania placed special emphasis on the decrees
of the 34th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus in 1994. That year,
some 300 Jesuits out of the 24,000 Jesuits in the world prayed and deliberated
in Rome for over three months. Their recommendations focused on the continued
need to link the promotion of faith with the advancement of justice. The
congregation also issued an extraordinarily compelling statement on women --
specifically, how the church and the Society of Jesus have denied the basic
right to equality to women in the church and in the world. All of these
mandates were the subject of extended prayer by the Jesuits at
Wernersville.
The cosmic thrust of the directives of the 34th General
Congregation focused my mind on the unbelievable reality that God has a
special, unique love for every single one of his 5.7 billion sons and daughters
in the human family. God extends loving care to each of them as if they alone
existed in the entire world. And each of them has the aspirations, the
yearnings for God and the thirst for justice that come to all human beings from
God himself. He is an awesome and majestic God beyond all imagining.
There are literally thousands of graces that come during this
annual retreat. One that became prominent in my mind was the solidarity and
companionship that Jesuits share. St. Ignatius planned it that way when he
named the order the companions of Jesus. The constitutions provide in dozens of
ways for a society that, despite its presence in 120 nations, has pervasive
fraternal spirit. That is why the departure of any Jesuit from the Society is
so painful, so wrenching, so crushing.
On the morning after the retreat, it was edifying to talk to the
Jesuits about their reflections. One priest, having spent 32 years in India,
said that the Maryland province had made a magnificent contribution to that
region. The church in his area of India now has 150 priests, 150 seminarians
and some 250 nuns. The Maryland province was quite literally the creator of the
church in that part of the world. Three African seminarians from Nigeria, whose
hymns during the liturgy were moving beyond description, expressed gratitude
for the heroic efforts of New York Jesuits in their country. A seminarian from
Chile related all that the U.S. Jesuits had done for his country, especially
during the dark days of the dictatorship.
Every retreat leaves memories and graces that are indelible in the
soul. I remember vividly one morning at 5:50 a.m. The sunrise was spectacular.
The grounds were resplendent. The whistle of a freight train echoed up the
valley. My life as a Jesuit passed before me as I recalled my own novitiate 50
years ago in scenes like this.
How did I ever have the grace and the good sense to join the
Jesuits who have been so supportive and so brotherly to me for all of these
years? How am I worthy to share the brotherhood of these companions of
Jesus?
The Jesuit retreat of 1996 will always be special days in my life.
God usually hides himself but on those days he revealed himself to me. Though I
cannot find words to express the content of his revelation, I know that my
faith is stronger, my hope is more grounded and my love of God and humankind
much deeper.
Jesuit Fr. Robert Drinan is a professor at Georgetown
University Law Center.
National Catholic Reporter, December 13,
1996
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