Posted: April 28

A high church week

(Rome) I have spent more time this week with the official Church than in quite a while. Last Saturday we had a solemn Mass in St. Peter's Basilica on the Feast of Our Lady, Mother of the Society of Jesus. The day commemorates the vows that five of the first Jesuits took after the Society was approved. This year Jesuits around the world had special Masses to commemorate the Jubilee year honoring Francis Xavier, Ignatius and Pierre Favre. Here in Rome, Jesuits and friends filled the huge basilica for a Mass at which Cardinal Angelo Sodano presided. After Mass Pope Benedict came for an audience.

I sat with hundreds of other Jesuit priest concelebrants to the side of the main altar. It was a new perspective for me since most of the liturgies I have been at in St. Peter's were celebrated in the space behind the main altar. From my seat close to the baldochino and altar I had a keen sense of just how big the church actually is. I also had a keen sense of the privilege of being part of this group of men. Feeling thankful was easy and I mostly prayed out of a sense of being with my brothers, men from all over the world. The Mass itself was "high church", as one would expect in St. Peter's, but it was much more prayerful than the Christmas Eve Mass I attended when I first got to Rome. The friends the Society has are also a prayerful group and it was good to pray with them. When the Holy Father arrived, people clapped but did not carry on like I have sometimes seen. The pope himself seemed at ease and said nice things about us. Ignatius' desire to serve the Church has clearly born fruit and we Jesuits are recognized as continuing to do that.

This morning I met with another group of churchmen, the bishops of Ghana, who have come from Africa to make one of their periodic visits to the Holy See. They are having a two-day seminar at the Gregorian University on the topic of communication, so I was happy to be invited to speak to them. My topic was "Today's people and tomorrow's technology." Actually, I just tried to get them to reflect on themselves as communicators and then think about how they could take advantage of the new technology that has been developed. They were very receptive and are in the process of trying to implement some things we discussed. And they also recognized the Society's role of serving the Church. Plus, they liked the presentation I gave using Apple's Keynote program which is much smoother than Microsoft's Power Point. Every once in a while it is enjoyable to be the teacher again and work with a group in person.