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Posted: November 15
I celebrated Mass yesterday in a small chapel on the first floor of the Curia with two Jesuits who came to Rome at my invitation to be part of a consultation on "Religion in the Age of Communication." Fr. Philip Heng is novice master in Singapore and author of a daily scripture reflection that goes out by email to 6000+ people. Fr. Mark Link is a very popular author who has written books on catechetics and devotion that have won him wide acclaim. Of course, he is also contemplating a new web magazine. Five other men came from all over the world to take part in three intense days of reflection on what we are doing--and what we could be doing--in communicating a renewed practice of religion in ordinary life. And therein lies many hours of work for me to digest and write up the results of a very successful meeting. But yesterday I was just tired, "fried" is the word that comes to mind.
Instead of resting I found myself sitting in an airplane on the tarmac at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam waiting to fly to Capetown, South Africa (where I am now writing these words). I have come here for a meeting of Signis, the Church's new communication organization. In a way, I would just as soon be back in Rome relaxing by working in the garden or dodging traffic while bicycling out into the countryside beyond Rome. Instead I was sitting in a 747, writing in a notebook and thinking back to Florissant.
The community at the Curia would have celebrated the feast of one of the three young saints the Society of Jesus produced, but it probably was not anything extraordinary, certainly nothing like what we did when I first entered the Jesuits, way back in 1964, at St. Stanislaus Seminary, just outside of St. Louis, Missouri. That was the patron feast of the novitiate/juniorate which was full of almost 100 men going through the first four years of formation as Jesuits.
I remember many men whose faces are linked to the experiences that carry so much weight because they happened at the very beginning of my religious life. I could even recall the smell that autumn rains brought to the forests surrounding the property out towards the Mississippi River. Of course, all those faces were thinner then than they were the last time I saw the men who are still Jesuits. But mostly I remember going down to the playing field, where we had a gloriously energetic game of football between the novices and Juniors, who normally never had recreation together.
Mostly I sat quietly in a kind of wonderment. Never did I imagine back then that I would live in Rome, or work with Father General or go flying around the world. I was only beginning to discover film through the grace of Fr. John Walsh who brought in the movies of Federico Fellini, Ingemar Bergmann, Francois Truffaut among so many others. He sparked a commitment to art in a large group of us; that interest has only grown stronger over time.
And that is what I gave thanks for as I stood around the altar celebrating a Polish nobleman who gave up great wealth and privilege to be a companion in the Society of Jesus. We three could claim no such heroism and had only known each other for a few days, but we already tapped into a deep companionship that took root long ago and has thrown up new blossoms far beyond my dreams. For the future- who knows. I am excited to see what comes next..
Now I am at a computer in the Jesuit community at Capetown. I just celebrated the Mass for the feast of St. Joseph Pignatelli with Peter Mukome, a young Jesuit from Zimbabwe who picked me up from the airport and brought me here. He is studying literature now as I was back in Florissant. Although we are far apart by age and come from different nations, we share that same root and could pray easily as brothers. I don't think I understand the power of that simple truth when I took the first steps of being a Jesuit, but I do understand it now. And I treasure it.
Note: the date is off on this entry because Peter pointed out several spelling errors to me when he read the entry. He has young eyes and a sharp mind; and I plead not guilty because of jet lag. But the spelling errors needed to be corrected. So I removed yesterday's post and corrected it, before putting it up again.
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