Renewal of consecrated religious life: learning with Jesuits

By M K George

Rome, May 26, 2023: In May this year, the Jesuits had their Procurators’ Congregation in Loyola, Spain – a meeting of 88 representatives from all the provinces and regions.

In the meeting they deliberated and discerned on the status of the Society of Jesus, the ways ahead in the Mission of Jesus and whether a General Congregation/Chapter should be called. Overall, it was a fruitful time of collective self-examination, prayers and deliberations for a renewed religious life.

As a participant, while walking within the vicinity of Loyola, the birthplace of St. Ignatius of Loyola, I saw a huge building on a hillock, a convent. In that house which could easily accommodate a hundred people, now hardly twenty live. All consecrated women above sixty years. It is only a question of few years, when the building would be sold and the few remaining will move to some old age home.

Many of the Catholic religious congregations, both men and women, are struggling. Some are dying. So the question remains, how will the consecrated religious life survive?

Granting that this mode of life is fundamentally faith-based, the ultimate answer is of course, it will survive, if God wants it to. Meanwhile, what can the members of such religious congregations do on their part?

Lessons from Vatican II

The answer that was given by Vatican II remains valid even today: ‘The appropriate renewal of religious life involves two simultaneous processes: a continuous return to the sources of all Christian life and to each community’s original inspiration, and an adjustment of the community to the changed conditions of the times.”

True to this spirit, many congregations are engaged in a process of renewal. The Jesuit gathering at the birthplace of their founder, literally getting back to the source of the founder’s conversion experience, the room where after a long convalescence, Ignatius experienced the call that led to his sainthood, is a case in point.

Some of the lessons that the Jesuits learnt there are valuable for all religious congregations. I highlight three: Deepening one’s love for Jesus, humble and poor, reading the signs of the times through the eyes of the Holy Trinity and responding with audacity to the call of Jesus the Lord.

Jesus, humble and poor:

Religious life will find its meaning only when Jesus, humble and poor becomes the model, which the religious follow. Over the centuries, the Jesus many follow has become rich and arrogant. One phrase that was heard in the hall was ‘the weight of the institutions’ which keep religious away from Jesus, humble and poor.

Will the religious men and women have the courage to get back to Jesus, humble and poor is the most basic issue in the survival of religious life.

Reading the signs of the times:

The words of Pope Francis resounded in the discussions: ‘We are all aware that we are living not only in an age of change but also of epochal change that raises new and old questions which call for a justified and necessary debate.”

Religious cannot be giving old answers to new questions. The intellectual lethargy and lack of depth of social analysis that have crept into religious life can kill its spirit.

Violence ever on increase, the widening rich poor divide, migration along with trafficking of human beings, drugs and arms, the looming environmental doom, growing fundamentalism, the pandemics, along with an increasingly insensitive political elite taking recourse to populism, polarisation and post truth tactics and most tragically faith and hope dying in the hearts of millions, are realities in front of everyone.

All these call a contemporary religious to serious study, reflection and discernment to comprehend the sociopolitical reality in which s/he lives and works.

The audacity of the improbable/Impossible

In the 36th General Congregation of the Jesuits, in 2016, Dominican Master Father Cadoré had challenged the Jesuit delegates that they needed the same mindset as of the Gospel, ‘daring to aim for the improbable.”

Seven years into the living of the call to ‘live as companions in a mission of reconciliation and Justice,’ and chastened by the Covid pandemic, lesser number of members and host of other problems, the Jesuits gathered in Loyola reaffirmed their commitment to being ‘collaborators in the reconciliation of all things in Christ.’

A note of Hope

Father Arturo Sosa, the superior general, concluding the meeting on the feast of Ascension said, “ours is a powerful call to trust in the one who has called us to this way of life. He is not gone forever. The admonition to look out into the world again with confidence, to set out, trusting in the one who calls, surely reminded his disciples of the closing words of Matthew’s gospel: and know that I am with you always, to the end of the age.

“Therefore, with renewed trust and placing all our Hope in Him, let us go out into the world fearlessly announcing the Joyful News of the certain possibility of reconciliation with the coming of the kingdom of justice, love and peace.”

The million-dollar question: Will consecrated religious life survive?

Whether the consecrated religious life will survive is ultimately the plan of the Divine. In the meanwhile, the religious men and women can and should do something. They are called to read critically the signs of the times, follow Jesus, humble and poor and respond with audacity to build a kingdom of justice, love and peace.

The consecrated religious women and men of the future must be ‘poor, humble and learned.’

(Father M K George in charge of the South Asian region at the Jesuit headquarters in Rome. He is a former provincial of the Kerala Jesuit province.)