The themes for the following eight-day retreat pattern were based on the prayer, "A Vision for the Jesuits of our Province," in the document which was distributed to all the Jesuit members of the province of Upper Canada in 2004 -- Our Way Forward. The presenters were asked to give their presentations and homilies in harmony with the theme of the particular day of the retreat, but from their own perspective:
 

Suggested Focus And Grace Being Sought --
            We pray for a deep-felt awareness of God's desire to communicate God's Self with us as members of one body. We also seek a deep-felt understanding of the implications of this theme -- that God desires to be in a mutual relationship with:

• Each of us personally -- in a kind of mutual relationship which Ignatius describes in [231]. This implies that God desires also to be in a mutual relationship with us together ( ... where two or three are gathered in my name, I am in their midst  ... love one another as I have loved you ... Abba make them one as we are one ); 
• All the people with whom we work (our co-workers on every level); 
• All of us together with all of creation ( ... which groans with us ... becomes a new heaven and new earth ... ).

Spiritual Exercises --
          The Contemplation to Attain Love [231] summarizes our spirituality. It is a call to intimacy -- to be mutual with God and one another within our own communities and with all those with whom we work. This call to mutuality is found throughout the Exercises. It is present in the Kingdom Exercise [91] where we are called to join in the company of friends and present in the Note of the Contemplation to Attain Love [231] which describes the inner relationship with the Trinity, the fruit of that relationship with Jesus expressed in the call of the King.

Scripture --

Cultural And Historical Perspectives 
That Ought To Affect Our Prayer And Spirituality --

          What does it mean to be called into existence as part of the human family? We don't survive or exist or are saved without the help of others. We are co-creators with God and with each other. The very existence of our planet depends on the ability of men and women to transcend differences in culture and religion and to work with one another.

           The small band of Ignatius' companions was confronting a world in which a small band could really make a difference for the Church. Earlier in the history of our province, our small band could make a difference. But now that we are living in a different context, which calls for different kinds of interactions in the way we do ministry, our small band can no longer make a difference unless it operates in a manner different from the one to which we have been accustomed.

Shifts In Our Operative Images That We Are Being Called To Make --

Suggested Focus And Grace Being Sought --
           We pray for a deeper awareness of how we are caught and broken not only individually, but even more, institutionally and culturally, in the mystery of iniquity. Not only do we personally need a saviour, but the whole human race also needs a saviour if it is to survive. (Click here for an observation that shows how enmeshed we are in a system that goes beyond our "personal" sins.) 

Spiritual Exercises --
           The Second Point [51] of the First Exercise, First Week as well as the History [102] and First Point [106] of the Contemplation on the Incarnation capture this mystery of evil at work in us and in the human race.

Scripture --

Cultural And Historical Perspectives 
That Ought To Affect Our Prayer And Spirituality --

           We don't have to reflect very deeply on how the sins of greed and lust for power are very much alive throughout our world. Many "isms" that have emerged in our lifetime -- racism, materialism, nationalism, capitalism, communism, consumerism, sexism -- have been the ideologies that have entrenched these sins which have become the environment in which we live and breathe. These "isms" are part of the "culture of death." No doubt, each of us could add many things to the following short list:

• Murder of millions of Jews in gas chambers during the 1940's;
• Bombing of Vietnam with napalm;
• Eight-month terror during which 850,00 people were slaughtered in Rwanda.

• How does our split between the French-Canadian Jesuits and the English-Canadian Jesuits reflect our Canadian divide?
• What decisions, which we have helped to make, furthered and continue to further, the mystery of iniquity in the world?
• How is the story of the Tower of Babel relived in the communities and institutions to which we belong? 

Suggested Focus And Grace Being Sought --
            We can prepare for our prayer by exploring the implications in the above statements in order to appreciate our own blessed history in the Society of Jesus. We can remember the stories of our Jesuit Province and ponder the events of our history which illustrate aspects of this theme.

           We pray that we, not only as individuals, but more importantly, as smaller groups of Jesuits in cooperative collaboration with each other, can follow Jesus more closely now. This grace includes the desire to return love for love that is expressed in the Contemplation to Attain Love -- but now with a growing desire and willingness to do this WITH others who desire to work together WITH Jesus. The implication here is somewhat different from the personal, more individualistic call expressed in the Kingdom Exercise.

Spiritual Exercises --
            Here the context is the Second Week of the Exercises and the Call of the Apostles.

Scripture --

Cultural And Historical Perspectives 
That Ought To Affect Our Prayer And Spirituality --

           We have had to work "together" before and we have had corporate apostolates before. In some sense, the corporate apostolates have been a form of deciding and working together -- but not in the sense that the word communal means now. We have been working together as strong individualists -- each doing his thing within common institutions that defined for him what he had to do. We could work together by working through the superior as teachers work through the principal. The hierarchical structures with the working policies and procedures were carried out by highly individualized teachers. And this was true in our mission fields, in our parishes ... each person did his thing working contiguously, side by side, but not necessarily interdependently. Group meetings were held to parcel out bits of the work and determine the external working order of things but hardly ever to work through our common approach in our teaching. The experience of our corporate enterprises was that of individuals working as individuals, side by side, but not communally. To be private, to be a highly trained individual, to be able to function and be trusted as an individual, was something that we were definitely about. The stories of Francis Xavier and Canisius and the early brothers and priests of our own province were all about that! We learned well what we were taught in the novitiate: "Don't interfere in the office of another." Southern Ontario was dotted with little churches built by individual Jesuits arriving by horseback to preach missions and to establish Catholic centres of worship.

Shifts In Our Operative Images That We Are Being Called To Make --

Suggested Focus And Grace Being Sought --
            This theme is intended to lead us into an appreciation of the freedom we need individually and communally at this time in our province's history. Again, it may be helpful to reflect upon some stories from our Jesuit province's history which illustrate one or other of the above statements. We pray for a deep-felt awareness of the freedom we need, as a province of Jesuits, to be able to work together and to accept our lives and capabilities with humble realism.

Spiritual Exercises --
           We continue the Second Week praying to follow Jesus more closely in cooperative collaboration with each other as groups of Jesuits and colleagues. For this, we require the grace to stand communally in harmony under the sign of Jesus. Spiritual Freedom has at least three aspects to it:

• Workaholics who are extremely generous but who equate our value with apostolic work;
• Desirous to operate in the most efficient ways which include means of communication, travel, and use of technology;
• Individualists who, though obedient to our superiors in major assignments, are allowed free reign to determine individualistically our own priorities. 
• True believers in our hierarchical system because, at this time in our history, it unwittingly fosters our individualism.

• First, we believe that we possess the "royal jelly" -- the Jesuit mystique which influences the way we see each other, the way we program the rest of the church to see us, the way we work.
• Second, we trivialize each other. The reason for this is that we have such an exalted idea of the "more" of our vocation that we measure each other by it. We literally make it harder for each other to live up to the expectations of our order.

Cultural And Historical Perspectives 
That Ought To Affect Our Prayer And Spirituality --

           After the overwhelming experience of Jesus' encounter with the Father at his baptism, Jesus had to go through the desert experience to come to a freedom whereby he became free enough to follow the path of his humanity and move toward embracing his role as suffering servant. We, individually, and we, together, must somehow experience this same freedom to accept where we are in our own personal histories and be willing to embrace where we are as a province in order to serve according to the spiritual freedom of the Principle And Foundation [23] even in weakness, ordinariness and institutional diminution.

           Every institution goes through periods of large expansion and contraction. Many of us who are over 55 knew our Jesuit province in the days of expansion, but during the past twenty years we have come face-to-face with diminishment. At this point, it might be helpful to reflect upon the stories of those people in our province which show examples of persons acting together interdependently in times of expansion and in times of diminishment.

Shifts In Our Operative Images That We Are Being Called To Make --

Suggested Focus And Grace Being Sought --
      We pray for the grace of enlightenment and appropriate enthusiasm for the tasks that await us. This theme deals with the freedom "for". This freedom "for" is captured very well in the reflections of the late Bill McElcheran, the sculptor of Ignatius The Pilgrim, located both in the Aula of the Jesuit Curia in Rome, and on the grounds of Loyola House in Guelph, Ontario (see below). His reflections describe Ignatius in a very different world from ours. This freedom "for", for which we are seeking disposition and energy, is for kinds of actions that are different from those envisaged in Ignatius' world, and even more different from those in our world before 1970.

Spiritual Exercises --
           We are in the Second Week, particularly the freedom "for" of the Third Point of the meditation on Three Classes of Men. This Third Point articulates the ready eagerness of Ignatius' concept of indifference:

[155] These want to rid themselves of the attachment, but they wish to do so in such a way that they desire neither to retain nor to relinquish the sum acquired. They seek only to will and not will as God our Lord inspires them, and as seems better for the service and praise of the Divine Majesty. Meanwhile, they will strive to conduct themselves as if every attachment to it had been broken. They will make efforts neither to want that, nor anything else, unless the service of God our Lord alone move them to do so. As a result, the desire to be better able to serve God our Lord will be the cause of their accepting anything or relinquishing it.

Cultural And Historical Perspectives 
That Ought To Affect Our Prayer And Spirituality --

           Generally speaking, Jesuits -- like Mateo Ricci in the early days or like our more recent Jesuits in Darjeeling, Bhutan, and throughout other parts of India.-- have always been recognized as adaptable in a variety of situations. Bill Ryan, sj, a former provincial, called us "spiritual entrepreneurs" -- a phrase that captures this ability to adapt.

           Many of us can remember a time in our formative years, when we were exposed only to Jesuits for studies and retreats. We were talking only to ourselves. We were there to resource others; others were not there to resource us! In spite of this, we had a reputation for being adaptable. Perhaps this was due to the fact that we were institutional and exercised our ministry in terms of effective procedures in cultures supporting and accepting these procedures. But have we lost this ability of being adaptable now that we are becoming de-institutionalized? Yet our present historical situation requires us to be adaptable in ways different from the ways we needed to be adaptable during the past seventy-five years. Bill McElcheran, the sculptor of Ignatius The Pilgrim, writes:

"I have approached St. Ignatius as both a symbol and a person. The symbolic aspect of the saint has to do with the response of the Church to a changing world. Ignatius is probably the prototype of the modern Christian; going forth into the world carrying the cloister about his heart -- a very large cloister that has room for the whole of creation. This "going forth" is symbolized in the statue by the driving stance of the figure, leaning into the wind. The winds of change are not merely the force of evil, but nevertheless, the hand that clutches at the cloak is opposing the destructive power that accompanies them. But Ignatius is not merely pulling together the rent garment of the faith. The winds blow from the ends of the earth. They still blow from yet undiscovered reaches of creation. The challenge of the world is not just a menace; it is a living manifestation of God's power and the wonder of the Incarnation. Ignatius, the adventurer, responds. Just as St. Francis Xavier, Brebeuf and his brethren, and all the great Jesuit missionaries answered the call of the unknown knowing that Christ was to be found wherever they sought him, so too, the modern Jesuit can go down the many paths of the world knowing that Christ is always there and bringing his image printed upon his soul. The need for communication was important then as it is important now. We must speak to each other and find each other in Christ. The letter in the saint's hand symbolizes this communication. It is not merely symbolic, but comments upon the actual manner in which Ignatius conducted his apostolate. ... Ignatius was also very much a realist. His whole external life as head of a very active order must have appeared to be physically inactive. The great conquests that he was making through his interior life and his influence on the members of the order he founded, cannot be adequately expressed by dramatic gestures. He was more director than star performer and I feel that this must have been the greatest penance of his life. ..."

Shifts In Our Operative Images That We Are Being Called To Make --

Suggested Focus And Grace Being Sought --
     We pray for the grace of compassion with whomever we work and with whomever we meet.  Our hope is that we continue to grow in the following:

• Acceptance of life as it is and, in that acceptance, living out one's part in the paschal mystery;
• Appreciation of how our sufferings, strivings, thwarted energies are vehicles of God's grace for others;
• Appreciation of the Spiritual Exercises as a gift to share with one another and with those we serve.

Spiritual Exercises --
          This theme harmonizes with the Third Week. 

Scripture --

Cultural And Historical Perspectives 
That Ought To Affect Our Prayer And Spirituality --

           From our history we ought to remember that the Exercises were given to Ignatius as a layman and, as a layman, he directed others in the Exercises. Our own province has been instrumental in rediscovering the Exercises and has trained many non-Jesuits to use this instrument in their own ministry. Many people have discovered that elements of the Exercises can be very useful and practical in a variety of ministries. The Exercises are important today in the present history of spirituality for two reasons:

• Vatican II encouraged all religious orders to become more cognizant of their originating charism;
• In Western culture we have become psychologically literate and the Exercises have specific methods and tools to pay attention, from a spiritual perspective, to our personal interiority.

Suggested Focus And Grace Being Sought --
            We pray that we may learn to experience the energy from the Risen Lord as it is expressed in his body of believers. This theme is intended to help us grow in the awareness of the following:

• We work and live in the power of Jesus the Risen Lord;
• Jesus is with us where two or three are gathered in his name;
• We have many non-Jesuit associates and friends who share our ministries with us.

Spiritual Exercises --
            This theme harmonizes with the Fourth Week.

Scripture --

Cultural And Historical Perspectives
That Ought To Affect Our Prayer And Spirituality --

           Life never turns out the way we imagine it when we first commit ourselves to some significant project or endeavor. So it was for the disciples on the way to Emmaus. They were disappointed, and many of us become disappointed with the institutional church and with the Society of Jesus. As well, life doesn't change very much as a result of our ministry. Nor do we change very much after years and years of praying and striving to be faithful. And yet, in the whatever we are called to, we have to embrace what is, in order to allow Jesus to reveal to us the inner meaning much as he did at Emmaus. Thus, something more important happens. We see, in a new way, what we have embraced -- our eyes are opened. He is with us in a different way. So even now, we can notice the wonderful things that are happening:

• We are being invited to work in partnered collaboration with many non-Jesuits.
• Circumstances are inviting us to collaborate with people of other faiths and cultures.
• We are being invited to join the human race in developing one, huge, global co-operative.
• We are being encouraged to let go of our institutional pretensions to follow the simple Jesus that we fell in love with in an earlier day.
• We are being invited to de-mythologize and re-mythologize, to de-institutionalize and re-institutionalize, etc., etc., etc.

Suggested Focus And Grace Being Sought --
           We pray that we may learn to experience the energy from the Risen Lord as it is expressed and carried out through the multiplicity of gifts within his body of believers. This is a furthering of the last theme. This eighth theme is meant to lead us toward a deeper appreciation of this fact: our dependence on each other and our cooperation with each other are the MORE of our Jesuit service in our way forward at this time in our history.

Spiritual Exercises --
             This theme also harmonizes with the Fourth Week which leads us to the mystery of the Ascension -- a mystery that implies the coming of the Spirit, the gathering of believers to work together in the name of Jesus with the energy of his Spirit.

Scripture --

Cultural And Historical Perspectives
That Ought To Affect Our Prayer And Spirituality --

           When our Jesuit province was first founded, much of our work was involved in helping new immigrants to establish themselves within the mainstream of Canadian society. We helped to develop a Roman Catholic school system and to ensure that Roman Catholics were able to get good jobs. In this ministry we helped them to keep their identity and to preserve their faith. It was a pioneering work, and our image of what we had to do was clear because it was a pattern that we had followed for years.

           Now, we are moving quickly into a totally different situation. This is the moment to apply an image that Marshall McLuhan gave us over thirty years ago. We can no longer move forward looking through the rearview mirror! [Image by André Jolicoeur - click here for his website]  The future of our planet depends on whether we have the courage to put our individualism aside and act in new ways together with a kind of interdependence that few of us have known -- to put aside our private agendas and deal with more pressing communal agendas. Our environmental, social, and underlying spiritual problems can no longer be dealt with significantly by individuals working individualistically. The individual, mutli-gifted pioneer is no longer what our world requires. The speed of our computerized mass communication, the knowledge and media explosion, the depleting forests and ozone layers, the chemicals in our ground waters, and the overdependence of the western world on oil reserves, have made individualism obsolete. Individuals can no longer prevent the ten-dollar chicken in a Jamaican store from becoming a twenty-five dollar chicken. 

          In former days, decision-making was always made with some idea of what the future context would look like; now we have no idea of the future context with one exception -- if we want to act significantly, responsibly, and with relevance, we are called to make decisions and to take apostolic actions with a new kind of interdependence.

           We are being called to witness a new way of interacting in our world. That part of our institutional church which is so heavily invested in the rearview-mirror approach needs the witness of our communal visions and actions. Not only must we make decisions and work together communally with a newer kind of interdependence and collaboration, but NOW the people who make the decisions must also be the SAME PEOPLE who implement the decisions. There are several reasons for this:

• We can no longer predict the number, quality, or educational background of those who will be called to implement the decisions and carry out the work.
• We are no longer impelled or motivated by a common worldview with the hierarchical and institutional belief that God's will is identified with the superior's will unless there has been a communal process of decision-making. There may still be external obedience of execution but no longer internal obedience of understanding and conviction.
• Most of those who might be asked to follow the institutional, hierarchical decision-makers may have more skills, education, and creativity to respond to the apostolic needs in a manner different from what the decision-makers envisioned.
• We, as Jesuits, have a penchant for philosophizing, theorizing, and talking about and around things and issues without committing ourselves to them unless we ourselves have made and participated both in the decision-making and in the implementing of those decisions. (Return to introductory comments.)