New Jesuit Review 2010 Vol. 1, No. 2 ------------------- The Salvation of Souls and the Glory of God Download this file as PDF by Fr. John Gavin, S.J. John Gavin, S.J., is a lector in Greek and Patristics at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. On January 15, 1544, St. Francis Xavier wrote to his companions in Rome from Cochin, in India, describing his incessant labors on behalf of the people in the region. The great Jesuit missionary was exhausting himself in baptizing, teaching, visiting the sick, and burying the dead. He traveled from village to village, attracting large crowds who sought his prayers and his counsel. His only regret was that there were so few missionaries to respond to the desperate hunger of the people for Christ. He wrote: Many fail to become Christians in these regions because they have no one who is concerned with such pious and holy matters. Many times I am seized with the thought of going to the schools in your lands and of crying out there, like a man who has lost his mind, and especially at the University of Paris, telling those in the Sorbonne who have a greater regard for learning than desire to prepare themselves to produce fruit with it: “How many souls fail to go to glory and go instead to hell through their neglect!” And thus, as they make progress in their studies, if they would study the accounting which God our Lord will demand of them and of the talent which has been given to them, many of them would be greatly moved and, taking means and making spiritual exercises to know the will of God within their soul, they would say, conforming themselves to it rather than to their own inclinations: “Lord, here I am! What would you have me do? Send me wherever you will, and if need be, even to the Indies!” St. Francis’ zeal illustrates an essential desire that inspires the mission of the Society of Jesus: the greater glory of God through the salvation of souls. St. Ignatius himself, in a letter to Francis in 1552, confirmed this animating principle when he wrote that he was praying that the people in the East “may leave its infidelity and come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, our salvation, and of the salvation of their own souls.” While the Society may be involved in a variety of apostolates – teaching, parishes, chaplaincy – its efforts always aim toward the magis that leads to the perfection of man redeemed and transformed in Jesus. The connection between the Glory of God and the salvation of souls shapes the formation of the Society’s members and gives all Jesuit apostolates their distinctive character. In the Spiritual Exercises, the Principle and Foundation succinctly explains the purpose of man’s existence: “Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.” This mission to give glory to God, however, does not entail a selfish concentration upon one’s own salvation, as the General Examen clearly shows: “The end of this Society is to devote itself with God’s grace not only to the salvation and perfection of the members’ own souls, but also with that same grace to labor strenuously in giving aid toward the salvation and perfection of the souls of their neighbors.” For the Society, the Greater Glory of God shines forth in man truly alive, a free creature fully expressing the divine image through an intimate union with Christ. The salvation and perfection of souls, therefore, lies at the heart of the Jesuit mission in the Church, since man truly glorifies God when he abandons sin, grows in virtue, and freely embraces Jesus’ gift of salvation through the Cross. The connection established between the mission to “praise, reverence and serve God” and the “salvation of souls” has its roots in the existential appropriation of the Scriptures that defined St. Ignatius’ life. Hugo Rahner, in his Ignatius the Theologian, makes the case for a Scotist reading of the Spiritual Exercises in order to enter more fully into their Christological and scriptural dynamic. In the Scotist tradition, the Incarnation of the divine Word represents the very end for which all things were created, and not simply a response to man’s fall from grace, since “by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities -- all things have been created through Him and for Him” (Col. 1: 16). God created man that His glory might shine forth through the Word made flesh and man might enter into divine union through the personal appropriation of the Son. The true “foundation” of creation, therefore, is found in the Incarnation and man must establish his life upon this foundation in order to proclaim God’s glory. The tragedy of sin, however, crippled man in his imitation of Christ and in his pilgrimage toward divine union. His monstrous rejection of the Creator demanded that the earth itself swallow him up as an abomination; but the just punishment was stayed by the divine philanthropia manifested in the Son’s free offering upon the Cross. Jesus’ obedience to the Father both healed the breach between God and man, and revealed the tragic consequences of sin. In the salvific order, Jesus’ life and sacrifice become a sacramentum that effects redemption and divine union, and an exemplum that teaches man how to reorder his life according to the foundation of his existence. God’s greater glory manifests itself in man’s separation from sin and his return to the foundation of his creation, Jesus himself. This means, in the words of Hugo Rahner, “saying ‘yes’ to the crucified Christ, because the incarnate Word alone is that perfect man in whom and through whom alone we are enabled to revere, praise and serve the Creator and Lord.” Thus, “the salvation of souls” involves not only the liberation from sin in Christ, but also a restoration of the divine image in man, which finds its archetype in the perfect man through whom all were made, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. God is glorified both in his mercy through the Son and in his image growing in splendor through man united with Jesus. The genius of St. Ignatius is found in the way he teaches the exercitant to contemplate, appropriate, and live the pattern of Jesus’ life, while also growing in an abandonment to divine grace and mercy. St. Ignatius, like many Fathers of the Church, teaches the way in which the Christian, living his vocation in the Church, may cooperate with the power of grace and be transformed into the living image of Jesus: “Thus the working of the Father, which endows all with existence, is found to be more glorious and splendid, when each one, through participation in Christ in his character of wisdom and knowledge and sanctification, advances and comes to higher degrees of perfection” (Origen of Alexandria, De prin.). The man who lives according to this pattern not only finds his own perfection, but also takes on Christ’s mission to bring all men to the Father. Jerome Nadal, one of the first companions, explains this radical imitation of Christ in one of his spiritual conferences: Regarding the end of the Society, it is above all possible to cite numerous passages from the Constitutions: the end is that which one does for the greater glory of God Our Lord. In the bull of approval, it is a question of “the defense and propagation of the faith”, that is to say, of our salvation and our perfection, as well as the salvation and perfection of the neighbor through divine grace . . . We understand this double end to be found in our striving for the greater glory of God and for all souls by aiding them in all things. Thus, we seek the same end for which Christ our savior came into the world: to die in order that no one may be lost. This is why we read “that the blood of Christ may not be spilled in vain”, that there be no one among you who, in order to attain this end, who would not be ready to die for the Indians or for Germany. To this we have been called. In seeking to praise God through the salvation of souls – his own and that of others – a Jesuit uses the Greater Glory of God as his measure. This is what distinguishes the Society from other religious congregations: instead of seeking to effect its mission through a particular distinguishing characteristic or work (e.g., austerity of life, the recitation of the divine office), a Jesuit discerns the means to achieve the greatest good for souls using God’s glory itself as the measure. In the words of Achille Gagliardi, S.J.: “ . . . the glory of God is assumed fully, without limits and determinations . . . For us, the glory of God, being our end in all its breadth, is the measure of the quest for our own salvation and perfection, as well as for that of others.” Two meditations from the Spiritual Exercises illustrate how the exercitant comes to embrace the mission to glorify God through the salvation of souls. The first is the meditation on Hell from the First Week. The point of this exercise is “to ask for interior sense of the pain which the damned suffer, in order that, if, through my faults, should I forget the love of the Eternal Lord, at least the fear of the pains may help me not to come into sin.” Ignatius guides the exercitant toward a graphic and frightening contemplation of the eternal torments with the “wailings, howlings, cries, blasphemies against Christ our Lord and against all His Saints”. He is to smell “smoke, sulphur, dregs and putrid things”; he is to taste “bitter things, like tears, sadness and the worm of conscience”; he is to touch the fires and the burning souls. The experience of Hell shows the retreatant the horrors of sin, and awakens in him a deep sadness and a desire for God’s mercy. The exercise concludes, as always, with a colloquy in which one brings to memory “the souls that are in Hell, some because they did not believe the Coming, others because, believing, they did not act according to His Commandments.” Hell, therefore, is not a mere metaphor in this meditation, but a graphic experience of the horror of damnation. Three particular effects emerge from this experience. First, the mediation on hell shatters the exercitant’s complacency and awakens him to the genuine punishment that awaits him if he dies in the state of sin. Though a lesser motive than love, the fear of damnation serves as a goad to keep one away from sin and to move him toward a greater dependence on Christ. Ignatius recognized that through one’s faults one could forget “the eternal love of the Lord”, but the memory of Hell could steer him back toward Jesus. Romano Guardini conveys the importance of this spiritual attitude that the Exercises cultivates: “I can become a Christian only as long as I am conscious of the possibility of falling away.” Second, the meditation on Hell reveals the overwhelming mercy of God in Jesus. Hell – eternal separation from God – represents the condign punishment for man in his rejection of the Creator. But God did not abandon man to this just punishment, instead redeeming him through the sacrifice of the Cross. Thus, Ignatius tells the exercitant “to consider how up to now He has always had so great pity and mercy on me.” This mercy and pity are the fruit of Jesus’ victory, the overwhelming love of the Father who embraces his lost sons and daughters. Third, this meditation, understood within the overarching context of man’s creation for the greater Glory of God, inspires the retreatant to dedicate himself to the salvation of his soul and the souls of others. One leaves this harrowing apprehension of damnation with a deep realization that something is at stake: God’s greater glory in the salvation of souls. Nothing, in fact, can diminish God’s glory, since, as Gagliardi notes, “even if creatures do not desire it and do not cooperate, God still receives glory from them” through their very existence or through God’s just punishment. But God’s glory in its truest sense comes through man fully alive and freely seeking perfection: “Man fully alive is the glory of God (St. Irenaeus of Lyons). Damnation does not thwart the divine plan; but it manifests man’s failure to praise God through leading others to sanctity. One therefore cannot remain indifferent to the salvation of his own soul or to that of others, since every man risks the possibility of eternal torments, while every soul united with Christ manifests God’s majesty and splendor. Again, Gagliardi notes that this meditation “will help us also to acquire zeal for souls: while we detest wholeheartedly the mortal sins of our neighbor, we undertake to come to his rescue.” Another meditation that illustrates the necessity to seek perfection as a way of praising God is the Call of the Temporal King in the Second Week of the Exercises, a meditation which calls one to “the imitation of and assimilation into Christ, a vocation to which all are called and which is an objective fact of history” (I. Iparraguirre). Ignatius begins by asking the retreatant to imagine a temporal king about to set out on mission to “conquer the lands of unbelievers”. This king, magnificent in his heroic virtues and inspiring in his choice of mission, attracts eager followers. But if they wish to join him, there is a price to pay: “Therefore, whoever would like to come with me is to be content to eat as I, and also to drink and dress, etc., as I: likewise he is to labor like me in the day and watch in the night, etc., that so afterwards he may have part with me in the victory, as he has had it in the labors.” Whoever wishes to follow this king must also imitate him in all his virtues, trials, sufferings and deprivations; but whoever follows him to the end will also share in his victory. Next, Ignatius transfers the exercitant from a temporal king to Christ the King. Here, one is encouraged to seek the magis: And as to the first Point, if we consider such a call of the temporal King to his subjects, how much more worthy of consideration is it to see Christ our Lord, King eternal, and before Him all the entire world, which and each one in particular He calls, and says: “It is My will to conquer all the world and all enemies and so to enter into the glory of My Father; therefore, whoever would like to come with Me is to labor with Me, that following Me in the pain, he may also follow Me in the glory.” Jesus’ desire is “to conquer all the world and all enemies and so to enter into the glory of my Father”, that is, to overcome sin and to glorify the Father through the redemption and restoration of man. Jesus wishes to enter into the glory that he had since the beginning of the world, but not alone: he calls men to follow Him through a radical gift of self and an imitation of his life. This generous invitation of Jesus demands a generous response, a response that exceeds the reply given to the temporal king. For some men, this will entail a truly radical act of self-abandonment as an act of praise and reverence for God: . . . those who will want to be more devoted and signalise themselves in all service of their King Eternal and universal Lord, not only will offer their persons to the labor, but even, acting against their own sensuality and against their carnal and worldly love, will make offerings of greater value and greater importance, saying: “Eternal Lord of all things, I make my oblation with Thy favor and help, in the presence of Thy infinite Goodness and in the presence of Thy glorious Mother and of all the Saints of the heavenly Court; that I want and desire, and it is my deliberate determination, if only it be Thy greater service and praise, to imitate Thee in bearing all injuries and all abuse and all poverty of spirit, and actual poverty, too, if Thy most Holy Majesty wants to choose and receive me to such life and state.” The man who responds to the call of Christ the King “will make offerings of greater value and greater importance”. He will not content himself with the minimum, but will seek the magis in even the most trivial details of his life. He will strive to share in the sufferings of Christ in order to conquer himself and conquer the world for Him. All this for the Lord’s “greater service and praise”. Regarding the salvation of the Jesuit’s soul and glorification of God, the Constitutions of the Society contain numerous references to the need for personal perfection and sanctity. In the novitiate, the novices seek to procure “a continuous increase of integrity and virtues and intense desires in our Lord to give great service in this Society to his Divine majesty” (EG, 98). Those in formation must be taught “what pertains to abnegation of themselves, the virtues, and all perfection, and should exhort one another to these things, particularly to union and fraternal charity” (III, 280). In fact, this is the goal of Jesuit formation: the making of saints, masterworks of God who shine as lights of the divine majesty and lead others to that light. The better to arrive at this degree of perfection which is so precious in the spiritual life, his [a Jesuit’s] chief and most earnest endeavor would be to seek in our Lord his greater abnegation and continual mortification in all things possible; and our endeavor should be to help him in those things to the extent that our Lord gives us his grace, for his greater praise and glory (EG, 103). In turn, the Society forms its members in order to lead others to perfection. The choice of the apostolate emerges from the discernment regarding the greatest good for souls: giving the Spiritual Exercises, the celebration of Mass, hearing confessions, preaching, teaching, writing, spiritual conversations, visiting the sick and helping the poor – all these works extend the formation of the Jesuit to all Christians in their common vocation to imitate the Lord. The Constitutions illustrate the apostolic priority of the perfection of souls in its treatment of formation after the novitiate. The spiritual growth of a scholastic does not remain an insular affair, but must become fecund, especially within the colleges and universities entrusted to the Society’s care. The end steadfastly pursued by the Society is to aid its own members and their neighbors in attaining the ultimate end for which they were created. For this, in addition to the example of one’s life, learning and skill in expounding it are required. Hence, once the proper foundation of abnegation of themselves and the needed progress in virtues is seen to be present in the new members, it will be necessary to provide for the edifice of learning and skill employing it so as to help make God our Creator and Lord better known and served. For this, the Society undertakes colleges as well as some universities, where those who prove themselves worthy in the houses but have entered the Society unequipped with the necessary learning may be instructed therein and in the other means of helping souls . . . (IV, 307) The Society of Jesus always finds its inspiration in an imitatio Christi. Jesus, in his earthly life, desired that “his existence be nothing else than a pure glorification of the Father: He came not to do his own will, but the will of the Father; not to proclaim His own teachings, but those of the one who sent him” (H. U. von Balthasar). Thus, the Society, too, renders itself a “glorification of the Father” through self-abnegation, growth in virtue, and the fulfillment of the divine will in service to the Church. The real fruit of its mission manifests itself in the saints, both well-known – St. Ignatius, St. Francis Xavier, St. Francis Borgia, St. Edmund Campion, St. Alberto Hurtardo – and unknown, both lay and religious, who glorify God as shining images of the Son. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam. Comment on this Article

New Jesuit

Review

2010

Vol. 1, No. 2

-------------------

The Salvation of Souls and the Glory of God

Download this file as PDF

by Fr. John Gavin, S.J.

John Gavin, S.J., is a lector in Greek and Patristics at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome.

On January 15, 1544, St. Francis Xavier wrote to his companions in Rome from Cochin, in India, describing his incessant labors on behalf of the people in the region. The great Jesuit missionary was exhausting himself in baptizing, teaching, visiting the sick, and burying the dead. He traveled from village to village, attracting large crowds who sought his prayers and his counsel. His only regret was that there were so few missionaries to respond to the desperate hunger of the people for Christ. He wrote:

Many fail to become Christians in these regions because they have no one who is concerned with such pious and holy matters. Many times I am seized with the thought of going to the schools in your lands and of crying out there, like a man who has lost his mind, and especially at the University of Paris, telling those in the Sorbonne who have a greater regard for learning than desire to prepare themselves to produce fruit with it: “How many souls fail to go to glory and go instead to hell through their neglect!” And thus, as they make progress in their studies, if they would study the accounting which God our Lord will demand of them and of the talent which has been given to them, many of them would be greatly moved and, taking means and making spiritual exercises to know the will of God within their soul, they would say, conforming themselves to it rather than to their own inclinations: “Lord, here I am! What would you have me do? Send me wherever you will, and if need be, even to the Indies!”

St. Francis’ zeal illustrates an essential desire that inspires the mission of the Society of Jesus: the greater glory of God through the salvation of souls. St. Ignatius himself, in a letter to Francis in 1552, confirmed this animating principle when he wrote that he was praying that the people in the East “may leave its infidelity and come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, our salvation, and of the salvation of their own souls.” While the Society may be involved in a variety of apostolates – teaching, parishes, chaplaincy – its efforts always aim toward the magis that leads to the perfection of man redeemed and transformed in Jesus. The connection between the Glory of God and the salvation of souls shapes the formation of the Society’s members and gives all Jesuit apostolates their distinctive character.

In the Spiritual Exercises, the Principle and Foundation succinctly explains the purpose of man’s existence: “Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.” This mission to give glory to God, however, does not entail a selfish concentration upon one’s own salvation, as the General Examen clearly shows: “The end of this Society is to devote itself with God’s grace not only to the salvation and perfection of the members’ own souls, but also with that same grace to labor strenuously in giving aid toward the salvation and perfection of the souls of their neighbors.” For the Society, the Greater Glory of God shines forth in man truly alive, a free creature fully expressing the divine image through an intimate union with Christ. The salvation and perfection of souls, therefore, lies at the heart of the Jesuit mission in the Church, since man truly glorifies God when he abandons sin, grows in virtue, and freely embraces Jesus’ gift of salvation through the Cross.

The connection established between the mission to “praise, reverence and serve God” and the “salvation of souls” has its roots in the existential appropriation of the Scriptures that defined St. Ignatius’ life. Hugo Rahner, in his Ignatius the Theologian, makes the case for a Scotist reading of the Spiritual Exercises in order to enter more fully into their Christological and scriptural dynamic. In the Scotist tradition, the Incarnation of the divine Word represents the very end for which all things were created, and not simply a response to man’s fall from grace, since “by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities -- all things have been created through Him and for Him” (Col. 1: 16). God created man that His glory might shine forth through the Word made flesh and man might enter into divine union through the personal appropriation of the Son. The true “foundation” of creation, therefore, is found in the Incarnation and man must establish his life upon this foundation in order to proclaim God’s glory.

The tragedy of sin, however, crippled man in his imitation of Christ and in his pilgrimage toward divine union. His monstrous rejection of the Creator demanded that the earth itself swallow him up as an abomination; but the just punishment was stayed by the divine philanthropia manifested in the Son’s free offering upon the Cross. Jesus’ obedience to the Father both healed the breach between God and man, and revealed the tragic consequences of sin. In the salvific order, Jesus’ life and sacrifice become a sacramentum that effects redemption and divine union, and an exemplum that teaches man how to reorder his life according to the foundation of his existence.

God’s greater glory manifests itself in man’s separation from sin and his return to the foundation of his creation, Jesus himself. This means, in the words of Hugo Rahner, “saying ‘yes’ to the crucified Christ, because the incarnate Word alone is that perfect man in whom and through whom alone we are enabled to revere, praise and serve the Creator and Lord.” Thus, “the salvation of souls” involves not only the liberation from sin in Christ, but also a restoration of the divine image in man, which finds its archetype in the perfect man through whom all were made, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. God is glorified both in his mercy through the Son and in his image growing in splendor through man united with Jesus.

The genius of St. Ignatius is found in the way he teaches the exercitant to contemplate, appropriate, and live the pattern of Jesus’ life, while also growing in an abandonment to divine grace and mercy. St. Ignatius, like many Fathers of the Church, teaches the way in which the Christian, living his vocation in the Church, may cooperate with the power of grace and be transformed into the living image of Jesus: “Thus the working of the Father, which endows all with existence, is found to be more glorious and splendid, when each one, through participation in Christ in his character of wisdom and knowledge and sanctification, advances and comes to higher degrees of perfection” (Origen of Alexandria, De prin.). The man who lives according to this pattern not only finds his own perfection, but also takes on Christ’s mission to bring all men to the Father. Jerome Nadal, one of the first companions, explains this radical imitation of Christ in one of his spiritual conferences:

Regarding the end of the Society, it is above all possible to cite numerous passages from the Constitutions: the end is that which one does for the greater glory of God Our Lord. In the bull of approval, it is a question of “the defense and propagation of the faith”, that is to say, of our salvation and our perfection, as well as the salvation and perfection of the neighbor through divine grace . . . We understand this double end to be found in our striving for the greater glory of God and for all souls by aiding them in all things. Thus, we seek the same end for which Christ our savior came into the world: to die in order that no one may be lost. This is why we read “that the blood of Christ may not be spilled in vain”, that there be no one among you who, in order to attain this end, who would not be ready to die for the Indians or for Germany. To this we have been called.

In seeking to praise God through the salvation of souls – his own and that of others – a Jesuit uses the Greater Glory of God as his measure. This is what distinguishes the Society from other religious congregations: instead of seeking to effect its mission through a particular distinguishing characteristic or work (e.g., austerity of life, the recitation of the divine office), a Jesuit discerns the means to achieve the greatest good for souls using God’s glory itself as the measure. In the words of Achille Gagliardi, S.J.: “ . . . the glory of God is assumed fully, without limits and determinations . . . For us, the glory of God, being our end in all its breadth, is the measure of the quest for our own salvation and perfection, as well as for that of others.”

Two meditations from the Spiritual Exercises illustrate how the exercitant comes to embrace the mission to glorify God through the salvation of souls. The first is the meditation on Hell from the First Week. The point of this exercise is “to ask for interior sense of the pain which the damned suffer, in order that, if, through my faults, should I forget the love of the Eternal Lord, at least the fear of the pains may help me not to come into sin.” Ignatius guides the exercitant toward a graphic and frightening contemplation of the eternal torments with the “wailings, howlings, cries, blasphemies against Christ our Lord and against all His Saints”. He is to smell “smoke, sulphur, dregs and putrid things”; he is to taste “bitter things, like tears, sadness and the worm of conscience”; he is to touch the fires and the burning souls. The experience of Hell shows the retreatant the horrors of sin, and awakens in him a deep sadness and a desire for God’s mercy. The exercise concludes, as always, with a colloquy in which one brings to memory “the souls that are in Hell, some because they did not believe the Coming, others because, believing, they did not act according to His Commandments.” Hell, therefore, is not a mere metaphor in this meditation, but a graphic experience of the horror of damnation.

Three particular effects emerge from this experience. First, the mediation on hell shatters the exercitant’s complacency and awakens him to the genuine punishment that awaits him if he dies in the state of sin. Though a lesser motive than love, the fear of damnation serves as a goad to keep one away from sin and to move him toward a greater dependence on Christ. Ignatius recognized that through one’s faults one could forget “the eternal love of the Lord”, but the memory of Hell could steer him back toward Jesus. Romano Guardini conveys the importance of this spiritual attitude that the Exercises cultivates: “I can become a Christian only as long as I am conscious of the possibility of falling away.”

Second, the meditation on Hell reveals the overwhelming mercy of God in Jesus. Hell – eternal separation from God – represents the condign punishment for man in his rejection of the Creator. But God did not abandon man to this just punishment, instead redeeming him through the sacrifice of the Cross. Thus, Ignatius tells the exercitant “to consider how up to now He has always had so great pity and mercy on me.” This mercy and pity are the fruit of Jesus’ victory, the overwhelming love of the Father who embraces his lost sons and daughters.

Third, this meditation, understood within the overarching context of man’s creation for the greater Glory of God, inspires the retreatant to dedicate himself to the salvation of his soul and the souls of others. One leaves this harrowing apprehension of damnation with a deep realization that something is at stake: God’s greater glory in the salvation of souls. Nothing, in fact, can diminish God’s glory, since, as Gagliardi notes, “even if creatures do not desire it and do not cooperate, God still receives glory from them” through their very existence or through God’s just punishment. But God’s glory in its truest sense comes through man fully alive and freely seeking perfection: “Man fully alive is the glory of God (St. Irenaeus of Lyons). Damnation does not thwart the divine plan; but it manifests man’s failure to praise God through leading others to sanctity. One therefore cannot remain indifferent to the salvation of his own soul or to that of others, since every man risks the possibility of eternal torments, while every soul united with Christ manifests God’s majesty and splendor. Again, Gagliardi notes that this meditation “will help us also to acquire zeal for souls: while we detest wholeheartedly the mortal sins of our neighbor, we undertake to come to his rescue.”

Another meditation that illustrates the necessity to seek perfection as a way of praising God is the Call of the Temporal King in the Second Week of the Exercises, a meditation which calls one to “the imitation of and assimilation into Christ, a vocation to which all are called and which is an objective fact of history” (I. Iparraguirre). Ignatius begins by asking the retreatant to imagine a temporal king about to set out on mission to “conquer the lands of unbelievers”. This king, magnificent in his heroic virtues and inspiring in his choice of mission, attracts eager followers. But if they wish to join him, there is a price to pay: “Therefore, whoever would like to come with me is to be content to eat as I, and also to drink and dress, etc., as I: likewise he is to labor like me in the day and watch in the night, etc., that so afterwards he may have part with me in the victory, as he has had it in the labors.” Whoever wishes to follow this king must also imitate him in all his virtues, trials, sufferings and deprivations; but whoever follows him to the end will also share in his victory.

Next, Ignatius transfers the exercitant from a temporal king to Christ the King. Here, one is encouraged to seek the magis:

And as to the first Point, if we consider such a call of the temporal King to his subjects, how much more worthy of consideration is it to see Christ our Lord, King eternal, and before Him all the entire world, which and each one in particular He calls, and says: “It is My will to conquer all the world and all enemies and so to enter into the glory of My Father; therefore, whoever would like to come with Me is to labor with Me, that following Me in the pain, he may also follow Me in the glory.”

Jesus’ desire is “to conquer all the world and all enemies and so to enter into the glory of my Father”, that is, to overcome sin and to glorify the Father through the redemption and restoration of man. Jesus wishes to enter into the glory that he had since the beginning of the world, but not alone: he calls men to follow Him through a radical gift of self and an imitation of his life.

This generous invitation of Jesus demands a generous response, a response that exceeds the reply given to the temporal king. For some men, this will entail a truly radical act of self-abandonment as an act of praise and reverence for God:

. . . those who will want to be more devoted and signalise themselves in all service of their King Eternal and universal Lord, not only will offer their persons to the labor, but even, acting against their own sensuality and against their carnal and worldly love, will make offerings of greater value and greater importance, saying:

“Eternal Lord of all things, I make my oblation with Thy favor and help, in the presence of Thy infinite Goodness and in the presence of Thy glorious Mother and of all the Saints of the heavenly Court; that I want and desire, and it is my deliberate determination, if only it be Thy greater service and praise, to imitate Thee in bearing all injuries and all abuse and all poverty of spirit, and actual poverty, too, if Thy most Holy Majesty wants to choose and receive me to such life and state.”

The man who responds to the call of Christ the King “will make offerings of greater value and greater importance”. He will not content himself with the minimum, but will seek the magis in even the most trivial details of his life. He will strive to share in the sufferings of Christ in order to conquer himself and conquer the world for Him. All this for the Lord’s “greater service and praise”.

Regarding the salvation of the Jesuit’s soul and glorification of God, the Constitutions of the Society contain numerous references to the need for personal perfection and sanctity. In the novitiate, the novices seek to procure “a continuous increase of integrity and virtues and intense desires in our Lord to give great service in this Society to his Divine majesty” (EG, 98). Those in formation must be taught “what pertains to abnegation of themselves, the virtues, and all perfection, and should exhort one another to these things, particularly to union and fraternal charity” (III, 280). In fact, this is the goal of Jesuit formation: the making of saints, masterworks of God who shine as lights of the divine majesty and lead others to that light.

The better to arrive at this degree of perfection which is so precious in the spiritual life, his [a Jesuit’s] chief and most earnest endeavor would be to seek in our Lord his greater abnegation and continual mortification in all things possible; and our endeavor should be to help him in those things to the extent that our Lord gives us his grace, for his greater praise and glory (EG, 103).

In turn, the Society forms its members in order to lead others to perfection. The choice of the apostolate emerges from the discernment regarding the greatest good for souls: giving the Spiritual Exercises, the celebration of Mass, hearing confessions, preaching, teaching, writing, spiritual conversations, visiting the sick and helping the poor – all these works extend the formation of the Jesuit to all Christians in their common vocation to imitate the Lord.

The Constitutions illustrate the apostolic priority of the perfection of souls in its treatment of formation after the novitiate. The spiritual growth of a scholastic does not remain an insular affair, but must become fecund, especially within the colleges and universities entrusted to the Society’s care.

The end steadfastly pursued by the Society is to aid its own members and their neighbors in attaining the ultimate end for which they were created. For this, in addition to the example of one’s life, learning and skill in expounding it are required. Hence, once the proper foundation of abnegation of themselves and the needed progress in virtues is seen to be present in the new members, it will be necessary to provide for the edifice of learning and skill employing it so as to help make God our Creator and Lord better known and served.

For this, the Society undertakes colleges as well as some universities, where those who prove themselves worthy in the houses but have entered the Society unequipped with the necessary learning may be instructed therein and in the other means of helping souls . . . (IV, 307)

The Society of Jesus always finds its inspiration in an imitatio Christi. Jesus, in his earthly life, desired that “his existence be nothing else than a pure glorification of the Father: He came not to do his own will, but the will of the Father; not to proclaim His own teachings, but those of the one who sent him” (H. U. von Balthasar). Thus, the Society, too, renders itself a “glorification of the Father” through self-abnegation, growth in virtue, and the fulfillment of the divine will in service to the Church. The real fruit of its mission manifests itself in the saints, both well-known – St. Ignatius, St. Francis Xavier, St. Francis Borgia, St. Edmund Campion, St. Alberto Hurtardo – and unknown, both lay and religious, who glorify God as shining images of the Son. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam.

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