Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola 2022 Marks the Closure of Jesuits’ Ignatian Year

Fernando, R. (2022, July 31). Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola 2022 Marks the Closure of Jesuits’ Ignatian Year. Messenger, p. 4-5.

Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola 2022 Marks the Closure of Jesuits’ Ignatian Year

The 31st of July, according to the liturgical calendar of the universal Church, is the feast day of Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), the founder of the Society of Jesus (1540) commonly known as Jesuits all over the world. This year, the celebration of this feast is particularly important to the entire Jesuit family numbering over 15,000 members worldwide and belonging to approximately 80 provinces and regions spread across 112 countries in the world. In Sri Lanka, over 100 Jesuits are working in all but the Anuradhapura diocese in the fields of social service, education, retreat, spiritual accompaniment, pastoral care, dialogue, reconciliation, ecological awareness, and justice. The feast of St. Ignatius this year is important because this day marks the end of the quincentenary year (1521-2021) of the conversion of St. Ignatius of Loyola proclaimed as the ‘Ignatian Year’ (20^th May 2021 – 31^st July 2022) by Very Rev. Fr. Arturo Sosa, SJ, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, in his letter addressed to the universal body of the Society dated 27^th September 2019. 

Why was the Ignatian Year so important? 

The Ignatian year marks the cannonball moment or wounding of the founder of the 16^th-century Company known as the Society of Jesus. A noble Basque knight he was, Ignatius of Loyola was defending the city of Pamplona (Spain) against French troops when his legs were shattered by a cannonball in 1521. It was indeed a cannonball moment because with that turn, his previous dreams for worldly honor, pride, glory, and fame were also shattered. Instead, his newfound joy was to do things that would bring more honor, glory, and fame to God than to himself. It indeed marked the conversion of Saint Ignatius popularly highlighted by the three introspective questions he himself asked while convalescing on the bed: “What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What ought I do for Christ?” It is that event that changed the course of not only the life of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, but it is that which led to the foundation of the 16^th-century Company which in turn provoked dramatic changes in the Church as well as in the history of Catholicism.  

 

With the motto chosen as “To see all things new in Christ”, therefore, the Ignatian Year was heralded by the Superior General as an opportune time for each and every Jesuit and community a) to be renewed by God himself; b) to be in touch with and make known to others their spiritual root (i.e., Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, the Constitutions of the Society of the Jesus, and Our Way of Proceeding exemplified by the First Companions headed by St. Ignatius himself); c) to relive one’s own cannonball moment or conversion experience; d) to hear the cry of the poor, the excluded, and those whose dignity has not been respected in diverse social and cultural circumstances in which we live and work in our day-to-day life; and, e) by accompanying the youth and participating in the collective effort that seeks to heal the wounds of nature and prepare a better world for future generations.  

Closure of the Ignatian Year 

With the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola celebrated on the 31^st of July 2022, the Ignatian Year comes to an end. Once again, given the situation of the island nation, while the closure is going to be at the personal, community, or district levels, each according to its need and capacity, the Roman Curia has recommended that each of these celebrations should culminate with the renewal of the consecration of the Society of Jesus to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

 

On the 1^st of January 1872, Father General Pieter Jan Beckx consecrated the Society to the Sacred Heart of Jesus which was approved by the 23rd General Congregation in 1883. Later, in 1915, as a means of embracing the "munus suavissimum" entrusted to the Society by the Lord to promote devotion to his Sacred Heart, the 26^th General Congregation of the Society confirmed the Apostleship of Prayer (AOP), which was approved by Pope John Paul II in 1986 and developed today into the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network (PWPN), as a good way to carry out this mission. On June 9th, 1972, one hundred years after Fr. Beckx, SJ, Fr. Pedro Arrupe SJ, the then Superior General of the Society of Jesus (1907-1991) commonly known as the second founder of the Society, reconsecrated the Society to the Heart of Christ. This year, Very Rev. Fr. Arturo Sosa SJ, the incumbent Superior General of the Society, will renew this consecration once again on the 31^st of July 2022 on the feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola. 

 

Therefore, while celebrating the feast of its founder is a good occasion to live and share the joy of the moment with Jesuits, friends, benefactors, beneficiaries, and collaborators of the Jesuits’ mission, the recently elected Provincial Superior of the Sri Lanka Province of the Society of Jesus, Rev. Fr. Sujeewa Pathirana, SJ, in his feast day message, highlights the need for disciplining one’s spirit. Accordingly, he calls for a personal conversion of its members which includes coming to terms with evil in the world as well as in oneself and accepting forgiveness and change.

 

Aragalaya - Struggle For A Classless Sri Lanka

Fernando, R. (2022, June 28). Aragalaya (struggle) to create a classless Sri Lanka. The Morning. https://www.themorning.lk/articles/208633

Fernando, R. (2022, June 24). Aragalaya for creating a classless Sri Lanka.Colombo Telegraph. https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/aragalaya-for-creating-a-classless-sri-lanka/ 

Aragalaya For A Classless Sri Lanka

Today, 21 million Sri Lankans are facing almost two-hour-long daily power cuts, steep price hikes of goods and services, and scarcity of fuel, food, essential items, and medical facilities. The worst affected by the prevailing situation are the poor and the daily wagerers of the country who consist of most of the population as against the privileged few who are the elite. It is at a historical moment like today that the youths of the country -the future of the nation- have got themselves organized for an incessant struggle, known as the Aragalaya, against its corrupt politicians, political allies, and the system of government, and it continues for the successive third months.  

While the Aragalaya continues to happen in various parts of the country, its epicenter is commonly agreed to be in front of the Presidential Secretariat at Galle-Face Green, Colombo, not far away from the so-called Supreme Assembly of Sri Lanka -the parliament at Diyawannawa, Colombo. While the parliament is expected to acknowledge the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which in its Preamble says, “whereas it is essential if a man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law” (United Nations, 2015), the people of the Aragalaya believe that all three main pillars of any democratic system of government, namely the Executive, the Legislature, and the Judiciary, are either dysfunctional, or malfunctional, or corrupt or non-sovereign in the context of the island nation today.  

Therefore, faced with Sri Lanka’s worst-ever economic and political crisis since its independence from colonial rule in 1948, of course for reasons which are either obvious and/or made oblivious to the citizens by the authorities of various governments existed for the past 7 decades. If the people’s struggle has become so intensified and incessant today, it is mainly because of the family politics of the Rajapaksha regime which is believed to have ruined the country given to their pride, non-patriotic decisions, corruption, and the use of thuggery, especially since 2019. The Catholic Bishop Conference of Sri Lanka (CBCSL) explains the current economic and political situation thus created in the country in their recent statement as follows:  

People are stranded on the roads without basic needs such as food, fuel, and domestic and industrial gas. Patients are left in the lurch without the medicine needed to sustain their life. Parents are yearning to find milk food for infants and children. The tragedy that has struck our nation is in no uncertain terms the worst of our times. The political and economic crisis has made people suffer unjustly. Those responsible for this horrendous economic crisis are yet to be exposed. The country has been brought to a standstill and a hand-to-mouth existence (CBCSL, 2022).  

What has come to the fore, therefore, is a tug-of-war between two camps – the camp at Diyawannawa consisting of the 225 parliamentarians and their allies, and the camp at Galle-Face Green consisting of the classless, colorless, creedless struggle of the common people who are battered both directly and indirectly by the whims and fancies of those in the first camp. In other words, what we have here in Sri Lanka at the moment is indeed yet another tale of two cities of our time –the city of Parliament, and that of the Aragalaya also known as the ‘Gota-go-gama’ (gama meaning ‘village’), not vastly different from Dickens’s (1859) A Tale of Two Cities which was set against the conditions that led to the Reign of Terror and the French Revolution.  

It is here that I am tempted to believe that the values exemplified and the battles-fought-for-future at each of these two cities, while they are very different from each other, their differences are nevertheless similar to the ‘Two Standards’: the ‘standard of the Christ’ and the ‘standard of the world’ spoken by St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus (commonly known as the Jesuits), whose conversion experience following the battle in Pamplona, Spain celebrates 500 years this year (1522-2022), and that of the Church’s age-old treasure of the Spiritual Exercises. Taken in this light, it could be said that the Aragalaya launched in front of the Presidential Secretariat is indeed a common struggle of the ordinary masses for creating a classless society in Sri Lanka. It is because, the Aragalaya aims at creating a just and equitable society marked by modesty, simplicity, and humility by annihilating the privileges enjoyed by the class of powerful Sri Lankans by way of their unquenchable indulgence in the benign secularisms, search for pleasure, and remorseless succumbing to wises in the world. 

Therefore, if whoever wants to see a classless country in the future, the making is already here and now at Aragalaya and, therefore, it is my belief, that despite all the hurdles that come on its way, the struggle should continue if it is to create a classless better tomorrow. In so doing, let us not be demoralized when we lose a battle or two at one barricade or another because of teargassing or water attacks or lathy-charges or unwarranted arrests made by the duty-bound, government-deployed, uniform-bearers of the Sri Lankan police and the triple forces or, as ordinary people, by the lengths of the lines we stand in or by the hunger we feel for ourselves and in our children. Instead, let us get together and push the limits of our tolerance, both individually and collectively, to fight, not some isolated battles, but a common war, the Aragalaya, until we create that desired classless Sri Lanka tomorrow. 

Satyodaya - Creating Multipliers of Change

 Satyodaya 

Celebrates 50 Years of Service in Transforming the Plantation Landscape

It is indeed a significant milestone that Satyodaya Centre for Social Research & Encounter celebrates 50 years of its service to the plantation sector in Sri Lanka, and I deem it to be an honor to be the active director of the Centre at the time of its Golden Jubilee.

History

First and foremost, it is with immense gratitude that I remember the great stalwarts who had prepared the ground, sown the seed of Satyodaya in 1972, and stewarded it to grow and become what it is today. The first among them is the founder Fathers of Satyodaya, late Fr. Paul Caspersz, SJ, and late Rt. Rev. Dr. Leo Nanayakkara, the then Bishop of Badulla, the theoria-praxis duo who put both research and encounter together in a harmonious whole at Satyodaya to uplift the living conditions of the plantation peasants in Sri Lanka. To mention a few among them, creating local leaderships, launching women’s self-help and empowerment activities; establishing preschools, village gathering halls (praja shala), providing purified water, rope-pump wells, sanitary facilities, home kitchens, and roofs; and introducing leadership training programs, study, exchange, and excursion programs, village libraries, vocational training, scholarship schemes, language, and computer skills learning for students, etc. It was these invaluable services that won the ‘Visva Prasadhini’ Sirimavo Bandaranayake Award in 1995 and various other achievement awards to Satyodaya Centre during the past 50 years. It is with equal reverence I remember the former Directors of the Centre whose awareness, ingenuity, love, and heroism have paved the way for Satyodaya to become what it is today.

Overcoming the Obstacles in Educating the Poor

The service of Satyodaya in the plantation sector during the past 50 years (1972-2022) was not at all an easy affair. It has evolved over the years and it still does. There had been epochs where thorns were banaler than flowers. While there were epochs when external thorns had caused us hurts, there were some other times when our own internal thorns had torn us to bleed. Despite them all, the followers always blossomed as beautiful as ever, and significantly different from others in the field. Among the sundry achievements it has had since its inception in 1972, one of the most concrete, durable, and structural changes that Satyodaya could arrive at over the past half-century years was that it could prioritize its mission towards transforming the plantation landscape in the Central Province of Sri Lanka.

Accordingly dawned the educational program of Satyodaya, known as the ‘Overcoming the Obstacles in Educating the Poor’ (OOEP Program) catering currently to 12 plantation divisions in the Central and Sabaragamuwa Provinces of Sri Lanka (10 in Kandy district and 2 in Kegalle district), and has established (currently at 8 out of these 12 divisions) a preschool with one or two trained preschool teachers, a Study Centre (currently at 11 out of 12 divisions) with one or two computers, a mini library, study tables-chairs, writing boards, etc., and a trained social worker to frequent and facilitate them periodically. The OOEP program is arranged in such a way that a child first joins the preschool, then the children’s club (from Grade 1 to 13), then the youth association, and finally the Community Based Organization (CBO) in the plantation. At each of these junctures, there is a series of programs conducted periodically and consistently to motivate, update, and empower them to transform their oppressive social structures. Among them are preschool Teacher Training Program (done twice a year), Tribasha (Sinhala-Tamil-English) Study program for Children,

Leadership Training Program (done 4 times a year), additional classes for school subjects, GCE O/L, A/L, Scholarship Grants, CBO Leaders’ Program, etc. At present, we have 143 preschoolers, 320 children from grades 1 to 5, and 425 children from grades 5 to 13 as registered beneficiaries of the Satyodaya OOEP Program. As Satyodaya celebrates 50 years of its service, we are proud to say that we have 53 students who have either secured government university entrance or pursue higher education and vocational training in both private and government institutes as a result of the aid received from the OOEP program of Satyodaya.

Today’s Context

It is quite unfortunate that in a country like Sri Lanka, education is by and large evaluated in terms of paper qualifications and passing rates of government exams which are primarily more paper-pencil-based than skill-oriented. However, not everybody is capable of passing those exams and, unfortunately, that number is alarmingly big. Worst still is the fact that those who have formal qualifications do not have chances for fair job opportunities according to their aptitudes. While the dignity of labor in Sri Lanka is still less or null for the skill-based professions as compared to paper-qualified personnel, one has to be the best to survive in one’s domain of expertise. One of the uprising consequences of this situation is that there is an increasingly high demand, for better or for worse, for voluntary outsourcing of one’s resources to the international job market. It has indeed been the trend of the new normal era which perhapswas forced to dawn with the spread of the Covid 19.

Therefore, the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Satyodaya’s service to the plantation sector falls at a decisive time in the history of the world for a good number of reasons. First of all, it is the 500th year (1522-2022) of the conversion of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. Given that and the Universal Apostolic Preferences (UAPs) of the Society of Jesus promulgated in 2019, namely Showing the way to God, Walking with the Excluded, Journeying with Youth, and Caring for our Common Home, it is also the time that Sri Lanka Province of the Society of Jesus is inclined towards revisiting its roots and restructuring its Province Apostolic Priorities (PAP). Moreover, it is also the time that the Order of the Sylvestro Benedictine monks celebrates 175 years of its service in the island nation of Sri Lanka. Furthermore, the 50th anniversary of Satyodaya has fallen during the time that the universal and apostolic Church has already embarked on its two-year-long synodal journey (2021-2023) marked by communion, participation, and mission. It is also the time that the Covid-19 pandemic has, by and large, become the conditioning factor of almost every activity in the world be it personal or communal, mini-scale or mega-level.

Avenue

Celebrating 50 years of its historic journey is nevertheless an opportunity to revise its Missio Dei (Mission of God) to be better effective in transforming the planation landscape in the next 50 years to come. Therefore, keeping in mind, particularly the charisms of the said two Major Religious Orders of the Catholic Church, the Jesuits, and the OSBs, the very Congregations of the founder-duos of Satyodaya, it is my fervent hope, therefore, to transcend the scope of the OOEP Program of Satyodaya beyond the formal boundaries of education to skills-based training understood in terms of music, dancing, theatre, hairdressing, information and communication skills, etc., in the years to come. This is done with the belief that, in life, the more worth, value, and recognition one acquires, the more transformative he or she becomes and the better agent or multiplier of change he or she be in transmitting that transformation in society. It is my humble plea, therefore, that we put our hands and heads together in transforming the plantation landscape in Sri Lanka because the need is so vast out there in the field but the resources are few, and together we can make more difference than what is separately achieved.

Fr. Rashmi M. Fernando, SJ 

Director of Satyodaya Centre for Social Research & Encounter (2021-2022)