Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Young Adults

 

St Ignatius of Loyola

My Dear Dong Hanh Young Adults

This upcoming Friday, July 31st, 2015 is the date the Church dedicates to commemorate Saint Ignatius of Loyola who is the founder of the Society of Jesus and who is the author of a great spirituality that many Catholic religious orders as well as lay organizations and movements adopted for their spiritual formation. I would like to take this opportunity to share with you a brief reflection on St. Ignatius and his followers especially young adults.

For Christian Life Community (CLC), Saint Ignatius of Loyola and the Society of Jesus has a special position and relationship in the life and history of the CLC community.  CLC owes the Jesuit order for its birth and graced history when a young Belgian Jesuit, Jean Leunis, who met Ignatius in 1556, and was assigned to the Roman College, created the first Sodalities with students of this institution.  The Sodalities later was approved by Pope Gregory XIII and placed under the authority of the General of the Society of Jesus.  Over centuries, the Sodalities have been transformed through various challenges and finally became Christian Life Community in 1967 thanks to the inspiration from the Second Vatican Council that brought significant changes to various aspects of the Church.  Throughout the graced history of CLC, the Society of Jesus has been accompanying CLC in various aspects ranging from providing silent retreats, spiritual direction to assigning Jesuit priests to be ecclesiastical assistants for CLC communities worldwide.  In fact, the incumbent General of the Society of Jesus, Father Adolfo Nicolás is currently the ecclesiastical assistant for the World CLC.

My dear young fellow companions, as you can see from the brief history mentioned above, the great history of CLC began with a young adult, the young Belgian Jesuit, Jean Leunis and students at Roman College.  St. Ignatius and his first companions were also around your age when they responded to God’s calling for their priestly vocation.  As I reflected on the life of Saint Ignatius, I thought about you.  St. Ignatius prior to the age of 30 was very passionate and ambitious with a military career as a high-ranking knight serving under a noble household in Spain.  Yet, at the age of 30 after he was severely wounded in a battle with the French troops, he experienced a profound conversion while recovering from his wound.  He was able to turn his passion to fight for the kingdom of Spain to a passion to fight with Christ for building the kingdom of God by using his spiritual exercise to help gaining for God so many people from different walks of life.  Young people have several remarkable qualities that when placed at God’s disposal can bring significant changes to our world and our community.  Like St. Ignatius who possessed a soldier’s risk-taking spirit enabling him to embark on a long conversion journey (both physical and spiritual) tirelessly and fearlessly, your youthful vigor and your risk-taking spirit can help fueling your embarking on various missions for the Church.  Your creativity can turn around stagnant communities.  Like St. Ignatius who in his thirst for understanding and deepening his faith unceasingly sought to read and have spiritual conversations with various people in the towns where he stayed during his journey, your open-mind spirit, and your inquisitiveness can help us see and move above and beyond the boundaries of our own comfort zones into the frontiers where vast, great opportunities for collaboration with people of good will are awaiting us to serve God’s people.

I would like to encourage you, my dear young adults, to reflect on the life of Saint Ignatius of Loyola especially on July 31 that the Church dedicated in memory of a great Saint.  His life in his young adulthood in many ways was very similar to yours.  Had Saint Ignatius not tuned in with the different movements in his heart which marked the onset of his conversion while he was on his sick bed and had he not been willing to pursue this conversion journey, our Church and our CLC community would not have had a great spirituality which has been profoundly impacting so many people throughout many centuries.  Had Jean Leunis, the young Belgian Jesuit, not responded to the calling in his heart to gather young students at Roman College into the first Sodalities, we would not have had CLC vocation today.  Thus, I would like to invite you to come together with your Dong Hanh fellows on this special day for giving thanks to our God for giving us a great Saint.  I also would like to invite you to reflect on how you can let God use many wonderful qualities of a young adult in you to serve the Church like Saint Ignatius and especially to help rejuvenate the young adult ministry in our Dong Hanh community through project “Our Way of Finding God” that we committed to embark on as a whole community at our last national assembly in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

May you be greatly inspired with the example of Saint Ignatius’ life and learn from him on how to focus and channel your passions, exuberance, intelligence, and talents to serve God and his Church like Saint Ignatius.



Nam Phương