The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything

by James Martin

  It is impossible to read the journals and letters of these three men—Ignatius the founder, Xavier the missionary, and Favre the spiritual counselor—without noticing the differences in temperaments and talents.

  In later years Ignatius would become primarily an administrator, guiding the Society of Jesus through its early days, spending much of his time laboring over the Jesuit Constitutions. Xavier became the globe-trotting missionary sending back letters crammed with hair-raising adventures to thrill his brother Jesuits. (And the rest of Europe, too; Xavier’s letters were the equivalent of action-adventure movies for Catholics of the time.) Favre, on the other hand, spent the rest of his life as a spiritual counselor sent to spread the Catholic faith during the Reformation. His work was more diplomatic, requiring artful negotiation through the variety of religious wars at the time.

  Alike in Spirit and in Love

  Francis Xavier writes from India, in 1545, to his Jesuit friends in Rome, expressing love for his faraway friends:

  God our Lord knows how much more consolation my soul would have from seeing you than from my writing such uncertain letters as these to you because of the great distance between these lands and Rome; but since God has removed us, though we are so much alike in spirit and in love, to such distant lands, there is no reason . . . for a lessening of love and care in those who love each other in the Lord.

  Their letters reveal how different were these three personalities. They also make it easy to see how much they loved one another. “I shall never forget you,” wrote Ignatius in one letter to Francis. And when, during his travels, Xavier received letters from his friends, he would carefully cut out their signatures and carried them “as a treasure,” in the words of his biographer Georg Schurhammer, S.J.

  The varied accomplishments of Ignatius, Francis, and Peter began with the commitment they made to God and to one another in 1534. In a chapel in the neighborhood of Montmartre in Paris, the three men, along with four other new friends from the university—Diego Laínez, Alfonso Salmerón, Simon Rodrigues, and Nicolás Bobadilla—pronounced vows of poverty and chastity together. Together they offered themselves to God. (The other three men who would round out the list of the “First Jesuits,” Claude Jay, Jean Codure, and Paschase Broët, would join after 1535.)

  Even then, friendship was foremost in their minds. Laínez noted that though they did not live in the same rooms, they would eat together whenever possible and have frequent friendly conversations, cementing what one Jesuit writer called “the human bond of union.” In a superb article in the series Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, titled “Friendship in Jesuit Life,” Charles Shelton, the professor of psychology, writes, “We might even speculate whether the early Society would have been viable if the early companions had not enjoyed such a rich friendship.”

  The mode of friendship among the early Jesuits flowed from Ignatius’s “way of proceeding.” For want of a better word, they did not try to possess one another. In a sense, it was a form of poverty. Their friendship was not self-centered, but other-directed, forever seeking the good of the other. The clearest indication of this is the willingness of Ignatius to ask Francis to leave his side and become one of the church’s great missionaries.

  It almost didn’t happen. The first man that Ignatius wanted to send for the mission to “the Indies” fell ill. “Here is an undertaking for you,” said Ignatius. “Good,” said Francis, “I am ready.” Ignatius knew that if he sent Francis away, he might never see his best friend again.

  So did Francis. In a letter written from Lisbon, Portugal, Francis wrote these poignant lines as he embarked. “We close by asking God our Lord for the grace of seeing one another joined together in the next life; for I do not know if we shall ever see each other in this. . . . Whoever will be the first to go to the other life and does not find his brother whom he loves in the Lord, must ask Christ our Lord to unite us all there.”

  During his travels, Francis would write Ignatius long letters, not simply reporting on the new countries that he had explored and the new peoples he was encountering, but expressing his continuing affection. Both missed each other, as good friends do. Both recognized the possibility that one would die before seeing the other again.

  “[You] write me of the great desires that you have to see me before you leave this life,” wrote Francis. “God knows the impression that these words of great love made upon my soul and how many tears they cost me every time I remember them.” Legend has it that Francis knelt down to read the letters he received from Ignatius.

  Francis’s premonitions were accurate. After years of grueling travel that took him from Lisbon to India to Japan, Francis stepped aboard a boat bound for China, his final destination. In September 1552, twelve years after he had bid farewell to Ignatius, he landed on the island of Sancian, off the coast of China. After falling ill with a fever, he was confined to a hut on the island, tantalizingly close to his ultimate goal. He died on December 3, and his body was first buried on Sancian and then brought back to Goa, in India.

  Dear Brothers

  So that I may never forget you and ever have a special remembrance of you, I would have you know, dear brothers, that for my own consolation, I have cut your names from the letters which you have written to me with your own hands so that I may constantly carry them with me together with the vow of profession which I made. . . . I gave thanks first of all to God our Lord, and then to you, most dear Brothers and Fathers, for the fact that God has so made you that I derive such great consolation from bearing your names. And since we shall soon see each other in the next life with greater peace than we have in this, I say no more.

  —St. Francis Xavier, from the Malacca Islands in 1546, to his Jesuit friends in Rome

  Several months afterward, and unaware of his best friend’s death, Ignatius, living in the Jesuit headquarters in Rome, wrote Francis asking him to return home.

  FRIENDSHIP AND FREEDOM

  One important insight we can take from the friendships of the early Jesuits—especially between Ignatius, Francis, and Peter—has to do with the complex interplay between freedom and love.

  Friendship is a blessing in any life. For believers it is also one of the ways God communicates God’s own friendship. But for friendship to flourish, neither the friendship nor the friend can be seen as an object to be possessed. One of the best gifts to give a friend is freedom.

  This is a constant motif in the lives of the early Jesuits. A more selfish Ignatius would have kept Francis in Rome, to keep him company and to give him support, rather than allowing his friend to follow his heart. Shelton suggests in his article “Friendship in Jesuit Life” that the early Jesuits found their friendships to be a “secure base,” a safe place that enabled them to enjoy their lives and complete their work, rather than worry about the relationship too much.

  What does this have to say to you? After all, you’re not going to lead a life remotely like those of Ignatius, Peter, or Francis. Still, we can sometimes find ourselves wanting to possess, control, or manipulate our friends as well as our spouses or family members.

  How many times have you wondered why your friends weren’t “better” friends? And how many times did being a “better” friend mean meeting your needs? How often have you wondered why your friends or family members don’t support you more? How often have you worried whether you were being a good friend? These are natural feelings. Most of us also know the heartache of seeing friends move away, or change, or grow less available to us.

  So how were Ignatius, Francis, and Peter able to be such close friends and be free at the same time?

  Often I’ve had to remind myself that my friends do not exist simply to support, comfort, or nourish me. A few years ago, one of my best friends told me he was being sent to work in a parish in Ghana, in West Africa.

  Matt was well prepared for his work in West Africa. Twice during his Jesuit training he had spent time in Ghana, living in a remote village with poor fishermen and their famil
ies and helping out at a small parish, all the while learning the local languages. Later, during graduate studies in theology, when we lived in the same community, Matt tailored some of his courses for his work in West Africa.

  Matt told me how excited he was to be returning to Ghana, now as a priest. Knowing how seriously he had prepared for this work, and how much he loved Ghana, I should have been happy for him. Instead, selfishly, I was sad for myself, knowing that I wouldn’t see him for a few years. Sadness is natural for anyone saying good-bye; I would have been a robot if I hadn’t felt disappointed.

  Still, it was hard to move away from wanting Matt to remain behind—to meet my needs. It was the opposite of the freedom that Ignatius and Francis had shown, which valued the good of the other person. It was an example of the possessiveness that can sometimes characterize and, if left unchecked, damage relationships. Needed was Ignatian freedom and detachment.

  William Barry, the Jesuit spiritual writer, is also a trained psychologist. Recently I asked him about this tendency to possessiveness in friendship. “You need close friends, but you don’t want to cling to them out of a desire to keep them around you,” he said. “But this would be true for anyone, not simply for Jesuits.” He, too, pointed to the early Jesuits as models. “Francis Xavier has such a deep love for his friends, and yet this doesn’t keep him from volunteering and never being seen again.”

  Another story that illustrates this freedom comes from the seventeenth century, when Alphonsus Rodríguez, the doorkeeper at the Jesuit College in Majorca, Spain, became friends with another Jesuit, Peter Claver.

  Alphonsus had come to the Society of Jesus by a circuitous route. Born in 1533, he was the second son of a prosperous cloth merchant in Segovia. When Peter Favre visited the city to preach, the Rodríguez family provided hospitality to the Jesuit. Favre, in fact, prepared the young Alphonsus for his First Communion, an important rite of passage in the church.

  At twelve, Alphonsus was sent to the Jesuit college at Alcalá, but his father’s death put an end to his studies; he was forced to return home to take over the family business. At twenty-seven, Alphonsus married. He and his wife, Maria, had three children, but, tragically, his wife and children all died, one after the other. Heavy taxes and expenses led Alphonsus to the brink of financial ruin; many biographers depict him as feeling like a failure. In desperation he called on the Jesuits for guidance. The lonely widower prayed for many years to understand God’s desires for him.

  Gradually Alphonsus found within himself the desire to become a Jesuit. At thirty-five, he was deemed too old to begin the long training required for the priesthood and was rejected for entrance. But his holiness was evident to the local provincial, who accepted Alphonsus into the novitiate as a brother two years later. The provincial is supposed to have said that if Alphonsus wasn’t qualified to become a brother or a priest, he could enter to become a saint. He stayed for only six months before being sent to the Jesuit school in Majorca, in 1571, where he assumed the job of porter, or doorkeeper.

  Each time the doorbell rang, as I mentioned, Brother Alphonsus said, “I’m coming, Lord!” The practice reminded him to treat each person with as much respect as if it were Jesus himself at the door.

  In 1605 Peter Claver, a twenty-five-year-old Jesuit seminarian, met the humble, seventy-two-year-old Alphonsus at the college. The two met almost daily for spiritual conversations, and in time Alphonsus encouraged Peter to think about working overseas in “the missions.” The prospect thrilled Peter, who wrote to his provincial for permission and was sent to Cartagena, in what is now Colombia, to work with the West African slaves who had been captured by traders and shipped to South America. For his tireless efforts to feed, counsel, and comfort the slaves, who had endured horrifying conditions, Peter would earn the sobriquet elesclavo de los esclavos, the slave of the slaves.

  St. Peter Claver, the great missionary, was later canonized for his heroic efforts. St. Alphonsus Rodríguez was canonized for his own brand of heroism: a lifelong humility.

  Alphonsus and Peter met every day to build up their friendship. But this did not prevent Alphonsus from encouraging Peter to volunteer for work in South America. Alphonsus gave Peter not only the gift of friendship but freedom, just as Ignatius, Peter, and Francis gave to one another.

  SOME BARRIERS TO HEALTHY FRIENDSHIP

  Given the centrality of freedom in relationships, it is not surprising that in his study on Jesuit friendship, Charles Shelton, the Jesuit psychologist, lists possessiveness as the first barrier to healthy friendship. Your friend may not be able to reciprocate the level of your feelings, given that his attention may be somewhere else, say, on a pressing family or work situation. The other person may also move to another town or city or may be less able to spend time with you, say, because of marriage or a new child. All these things may increase your sense of possessiveness and animate a desire to control the other.

  Part of friendship is also giving the other person the freedom to grow and change. The desire for friendship should not overshadow the friend. But, as Father Barry noted in a conversation, there is another side to that desire for freedom. “The danger is that because people will move, or leave, or even die, you are tempted not to give your heart to people.”

  Father Shelton’s cautionary list of other pitfalls is helpful not simply for Jesuits, but for anyone interested in healthy relationships.

  Overactivity is one area where friendships founder because people are too busy to keep up with one another. One simply loses touch. Happily, I am blessed with many friends, and since I don’t have the responsibilities of a marriage, I have more time to keep up with them. For married couples, though, the burdens can be overwhelming, and cherished friends may fall away.

  Married people reading this might think, How am I supposed to balance all the responsibilities of marriage and keep up with my friends? The point here is not to add burdens, but to relieve them. Marriages can never fully provide for all the emotional needs of a couple. Nor were they designed that way: in the past, marriages presumed the nurturing support of an extended family and the wider community. Friends are needed even for married couples. Healthy friendships outside a marriage help husbands and wives in their own relationship.

  You Must Remember This

  Some of the best advice from Jesuits on human relationships comes in earthy ways. When John O’Malley was a Jesuit novice, an older priest told him three things to remember when living in community: First, you’re not God. Second, this isn’t heaven. Third, don’t be an ass. Had I followed those guidelines earlier, I could have saved myself years of self-induced heartache.

  Overactivity is an important consideration when it comes to a healthy approach to work, which we will look at in a coming chapter. For now, suffice it to say that when work is so overwhelming that you are unable to sustain friendships, your life becomes impoverished, though you may be working to get richer.

  On the other hand, as Shelton points out, is the danger of excessive emotional involvement. Here the tendency is to focus too much on the friendship, focusing obsessively on the feelings that arise and analyzing every slight and comment. Clinginess smothers friendship and repels the most generous of friends. A healthy relationship is like a flame that gives off light and warms both friends: it can be extinguished for lack of attention but smothered by too much attention.

  Competition is another danger. In a culture where people are often defined by what they do and how much they make, the temptation to compete can be overwhelming. Shelton asks if your friend’s success is a threat to your own sense of self-worth. If it is, maybe it’s time to consider the blessings in your own life more carefully.

  Envy, I would add, is equally poisonous. You can move away from that by being grateful for the blessings in your own life (the examen can help) and by realizing that everyone’s life is a mixed bag of gifts and struggles. If you doubt that, just talk to your friends about their problems.

  Shelton next calls attention to com
plaint-driven relationships, where getting together becomes an excuse for carping. In situations like this, the world begins to take on a dark cast. Complaining spreads like a virus through conversations until everything seems useless, and both parties end up bitter and despairing. Shelton also warns against impairing relationships, which encourage unhealthy or destructive behavior, like alcoholism or drug abuse.

  In both these cases you need to ask if the friendship is healthy. If not, can you discuss the situation? Or do you have to move away from the friendship for your own health? One of my spiritual directors once asked me bluntly, “Is being with your friend good for your vocation?”

  Still, an essential part of love is maintaining what you could call the difficult friendship. The story of Simon Rodrigues, one of Ignatius’s friends, will show what I mean.

  A SPECIAL LOVE

  One of the early Jesuit companions was a trying person. Simon Rodrigues, a Portuguese student in Paris, was one of the six friends who pronounced vows of poverty and chastity with Ignatius in Paris in 1534. After the founding of the Society of Jesus, Rodrigues was asked by Ignatius to assume the important position of overseeing all the Jesuits in Portugal.

  But, as William Bangert notes in A History of the Society of Jesus, Rodrigues soon “evidenced an instability and recalcitrance that pushed Ignatius almost to the brink of dismissing him.” The man was an inveterate complainer and excessively permissive with the Jesuits under his care; as a result, the Jesuits in Portugal were increasingly in disarray.

  In time, Rodrigues also became the confessor to King John III of Portugal and took up residence in the royal court—while still functioning as Jesuit provincial. Word spread that Rodrigues was scandalizing others, as he could not live without the “palaces and pomp of the world,” as one contemporary wrote.