One beautiful day in May, in the Garden of Loyola Hall Spirituality and Research Center, the Pakistani Magis Jesuit Youth came together to explore the beauty of nature. More than 30 young people from around the city of Lahore listened, shared, and prayed with very ordinary tools during a “Garden Evening” programme.
The first part of the activity focused on the “bio of plants” with Yarusha Samson, a botany student at Kinnaird Women’s College. Quoting from the Book of Genesis 1.11-12, “Then God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seeds in it, Yarusha shared her passion for botany. Then, she took the participants on a journey through the life cycle of plants, followed by a lively discussion on their benefits. Through her sharing, young people increased their understanding of the necessity of plants in human life. Yarusha called upon the participants to love the environment and join hands to protect it.
Following their exploration of plant biology, young people were invited to spend time contemplating and discovering God, the creator, by walking around the gardens of Loyola Hall. Guided by Fr Robbie de Lima SJ, this prayerful exercise was based on the “Contemplation to Attain Love” in the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius. They spent more than 20 minutes immersed in the natural world—seeing, smelling, touching, and even tasting the leaves and fruit of the sapodilla. Sharing their experience afterwards was an opportunity to listen to God speaking through others. This method of prayer was new and unfamiliar to them, yet it allowed them to experience the God of creation, who continues to work in the world.
Finally, to round up their experience, the Magis members embarked on a hands-on experience in the garden under the guidance of Scholastic Joseph Phạm Văn Chung, the “botanist” of the Jesuit community. They began by preparing the soil for planting lettuce and coriander seeds. It seemed a world away from their city lives. Many from rural areas also shared that this was their first time using tools such as hoes, shovels, and water buckets, or even handling organic fertiliser. Through this simple and gentle work, they realised their own agency— they, the young people, were the ones who could create a clean and beautiful environment, not just now, but for the future.
The “Garden Evening” programme directly ties back to the fourth Universal Apostolic Preference of the Jesuits, “To collaborate in caring for our Common Home”. It is not just about having a clean and beautiful green living environment, but also one that would feed others. Caring for creation, as the young people learned, extends beyond the environment itself. It’s about serving humanity. The next morning, for breakfast, the Jesuit community and staff at Loyola Hall enjoyed a nourishing bowl of salad and coriander from the Loyola Hall vegetable garden.
Peter Nguyen Ngoc Long SJ is a Vietnamese scholastic doing his Regency in Pakistan.