In a letter to Major Superiors on the occasion of the launch of the Year of Faith, Fr General Adolfo Nicolás, superior general of the Society of Jesus, welcomed the Holy Father’s call “to focus more explicitly on the gift of faith, and the witness and service we give to it”.
He said, “We are aware that, in today’s world, ‘a profound crisis of faith . . . has affected many people.’ (Porta Fidei, 2). As the reports of many Procurators indicated and as I pointed out in my recent de Statu Societatis, we ourselves have not been unaffected by this crisis”.
Fr Nicolás invited the whole Society “to take to heart the call of the Holy Father and to seek ways of participating meaningfully and with greater personal and communal engagement in this special year for the Church.”
He expressed the hope that “every Jesuit spends some time – perhaps even his annual Retreat – in prayer and reflection on the meaning, implications and calls of this year”. He also requested that all Major Superiors invite communities “to dedicate a good number of their regular meetings to prayer and reflection together” and provided some points for this reflection.
He ends the letter saying, “Aware that we are always called to grow in faith, this year we make our own in a special way the prayer in Mark 9, 24: ‘I do believe, but help the little faith I have.’ Let us pray that the Lord may make the Year of Faith a time of abundant grace and new life for the whole Church and for our least Society.”
The Year of Faith began on October 11, 2012, the 50th anniversary of the opening of Vatican Council II, and will conclude on November 24, 2013, the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ Universal King. The Holy Father’s aim in promulgating this Year of Faith is to focus the attention of the Church on the theme which, since the beginning of his Pontificate, has been closest to his heart: the encounter with Jesus Christ and the beauty of having faith in Him.
