Ask anyone across the Jesuit family when they last truly learned something important for their ministry, and the answers seldom stay in a classroom. They travel. They lead to a mentor or a trusted friend, to a retreat or a network meeting, or to a learning exchange with partners in the field. They lead to a book, a YouTube video or an AI tool, and to lessons learned in the middle of the work itself: running a parish, communicating in a crisis, teaching young people.
It is a very old insight, and a deeply Ignatian one. For Ignatius, learning was never only the handing over of information. It grew out of experience, reflection, discernment and action, undertaken in the company of others, friends in the Lord, and rooted in the real lives of people.
For 75 years, Jesuit Mission Australia has worked alongside Jesuits and lay collaborators who live closest to the communities on the margins. We have been taught, humbled, and inspired along the way, and we have seen that mission is only as strong as the people who carry it: their formation, their skills, their courage, and their ability to learn from one another.
A long season of listening
That belief has shaped an intensified season of listening over the past two years. We have talked with major superiors. We have held workshops with Jesuits working in Timor-Leste, listened together with over 50 people from our Jesuit Mission partners in Indonesia, and spoken with our colleagues in the Xavier Network. Most recently, we brought the same questions to secretariats, coordinators, and conveners at the Extended Consult of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific.
The contexts could hardly be more different, from a primary school in Cambodia to a teacher training institute in Timor-Leste to a social ministry’s livelihood project in Myanmar. Yet through all this listening, one question emerged and has become the heart of our work:
How might Jesuit ministries across Asia Pacific strengthen one another, so that, together, we can better accompany communities living on the margins and contribute to greater human flourishing?
In response, people spoke of the need for leadership formation, spiritual formation and discernment, stronger governance, and care in safeguarding and financial stewardship. Above all, they recognised the value of relationship: mentors, peers, follow-up and accompaniment.
The Jesuit Conference of Asia-Pacific and India (where Jesuit Mission Australia roots began) is not short of wisdom. Experienced leaders, effective programs and strong networks are already here.
A listening session with the Jesuit Conference Extended Consult
A wealth of learning, not always within reach
Learning itself is changing. As our work becomes more digital, there are more courses, teaching resources, and generous teachers than ever before, across every kind of learning: formal study, informal exploration online, learning with and from others, and learning in the flow of daily work.
The difficulty is that good learning can be hard to find, hard to reach, or unknown beyond the place where it began. A program in one ministry may be exactly what another is looking for, and neither knows the other exists. Distance, language, time, and funding all take their toll.
So at Jesuit Mission Australia, we are asking how we might make learning and training across the Jesuit Conference of Asia-Pacific and India more visible, more accessible, and more effective. We think of it less as building something new and more as tending a garden that is already growing: helping people find what exists, connecting those who have something to share with those who need it, and supporting new learning where real gaps remain. For now, we are calling this a regional learning ecosystem, and we are holding the idea gently. We see Jesuit Mission’s role as one of convening, connecting, and enabling. What grows from this will be rooted in the region and the fruit of its own wisdom.
Looking ahead to 2027
2027 will be an important year. We hope it will bring the next stage of this work: a more focused time of discovery, discernment, and co-design with our Jesuit conference, the wider Jesuit network, and our partners in mission, as Jesuit Mission’s own decision-making allows. It would move step by step from understanding the opportunity, to weighing together what is called for, to shaping a practical response with the people and ministries it is meant to serve.
In all of this we want to stay free about the outcome. Ignatius did not begin with a finished blueprint. His way unfolded through experience, prayer and conversation, and a willingness to change direction. We hope to proceed in the same spirit, ready to follow where careful listening leads, even if it is somewhere different from where we began.
In the months ahead we will keep listening across conferences, provinces, regions, missions, and ministries. We welcome all input, and once we embark on the formal discovery and discernment process, we will certainly seek to engage the full range of stakeholders across our Jesuit family.
Our hope is a simple one: that as we grow in our learning together, communities living on the margins flourish.
