The discovery of spaces for consolation and companionship amidst constraints and crises formed the underlying wellspring of graces that glued the various moments of our gathering as Novice Directors of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific (JCAP).
The meeting, which ran from 10 to 15 January, was held online and was hosted by the Sacred Heart International Novitiate in Novaliches, Philippines. We witnessed the last participation in the group of 80-year-old Fr Dibya, and welcomed some new faces.
Using a phrase that emerged during the online assembly, indeed the gathering this year was overcast by limit-situations: the inability to meet each other face to face, the ongoing struggles with the Omicron surge, the palpable turmoil in Myanmar, the global ecological crisis, experiences of vulnerability, and frailty in living our vow of poverty more faithfully in our contemporary world. Yet, we experienced abounding generous self-giving, which brought us together and kept us united in mind and heart as companions of the Lord. A special experience of solidarity was the turmoil in Myanmar. We received personal updates on the day-to-day precarious developments of the situation there throughout our meeting.
We began as we ended, discovering and deepening connections with the Lord and each other. The genuine self-donation of each other to one another’s embrace through the sharing of our personal consolations and desolations set the needed affective tone and spiritual platform for everyone to reconnect at the core of wherever we were as individuals, bearing within our hearts the sorrows and joys of our mission within our specific contexts.
It also allowed some common issues in relation to formation in the Novitiate to emerge and these were taken up in our ensuing discussions. Some issues that needed further reflection were: the challenges posed by pre-novitiate preparations in various contexts and also that of post-novitiate integration into ongoing accompaniment, the presence and role of interaction with one’s family in the process of discernment and formation, the need to prepare men and especially those younger for work in this area of formation, amongst others.
Fr Gabby Lamug-Nanawa, JCAP Coordinator for Reconciliation with Creation, graced the meeting with a well-grounded, insightful and thought-provoking presentation on Our Social and Ecological Context: Forming a Narrative. The following dialogue and forum gave us some time to seek clarification and share our own personal engagement with the theme in our everyday lives, and especially its integration into the work of formation in the Novitiate.
The meeting was punctuated by a day of personal prayer and reflection on Fr General’s recent call to the entire Society to re-evaluate the living of our vow of poverty. The two pivotal questions which steered our personal time with the Lord and spiritual conversation were: 1) How can the vow of poverty be lived out more faithfully in the Novitiate? 2) How can novices in their early Jesuit lives grow in living this vow?
A review of the recently held first ever JCAP Novices Gathering was later taken up and there was resounding affirmation of the graces received by all. Further and future opportunities for such gatherings either at the JCAP level or between specific Novitiates were proposed. The online platform, while being a contingent substitute for a more normal coming together, has only served to reveal its potentialities and benefits for pertinent purposes such as the sharing of resources and programmes between novitiates whenever necessary with greater ease.
Before concluding the meeting, the participants took time to utter prayers of thanksgiving for the many graces that each individually and we as a group had received through our interactions.
Fr Riyo Mursanto, JCAP Delegate for Formation, entrusted to the group some parting words of encouragement and invited us to assist in the ongoing work of updating and refining the profile of a Jesuit in Asia Pacific which was produced in 2011.
We ended, with grateful hearts and hearty smiles in being companions, offering up our intentions and desires for each other to the Most Holy Trinity.
Fr Ravi Michael Louis SJ is a Jesuit from the Malaysia-Singapore Region