Community life is an important dimension of the Jesuit identity, which, in essence, is a relational identity. Thus, community is always an integral and fundamental element of the Jesuit mission. This was the backdrop for the gathering of 23 Jesuits from the Chinese Province, including the Provincial, Province Consultors, Local Superiors and young Jesuits, in Changhua, Taiwan for a workshop on leadership in Jesuit community life. Aptly titled “Community as Mission”, the five-day activity held from June 6 to 10 sought to help the Jesuits gain a better understanding of Jesuit leadership vis-à-vis attitudes and contexts that influence Jesuit commitment and openness to change.
Fr Arthur Leger SJ, Director of the East Asian Pastoral Institute, led the group to reflect and discuss how Jesuit leadership and community life can be lived out in the spirit of General Congregation 35. Foremost, he pointed out, one needs to have a new attitude in order to improve community life and to achieve good leadership. During the discussion, the participants shared that they are often not aware of their own attitudes, and acknowledged that some attitudes need to be learned, while others need to be changed.
Using the GC 35 text “Many Sparks, One Fire: Many Stories, One History”, Fr Leger stressed the power of narrative in leadership. “Successful leaders are not just good storytellers but also possess a strong narrative intelligence to speak about transformation, reflection and global themes in their stories,” he said. During the small group sharing, the participants each told a story about Jesuit community life and Ignatian spirituality. Afterwards, they reflected on whether their stories were positive and transformative.
There was a session focussed on Jesuit spirituality as a spirituality of tensions apparent in the life of St Ignatius, GC 35, Pope Francis’ words and the writings of William Barry SJ, John O’Malley SJ, Chris Lowney, as well as the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific’s “A Profile of a Formed Jesuit”. For instance, Fr Barry listed seven pairs of tensions in his book Contemplative in Action: trust in God vs trust in one’s own talents, prayer vs action, companionship vs mission, obedience vs learning from experience, the centre vs the periphery, poverty vs use of the world’s goods, and chastity vs affective friendship. To appreciate how creative tension can result in harmony, the participants watched a video called “The Power of Paradox”, which provided tools for the creative integration of competing demands, and “Creative Tension”, which helped to show how one’s current reality and one’s vision can be reconciled in order to achieve the magis.
Equally important in Jesuit leadership is context. “The actual context determines our style of leadership, and thus knowing our context is fundamental,” shared Fr Luciano Morra SJ, Socius, Admonitor and Vocation Director of the Chinese Province. “For example, Ignatius would check the disposition of the retreatant to decide whether he/she was ready for the full Exercises or not. That is the interior context. Externally we need to know the social and ecclesial context. In GC 35, the new frontiers represent the new context to us all.”
The workshop demonstrated how leadership in Jesuit community life begins with establishing affective and right relationships; and that it can be a joy if the Spiritual Exercises are used as theories of leadership and reflection. It is important to possess the right attitudes – to be attentive, intelligent, reasonable and responsible; and to tell true, positive and transformative stories. It requires being mindful of the changing context, practising contextual intelligence; and, ultimately, leadership in Jesuit life is grounded in the Ignatian spiritual tradition of discerning God’s presence in our narratives and personal experiences.