The Arrupe Month is a significant period of formation for Jesuit scholastics when, after some years in the Society, we are invited to retrace individually and together our call to the priesthood and to personal intimacy with the Lord. Looking back in prayerful gratitude and humility, we reflect on how we have responded to the call of God. We reflect whether we are more at home as a Jesuit in the Society, and with ourselves, as men of faith, men of the Church, and men on a mission.
The inspiration for this month-long course comes from Fr Pedro Arrupe’s letter, On Serious Spiritual Preparation for Ordination to the Priesthood (27 December 1979), which tasked us to deepen further our convictions in the most important aspects of our lives and vocation to prepare us for ordination with the greatest possible enlightenment and freedom.
So in July, nine of us from Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Philippines, who are in formation together in Manila, spent Arrupe Month in prayer and reflection. The crown of our experience was the eight-day Ignatian retreat, in which we asked for the grace of spiritual freedom as we reflected on our human qualities, our life of faith in the context of the Church today, and our mission as Jesuits given the signs of the times.
We were deeply moved by the reflections, readings, and community activities. Vocation stories were among our favourites, and, given the crisis in Myanmar, our prayers and reflections had a strong missionary orientation. We were consoled to learn that two brothers from Vietnam have offered themselves to the Jesuit mission in Myanmar. Another gracious moment was meeting each other’s families through Zoom that made us more aware of who we are and the root of our vocation. The sharing and inputs from several Jesuits, experts, and diocesan priests further reinforced the guidance provided by Fr Arrupe’s letter.
The Arrupe Month was also a special opportunity to reread some Jesuit documents and revisit Decree 2 of the 32nd General Congregation addressing the identity of Jesuits today. Firstly, what is it to be a Jesuit? It is to know that one is a sinner, yet called to be a companion of Jesus as Ignatius was: Ignatius, who begged the Blessed Virgin to “place him with her Son,” and who then saw the Father himself ask Jesus, carrying his Cross, to take this pilgrim into his company. Secondly, what is it to be a companion of Jesus today? It is to engage, under the standard of the Cross, in the crucial struggle of our time: the struggle for faith and that struggle for justice which it includes.
In the end, we are very grateful to God for the gift of vocation as we reaffirm our commitment to the mission entrusted to us. We owe our formators and benefactors a debt of gratitude for this experience. Because of them we were able to have a fruitful Arrupe Month even in the midst of a pandemic.
