Jesuits need to be “real bridges between the young and the Church”, said Father General Adolfo Nicolás in a letter to the Society written as a synthesis of the ex-officio 2011 letters.
The ex-officio letters are the annual letters from every Province on a subject which Father General indicates each year. Last year, he asked for information about Jesuit work for youth.
Braving the rain and Manila’s congested streets, more than 11,000 young Filipinos assembled at Ateneo de Manila University for the World Youth Day (WYD) Manila to Madrid Overnight Vigil on August 20 and 21, 2011. Most of them came from Catholic schools, parishes and organisations, and for many, this was their first WYD event.
Magis is a pastoral experience organized by the Society of Jesus and other religious organisations for the days leading up to World Youth Day (WYD) celebrations, which this year were from 16 to 21 August in Madrid, Spain.
The Sisters of Charity hosted a summer educational programme at St. Gerosa’s Convent from March 15 to May 20, 2011. Titus Tin Maung recounts his experience of joining this workshop for the month of April.
A new Jesuit school will open its doors in the Sydney suburb of Redfern later this year. It is the first Jesuit school to be established in Australia in 60 years, and one that goes to the very heart of Jesuit teaching: equality and opportunity for all.
Catering to Aboriginal students, the primary school – tentatively named Jarjum College – will identify children who have fallen through the cracks and who are not attending school regularly due to disadvantages. It has been sponsored by St Aloysius’ College, Milsons Point, but will be an independent Jesuit school.
Fr Jojo Fung (MAS), Coordinator of Jesuit Companions in Indigenous Ministry (JCIM) of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific, writes on the gathering of Jesuits and youth leaders of indigenous peoples.
Many Australians are going out of their way to volunteer in East Timor, writes Jock Cheetham.
School’s out and night has fallen, but 10 students are back in class to hear Domingos Ati explain his work in one of the poorest parts of the world. Ati was briefing the year 11 boys from Saint Ignatius’ College, Riverview, on what to expect when they visited East Timor in the school holidays.
Monsignor Enrique Figaredo Alvargonzales recently celebrated his 10th anniversary as head of the Battambang apostolic prefecture.
However, even before his installation, he had been working with Cambodians, particularly those with disabilities, as early as 1985 through the Jesuit Refugee Service in Thailand.
A new experiment on vocation promotion came into play in Korea. From August 6 – 8, the Office of Vocation Promotion of the Korea Province, under the directorship of Fr. Song-yong Joseph Choe (KOR) ran the Jesuit school of religious life as an educational and experimental venue for high school students who consider religious life as their calling.
‘By the end of my Indonesian Immersion Experience, I knew that I had found what I was looking for’, writes Erina Sharp, one of a group of young adults who recently travelled to Yogyakarta with MAGiS, the Ignatian young adult ministry. Here, Erina recounts an experience which enabled her to overcome obstacles and, in so doing, learn something new about herself.