One Mission, Many Ministries: Responding to the Call of Christ the King
Jesuits are motivated by a deep, personal love of Jesus Christ and a “desire to imitate in some manner our Creator and Lord Jesus Christ … since he is the way which leads to life” (St Ignatius of Loyola). We seek to be “contemplatives in action” combining the service of faith with the promotion of justice, following the example of our founder, St Ignatius, who strove to “find God in all things.” We consider ourselves to be sent on mission with Jesus as companions consecrated for service under the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
Jesuits are best known in the fields of education (schools, colleges, universities, seminaries, theological faculties), intellectual research, and spiritual renewal. In Asia Pacific, Jesuits run schools, universities and parishes and engage in missionary work, direct evangelisation to the poor, social justice, inter-religious dialogue, and other ‘frontier’ ministries. Most importantly, we continue the tradition of providing retreats based on The Spiritual Exercises, the foundational work of St Ignatius.
The goal of the Jesuit mission is to be ever available for the greater universal good, desiring always the “magis”, that which is truly better “For the Greater Glory of God.” It is this availability for the Church’s universal mission that marks the Society of Jesus as an apostolic religious order.