GC 34 reaffirmed "the spirit and emphases" of GC 31, 32 and 33. "Like these congregations, GC 34 asks the Society [of Jesus] to sustain both its spiritual and community renewal and its efforts to meet the challenges and opportunities of the modern world." Jesuits are asked "to read and pray over" the updating of law and orientation of the mission.
The process is one of a "more profound discovery of God" as it was for St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. For Ignatius it meant developing a way of proceeding. This way "is found in the pilgrimage of the Spiritual Exercises from sinner beloved and forgiven to disciple called to labor in the vineyard and to suffer with Christ." It is also found "in the pilgrimage of the Constitutions (that law which governs Jesuits) . . ." It is found each Jesuit's own self-examination "where each Jesuit finds his own pathway to God." It is also found "in the communal narrative of these past thirty years of renewal and reorientation."
The law's updating and the decrees and recommendations of the congregation "are animated by the desire to help people as Jesus Christ helped people." The documents also "call us to learn how to be helped by people: how to be poor, how to see the Church as enriched by lay leadership, how to listen to the experience of women today, how to find God in the religious traditions of people from other beliefs, how to engage in respectful dialogue, how to become involved in the new cultural world of communication, and how to let the young give us hope and dreams for the future."
St. Ignatius offers to Jesuits "a Christ who is on the move." Thus, Ignatius and his companions "choose to be with Christ as servants of his mission, to be with people where they dwell and work and struggle, to bring the Gospel into their lives and labors."
Jesuits too "are ready to be dispersed to any part of Christ's vineyard, to labor in those parts of it and in those works which have been entrusted to us." In Christ "we can accept the magnitude of this challenge..."
Requests at the congregation for further direction in the spiritual life and in community life are directed to Decree 11 of GC 32, "The Union of Minds and Hearts in the Society of Jesus."
Beneath the renewal of law "is a reverence for persons, an effort to make law serve the lived experience of Jesuits, to help the community of the Society become more united in its witness to the Gospel and in its labor."
Finally, participants in the congregation express their gratitude for Jesuits who have preceded those living today as well as those who are entering retirement. The congregation added, "we are heartened by younger Jesuits who will assume the leadership in our ministries in the years to come."
Synopses of Other Decress which are available.
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