It is the human heart which stands first in need of healing. Only through inner change, the conversion or metanoia of which Holy Scripture speaks, will man become whole and, himself healed, feel impelled to turn in compassion to a planet in need of healing.

-- Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ

The remains of Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ, former superior of the Society of Jesus, were moved this past June to a tomb prepared for him at the Church of the Gesù in Rome. His body now rests in a chapel where several other generals of the Society have been interred. The chapel is located near the tomb of St. Ignatius.

The official celebration of the translocation was held at Gesù on November 14, the 90th anniversary of Arrupe's birth in Bilbao in Basque country.

Victim

On October 27, news was received from Hazaribag in northern India that Fr. A. T. Thomas, SJ, had been murdered in a nearby village. Thomas, a native of India, had worked since 1988 with the Harijans (low-caste "untouchables"), helping them establish schools. He was kidnaped and killed by one of the many private armed groups currently terrorizing local villages, presumably for his involvement in a land-rights lawsuit several years ago. His murder is under investigation.

Over 3,000 people from all classes and religions attended Fr. Thomas's funeral.

"It was a fitting farewell for the champion of the cause of the poor," said Fr. Edward Mudavassery, SJ, provincial of the Hazaribag province. "Some people were heard saying that we have a martyr among us."

Healing Prayers

When Fr. Tom Biecker, SJ, was a young Jesuit, he spent a lot of time in hospitals not as a chaplain but as a patient. While there, he noticed that the prayers available to patients were outdated and lifeless. So he began writing his own, drawing from personal experience. The prayers were printed onto cards, and 20,000 were sold the first year.

That was in 1938. Since then, 4.5 million copies of Fr. Biecker's simple, personal prayers -- now available in twelve languages, including Spanish, Lithuanian, and Chinese -- have found their way into the hands of patients the world over. Fr. Biecker, 88, takes orders for his prayer leaflets from his room at the Colombiere Center in Clarkston, Michigan. To order, call (248) 625-5611, or write to him care of the Colombiere Center, P.O. Box 139, Clarkston, MI 48347-0139.

Nobel

Tun Chunnareth, director of a Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) project in Siem Riep, Cambodia, who had been injured by a landmine as a young soldier in the early 1980s, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. The prize, shared by the campaign's steering committee and the campaign's coordinator, Jody Williams, was presented on December 10 in Oslo, Norway.

JRS adopted the campaign in 1994; it is one of over 1,000 organizations in more than 60 countries involved in the effort to ban landmines and the indiscriminate harm they do.

Fr. Mark Raper, SJ, JRS's international director, considers Chunnareth "a worthy representative of the worldwide campaign, an articulate spokesman for the hundreds of thousands of landmine survivors."

Monument

Fr. Dennis Leder, SJ, poses with workers in charge of the construction of his monument to Rafael Landívar, SJ, (1731 -- 1793) namesake of the Universidad Rafael Landívar in Guatemala City, Guatemala.

Landívar, superior of a Jesuit community in Antigua, Guatemala, during the suppression of the Society in the late 1700s, is one of the country's important literary figures. One of his most famous poems, written while Landívar was in exile in Italy, praises the natural beauty of Central America.

Fr. Dennis Leder, SJ, artist and professor at the university's school of architecture, included the first phrase of Landívar's poem "Rusticatio Mexicana" on the other side of the monument.

Reunion

Though there is no Jesuit church or school or retreat house in Pittsburgh, there certainly are Jesuit alumni there; more than 120 gathered for a special alumni reception at the city's Sheraton Station Square this October 8th. They represented 18 Jesuit colleges and universities, including Boston College, Canisius, Fordham, Georgetown, St. Louis University, St. Joseph's, Loyola Chicago, Loyola College, Marquette, Regis, Rockhurst, University of San Francisco, and Wheeling Jesuit.

The idea for this "mixed school" meeting originated with Fr. Thomas Acker, SJ, president of Wheeling Jesuit in Wheeling, W.Va. His idea was to develop a way for Jesuit graduates in an area to network, build community, and join forces in the service of the marginalized, something Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, SJ, called for during the conference of international Jesuit alumni held in Sydney last summer.

The Pittsburgh meeting came about after Michael Moran, director of alumni relations at Wheeling Jesuit, asked his colleagues at Jesuit college and university alumni offices to mail a flyer to their alumni in and around Pittsburgh. Now, a number of Jesuit schools, including Scranton, Fordham, Regis, John Carroll, and Loyola Marymount, are planning on hosting similar reunions for all Jesuit alumni in their areas.

New President

Fr. Joseph McShane, SJ, has been appointed the new president of Scranton University in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Fr. McShane, current dean of Fordham College and professor of theology at Fordham University in New York, was chair of the department of religious studies at LeMoyne University in Syracuse, New York. He succeeds Fr. Joseph Panuska, SJ, Scranton's 22d president.

Song of Love

Fr. Robert Fabing, SJ, composer and performer of liturgical music, was called upon by the Missionaries of Charity to perform at Mother Teresa's funeral in Calcutta this September. For five days he sang at the motherhouse, at St. Thomas Church, where Mother Teresa's body lay in state, and at her funeral and burial. Fr. Fabing, retreat director at the Jesuit Retreat House in Los Altos, Calif., serves as chaplain for a community of Missionaries of Charity in San Francisco and has directed retreats for their communities worldwide for many years.

Fr. Fabing's "Your Song of Love" was a piece that he performed for and dedicated to Mother Teresa in 1984, the year after he met her in Calcutta during the first of his many visits to the city. The composition is included in "Winter Risen," one of his albums of liturgical music available from Oregon Catholic Press, 1-800-LITURGY.