Reflection

Introduction

From the perspective of understanding the Jesuit mission in terms of “faith and justice,” one could say what João Batista Libanio, SJ, said about liberation theology: it is like a bag of salt dissolved in water; it has lost its consistency, but now everything tastes a bit saltier. This change seems so obvious to us that I do not need to explain it further. However, I believe it still needs clarification, and I hope this re-examination can help us revisit some aspects we might overlook today.

The formulation of Decree 4 of the 32nd General Congregation, which summarizes the Jesuit mission as “the service of faith, of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement,” was partly a response to revolutionary Marxism and related movements of the “new left” during the time of the Second Vatican Council and the Cold War. These movements, along with the social theories supporting them, challenged the Christian faith as a source of meaning and a primary guide for community life. Additionally, they criticized it directly, portraying it as a drug that sustains social injustice. They emphasized these injustices so strongly that it became impossible to see poverty and inequality as natural, showing instead that they are the results of oppression — not only at the individual level but also within institutions and at other structures shaping relationships between people.

Considering this, it became clear that charity work alone is insufficient to alleviate the suffering of the poor. Why are they poor? This question needs a clear answer. The model of “cooperation with development," as seen in Populorum Progressio, Pope Paul VI’s social encyclical from 1967, does not fully address the issue either. To address poverty and exclusion caused by harmful structures, it is essential to target the root of the problem and transform those structures into ones that promote life.

With Gaudium et Spes, the Second Vatican Council paved the way for dialogue with the secular world, repositioning the Church as part of civil society and calling it to actively participate without seeking to control it. In Latin America, bishops collectively envisioned a transformation that would lead them to denounce oppression and to make a preferential option for the poor. Inspired by this stance from the hierarchy, liberation theologians did not hide their leaning toward socialism, which many at the time regarded as a promising alternative to capitalism, which had caused so much harm.

In this context, the highest governing body of the Society of Jesus decided in 1975 to incorporate the language of “struggle” and “liberation” into its way of understanding itself. In Decrees 2 and 4 of the 32nd General Congregation, an effort was made to “baptize” this inherently conflictual approach in three ways. First, Christian concepts were used to interpret categories that could originate from secular Marxism; for example, oppressive structures were described as the result of sin. Second, it emphasized that defending rights within the perspective of the Gospel must go hand in hand with reconciliation and forgiveness. Finally, the goal was not limited to a historical project; instead, it leaves open the eschatological significance of the Kingdom or reign of God.

Interestingly, the [GC 32] Jesuit assembly justified its forward-looking stance with an argument rooted in a very traditional scheme. They claimed that participating in the struggle for justice was the only way to bring the 2 billion people who have not yet accepted the Gospel to be baptized, as it would be the only way to give credibility to evangelization in the context of injustice or secularization. On the one hand, there seemed to be a dissonance with the emerging theology of that time, which was beginning to downplay the goal of converting the entire world to Christianity. They were going through an era of change, and it could have been a rhetorical device to persuade those who understood mission in such terms. On the other hand, the argument aimed to show that promoting justice was a prerequisite for serving the faith. In this sense, promoting justice was always a function of proclaiming the Good News. However, it is worth pointing out that back then, it seemed like they felt the need to express themselves this waythis way, as if it werenot enoughthatjustice did not already flowitselfemerges from the Gospel itself.

In any case, these Decrees [2 and 4] were sufficient to shape a way of understanding the Jesuit mission. The spirit of the document was much more meaningful than its actual words. Many Jesuits fully identified with the mission and wholeheartedly committed to it, summed up as “faith and justice.”

That has been lost.

“Faith and justice” no longer hold the same appeal as they used to. Moreover, what’s most striking is that they haven't been replaced by anything else. Our generation lacks a unifying inspiration to guide our collective generosity.

However, the same people continue to suffer.

Therefore, if we are to remain companions of Jesus of Nazareth, we must confront the same challenge our companions faced in 1975: “For our own sake, just as much as for the sake of our contemporaries, we must find a new language, a new set of symbols, that will enable us to leave our fallen idols behind us and rediscover the true God” (D4 26a).

The Kingdom or Reign of God

Without a clear understanding of the mission that unites and inspires us to give our best, our energies become dispersed. Without a doubt, Jesuits continue to work hard, and our works continue to do much good. However, there is no shared vision of what we are trying to achieve with all these efforts, both collectively and in accordance with the Gospel. As a result, we often chase after professional success or personal well-being, which are not terrible things, but neither do they fully reflect the invitation extended to us by Jesus Christ. When Father General Adolfo Nicolás spoke to the Jesuits in Latin America, he said that we are “distracted.” By this, he meant that we put secondary things first.

Therefore, another possible interpretation is that we must recover what came “first.” As the saying goes, alpha means omega. Therefore, when we refer to the "first," we are also referencing the "last." In other words, if we have lost sight of what is most important, it is mainly because we no longer have a clear vision of what we are ultimatelytrying to achieve through our work, or of what, at the end of the day, gives meaning to our mission. At its core, our many crises are a sign of a more profound crisis of meaning: a crisis of eschatological imagination. Therefore, to revive our mission with a strong sense of purpose and a clear direction, we need to renew how we imagine and relate to the “ultimate.”

Indeed, throughout our history, both as a Society and as a Church, the most extraordinary moments of missionary fervor occur when a popular eschatological framework directs the energy. When people clearly understand "where they are going and for what,” they can fully commit, and that commitment takes various forms depending on the imagination that gives it meaning. From the establishment of the Kairos in Christianity to the Jesuit millenarianism of the 16th century, praxis is always related to the Parousia.

In the case of General Congregation 32, the strength of its well-known formulation lay in its apparent connection to the eschatological imagination of the Kingdom, or reign of God. Liberation theologians, including Jesuits such as Jon Sobrino and Ignacio Ellacuría, systematically developed this model. Over time, they provided the necessary theoretical nuances to ensure dogmatic coherence, but unquestionably, its appeal was at the symbolic level. Decree 4 of GC 32 was summed up with the three-word catchphrase "faith and justice," and its theological basis, "building the Kingdom," inspired many, including Ellacuría himself, to dedicate their lives.

And that is precisely what has been lost.

What happened to the Kingdom? What caused it to stop bringing out the best in us?Maybe it was the brutal repression, both inside and outside the Church. Perhaps it was the end of the Cold War and the rise of disillusionment with socialism; the external pressure and the promise of utopian fulfillment that once fueled it were no longer there. Perhaps, the Hegelian roots of its Marxist background — a background with its scheme of linear progress — became increasingly difficult to understand with the onset of postmodernity, also played a role.

The truth is that we need another symbol that better reflects the sociocultural realities of today's Jesuits. I do not say symbols, despite our plurality, because here I mean something with the potential to become a universal language; of course, there could be other ways to approach unity in diversity, but I hope that those who read this will understand the value of what I am proposing, even if it is a partial and relative value.

The Paschal Mystery

Contemporary Jesuit theologian Christoph Theobald, in Christianisme comme styleand the first volume of Présences d’Évangile, offers an alternative to the symbol of the Kingdom. It is an eschatological image rooted in the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection. Its symbol appears in the book of Revelation: The Lamb slain and standing, surrounded by saints configured to Him. Just as Jesus did, Christians are called to love until the very end. This means that we must be willing to face violence without contributing to it; we should respond to violence by bearing witness to the radically gratuitous love of Christ. By doing so, we can free the violent individuals around us. When they experience our saintly, unarmed, and loving embrace, they will heal and become less afraid to disarm and show vulnerability as well. Thus, the proclamation of the Gospel is fulfilled and injustice overturned.

Only those who have received the love of the Lamb dare to face death without fear; they do so because their self-realization is rooted in sharing their happiness with others. However, the ripple effect of selflessness remains on the margins of the main narratives, unlike the ongoing development of the Kingdom. Rather, in this postmodern view, God's promise is fully realized in each specific moment when a person, configured to the Paschal Mystery, succeeds in overcoming violence through an attitude of gratuitous love. For Theobald, Christian practice involves cultivating a style—a daily way of proceeding—in which selflessness or gratuitous love is expressed through the vulnerability of non-violence and unconditional hospitality, known as “holiness.”

On the one hand, it seems that Theobald has successfully articulated a proposal for an eschatological symbol linked to a model of practice that could speak to the heart of contemporary Jesuits. However, there is a problem. When “holiness” (gratuitousness-absolute vulnerability) is applied to loving enemies, it makes perfect sense. It is the clearest and most potentially transformative way to respond to the call for conversion. Those who love others selflessly as Christ did—The Lamb and The Good Shepherd—show love for both their enemies and the poor, who are victims of others' enmities; this is where things get complicated. A person cannot expose himself in place of another. So, it does not make sense to allow oneself to be killed in order to save another person. In this situation, the logic of reconciliation is more appropriate than the logic of forgiveness. As Derrida rightly points out in his essay "On Forgiveness," forgiveness relates to the logic of justice and its mediations. Although these mediations are non-violent, they still involve elements of pressure and coercion.

Therefore, the 32nd General Congregation felt it necessary to describe the mission in two related but distinct dimensions—“service of faith” and “promotion of justice”—and acknowledged the tension between them. For those who love both their enemies and the poor, the dilemma is that love pushes them toward two types of action—the gratuitous “excess” of vulnerability on one hand and the “coercion” of political mediation on the other—which respond to opposing logics. The total commitment to vulnerability that “holiness” demands can suddenly feel like a trap (sub angelo lucis); or at least “impossible,” in some cases.This tension has been the subject of many reflections throughout the history of Christianity, and the history of the Society of Jesus cannot be understood without reference to it.

If in 1975, the risk of the Kingdom [or Reign of God] in the interpretation of Decree 4 and liberation theology was to resolve this tension in favor of justice, the risk of the contemporary model of the Lamb in Theobald's interpretation is to resolve it in the opposite direction.In principle, Theobald does not deny the necessity of accepting our political condition as historical citizens. He considers the biblical tradition that inspires the Christian praxis of “promoting justice” to be legitimate within civil society through political mediation. However, he is always hesitant to fully engage with this perspective. For Theobald, the injustice of the modern world is so profound and complicated that it exceeds our ability to create a more just world, so the only suitable Christian response is an abundance of gratuitousness that goes beyond justice itself; this gratuitousness is expressed through vulnerability (“letting oneself be affected”).

Theobald recognizes the ethical problem of focusing solely on gratuitousness as a model of loving praxis: as something inherently personal, immediate, and respectful of freedom, a political system cannot be built on the logic of gratuitousness. Apart from those specific situations where someone feels disarmed and transformed by hearing, "happy-are-you" from a vulnerable position, this praxis does not significantly affect the social structures that are important in most people's lives. Theobald has attempted to downplay this issue, partly by accepting the sacrifice of political effectiveness in the name of a more radical magis, and, on the other hand, by maintaining the illusion that his choice of gratuitousness also encompasses political justice, thereby making sacrifice less significant. For instance, he suggests that the violence of Nazism was countered by the radical vulnerability demonstrated by martyrs like Bonhoeffer. This argument is unconvincing.

And people still suffer.

In Gaudium et Spes, the solution to the tension was to propose a division of responsibilities. The clergy and those in consecrated life should focus on serving the faith, while the laity should prioritize promoting justice. However, as the 32nd General Congregation recognized, this approach does not work for Jesuits because the Formula of our Institute assigns us to work on everything that benefits the common good.

So, if the models we have seen so far leave us unsatisfied, what could be an alternative?

Contemplation to Attain Love

If, for those of us who practice Ignatian spirituality, the Kingdom places us in the Second Week and the Paschal Mystery in the Third and Fourth Weeks, then it is no surprise that the journey now brings us to the Contemplation to Attain Love (Spiritual Exercises 230-237). Although it is not a biblical text, it is our very “own” exercises. It is a likely image worth taking seriously to help recover what we have lost: a shared symbol that serves as an inspiration and criterion for the discernment of our apostolic body’s mission.

The core of the Contemplation to Attain Love is the generosity that flows from gratitude in a mutual relationship with God. The repeated use of a simple dynamic expresses this gratitude and generosity: recognizing how much we have received in one area of our life and responding by offering ourselves completely with the words “Take, Lord, and receive.” This process is repeated “in the same way” in different areas, each touching on a different aspect of God's first gift of himself to us. In this way, the Contemplation to Attain Love promotes a way of living that includes a wide range of actions. As a symbol of mission, it can easily incorporate many expressions that complement the service of faith in our mission—whether promoting justice, engaging in intercultural and inter-religious dialogue, caring for the environment, promoting integral development, or exploring alternatives to development. One does not necessarily exclude the others; instead, these aspects should be harmonized or discerned to figure out what is most suitable for each situation, “according to times, persons, and places.” Because of its focus on the way of proceeding (i.e., the way we move our body while walking), it manages to integrate those different aspects without falling into dispersion. It has the power to inspire, motivate, and guide Jesuits who readily identify with the maxim, “in all things, love and serve.”

Its focus on interpersonal gratitude as the main driving force behind praxis, and on style (or way of proceeding) as its key tool, makes the model I propose similar to Theobald’s. However, it includes two subtle differences that directly address what left us unsatisfied with the latter. Let us see.

To better understand the first difference, it is helpful to examine the work of Godefroy Midy, a Haitian Jesuit. In 1976, a year after the 32nd General Congregation, he introduced liberation theology to his country. However, after experiencing disillusionment with the political movement that inspired it over the following decades, he shifted his approach. In recent years, Midy has proposed a model of praxis explicitly inspired by the Contemplation to Attain Love.

Like Theobald, Midy emphasizes hospitality, but an aspect of Haitian culture gives him a new perspective. In Haiti, when you arrive at someone's house, instead of ringing a bell, you shout, “Onè!” (meaning “honor”). The person inside responds, “Respè!” (“respect”) to grant permission to enter or acknowledge their presence. The language of hospitality in Haiti is based on recognition, and this is how Midy develops his proposal.

This slight change in terminology alters the tone of the model. Recognition is essential; it is the key that fuels the surrender sought through the Contemplation to Attain Love. In this process, we request the grace for "inner knowledge of all the good we have received, so that, by fully recognizing it, I may love and serve in all things." Furthermore, “recognizing” implies a form of hospitality connected to the contemplation. In Ignatian terms, the [contemplative] gaze represents a way the subject allows himself to be affected internally by the suffering of another person, thus becoming vulnerable. This vulnerability appears in two ways: first, through the internal effect of empathy, and second, through a proactive commitment to assist others. It is the way the Trinity looks at the world: contemplation leading to the Incarnation. In practical terms, this concept can be understood as the hospitality that Jesuit James Keenan describes as inherent in the Jesuit charism. It reflects the hospitality of the Good Samaritan: not only does it involve preparing to receive others by being open, but it also means actively welcoming them by going out to meet them.

Recognition also carries significant implications for the theme of social justice, not just because it aligns with many modern socio-political demands (and theories). In the context of the Contemplation to Attain Love, the type of recognition involved is not a reciprocal exchange based on symmetry and proportionality but one of mutuality, where the starting point is asymmetry, and the gap is bridged through generosity, “each giving what he has or can.” To the extent that we learn to turn this dynamic, started by God with us, into a way of engaging in our relationships amid socioeconomic asymmetry or diversity of identities, it can foster new bonds of solidarity and, therefore, mutual belonging. If we love one another as He has loved us, in a spirit of recognition, the social cohesion and harmony we desperately need may begin to emerge.

Until that day arrives and conflict persists, we must creatively manage the tension between claiming gratuitousness and advocating for justice. For Midy, the dilemma between sacrificing one's life and defending it is resolved through recognition, which is understood as active service. Unlike Theobald, self-realization through self-giving is not primarily about risking death but about the relationship of service—that is, the goal is to promote and protect the lives of the poor; as a secondary matter, this is done without fear of death. When life itself (not just one's own) is threatened, the proclamation of God's love must begin by expressing God’s desire for everyone to have life in abundance to be meaningful. Therefore, defending the lives of the poor, rather than risking one's safety is what lends credibility to the hope that motivates one to give one's life.

The second difference from Theobald's model concerns his eschatological imagery. This is an important detail because, as said, for a symbol to connect with our hearts and act as a criterion for discernment, it must address the question of the “ultimate” that gives meaning to our mission.

Ulpiano Vázquez, a Jesuit mystagogue, explains that the eschatology of the "Contemplation to Attain Love" involves the Trinitarian sanctification of messianic time. This is the period of the "birth pangs," which was definitively initiated by the Paschal Mystery but remains incomplete in its effects. This differs from the “holiness” in Theobald's Christological model, where “the end comes” each time someone becomes a martyr. Therefore, Vázquez encourages us to work with God, who “works and labors” [continually] for our redemption.

This way of relating to the "ultimate" greatly influences the meaning of the mission. While Theobald awaits the self-destruction of violence that puts an end to history, those who dwell on the Contemplation to Attain Love await a future that has yet to ripen. It involves active waiting; meanwhile, the necessary means for cultivating a style or daily way of proceeding are developed into a culture of transforming societal structures from the ground up.In this way, the historicity of salvation stays intact without assuming the linear progress that some, a few decades ago, might have seen as leading toward the “maximum construction” of the Kingdom or reign of God.

Conclusion

Even “the crisis of utopias” is now outdated; many young people only know “crises.” Faced with this reality, we need a new way to relate to the “ultimate,” one that can heal wounds and help us refocus so we can recommit to a shared hope.I have proposed a model inspired by the Contemplation to Attain Love. I am unsure if my interpretation will resonate with my colleagues, but as long as we, Jesuits, continue to embrace the principle of “in everything, love and serve [the Lord],” our salt will not lose its flavor.