Our Foundations

What drives and sustains us

01 Spirituality

St. Ignatius Loyola said about God: “I find him at every hour.” The founder of the Society of Jesus describes in his booklet “The Spiritual Exercises” how God led him to this attitude from which we live still today. This is the core of Ignatian spirituality we share with other people: Discovering God in one’s own life and staying in touch with Him.

Many will be surprised to learn that we do not have fixed times of prayer. Although almost every community celebrates the Eucharist together every day, but there are hardly any joint prayer times beyond.

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Every Jesuit shapes his own prayer life, because Ignatius wanted us not to be bound to fixed times, such as those prescribed by the Liturgy of the Hours. He wanted us to be free to work in the midst of the world. We are to make our service our prayer: contemplativus in actione – connected to God in all that we do. But there are also times when we retreat into silence to ask more intensely about God’s will and to realign ourselves with Him.

The Spiritual Exercises make up our specific charism. One could say: What the monastery is for the Benedictine and the brown habit with the rope is for the Franciscan, is for us Jesuits the experience of the 30-day Spiritual Exercises. Every Jesuit makes these “Great Spiritual Exercises” twice in his life (in the novitiate and in the tertianship). Through contemplation of various biblical texts, silence, daily accompaniment and constant conversation with God, we try to let ourselves be formed more and more after the example of Jesus in thinking, feeling and acting. This experience is overwhelming and difficult to put into words. In what we do in everyday life, however, it becomes clear that the Spiritual Exercises are the powerhouse for our commitment, no matter whether at a professor’s desk, in youth work, in pastoral care or in outreach to people in need.

Three Keywords of Ignatian Spirituality

  • Seeking and Finding God in All Things

    Encountering the world with curiosity and a spirit of discovery, because God has an infinite number of ways to communicate with us in the world and through it.

  • Magis

    A little word that has it all: wanting and desiring “more” when it comes to God, not being hastily satisfied because God trusts us with more than we trust ourselves.

  • Everything for the Greater Glory of God

    We see ourselves as God’s co-workers and must always remain clear: Ultimately, it is about Him and not about us!

02 Community

There are more than 14,000 Jesuits worldwide, working in 120 countries. We do not have an outward sign of recognition, such as a common religious habit. What unites us is to be “friends in the Lord” and “companions of Jesus”. The vows of poverty, celibate chastity and obedience keep us in this friendship and companionship with Jesus Christ and with each other. We share everything with each other: property, work, and prayer.

Three Keywords for Being Companions and Friends in the Lord

  • Communities

    Jesuits normally live together as brothers in house or flat communities of various sizes. We share not only kitchen and chapel, but our whole life, good moments as well as disappointments. In our communities, Jesuits from different generations, continents and missions often live together.

  • Governance

    In Rome, not far from the centre of the Universal Church, resides our religious leadership, which consists of Father General and his team.

    Father Arturo Sosa SJ has been Superior General of the Society of Jesus since 2016 and leads the more than 14,000 Jesuits. The Jesuit Order is divided into provinces, which – depending on the size of the country and the number of Jesuits living there – can cover a part of the country, a whole country, or several countries. Each province is headed by a “Provincial” who is responsible for the welfare of each Jesuit in the province. He also determines how best to implement the mission of the Society of Jesus that province.

  • Universality

    We are an international religious community – there are Jesuits from nearly every part of the world and in nearly every country. As the hopes and needs of people are not limited by national borders, we have tried thinking and acting globally since the beginning of our order. Of great help for this are our contacts to fellow Jesuits from other countries and our personal experience with staying abroad, which every Jesuit gains during his formation.

03 Vows

Many people think that the vows of “poverty”, “chastity” and “obedience” restrict a person unnaturally and demand above all renunciation and “sacrifice”. However, Jesuits understand their vows differently. Rather, the vows are the expression of whom we bind ourselves to in order to be free. We Jesuits opt for the three Evangelical Counsels because we promise ourselves much from the form of life they bring: Closeness to God and to people, freedom towards myself and towards things, and freedom for something greater, namely that we proclaim the Gospel as whole persons.

If you look at the vows in isolation, they make no sense. They do it only in relation to God because they help us trying to live a deep relationship with him. In this way we find fulfilment in wanting to live for and with Him.

For us, the vows are a way to grow in freedom and to achieve a fulfilled life.

04 Mission

“Helping the souls” it is called by St. Ignatius – “becoming men and women for others” can we say nowadays. This is the way we understand following Christ. We are committed to faith and justice because this was Jesus’ way: loving God and the neighbour, solidarity in action without ifs and buts.

We Jesuits bear His name. He has made it out duty to act like Him. That is why our place is as much at the centre of the Church as it is at its margins and beyond.

Searching and finding God in all things and helping people: this is expressed in the four “Universal Apostolic Preferences” which shape our mission:

  • Pastoral Care: Showing the Way to God

    Who am I really? How do I want to shape my life? Where am I drawn to? What is my vocation? In our fast-paced world, there is less and less space and peace to find our true self or to let God find us. This is where our first Apostolic Preference comes in: We Jesuits want to help find God through discernment and spiritual exercises.

    We accompany people in their search for themselves, a successful life and God. Preaching, administering the sacraments and spiritual direction in retreats as well as in everyday life are important elements of our work.

  • Youth: Journeying with Young People

    In this digital age young people have a lot of possibilities to unite them as never before. At the meantime they face huge challenges: the fragility of relations, the uncertainties of the labour market, and the life-threatening destruction of the environment. Youth is a time for dreams and experiments, but also for fundamental decisions and setting the course. This is where our third preference comes in: to accompany youth and young people in their shaping of a hopeful future.

    We run extracurricular youth work in Berlin, Hamburg, and Innsbruck.

    We run schools and tertiary institutions because good education and training strengthens young people. In In Germany there are three Jesuit schools: Canisius College in Berlin, Aloisius College in Bonn, and the College St. Blasien (with boarding school) in the Black Forest.

    Additionally, our Central European Province runs two tertiary institutions: the Munich School of Philosophy and the Frankfurt School of Philosophy and Theology. There are, of course, many more schools, universities, and educational opportunities around the world. Some of them are aimed at refugees, such as JWL (Jesuit Worldwide Learning).

  • Justice: Walking with the Excluded

    Having the well-being of all in mind also means bringing and being a blessing to individuals. Our main commitments in this area are the Mission Procura jesuitenweltweit (in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) and the Jesuit Refugee Service, which was founded in 1980. Some of the Jesuits involved in this are Fr Jörg Alt, Fr Georg Sporschill, Brother Michael Schöpf, Fr Christoph Albrecht, Br Dieter Müller, or Fr Markus Inama. If you want to know more about them, feel free to contact us.

  • Ecology: Caring for Our Common Home

    The global environmental crisis has a strong and dramatic impact on the lives of the poor and vulnerable. There is an urgent need for action for Christians and all people of good will. An ecological conversion is needed to protect and preserve our wonderful planet. We as the Society of Jesus want to respond to this call of our Creator. Consequently, our fourth Apostolic Preference is: collaborating in the care of our Common Home.