Meeting of the Extended Council – Father General is asking us to pray
As Father General mentioned in his Christmas message, he is currently convening his Extended Council to discern what the Universal Apostolic Preferences of the Society of Jesus will be in the coming years. The Council includes the General and Regional Assistants, as well as the Presidents of the six Jesuit "Conferences", the heads of the "Secretariats" and other officials. In total, a group of about 25 people. Dr Christina Kheng, from Singapore, is helping to facilitate the meeting. This step is a continuation of the previous ones, a follow-up to what has been experienced at the level of the Provinces and Conferences.
At the beginning of the session, Father General stressed the importance for the members of the Council to live in the spirit of discernment, the spirit that had characterized the deliberations of Ignatius and the first companions. He described the context of the task as follows: "Our horizon is the collaboration of the Society of Jesus with the mission of the Lord, from within the Catholic Church, as that mission has been defined since Vatican II and in harmony with the charism received by Ignatius and the first companions.”
Father Sosa linked the fundamental elements of the mission of the Society as defined by the last General Congregations: service of the faith, promotion of justice, dialogue with cultures and religions, reconciliation with God, creation and people, a reconciliation that necessarily implies a dimension of social justice.
As for the central objective of the meeting, the General summarized it as follows, "To help the apostolic body of the Society of Jesus to incarnate in its apostolic life, together with many other persons, the mission of reconciliation and justice with all its consequences, following from complete identification with the Crucified and Risen One.” The expected fruit is the proposal of Universal Apostolic Preferencesthat will help the Holy Father discern how the Society can, in a preferential way, serve the apostolic mission of the Church.
Please remember this important meeting in your prayer. To support your prayer, we will offer the Council's daily prayers on the website sjcuria.global. They will be available in the two languages of the session, Spanish and English. For the prayer on Sunday, January 6, feast of the Epiphany, click here.
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