Lay-Jesuit Collaboration - Some Experiences

For some decades now lay christians have had access to the scenario of Church life. In this respect Vatican II was an important stage when it recognised, in a number of its documents, the importance of the role of the laity in evangelising our society.

More recently in 1987 in the Synod on the Laity, the document Christifideles Laici (CL) that emerged from it reiterates the affirmations of the Council and takes a further step by reaffirming the importance of the call to holiness that all Christians receive by virtue of their baptism.

In Latin America in 1992 the Santo Domingo Conference placed the "Protagonism (active participation) of the Laity" as a prioity in its concluding document. The document stated "there will no new evangelisation without the active participation of the laity" (n. 107).

This review of lay involvement in the Church in the last number of years begs the question of CLC members as to how, from the perspective of our particular vocation, we are living this more "active participation". What are the specific and appropriate elements in our spirituality that help us particpate more actively and that, without which, according to the Latin American bishops, there will be no new evangelisation?

Two recent texts may throw some light on our reflections.

1. Pope John Paul II’s post synodal apostolic exhortation Vita Consecreta (1996).

Paragraph 54 of this document states that "nowadays some Institutes, because of new situations, frequently arrive at the conviction that ‘their charism should be shared with the laity’. The laity are invited to participate in the spirituality and mission of the Institute with a greater intensity than before...a new and more hope-filled chapter in the history of the lay-consecrated relationship has been initiated". Paragraph 55 continues "These new ways of collaboration and communion deserve and require different methods of stimulation. Overall this could bear fruit in a spirituality that pushes out the boundaries of the Institute....Another positive consequence could be a connection between the laity and those who are consecrated resulting in a greater desire for mission....Often lay participation brings with it the unexpected which, in turn, can give real depth to certain aspects of the charism. It can lead to a new and more spiritual interpretation of the charism pointing to new directions for future apostolic endeavours".

2. Decree 13 of GC 34 (Thirty Fourth General Congregation of the Society of Jesus) begins with the affirmation that ‘the Church of the next millenium will be the "Church of the laity"’. It also says that ‘collaboration with the laity is both constitutive of our way of proceeding and a grace that requires of us a personal, communal and institutional conversion. It invites us into the area of lay-ministry, to share our mission and create new ways of cooperating with them". (n. 26)

The document proposes a lay-Jesuit collaboration based on the following:

a) Sharing of a common heritage

b) A two-way collaboration.

It’s not only the laity who are called to work in the apostolates of the Society of Jesus. Jesuits too are encouraged to collaborate in the apostolic initiatives of the laity. The decree goes further in that it envisages not only a collaboration between Jesuits and lay people involved in apostolates of the Society but also a collaboration with lay people involved in non-Jesuit works. Again the decree affirms the formation that Jesuits can offer lay people. This formation has the further effect of teaching Jesuits how to work with lay people.

c) Collaboration that comes about through the lay associations promoted by the Society of Jesus.

Among these associations CLC is mentioned in first place followed by three others (Jesuit Volunteers, Past Pupil Associations and the Apostleship of Prayer).

Refering to future opportunities, the decree asks the Society of Jesus to make full use of the potential of this "Church of the Laity" (n. 19)by encouraging a strengthening of the lay-leadership in the apostolates of the Society (n. 20). It suggests creating an Ignatian apostolic network (n. 21) that would form links between individuals, collaborators, older Jesuits, and associations and communities that are as much lay as religious - all of whom find a common foundation and apostolic motivation in the Spiritual Exercises (n. 21).

In the light of this data we can look at the experience of the Province of Central Brazil. This Province has taken a number of concrete steps towards making this more active particpation of the laity a reality - a reality that expresses itself in apostolic collaboration. Its objective is to make full use of the range of the existing apostolic efforts even if they are somewhat dispersed and isolated.

1. The Comission for the Lay Apostolate

The Province has had, since 1994, a comission made up of four lay people (one of whom is the national president of CLC) and three Jesuits. Their task is to keep the Provincial informed about the formation of and collaboration with the laity. In those four years the comission has attempted to bring to light the initiatives concerning lay formation that are in the Province while at the same time making each of the initiatives more aware of each other. It has also opened avenues of dialogue with the works of the Province - the colleges, pastoral youth programmes etc. - that deal directly with lay people. This August a meeting is planned with those responsible for formation in the Society of Jesus. The aim is to find ways of integrating a lay presence into Jesuit formation right from the earliest levels onwards.

2. Loyola Centres

These were set up as centres of formation for the laity and places where the dialogue between faith and culture might happen. The centres ( Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and Brasilia) are in fact a reference point for lay Christian formation in Brazil. In quite a pioneering way they are equally an area of experimentation in the effective collaboration between Jesuits and lay people who share a common mission.

The Loyola Centres in Rio and Belo Horizonte are run by the laity who form the majority of the members of the main team and decide the direction and structure of the Centre. Lay people are also members of the administration team responsible for the day-to-day running of the Centre. Almost all of these lay people are members of CLC. Jesuits also form part of the team and together with their lay collaborators carry forward the work of the centere which has as it’s objective, the integral formation of the laity. These years of working together have proved fertile in terms of learning how to collaborater around a common objective.

With the formation of the laity as it’s aim, the Loyola Centre focuses it’s activity on the giving of retreats following the methods outlined in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Marked in it´s identity and it´s way of proceeding by Ignatian spirituality, the Centre seeks to make this same spirituality available to lay people who are searching for a more integrated formation. The Exercises are offered a sep by step pedagogy. This allows those who want more and who are people with great desires, to continue growing in the assimilation of the spirituality and to integrate it in every dimension of their lives. The Centre, therefore, offers the Exercises in the following ways:

A weekend ( For those starting off)

weekends in a year (In small stages)

days,

days - given in different ways (thirty days consecutively, the Exercises in daily life, the Exercises given in three stages of ten days each).

This more personalised approach to giving the Exercises where people are given space to be on their own seems to be a very suitable way of forming lay people in prayer and Ignatian discernment.

The Centre also offers courses in theology for lay people. These courses are run at night and are given by teachers from the theology faculties in cities where these faculties are located. The theology courses run by the Centro Loyola have been quite successful in attracting lay students who work during the day and who are unable to attend regular courses in the University. These students want to deepen their faith by reflecting on the data revealed in Sacred Scripture and in the tradition of the Church.

Many of those who want to do theology have done the Exercises and vice-versa. This allows the spiritual to be integrated with a solid doctrinal foundation and can also form a good basis for a lived faith and any future apostolic ministry. The Centre also has a lay-Jesuit team who themselves have completed the full Exercises in thirty days. The team offers ongoing spiritual guidance for people who want direction, who maybe want to share their spiritual journey or who want help in their prayer-life and in discernment. This is offered to people whether or not they have done the Exercises. Perhaps the best testimony to the work of the Loyola Centre is its capacity to grow and multiply. Other than the already existing Centres others will soon begin eg. Juiz de Fora (MG), São Paulo, etc.

The Ignatian Apostolic Network

In a Eucharist celebrating the feast of St Ignatius of Loyola on July 31st 1996 in Rio de Janeiro and in front of the whole community, 28 lay people made a commitment. They all had in common the experience of doing the complete Spiritual Exercises in one of its forms ,either the 30 days done consecutively, the 30 days completed in different stages, or the Exercises in daily life. They commited themselves to taking serioulsy their vocation as lay persons inspired by Ignatian spirituality. In practice this meant working with the Society of Jesus in common projects for the formation of other lay people. For its part, the Society of Jesus in Brazil committed itself to providing human, spiritual and material resouces for the ongoing formation of these 28 people. The province also committed itself to collaborate in apostolic projects whether they be from Jesuit or lay initiatives. The great majority of these 28 are CLC members who want to reenforce the apostolic efforts that sometimes happen on an individual basis. Today there are already more than 60 associations in this network, some of whom are from outside of Rio de Janeiro. Among the various apostolic projects initiated and/or envisaged by this network are the following:

Work with the Spiritual Exercises

Various social projects such as pastoral work in prison, work with street children, a Youth Centre and a Centre for Bioethics.

There are also plans to integrate into this network the centres set up by religious women´s congregations who share the Ignatian tradition. The setting up of a "Home Page" on the Web (Internet) should facilitate a growth in contacts between the members of the network and make available information on all the projects. This should provide a better integration of effort and be mutually benificicent for all concerned.

In Brazil today Jesuits and lay people are experiencing a way of being together that is very new. As with all things new it still has to grow, to find its particular path, create new ways of making itself more visible. Only in listening to the promptings of the Spirit will this experience of collaboration guarantee itself a lively and growing future. Looking at the future, however, from the viewpoint of the members of the same Ignatian community, it seems to me to be important to say that we can and should dream of and desire great things. We are called to be totally amenable to God´s invitation with no room for doubt. We are called to make prophetic gestures, creating and developing new avenues of mission. We do all this with the guidance of the Spirit who never ceases to delight in its charisms, who gives new life to the ministries of Christian lay men and women and who is already shaping the face of the Church for the third millenium. The capacity of the Church to be more in tune with the desire of the Spirit will depend on our ability to really listen. It will depend on our ability to respond adequately and with innovation to the extremely challenging times in which we live.

Maria Clara Luchetti Bingemer