Pope to Jesuit alumni: faith in creative tension with world
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis delivered a video message to the participants in the XVI Latin American Congress of Former Students of Jesuit Institutions, taking place in Guayaquil, Ecuador, from the 11th to the 13th of November.
In his remarks to those taking part, the Holy Father focused on the dynamic tension that the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius seek to develop in the soul of the subject who undertakes them – a tension that becomes a distinctive element in the charism of the Jesuit and a signal characteristic of the person formed by Jesuit education.
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Pope Francis explained that this tension is threefold: between heaven, earth, and the person experiencing it – a tension that, like electrical tension, makes it possible for power current to course and do its work in and through a medium that is properly attuned to it.
“This,” said Pope Francis, “is how the Church desires former Jesuit students to be: a tension created by the faith they profess in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – God, who sends His Son into the world – and this faith is to be in tension with what is happening in the world today.”