This week, the Jesuits get some love—and offer some guidance for our Confident Witness retreat.

The Joys of the Jesuits

We’ve been so busy preparing for Confident Witness that we neglected to mention St. Ignatius of Loyola’s feast day on July 31! So this is our belated reflection on how the Jesuit charisms, and Jesuit wisdom and prayers, have guided BCF’s work—and especially the upcoming retreat.

The Jesuits are famously a missionary order, but they began by going out to the outcasts of their own society. The Jesuits seek people on the margins, whether overseas, under oppressive governments, or suffering from alienation from the Church. BCF’s mission is to equip Catholic institutions with the confidence to evangelize and catechize gay people of all ages. We are inspired by the Jesuits’ missionary zeal, and their willingness to go where nobody expects the Catholic Church to venture.

Eve wants to call attention to 2 ½ Jesuits who inspire her:

• St. Edmund Campion, the bold intellectual and English martyr. Evelyn Waugh’s biography of Campion paints the portrait of a romantic at heart: He loved the queen who martyred him, but he loved the Queen of Heaven more.
• Ven. Matteo Ricci, who sought the beauty in Chinese culture that would open doorways to Christ. Fr. Ricci’s book On Friendship: One Hundred Maxims for a Chinese Prince both explains and exemplifies spiritual friendship.
• Ven. Mary Ward. Mary Ward sought to create a women’s equivalent of the Jesuits: not cloistered, active, independent from the local bishop. This founder of a group of “galloping girls” led a life that shone with both adventurousness and obedience. She was imprisoned by both Catholic and Protestant authorities. (Talk about being “on the margins of the Church”!) The Institute she founded was suppressed in her lifetime, but later revived, and has inspired many other congregations of religious women.

St. Ignatius of Loyola is the patron saint of spiritual retreats. So it’s especially appropriate that BCF worked with a Jesuit priest with long experience in giving retreats, to shape a rhythm of learning, discussion, and reflective prayer. This is as good a time as any to say that if you have a special skill, charism, or talent that you think could serve BCF’s mission, why not let us know about it?

And please pray for St. Ignatius’s intercession for Eve, Keith, everyone who is preparing to attend the retreat this week—and everyone whose generous donations, wisdom, practical help, and especially prayers are supporting our retreatants! Let’s weave a shelter of prayer for the retreat and our BCF community.

Duc in altum! Put out into the deep!

Eve and Keith