The cross of Christ is a grace—mysterious and paradoxical to the world, transformative and joyful to all who stand in its shadow.
In the last issue of this magazine, I wrote of our Province’s efforts to heal the scars left by the sexual abuse of minors, and of our efforts to prevent such abuse from happening again. Since that time, other victims—encouraged by those words and by a grace poured into their hearts—have stepped forward to tell their stories. I have sat often, in these last few months, listening as women and men opened wounds and drained off the hurt and anger that they had carried for many years. Some desired nothing but to tell their story—to be heard and believed, sometimes for the first time. For others, who need more, we have sought to find treatment or compensation, ways to acknowledge not only their heroism in coming forward but the suffering that they have endured. |
It has been a time of dark and painful grace—to hear the anguish of these stories; to stand with humility before the victims, or as a brother Jesuit with colleagues and Companions stung by these revelations; to watch resources so needed for new works go to heal old wounds as the specter of deficit become ever more real. And yet it has been grace, mysterious and transformative, to be called to live here, in the shadow of the cross, with all the uncertainty of a disciple.
This year we celebrate the ordination to the priesthood of five gentle and passionate Jesuits—men different in style and temperament, in culture and history, in gifts and in desires. Yet, each of them has stood, at some moment of his life, beneath the cross of Christ; and each has responded with faith and hope and love, of a type that confounds a world enamored of power and prestige. It is the grace of God’s call and of their response that brings each of these men to this point, and it is what will sustain them in the years to come. In their willingness to embrace this cross—to love Jesus Called to the Cross and to Grace It is the grace of God’s call and of their response that brings each of these men to this point, and it is what will sustain them in the years to come. Christ crucified and the people he himself loves with a lifespending devotion—they will be a blessing to the Church, signs and agents of reconciliation and redemption. I look at them and have faith in our future, for God remembers his covenant and Jesus—who promised Ignatius at the chapel of La Storta that he would be “propitious to you (plural) in Rome”— is faithful beyond what we can hope or imagine.
It was on June 18, 1994—ten years ago this year—that I was ordained to the priesthood and stood at the altar for the first time in this unique service of God’s people. At that time, I never imagined the crisis of the Church, or my being Provincial, or most of the other things that have happened to me as a Jesuit priest. All I knew is that I was called there by a grace I did not understand and yet longed to embrace. In the intervening ten years there has been some pain and great joy, moments of unbelievable wonder and moments of great weariness. I still do not understand the grace that called me here, and yet I believe in it and love it more than ever.
Jack and Bryan, Viet and Craig and Tom have become priests of a Church that is scarred and yet filled with an overwhelming grace—just as they themselves are and will be scarred and filled through the ministry of Christ they undertake. I do not pray for them an easy life, but one lived in the shadow of the cross; for there they will find the power of the Spirit and the presence of Jesus, and so discover their role in the salvation of the world. For what else could any of us ask?
John D. Whitney, S.J.
Provincial |
