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Graciela writes us on the Feast Day of St. Ignatius

July 30, 2021

Dear Sisters,

Happy feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola! In this letter of greetings, I would like to share a paragraph from the homily of Fr. Arturo Sosa, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, on the occasion of the beginning of the Ignatian year, in Pamplona. Homily to which we will all have agreed, but today I want to indicate these aspects of Ignatius’ legacy.

“No doubt Ignatius would have assimilated throughout his life the enthusiastic and generous phrase of Jesus’ disciple:‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ Since his conversion he learned that being with the Lord and walking by his side was more important than the necessary realization of the place and circumstances in which to work; his love and grace were enough for him. Because true consolation would always lead him where it was necessary to go and stay at all times, to Jerusalem or in Rome, for example. Adapting the Gospel to him, Ignatius did not put his hand on the plow and looked back. He understood from his providential healing in Loyola that his following Jesus would mean abandoning so many material family or social assurances that he could have enjoyed, to enter fully into the “way of proceeding” of Jesus himself. With poverty of spirit and sometimes material, he wanted to settle for Jesus Christ by adopting the particularities of his life,  not asking for conditions, as the other two characters of today’s Gospel do. He wanted his announcement of the Kingdom to be “in poverty”,  aware of the fragility that the bomb in Pamplona discovered for him, and that led him to put his trust in God[1]

In this party, in which we remember and express our gratitude for so well received, I also mention the call made to us by the CGXVIII, when in Det. n. 14 tells us: “Following in the footsteps of St. Ignatius, Mother Foundress reminds us that poverty is a mother because from it is born freedom, the ability to appreciate and welcome what God wants; and it is also the firm wall, which protects religious life from mediocrity. [2]

 For Ignatius, true poverty was an expression of intimacy with Jesus, the Lord. Their poverty was a sign of their transformation, of their growing vulnerability to the Lord, of their indifference to prepare to follow God’s Will, of their feeling that everything received is a gift. [3]

How can we, Daughters of Jesus, current members of this Body, receive and live this grace of evangelical poverty?

We thank the Sisters of the Eastern Asian who have prepared the triduum for us to live this feast and those of America who prepared the novena to Mother Foundress that we will begin today and the celebration for the 9th. This coincidence is beautiful: on the feast of St. Ignatius, we begin the preparation for the feast of our Foundress. May they be our great intercessors!

I thank all your prayers for my annual EE.EE, which as announced to the provincials, I did from July 22 to 30. I trust that all that was revealed to me and that I could like internally will be transformed into service to the universal Body.

Graciela Francovig, Superior General of the Daughters of Jesus

 

[1] Homilía P. Arturo Sosa, sj en la Eucaristía de apertura del año ignaciano en Pamplona, 20 de mayo de 2021

[2] CFI 64, 154

[3] Homilía del Superior general de la Compañía de Jesús en la fiesta del 31 de julio de 2020.

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