Jesuit Education and the Discernment of Vocation

7/24/2019 Jesuit Education and the Discernment of Vocation

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Ask: Are you in careerism or in vocation?


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Ask: Can careerism be distinguished from career?


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Source: William C. Sphon, The Chosen Path,America July 2003

It looks to work only as a means to a financial end. It ignores the possibility that work

could be worthwhile because it expresses our unique talents and actually makes a

difference in the world.

I hate spending 60 hours a week making rich people richer.


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Both Erikson and Marcia indicated that to establish a secure sense of identity, young

adults must go through a moratorium, a period of active exploration around educational

and occupational goals, religion and spirituality, and ultimately, developing a coherent

set of values.

Erikson argued that unless someone went through a period of active self-exploration,

their resulting identity would be incomplete. One common pattern that is increasinglyprevalent among college students today is an identity status called foreclosure. The

foreclosure pattern involves uncritically taking on values and aspirations of others

typically ones parentsand automatically using them as a personal guide for career and

relationship issues. In another problematic pattern, young adults make no decisions

about important issues such as career choice and simply drift through life living day to

day.

Source: Barbara and H. Russel Searight, The Value of a Personal Mission Statement for

University Undergraduates, Creative Education Vol 2., No. 3, 313-315.


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Or: Can careerism be a path towards vocation?


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Source: Covenanting as a Human Vocation by Walter Brueggemann.

Brueggemann: contrast to this is the modern self-groundedness which actually leads to

groundlessness. Instead, true human life is in relatedness to Another.

It is not that this person belonging to God existed and then was claimed for God.

Rather, the act of claiming is the act of giving life and identity to that person. Before

being called and belonging to, the person was not. In the Bible, "person" means to

belong with and belong to and belong for. Covenant is thus deeply set against every

notion of human autonomy.


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It is a special temptation of modern persons (though it did not begin there) to

believe that our life springs from us, that we generate our own power and vitality,

and that within us can be found the sources of wholeness and well-being. Either we

practice self-sufficiency effectively (which none of us can do long enough), or we

find we are not self-sufficient and are driven either to guilt or despair.

(Covenanting as a Human Vocation).


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In the ancient Greek world, work in any form was an unmitigated evil to be avoided at all

costs. Unemployment was the goal, leaving time for the pursuit of great deeds in the

military, politics, or the leisurely contemplations of philosophy. For Aristotle, since the

highest pursuit of human life is contemplation in an attempt to approach the life of the

gods, then humans must turn away from distracting worldly activities and pursue the

contemplative life. (Gary Chamberlain, Protestant and Catholic Meanings of Vocation: IsBusiness a True Vocation?)

For Eusebius of Caesarea, the perfect Christian life was one devoted to serving God,

untainted by physical labor. Those who chose to work for a living were secondrate

Christians. The early monastic tradition appears to have inherited this attitude, with the

result that work often came to be seen as a debasing and demeaning activity, best left to

ones socialand spiritualinferiors. If the social patricians of ancient Rome regarded

work as below their status, it has to be said that a spiritual aristocracy appears to have

developed within early Christianity with equally negative and dismissive attitudes towards

manual labor. Such attitudes probably reached their height during the Middle Ages.

The monastery or the nunnery, places of withdrawal from worldly activities, exemplified

the most valued state of life, and even while bodily work occurred in those settings, the

work was a means of purification and the development of virtue, not an activity to be

pursued in itself. (Is Business a True Vocation?)


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Scholars are much divided about the spiritual status of work in the Middle Ages. The

Benedictine model of monasticism, with its stress on ora et labora, undoubtedly attributed

great dignity to manual labor, though the first duty of the monk was always the Divine Office,

called his "Opus Dei." It has been urged by some that the Benedictines, with their vast

network of monastic enterprises, were in fact "the first capitalists." However that may be,

there also persisted a widespread perception in medieval Christianity that those who worked"in the world," as distinct from monastics and clerics more generally, were engaged in a less

worthy way of life and, indeed, were secondclass Christians. Certainly that perception,

combined with various corruptions of monasticism so caustically criticized by Erasmus and

others, led Reformers such as Luther and Calvin to sharply contrast the monastic call "from

the world" with the authentically Christian call "into the world. Alistair McGrath, Calvin

and the Christian Calling.


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Work was thus seen as an activity by which Christians could deepen their faith, leading it on

to new qualities of commitment to Godto do anything, and do it well, was the

fundamental hallmark of Christian faith. Diligence and dedication in ones everyday life are,

Calvin thought, a proper response to God. - Alistair McGrath, Calvin and the Christian

Calling.

Calvinism presented vocation as seeking salvation from God precisely in ones being

involved in the world, particularly through economic activity rather than through

Catholic piety.

This Protestant work ethic laid the foundation of modern American capitalism

(Max Weber). But, once its religious root is removed, what is left of this work ethic?


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St. John Paul II spoke of the subjective dimension of

work, distinguishing it from its objective dimension.

He set forth a beautiful vision, indicating that when

people work, they do not simply make more, but theybecome more. The changes brought about by work

cannot be fully accounted for by its objective dimension.

The worker, the subject of work, is also greatly affected

by his or her own work. Because work changes the

person, it can enhance or suppress that persons dignity;

it can allow a person to develop or to be damaged. Thus

the sources of the dignity of work are to be sought

primarily in the subjective dimension, not in the

subjective one (LE 6). (Vocation of the Business

Leader: A Reflection, by the Pontifical Council for Justice


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and Peace, 2012.


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Common good is the sum total of social conditions which allow

people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their

fulfilment more fully and more easily (GS 26). Common goods

are developed between human beings whenever they actpurposefully together towards a goal which they share. So

building a friendship, a family, or a business creates a common

good shared between friends, family members, and all the

various people involved in a business. Common goods are

possible because we are relational beings who do not only have

individual goals, and who do not only grow individually. We also

participate in truly shared and common projects that create

shared goods from which all participants benefit. The commongood embraces and supports and supports all the goods needed

to allow each human being and all human beings to develop,

individually and communally. (Vocation of the Business Leader:

A Reflection, Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace)


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Chamberlain: Work as vocation has two dimensions related to the nature of the person: a

transcendent or general dimension drawing and pushing each person toward a

calling by God to love of God and neighbor and a historical or particular dimension

to work in a particular area of business as a co-creator with God using the riches of Gods

creation to build a better world in which humans and creation itself flourish. Is Business a

True Vocation?


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The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a)

that you most need to do and (b) the world most needs to have done.

If you really get a kick out of your work, youve presumably met requirement

(a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials,

the chances are youve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if

your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met

requirement (b), but if most of the time youre bored and depressed

by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably

arent helping your patients much either. . . . The place God calls you

to is the place where your deep gladness and the worlds deep hunger

meet. Listening to Your Life, p. 185. and Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC.


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Source: Barbara and H. Russel Searight, The Value of a Personal Mission Statement for

University Undergraduates, Creative Education Vol 2., No. 3, 313-315.


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It is not the quantity of course material covered that is important but rather a solid,

profound, and basic formation. (Non multa, sed multum.) Source: The

Characteristics of Jesuit Education by the International Commission on the Apostolate of

Jesuit Education (ICAJE), 1986.

Its aim, however, has never been simply to amass a store of information or preparation

for a profession, though these are important in themselves and useful to emerging

Christian leaders. The ultimate aim of Jesuit education is, rather, that full growth of the

person which leads to action - action, especially, that is suffused with the spirit and

presence of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Man-for-Others. (International

Commission on the Apostolate of Jesuit Education, Ignatian Pedagogy)


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Contagious Learning by William Murphy.


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From Contagious Learning by William Murphy.


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What is thus the magis? On this point also, Ignatius adjusted himself : certainly not what I canreach by myself with more effort, of spiritual obstinacy and overtime. It is " what more carriesout us to the end for which we are created " (Spiritual Exercises 23). That one hears well : the' more' is what leads us to the end ! It is not something which the man can do or reach. Theintuition of Ignatius is clear : only God can give authenticates it "more", this God who is itselfmore - Deus semper maior, God increasingly larger. Not the ' always more grand' in thedirection of the perfect super-saint and without spot -s uch as the champion of Ignatiuspenitence represented it - but increasingly larger in the direction of God who exceeds all ourthoughts and comprehensions. In the final analys is, it is hand of God whom we receivethemagis. The ignatian magis (by Tobias SpeckerSJ)

The magis in the spirituality of St. Ignatius (by Johannes Steinke SJ)Magis (lat. for more) is a central word in the spirituality of St. Ignatius. The 'more' about

which it speaks is not 'doing an excess' in the field of performance or perfection. Thiscomparative Ignatian term means another thing. It is a question of living more with God. Thatseems still extremely general. However, for Ignatius, this word receives a specific direction,as one will see further on in this document. The significance of the Ignatianmagis isformulated best in the preparatory prayer of the Second Week of the Exercises:"I will ask for an intimate knowledge of Our Lord, who has become man for me, that I maylove Him more and follow Him more closely." (SpEx 104)In short: With the magis, it acts of a 'more' in terms of relation, a deepening and aconcretization of the personal relation with God and with Christ.The significance of the Ignatian magis appears particularly in the election and the decision.When it is a ques tion of choosing between something good and something, the choice is clear.The good should be chosen. However, what should one do when the choice is between twogoods? It is here that the Ignatian magis appears. When one has the choice between two goodthings, it is a question of seeking and of achieving the best option.In short: the goal of the magis is to life ones life in close relationship with God so that thewill of God can more easily and clearly be followed.What is unique is that the ' more' relation with God is carried out in the daily activities lifewe see it in the newspapers, experience it in our friendships, long for it in our dreams. Again,the magis is not possible if there is not sensitivity to the interior movements of the heart.Because each time what is bes t proves to be known only in the motions of the interior heartand our longings. Ignatius wrote his methodology entitled, 'rules to distinguish the spirits' inhis Exercises as a way of knowing the movements of the spirit in ones own life. This ' more'of sensitivity is an attention to the realities in us and around us: "to seek and find in all thingsthe loving and providential presence of God" (This a spect corresponds to the contemplation toobtain divine love at the end of the Exercises).When Ignatius speaks about 'in all things', it suggests that no field of our reality is excludedfrom it. In all we meet and with all that occupies us, the presence of God can be discovered: inall my activities, in the people that I meet, in my relations, thoughts, dreams, landscapes,situations, events and whatever comes to us.In short: with the magis, is about discovering the presence of God in all of reality. Byformulating it like Ignatius, one can say: to seek and find God in all things.Compare this to Pauls letter in Philippians 1: 9-11And this I pray, that y our love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and alldiscernment; so that ye may approve the things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere andvoid of offence unto the day of Christ; being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which arethrough Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.


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From: The Call to Discernment in Troubled Times by Dean Brackley, pp

10-11. This the Principle and Foundation!

'The Spiritual Exercises' of St. Ignatius call for an attitude of 'tantum

quantum' or indifference toward things of the world. Worldly thingsshould not be regarded as ends in themselves but only as means toward

the ultimate, spiritual end. In the final contemplation, however, God's

presence is seen in all things; thus, the end is seen as being contained in

the means. The transformation resembles the image of offering a gift on

the altar and having it returned in consecrated form. This change in

perspective, in which imagination plays an important role, is illustrated

by the lives of the Jesuits Gerard Manley Hopkins and Pierre Teilhard de

Chardin. The consecration of our world in 'The Spiritual Exercises' ofIgnatius by Thomas M. King (Journal of Spiritual Formation. Nov 1994,

Vol. 15 Issue 3, p273, 13 p.)


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