A Community in Christ

While Jesuits live together for the sake of their apostolic work, they also live together for mutual support, challenge and inspiration. These two sets of values must be kept in balance – community for service and community for mutual growth and development. Jesuits must always be willing to move on, to leave one community to help another.

This type of communal living demands a special kind of person. A man who joins the Society of Jesus has to have a social personality and be someone who is capable of living peacefully with a variety of temperaments, personal histories and styles. Jesuit communities incorporate men of all ages, forged into a union of minds and hearts intent on finding where God wants us to be most effective in the work of the Kingdom.

Jesuit community life also requires a healthy, mature independence different from the kind found in a monastic order. Prayer, study and the demands of our apostolic work can lead some to experience periods of solitude in their lives. Yet this solitude is not withdrawal, but mature self-direction, whose ultimate goal is greater service to the Lord.

It is all of these qualities that make Jesuit community life fraternal, personal and ecclesial. In their communal life, Jesuits share a common bond stronger than their differences and learn together how to be men for others within a wider reality of the Church.