Become a Jesuit
Requirements to join the Society
Every human being experiences being called by the Lord.
Here are some tips for recognizing your calling.
Acknowledge that we are pardoned sinners
This is the best description for Jesuits: men who know and acknowledge that they are sinners, but also that they are touched by God’s mercy. This is an extraordinary experience, because it transforms your perception of the world around you. You no longer need to justify your actions or defend yourself. When you are forgiven, you know that He will care for you in any situation. This is one of the requisites to become a Jesuit: to be a sinner who is willing to place yourself before God with all your baggage, and witness how He accepts you, forgives you, and uses you with all that you are to build His kingdom in this world.
Inner freedom
Freedom comes from knowing that we are sinners, and it puts order back into our lives. You can live in this world without being preoccupied with yourself, free to love all that surrounds you. This sort of freedom feeds our intellect, our curiosity, and our thirst for justice and reconciliation. It is a freedom which we nourish continually through the Spiritual Exercises.
To be one of us, you must cultivate this inner disposition and allow yourself to be continually challenged.
Openness and availability
The Society of Jesus is made up of a group of persons who live together in religious communities. You will need to be willing to embrace an orderly, warm and simple lifestyle that requires serious application of oneself. You will be continually immersed in a world of relationships. You will need to be able to remain open and available at all times, capable of handling stress and difficulties. For this reason, upon entering the Society, we ask each candidate to undergo a psychological personality test.
Exercises, courses and events
Pozzo di Sichar (CA)
Guide
Emma Manunza
Villa San Giuseppe (BO)
Guide
Villa San Giuseppe
Obedience, chastity and poverty
Each Jesuit, whether priest or brother, is called to honor the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Three fundamental keys to understanding our relationship with the world.
Recognizing a call
Every human being experiences being called by the Lord. Find out how to recognize your vocation.
Called to live
The Lord continuously speaks to your heart and fills it with enthusiasm for this world. The first sign of a heart that is touched by the grace of God is openness to life. It is a realization that your life is not simply a biological phenomenon, but that it is an act of love, a gift specifically for you.
You will discover that you exist to be loved and to love. This is your one prescribed destiny. When this realization hits you, your entire outlook on yourself and the world changes. You will realize that you are loved just the way you are and that every person you meet is worthy of being loved. And you cannot remain indifferent to humanity’s cry for help.
Called where you are most fragile
Sin causes us to live as though we were never children of God. As though we were simply thrown into this world at random. There could be many reasons why you might feel distant from God: hard circumstances in life, things that just happen, relationships that fail. You feel alone, defenseless, inadequate, unworthy. Sin is an open wound that makes you want to isolate yourself, point fingers at others in order to salvage an ounce of dignity, or lose hope that things could change for the better. If you live in distrust, always defending yourself, how can you possibly be free?
Called by grace
It is in those moments of emptiness and weakness that the Lord seeks you out. Your sin is transformed into an opportunity to experience His love in its purest form: forgiveness. Once you find the courage and humility to acknowledge your sin, you come in touch with the essence of your humanity: to be ‘human’ means to always be loved, even when you fall. And at the same time, you will see the real face of God.
In that very moment, God does not condemn you but offers His grace. You name of grace reveals God’s will for you, His loving gaze, and His way of manifesting His love in this world through you.
Ignatius of Loyola, the founder
“He who goes about to reform the world must begin with himself”
What to do
If you think joining the Society of Jesus might be your calling, here are some tips for your discernment.
