in the previous lecture we looked at the franciscan missionary movement and how this small group that formed around saint francis with his call to preach the gospel and serve the poor ended up spreading beyond italy and going all over the world it had a remarkable global impact and it was one of those early monastic missionary movements that really felt the call to go beyond there have always been monks who felt this call to withdraw from society felt this call to prayer felt this call to contemplation what's unique about the franciscans and this next we'll talk about was the call to go we see this also with the irish or the celtic missionary movement uh that happened in the uh british isles which is a remarkable one as well but for most of monastic history there wasn't that impulse to go that wasn't an impulse to leave something behind preach the gospel so we're identifying some of the really prominent ones that spurred missional movements that really changed the world as i said in the very beginning lecture at 20 ignatius viola was a young man who had his leg crushed by cannonball in a local battle in southern france northern spain and as he's reflecting on his life he reads about the life of saint francis and sees all these parallels with his life with their lives they're both 20 when they have these turning points and as he's confined to his bed reading a lot of uh literature about different saints the readings of devotional literature he begins to wonder if he should do something like saint francis do something crazy with his life and commit radically the call of jesus when he leaves his long recovery from his leg injury he spends a year in a dominican monastery in spain praying and meditating and beginning work on what would later be called the spiritual exercises which for him was this program for spiritual retreat that would become a key spiritual formation tool in the jesuit order that he would found we'll talk more about the spiritual exercises in a moment but what i think is important to recognize is that ignatius began similar to francis with a crisis of calling and then similar to francis begins to gather a small group around him with his profound passion for a certain call that god had put on his life and he saw it in very similar terms to francis he thought he was going to be like another francis several hundred years later we'll find out that there are many ways where their paths were different but there are some strong similarities so after ignatius time in battle where he was injured his conversion experience his year in the monastery to think and reflect he decides to study theology and go to the university of paris which would have been the premier place for studying theology he studied theology there for seven years from when it would have been typical and during that time he gathered a group of again he's in his he's now in his early 30s he gathers a group of close friends six of them and they commit to engaging in spiritual disciplines and practices together and to having this strong sense of calling god wanted them to commit their lives to something and he actually with that group they began experimenting with this spiritual exercise his book and some of the the meditation some of the practices that he had been working on in 1534 this group of six original six covenanted to form a monastic order and offer their services to the pope and basically say we're your guys whatever you want us to do we will go do it it took it as usual it takes a few years but by 1540 the order was officially recognized by the pope and they were really i'm going to read for a few of their foundational documents there are really a few things that that i would say characterize the core of this group that ignatius had formed at the university of paris with a few close friends first there is a significant evangelistic thrust this is similar to francis and the franciscans this is a quote from one of the founding documents i'm going to read it and it'll show up on your screen the end of this society is to devote itself with god's grace not only to salvation and perfection of its own of the members own souls but also with that same grace to labor strenuously in giving aid toward the salvation and perfection of the souls of their neighbors i know it's a mouthful but what they're saying is our spiritual disciplines are bending together it's not just about us and our sanctification it's about the salvation and signification of others it's an outward oriented move it's an evangelistic thrust they had and they were saying that on purpose because many monastic orders are about internal holiness about withdrawal they're like no we're about our neighbors next they they unpacked that a little bit before here are some of their core commitments and i'm we're going to read from a founding document they wrote that they were a community founded chiefly to strive for the progress of souls in christian life and doctrine and for the propagation of the faith by means of the ministry of the word the spiritual exercises and works of charity and specifically by the instruction of children and unlettered persons in christianity so basically saying the way that we're doing this the way that we're striving for the soul of our neighbor to preach the word is to engage in spiritual formation via the spiritual exercises book that francis that ignatius had written and doing works of charity serving the poor and specifically what they meant by works of charity was the instruction of children this is a significant part you're going to see some of the seeds a significant part of a jesuit style of mission where education is really really important yes preaching the word yes spiritual formation but we're going to do charity often by education of poor children so that's a really important thing these these these early seeds are going to really flower as you see in the coming centuries so if there is a a evangelistic thrust if this is kind of the way they do it is through preaching and spiritual formation and education here is and serving the poor certainly is a part of it's part of that but that's the way they serve the poor finally let's look at their global vision again again in the founding documents that they submitted to the pope here is what all jesuits had to take an oath to do so every jesuit made this oath i quote to travel to any part of the world where there was hope of god's greater service and the good of souls and the good of souls and i'll add on to minister to the turks or any other infidels even those who live in the regions called the indies or any heretics whatever or systematics or any of the faith so what they basically said is to be a jesuit means wherever i am sent i will go whether i'm ministering to a christian community a schismatic community meaning christians who are outside of the roman catholic fold a heretic community or muslims or anyone beyond even in the indies never mind that's the farthest you could go so they had a global vision and to be a jesuit meant you were in some sense keep in mind ignatius had been a soldier you are a soldier of christ who can be enlisted and sent anywhere so think about those we talked about these these formative experiences that francis had praying in a dilapidated church meeting a leper hearing matthew 10 being preached for the for the jesuits there were there were some similarities but theirs was this strong evangelistic thrust there's his emphasis on education and theirs was this global horizon and i'll pause just for a moment to talk about the global context right we're 300 years later after the franciscan movement which is still going strong but this is 300 years later so we're talking the 1540s so whereas in the 13th century the global context or the moment of globalism is spurred by the crusades where there's a lot of interactivity across the mediterranean north south east west which results in economic booms and transportation booms and urbanization that's happening right at the time of ignatius the unique thing that's going on if you kind of remember back to your your grade school history classes this is the age of expiration right there's only 50 the jesus were founded 50 years after columbus sails across the atlantic ocean this is the moment where spain portugal then later the british and the the english and the netherlands are getting in the game with global exploration and trade they're not just sailing around the mediterranean they're going across the atlantic the indian ocean and eventually the pacific so this is when the world is beginning to not just mean europe africa and asia but it's beginning to mean the americas and a variety of other asian nations that had not been in the purview of a medieval person so the world is expanding our world map if you look at maps i i love teaching and showing different maps the world what we we would map the world as rapidly changing and growing during this time so there's a new global horizon that you see in this period and we'll return to that right the the globalism the mediterranean globalism of francis era that many ways right there's crusades going on and francis goes well what if we sent missionaries to the muslims similar that you think of the jesuits there's all this global exploration and ultimately colonization going on and and ignatius saying what if we sent missionaries on those same ships so they're both in these unique uh world-changing moments of expansion that they're jumping in on so even though ignatius lived primarily in rome which was the headquarters of the society of jesus that was the formal name shortened to the jesuits even though he lived in rome they were very active early on and sending out jesuits as missionaries even what's what's fascinating they sent out their first missionary before they actually got their official papal approval we'll talk about that missionary in a later lecture they were so ready to go that but you know they they officially they form as friends and make the covenant themselves in 1534 but it's only six years later where they're officially approved by the pope they already sent out missionaries before that even happens but let's think about their numerical growth then the geographical spread and look at a few of their their their trademarks so 1540 there are seven of them right 16 years later by the time ignatius dies in 1556 there's over a thousand jesuits not quick not as quick as the franciscan growth curve but still pretty quick 16 years you've recruited a thousand people into this very rigorous very all-encompassing i'm giving my whole life to this cause and i'll go anywhere and where it's written in many ways sort of strict military discipline they're under right they don't exist to pick and choose so within 16 years you have over a thousand this is not just around europe but you already have people being sent to latin america being sent to south asia you have jesuits beginning to sprinkle all the world and we'll talk about that but by 15 so about 50 60 years after the founding you have 13 000 jesuits and that is a remarkable remarkable growth curve when you consider uh what your what your demanding right what you're calling people to but in some ways that's part of the appeal to a group like the franciscans or the jesuits they're recruiting these people who are again compared with recruiting full-time campus missionaries uh or let's put the ball over recruiting kids ministry workers it is really hard to commit their time and separate out from their regular lives and sacrifice this is the highest bar of sacrifice you can imagine you don't get married you take a vow of poverty you take a valve of obedience to go wherever your superior tells you to go that's the monastic life the only thing that was unique about the jesus of francis is that is that kind of radical commitment was turned outward toward mission every monk has to vow chastity poverty and obedience but most of them were oriented toward prayer and contemplation a particular community they were rooted but the franciscans and jesuits turned outward in these moments of globalization and leveraged those moments and went everywhere and i will repeat they went everywhere let's talk about where the jesuits went within just a few decades of the founding so in the same within the life of the founding the founders right we have jesuits in india we have jesus in malaysia we have jesuits in indonesia the philippines macau japan china all over asia which again just a few decades and centuries earlier would have been really really far to go to there's more transportation going around around africa right there's more transport across land there's this is the age of exploration there's a lot more connectivity across the sea so there's ability to go but just think about this pretty naturally look at africa right you have jesus in ethiopia the congo angola mozambique within a few decades of the founding of the jesuits in the americas we have judges in brazil mexico peru colombia really all over latin america because it was colonized by the spanish and finally in europe you have jesuit you have jesuit missionaries jesuit uh leaders and basically every nation of europe even going as far as poland lithuania and russia right which is pretty far away from where the founding was in france a first generation jesuit characterized this ethos of the jesuits with this phrase the world is our home and it became something of the unofficial unofficial mantra of the jesuits like the franciscans who felt they were wandering preachers and they would go to town town wherever god sent them the jesuits thought the whole world that's being discovered the whole world that's being uh opened up to trade and relations and diplomacy and all these things every single nation is ultimately god's and he's called us near it should be obvious but i want to point out the obvious that jesus didn't own ships right so they were leveraging the current geopolitical order the current moment where you had european explorers european merchants and european conquistadors traveling all over the world right explorers are often just kind of finding out what they find merchants are trying to trade wherever they go and the conquistadors are often trying to conquer and you know it's i'm being a little artificial with the differentiation some of it has to do with the the relative power of an of a nation sending out a ship and who they met but jesuits were on those ships as were franciscans the jesuits made sure they were there so in some sense there is there is a intermingling with the colonial project right that would that would certainly increase trade but it would also bring a lot of suffering and oppression to other nations around the world that were non-european so in many ways any missionary in that time and any perhaps any missionary in most times they get associated with the nation or the government or sort of the people that they're traveling with and they needed those ships right they worked with the colonial administrators they worked with merchants they worked with they're on ships with soldiers but they also still showed great respect for local cultures jesuits in particular and often when they get on the ground they distance themselves from their uh people who are of the same from other europeans who are there for other reasons there are other stories we can tell but the the real signs of jesuit mission work and and this you can see it's really contrasting to colonial imperial projects uh was a deep commitment to language mastery there were a few missionaries who were more committed to learning local languages than the jesuits i'll tell a few stories in a subsequent lecture about the remarkable linguistic work that we still benefit from today that missionaries did when they went to places where europeans had never encountered that language before but jesuits like all missionaries but i would say to a the highest degree imaginable we're committed to learning local languages and not just learning to so they could buy bread but highly highly highly proficient use of local languages they're committed to thoughtful cultural engagement and even accommodation trying to figure out what aspects of the culture you just let you just leave them there even if it feels foreign and weird and what aspects of the culture you have to push back on they were some of the the most sophisticated contextualizers of mission because they were going from very radical cultural jumps imagine coming from christian spain and ending up in confucian china right or hindu india they were doing these radical cultural jumps so they had to make some really unique innovation on the ground it became both famous and infamous they had some very unique things they did when they were contextualizing but a classic jesuit move was to show how christianity was the true fulfillment of whatever particular cultural context you were and think sort of a mars hill kind of strategy uh when paul was in athens right recognizing jesus as the fulfillment of whatever your local cultural longing or theological framework was and some in some ways that's easier to do in certain cultures than others but it was done they tried to do in confucian cultures and hindu cultures and buddhist cultures you know there's a whole question of borrowing we discussed this in week in week two and with other missionaries china borrowing uh theological concepts that were already in or or phrases or or even names for divinity that are already in the culture and how you use those uh there's a lot you can unpack there and we'll reference a few a bit more when we talk about some biographies another thing that's unique about the jesuits not just language mastery and cultural contextualization but there's a deep commitment to cultural and scientific engagement right this is the age of the renaissance right this is the age of the scientific revolution or multiple scientific revolutions and jesuits were for were known for not only doing missionary work but doing some very interesting scientific work and collaboration where they went i'll give you an example in china in the next lecture but they were very very curious and intellectually sophisticated and often scientifically minded often if you go to a place uh some nation where jesuits are missionaries early on you'll find out for example that the birds in that in that island or the flowers in that particular part of the world were first catalogued and recorded and named and taxonomized by a jesuit missionary scientist right jesuits did these kinds of things they were very curious about engaging the worlds where they went and finally jesuits were deeply committed to training and empowering local clergy they not only believed in being a mission forced into nation but they believed that the local population provided them a new pool of jesuits to send out as missionaries into that society and even beyond connected to that and this is the last thing we'll say about the jazz before we go into some specific examples in the next lecture jesuits are perhaps most famous we've talked about remember they're calling to educate children that was that was in the early founding documents that was one of the things they really cared about and they believed literacy was important for studying the scriptures but perhaps more than any other christian movement in history the jesuits have cared about education i mean you might say that education came with christianity in so many ways whether you're talking baptists or presbyterians or or greek orthodox but the jesuits were uniquely engaged in setting educational institutions just 200 years you know 200 years after their founding they were probably around 700 schools whether they be universities theological schools or or schools for children that have been set up by jesuits all over the world like in every continent 700 schools to this day there are roughly 180 jesuit colleges and universities all over the world you can look up the wikipedia page and look at how many different nations have a jesuit university there again there are lots of other catholic schools or protestant schools but the jesuits had a particular emphasis on that and there's a string of jesuit educational institutions all over the world that happen to be very very good and they've been around a really long time you think about why that's the case i think there's a few things right that that kind of came together that make this part of their missionary dna first ignatius and his original colleagues the original founders they were all a product of the medieval university system they're the university of paris one of the oldest and most prominent universities in the world still today but even at that time that was one of the elite medieval universities came out of monastic education so they were they were rooted in the context of the medieval university system but then they were around during the renaissance right there was this flowering of learning sort of new models not new engagements new texts new institutional frameworks but then add one more thing right as missionaries they felt it was really important to learn local languages so jesuits would leverage their schools as trained training grounds for missionaries but also when they get on the ground they start a school somewhere and they would use that school to train other missionaries right the linguistic element and the engagement element necessitated for them building these institutions everywhere they went it became not only part of the mission but it also fueled the mission and finally uh this is this this is the funny one for protestants part of the reason why jesuit cared so much about theological education was keep in mind i hadn't mentioned this yet right there when the jesuits were founded we're right in the heat of the protestant reformation and there's this sense that europe is losing ground to the protestants and their ideas that part of the reason why all these protestants people are going to the protestants leaving catholics is because they aren't sufficiently educated their priests don't know doctrine their missionaries don't understand how to differentiate between protestant and catholic doctrines so jesuits who are very staunchly catholic and pro-papal authority said we'll start schools to educate really well-educated priests and missionaries so the jesuits saw themselves as this highly trained bulwark against the prince of spread of productivism protestants and i can't speak anymore because i've been lecturing too long the protestant movement right the understanding was if we educate missionaries and children and priests better through these jesuit educational institutions will have will lose fewer people to the protestant movement which in many ways was very populist and was was gaining ground among many local sort of regular believers i could go on about jesuit educational institutions the fascinating part of their legacy but you know there are several hundred schools perhaps a few famous ones just throw them out there right in the united states georgetown universities jesuit school boston college i could go on uh in the philippines for our filipino friends there are many desert schools but perhaps the most famous is ateneo it's a jesuit school there are desert schools all over the world i found them in china argentina belarus australia kind of to the ends of the earth they're jesuit educational institutions and if you want to know which one is one any school of the name loyola or xavier is a jesuit school uh they're named after some of the you know the founder and one of the early missionaries but as we consider in the as we say our case said and consider the the the similarities and the differences of the franciscan missionary the jesuit missionary i want us to to recognize that even though those two movements happened a long time ago right the francis were found in the 13th century the deserts in the 16th century and even though they are not in the protestant fold right they're catholic movements and even though there are elements about [Music] jesuit spirituality and franciscan spirituality that might be a little bit dissonant for us i i don't think any of us are going to sign up for the jesuits next week uh there is so much we can learn and draw from from these remarkable missionary movements that preach the gospel and went to the ends of the earth it's it's and they were remarkable even among other catholic movements i didn't just pick them at random these are the two perhaps most world-changing monastic movements in all of history so i think it's important to really dive into them lean into them do the reading think really reflect we do the case study and think about what god was doing among them that we can learn from and really embrace and lean into so i'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on these movements we're going to do one more mini lecture because there are some really really fascinating jesuit missionaries i want you to introduce you to five in particular i'm going to do one more separate lecture and give you a few mini biographies to kind of help give you a sense of of the lay of the land because the jesuits had some remarkable leaders who they churned out in those first two generations who i think any one of them we can study their lives and be inspired and really gain a lot from their missionary passion their missionary zeal and their call to go to the nations [Music]