What makes this book so impressive is the quality of Camilla Russell’s research into the substantial volume of documents produced by Jesuits of the Society’s five Italian provinces during the later 16th and early 17th centuries. This documentation is housed in the archives of the Society’s general curia in Rome; it is of many types, but all of it is in some way biographical. There are letters, petitions, personnel catalogues, life narratives and confidential reports – some of which were marked “soli”, as they still can be, for the attention of the Superior General alone.
Dr Russell’s aim is to provide a new view of the first century of the Society of Jesus, derived from within and not from outside or above as is often the case with institutional histories. Biographical detail, which in histories of the early Society might be cited as an example or illustration, is foregrounded: here the early Jesuits themselves tell the story.
In the book’s five sections, each richly annotated, we encounter men requesting entry into the order; Jesuits petitioning to be sent to the Indies; missionaries making sense of their strange environments; superiors, buckling under the load of letter-writing and administration, managing a Society of individuals on the home front; and, lastly, Jesuits at the end of their being offered support before and following their deaths, the collective identity of the Society thus extending to its deceased members as well. What emerges is a vivid picture from the Jesuits themselves of what it was like being a Jesuit in the early years of the Society.
Why was so much written by these early Jesuits? The Society is missionary, and its members were from the first widely dispersed. St Ignatius required letter-writing as a means to promoting a union of minds and hearts amongst this dispersed group. Summaries of letters, the quadrimestres, circulated around the whole Society every quarter. “Other religious orders had their monastic houses and chapter meetings,” Dr Russell remarks, and “the Jesuits had their letters.”
Many decisions were in the hands of the Superior General in Rome. Since the mode of Jesuit government was not just top-down but also discerning and dialogical, the one making the decision needed to understand how the Holy Spirit was working in an individual. This attention to the person in part explains the attraction of a vocation to the Society at that time, as indeed it still may.
What motivated these first Jesuits? The petitions written to successive Superiors General by those wishing to be sent to the Indies are especially revealing. Some identify a call from the Lord: “The Lord gave me this desire, calling me interiorly.” A desire was often expressed to “help souls” that might otherwise be lost. There’s a wish to “suffer and die with Christ”, including the prospect of martyrdom.
“I have been in the Society for eleven years,” wrote one, “and with ease, eating well and dressing well, and comfortable everywhere, and I will finish my life in a bed: is that possible, that my life ends in a bed while Christ dies on the cross?” There was an element of pragmatism too as several candidates hoped their personal qualities might persuade the superior to accept their petition: some put forward their youth and good health, others their skill at learning languages.
The fact that requests of this kind could be presented directly to the Superior General is evidence of the Society’s culture of cura personalis. Some requests are dismissed for reasons of health and many because of the needs of family members: evidence of what Dr Russell calls the “porosity” between the Society and Jesuit relatives. Surprising though this is in an order whose members renounce family ties, it was clearly accepted by all concerned, given the ease with which family affairs are remarked on alongside Jesuit business.
The documentation not only promoted union in a widely dispersed community, it also provides evidence that the Society was a body united by an outlook shaped by the experience of the Spiritual Exercises. This demonstrates the intersection of Jesuit history and Jesuit spirituality, which is a theme Dr Russell argues has received too little attention. This gap her valuable study goes a long way to fill.
Fr Michael Holman SJ is superior of the London Jesuit Community
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