Conquering the World

True Zeal Born of Generosity ALMOST automatically the third insight stems from the first and second. The soul that has denied itself even to the measure of selfless service, even to the desired identification with the Crucified, takes its place among those who are no longer deaf but “prompt” and “loving”. This is to say that always and without reservation they are at the disposal of their King and those words of the First Week are ever on their lips: “What ought I to do for Christ?” Here we find that readiness for apostolic action born of an interior life…

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Humble Service

At One with the Hierarchy WHAT we have thus far said still requires further clarification. The Exercises conclude with the rules “to foster the true attitude of mind which we ought to have in the Church militant (= serving Church)”. This is no accident. If it is to be and to remain authentic, this passion for a limitless love of Christ must be given direction, controlled, so to speak, by God’s salvific will visible in His Church. The more of the willingness to serve and the readiness for greater things must be tested. Obedience to the hierarchical Church and humble,…

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Mary’s Role in Sodality

LET us say one more word about the place of devotion to Mary in the Sodality. By design we have throughout our paper put the Marian element in last place. Our reason was this. We desired to trace the inner structure of the Sodality back to its source, that is, the fundamental truths of the Spiritual Exercises. We were anxious to define first the theological and then the psychological background against which devotion to Mary assumes great importance and a new significance. Through this approach we found it more easy to avoid the pitfalls into which very recent writers on…

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The word was made Flesh!

A Sermon Outline by Rev. Fr. Joseph Mary Gill, S.J. Director of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Patrick THIS Word was made Flesh! This Word is the 2nd Person of the Holy Trinity! This Word now lies as a puny Thing as a little Thing as a very small Thing It lies under the heart of a mortal mother not possessing even the free use of its senses It lies there depending on each heart-beat of its mother depending on every breath she draws. This Word is reduced like every human infant, to a state of…

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Conclusion

In this sketchy outline wherein we have attempted to derive from the Spiritual Exercises the spiritual significance of the Sodality we might further show, and with profit, how a reconsideration of the Sodality’s origins can provide a constantly new revitalization of any Sodality. Wherever a Sodality has returned to its first beginnings (its first spirit), an amazing new life appears. Just as the Exercises moulded men in the Society of Jesus who have experienced through the discernment of spirits a titanic battle between Christ and Satan; men who have understood through their identification with the crucified Christ that victory in…

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Pope Pius XI

Of twenty members of the Sodalities of Our Lady who have ascended the throne of St. Peter, and of the seven Sodalist Popes of the Twentieth Century, Pope Pius XI is one of the most notable. Director of a Sodality in Milan and a noted mountaineer, Pope Pius XI addressed a group of Italian Sodalists thus: “Sodalists should be like those angels who ascent and descend the mystical latter from earth to heaven: they ascent rich in prayer, religious practices and their Eucharistic life; they descend rich in blessings, encouraged to spread their favours over the earth into the minds and…

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Sodalist Canonized

Saint Alberto Hurtado, S.J. is one of the most recent Sodalists to be Canonized.  Born in Chile in 1901, he studied at the Jesuit College of San Ignacio in Santiago and qualified as a lawyer before entering the Jesuit Noviciate in 1923.  He pursued studies in Spain, Belgium and Ireland and was ordained to the Priesthood in 1933. He returned to Chile in 1936 where he was appointed professor of Religion at the Colegio San Ignacio and professor of pedagogy at the Catholic University of Santiago.  During this time he was appointed Director of the Student Sodality and began a…

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Father Joseph Gill, S.J.

The Reverend Father Joseph Mary Gill, S.J., was the Director of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Patrick from 1975 until his death in 2006.  Born in County Mayo in 1915, he was a student of the Servant of God Father John Sullivan, S.J., at Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare.   He entered the Society of Jesus in 1934 and was an outstanding Jesuit for the remaining 72 years of his life.  He was ordained a Priest on the Feast of St. Ignatius, 1945. Having taken his final vows in the Society earlier that year, he became one of…

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The Prima Primaria Sodality

The Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Patrick was canonically erected in the Church of Saint Francis Xavier and aggregated to the Prima Primaria Sodality in Rome on 1st May, 1853.  So what is the Prima Primaria Sodality? What is the Prima Primaria Sodality?  It is the first Sodality of Our Lady, which was founded at the Collegio Romano of the Society of Jesus in 1563 by Father John Leunis, S.J., for the students of that College.  To it were granted various Indulgences and Privileges, beginning in 1577.  The foremost privilege was that of aggregating to itself other Sodalities and…

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Links

ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITIES Holy See Websitehttp://www.vatican.va Archdiocese of Dublin Websitehttp://www.dublindiocese.ie SOCIETY OF JESUS Church of St. Francis Xavier Parish Websitehttp://www.gardinerstparish.ie/ Irish Province Websitehttp://www.jesuit.ie St Michael’s Apostolate of  Prayer for Priests http://www.prayerforpriests.com PUBLICATIONS “True Source of the Sodality Spirit” A study of the Ignatian Spirituality of the Sodality of Our Ladyhttp://http://www.lulu.com/content/1699282A book from St. Joseph’s Workshop

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