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 characterized by a Christ-loving self-denial, an entirely new receptiveness for world-wide co-operation in the redemptive work of Christ in the battle against the standard of Satan.
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, ordinary service in the visible Church constitute the infallible test. Our enthusiasm for Christ must be governed by the concrete demands of our everyday apostolic life. ‘To help souls’ – for Ignatius and his first companions that meant, precisely because of the strength of their enthusiasm, a sober service in the Church of the Pope of Rome threatened by so many storms (as it was) and burdened with so many needs. They united to form a new Order. For they realized that all apostolic enthusiasm must take definite form, if it is to endure, that the more of their ardent …
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 the Sodality have sometimes fallen, namely the controversy concerning what place devotion to Mary should hold, which can so readily become a pseudo-problem.
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 extreme lowliness and utter helplessness. “He emptied Himself” says Paul. “He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. Though He was in the form of God JESUS did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped And being found in human form He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death even death on a cross.” (Phil. ii 6-8) No Exaggeration this, but sober truth The Word was made flesh The Creator became His own creature The source of all being and life becomes a weak image of Himself. Infinite …
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 this battle belongs only to those who follow Jesus in a spirit of prayer and total self-denial; men who come from their retreat fired for every type of service on behalf of their King, who want to conquer the whole world; men who know how to concretise their enthusiasm through a brave and a humble surrender to the Church; – so the authentic Sodality must mould Christians who, filled with a holy discontent, are ardent followers of the Cross and valiant servants of the Church. Their ideal is Our Lady who has crushed the serpent’s head, who stood beneath the …
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 hearts of all, cherishing for all a fraternal affection because possessed by the ardent love of the true Children of Mary. May they continue to ascend and descend that mystical latter at whose summit Jesus and Mary await to thank them for all the great good they have done in the past and will do in the future.” Pope Pius XI to an Italian Sodality, reported in l’Osservatore Romano, and in Madonna, Official Organ of the Sodalities of Our Lady in Ireland, May, 1935. “On one occasion, Pope Pius XI compared the Sodality of Our lady to the Milky Way, that brilliant …
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 life-long apostolate to the poor. In 1941, he published a notable work entitled Is Chile a Catholic Country? Also during this time he established shelters called Hogar de Cristo (Hearth of Christ), which took in all children in need of food and shelter, assisting an estimated 850,000 between 1945 and 1951. He died in 1952. He was beatified in 1994 and was canonized in 2005. His feast day is 18th August.
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 the ‘founding fathers’ of the Irish Province’s mission to the then Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. He was justly proud of his time as Administrator of St. Ignatius’ Church, Lusaka, and Canisius College, Chicuni. In 1958, Fr. Gill came back to the Church of St. Francis Xavier, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin 1, which was to be the home of his apostolic zeal for almost half a century to come. Fr. Gill was revered by countless souls not only for his personal holiness, which shone forth in an unassuming and manly way through his devotion to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass …
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 of communicating to them its own Indulgences and Privileges. It is not surprising that these first favours of the Sovereign Pontiffs would be followed by more and greater signs of favour. Unsurprising, in the first place, because, in honouring the Sodality, the Popes honoured Our Lady, but unsurprising also because nearly half the Popes since then have been members of either the Prima Primaria itself or of Sodalities aggregated to it. Of those who were members of the Prima Primaria itself we may number Popes Clement X, Clement XI, Blessed Pius IX and Leo XIII. Indeed, within its first twenty …
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