Josef Beck is a Maltese Jesuit, who entered the EUM Noviciate in Genova and studied Philosophy in The Gregorian University in Rome whilst residing in the community of San Saba.

So what is San Saba all about? If I were to sum up my experience over these two years, two words come to mind: Creating Relationships and Discernment.

CREATING RELATIONSHIPS

San Saba is an international community, and I was lucky that we had 6 nationalities represented: Malta, Italy, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Portugal. This composition brought about many challenges in communicating and relating to one another due to the different cultural sensibilities and the luggage of formation that each one of us brings along from each Province. Many a times, it was also a reminder of the international aspect of the Society and the well-known dynamics lived by Ignatius and his early companions. Nonetheless, I believe that the environment we created - and I put emphasis on the word created as it requires effort and not something that simply falls from the sky - has made my experience at San Saba a memorable one. As in any family, each one of us has different needs and ways of relating, for example some prefer staying at home and watching TV in the evenings, others like to go out for walks in the mountains or just socialise over a delicious ice-cream.

Even though the environment might differ, we tried to be there for one another, to listen and to learn and to share what we are passing through - formally known as ‘spiritual conversation’ - in times of crisis, during challenges in our respective pastoral work and during examination periods. I believe that this element of creating meaningful friendships with the Society is very important as establishing good friendships in our formation is be the way forward for the future; in a future where by we will be ever less and the need to collaborate is evermore important. A real desire to share and put in common our resources for the greater glory of God and for the people we serve is - I believe - a testimony to people within an outside of the Church. Evidence of this is that many friends that have stopped by to visit at San Saba all felt a sense of ‘home’ and welcome by the whole community Other than the relationships established in the community with other Jesuits, I also had the opportunity to meet Jesuits living in other communities here in Rome like the Canisius, the General Curia, the Istituto Massimo and the Biblicum, just to name a few. It is beautiful to feel ‘at home’ and welcome when I had the opportunity to visit some other community over lunch. (if the article is too long, you can leave out this paragraph)

Attending lectures at the Gregorian University has been a great exposure to the catholic world. People from all over the world come here to study, and this creates a very rich classroom environment. I feel lucky that in our class year, we were blessed to have a large number of laypeople studying, and as a group of Jesuits we manage to create meaningful relations. We frequently organised meals over at San Saba and invited our friends over or organised outings together during the weekend.

DISCERNMENT

At this point in my formation, I see studying philosophy not as an end in itself, but as a means for future missions. Philosophy has helped me integrate all my previous experience done during the novitiate. It fosters a critical attitude towards myself, life and the environment I live in, in the sense that stopping the process of question everything may bring about spiritual stagnation - contrary to the constant process which is discernment. Investigating the deep questions that have accompanied man since the beginning of time has helped me shed a renewed light to the complex situations men and women alike are facing in today’s contemporary world. Spiritually, philosophy has also challenged the boundaries of my interior freedom. I frequently questioned the ‘simple things’ I might have come to take for granted, examined habitual ways of going about my decision making and tried to push my intellectual limits of understanding complex contemporary human realities. As the space of interior freedom grows, so does the complexity of discernment and taking decisions. Undergoing such a laborious process is tiresome to say the least, but it has also been for me a spiritual consolation and a way of growing in freedom to search what the Lord is asking of me, depending on the context, people, culture and environment I find myself in.

NEXT STAGE: ALBANIA!

When I was younger, it was fascinating to hear stories of Jesuits and missionaries recount their work and adventures in places where few people dared to work or had the courage to be present. For sure, it requires much courage to leave one’s country, but I believe that sharing the joy of the Good News with others - wherever they are - and committing to learning from another country’s way of proceeding is an enriching experience that no words can describe. The international aspect of our Province is a gift for each one of us if we can learn to overcome our differences and have an open heart to listen what the Lord is telling us, albeit in a different ‘language’ to what we might be used to! This call requires much spiritual freedom.

Notably, the continuous challenge of spiritual freedom I was speaking about was very present during my second year at San Saba in the period during which I was waiting for my destination. Looking back, it was quite a tough time: my expectations, my fears, waiting of a reply and all the emotions and spiritual movements, proved to be a source of purification and returning once again to the core aspects of the vocation for the Society and being available to the Lord and his mission. When Fr. Provincial communicated that my destination was to start my regency in Albania, I felt very much at peace and motivated to start this next step in my formation. The idea is that during the week I will be working in the pastoral activities of our college in Shkoder (“Atë Pjetër Meshkalla”), and then going over to Tirana during the weekend to help in the parish activities (“Kisha Zemra e Krishtit”). The destination to Albania makes me feel connected to the many friends of mine that, because of work or study related purposes, have to travel and spend so much time away from their home countries. In a world and Europe with a closed heart towards ‘foreigners’, feeling as a citizen of the world in an ever more globalised and interconnected world, and as a young Jesuit regent in our Euro-Mediterranean province, is a testimony of the Lord’s love that goes beyond any of our spiritual boundaries.

To close off with two words I’ve learned this week during my Albanian language classes: Faleminderit dhe mirupafshim! (Thanks and Goodbye!)