Novices from 12 European Provinces meet in Nuremberg.

Between the 2nd and the 8th August 2017, 30 novices and their novice masters from twelve countries and almost as many languages met in Nuremberg for their annual meeting. The motto of this year’s gathering was “Jesuit figures – life and spirituality”. As it is 500 years since Reformation, the focus lay on encounters with other denominations and worldviews.

In his talks on the Jesuits Peter Faber and Egied van Broeckhoven, Fr. Dominik Terstriep SJ stressed the high regard that both Jesuits had for the Other. Peter Faber was one of the founding fathers of the Society of Jesus and was entrusted with many missions during Reformation times, in which he travelled through various parts of Europe. He strived for a human approach in his encounters rather than engaging head-on in dogmatic-theological disputes. Egied van Broeckhoven lived as a working priest in Brussels in the 20th century and saw friendship as a key to his spirituality. Friendship, in his view, possesses a sacramental quality as it opens up a path to God through the encounters with others and vice versa.

“When we seek God in others, we wait impatiently for the completion of friendship in God, for the fulfilment of the dawn in the full light of the sun.” (From the Diary of E. v. Broeckhoven, 30th September 1964).

Apart from the thematic approach to friendship, the different encounters we enjoyed with one another strengthened our own bands of friendship across countries and novitiates. The novices had a choice of different leisure time activities through which they explored Nuremberg. Additionally, we went on a day trip to Munich to visit and celebrate Mass at the tomb of Blessed Rupert Mayer SJ, the patron of the Nuremberg novitiate.

The international touch was palpable both in our daily prayers and in the celebration of Holy Mass, which was conducted in the use of different languages. A spiritual way of encountering everyday life was introduced by Fr. Christian Herwartz SJ, who developed retreats in the streets and who taught us to find our own burning bush in the streets of Nuremberg.

The week concluded with a Novice-General Congregation, collecting the fruits of our time together in a document that centred on the following topics: “Encounter with God – Encounter with people of different worldviews – Encounter with partners in mission – Encounter with Fellow Jesuits”.

“We aspire, as agents of God’s Grace, to utilize and adapt traditional means of encountering God, so that this experience becomes more accessible for others. We are called to share our experience with all of God’s people. We must not keep this encounter to ourselves but hand on what we have received; we should hand on the fire, not the ashes.”