The Development Offices are structures inside the provinces whose ministry is to invite people to join the mission of the Society by encouraging them to provide some of their time, money, knowledge skills, or prayer.
The purpose of the Development Offices Network is to establish cooperation and communication among the Directors of the Development Offices. It provides the space for sharing good practices and learning from each other. It allows to discover new tools and improve competences for fundraising, but also helps to grow spiritually and strengthens understanding of the fundraising as part of the Jesuit mission.
JCEP facilitates the cooperation and communication among the Development Offices in Europe as well as encourages provinces without one to establish their Development Office, which would improve efforts for local philanthropy, sustainability of resources and Society as a whole. Certainly, new Development Offices are invited to join the Network.
In every Province of the Society of Jesus there is a Treasurer or Administrator of the Province that assists the government of the Provincial in all matters financial, administrative, and juridical. In small Provinces it may be, sometimes, almost a one-man operation. But in larger Provinces there are Administration Offices, involving the collaboration of staffs of lay experts, on whom Treasurers rely more and more for a competent discharge of their mission.
All have to deal with similar tasks: manage the funds assigned to the formation of young Jesuits, the care for the elderly and the support of apostolic endeavours; to supervise the administration of the different communities and works of the Province; to manage human resources and real estate. The opportunity to share experience and discuss common challenges is very much appreciated. Since 2018, the treasurers and their assistants from the Jesuit provinces of Europe and the Near East gather annually in order to share their personal experience of this particular mission in the Society and discuss topics of common interest.
This network is a privileged opportunity to share mutual support, but also to advance the cooperation between different provinces. One fruit of that is the Formation Solidarity Mechanism, a system for, every year, sharing resources within the Conference and supporting those Provinces which have insufficient funds to pay for the formation of their men in studies.
Jesuit formation is about helping young men who join the Society ‘make progress’ in their journey of following Christ.
Every Jesuit province has a Formation Delegate whose role is to guide each young Jesuit and to propose when and where he will be sent for each step of his formation.
The Formation Delegates from the different European and Near East provinces meet every year to discern and discuss the needs emerging and how best to help and accompany those in formation. What mattered most to St Ignatius, and what matters also to Jesuits today, is that each man is helped to make progress in his following of Christ, to deepen his attachment to Christ and to develop his ability to love and serve in all things, finding God in each moment of the day.
European Jesuits in Formation (EJIF) is an initiative that started in 1986 with the aim of promoting a common European spirit among young Jesuits. Every year, young Jesuit delegates from each province are invited to participate in a meeting of about 30 participants that is held in one of the European Jesuit provinces. Usually, this meeting includes a group experiment or meeting (pilgrimage, social work, conferences around formation topics), then an individual guided retreat of eight days and finally a formation session.
Many young Jesuits live in international formation houses. Still these meetings aim to foster broader knowledge of the Society of Jesus, by giving the Jesuits the opportunity to get to know others in formation and to learn more about our Jesuit life and spirituality.
Every journey in the Society of Jesus starts with the novitiate, a time for familiarizing oneself with Ignatian Spirituality and the Jesuit way of life. During this two-year period, novices engage themselves in various ‘experiments’, notably a pilgrimage and the thirty-day retreat based on the Spiritual Exercises. The person taking care of their formation and spiritual guidance is the novice master.
The Conference novice masters meet biennially to share their experiences and deepen some aspects of the formation and the life of the novitiate.
Traditionally, each province has a novitiate. There are 10 novitiates in Europe and the Near East. In some parts of Europe there is a common novitiate for different provinces.
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