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Spirituality of ServiceHistory, Context and Vision
Dino EntacDirector of Resident Ministry + Student Housing Office
Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles CA
It is not as a father speaking to sons
that I speak to you today.
It is as a companion, a fellow alumnus, speaking to his classmates.
Sitting together on the same school bench, let us together listen to the Lord,
the Teacher of all humankind.
Pedro Arrupe, S.J., Valencia, July 1973
Lex Orandi ↔ Lex Credendi
How do we pray about service?
Where do we pray about service?
What are our images of service?
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
John 13:34
Love should be expressed in deeds, more than words.
Contemplation on the Love of God
Spiritual Exercises
For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don't use your freedom to satisfy your
sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.
Galatians 5:13
God’s purpose in creating us is to draw forth from us a response of love and service…All things in this world are gifts from God, created for us, to be the means by which we can come to know him better, love him more surely, and serve him more faithfully.
Principle and Foundation of the Spiritual Exercises
Better that we choose to minister - Where the need is greater- Where greater success is more likely- “Important and public persons” (particular
people, places, and universities) so that once aided, they can aid others.
Constitutions Part 7 §622
Pedro Arrupe, S.J. Valencia, July 1973
Today our prime educational objective must be to form men and women-for-others; men and women who will live not for themselves but for God and his Christ —for the God-man who lived and died for all the world; men and women who cannot even conceive of love of God which does not include love for the least of their neighbors; men and women completely convinced that love of God which does not issue in justice for all is a farce.
The Service of Faith (GC 32 in 1974)
- To bring the counter-cultural gift of Christ to our world
- diakonia fidei – serving the whole world as Christ did – laying down his life.
Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J.
Santa Clara October 2000
What [are] our apostolic preferences. For us, the promotion of justice is not one apostolic area among others, the "social apostolate;" rather, it should be the concern of our whole life and a dimension of all our apostolic endeavors.
Similarly, solidarity with men and women who live a life of hardship and who are victims of oppression cannot be the choice of a few Jesuits only. It should be a characteristic of the life of all of us as individuals and a characteristic of our communities and institutions as well...The same questions need to be asked in a review of our institutions and apostolic works, and for the same reasons.
General Congregation 32, Decree 4 § 47, 48
Living with the poor- necessary to overcome limitations from social background
- strengthen their love for the poor
- should produce true conversion
- contact should be extended rather than occasional
- accompanied by careful reflection and sociocultural analysis.
Complementary Norms #106 §3
Living the SolidarityIn higher education…when we provide an environment where love and service to others are fostered in our students, when we nurture them in their faith life and in the greatest traditions of Christian Humanism…when we engage our benefactors or alumni to build not only a better university but a better world, when we stand openly in “solidarity with the poor, the marginalized, and the voiceless, when our students travel to Central America or Africa to see a hidden face of Christ…we are working in solidarity with “the least” and with all.
US Assistancy Strategic Discernment, June 2008
