February 21, 2009
Jesuit superior general urges students to change the world
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
Father Adolfo Nicolás, above, superior general of the Jesuits, tries on a St. Ignatius School cap and sweatshirt given to him by students of the Sacramento school. Cathy Joyce/Herald photo
In his first visit to Sacramento, the superior general of the worldwide
Jesuit community invited students at local Jesuit-sponsored schools to use
their educations to transform the world.
“You belong to a tiny minority in the world,” Father Adolfo Nicolás told the combined student bodies of Jesuit High School in Carmichael and Cristo Rey High School in Sacramento. “You have an education, and it is an education with possibilities.”
Father Nicolás was in Sacramento Feb. 3 as part of his 11-city visit to the California province of the Society of Jesus, which is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding.
In an early morning meeting at Jesuit High School, he spoke with the combined faculty and staff of Jesuit, Cristo Rey, and St. Ignatius School before addressing the combined high school students in a morning assembly. Father Nicolás addressed the elementary school students at St. Ignatius Parish in the afternoon.
Although Father Nicolás adjusted his comments to be accessible to his different audiences, his theme was the same: the responsibility of the privileged to take the lead in changing the world.
Addressing the high school students, Father Nicolás said, “Privilege brings responsibility. You who have received so much have a responsibility to the world.” He observed that their educations in the United States put Jesuit and Cristo Rey students in the league of people who can solve global problems.
The students can change the world by responding to challenges creatively, he said, because theirs is an education that integrates imagination and critical thinking.
“Imagination creates,” he said. “Imagination is what you use when you meet a challenge, when you see something you want to make different.” Imagination is the opposite of fantasy, he clarified. Fantasy retreats from reality, he said.
“Never run away from a challenge,” he said. “Enter it; recreate it with your imagination. Become the person who changes things.”
In his talk, the Spanish-born Father Nicolás described places where he has lived and worked, such as Japan and the Philippines, as well as countries he has visited, and he noted the efforts he sees by people who work creatively to make changes. He recalled the doctors, nurses and attorneys “without borders,” he said, who travel to regions that lack facilities and skilled professionals.
He told the students he hopes they will not be satisfied to use their educations in the United States alone, but will employ their creativity to help the world’s people.
“The world cannot live as you live, as the United States lives,” he said. “It is not sustainable.”
He urged students to “change the system,” to use their privileges to expand privileges for everyone else. “Never be satisfied. You can always be more. You can always do more.”
“No one is ever finished becoming,” he continued. “I am 72 and God is not finished with me yet. Look at the joke they played on me last year,” he added, referring to his election as superior general in January 2008.
The superior general’s talks inspired students and faculty alike.
Tim Kelly, associate dean of students at Jesuit High School, said he appreciated the way Father Nicolás contextualized the education at Jesuit, bringing the world into the school’s sheltered environment. Kelly noted that the Jesuit students are men of service, but that often their focus is on the Sacramento community.
The superior general’s “global perspective reinforces ideas that get lost in the day-to-day nature of teaching,” Kelly said.
Jesuit sophomore Cameron Grant liked the talk very much, he said, noting that that Father Nicolás “spoke to all of us.” Grant was impressed by the number of languages that Father Nicolás speaks, calling his linguistic fluency and global awareness “amazing” and “inspiring.”
Father Nicolás, who holds a doctorate in theology and has spent more than four decades in Asia, speaks several languages, including Spanish, Catalan, Japanese, English, French, German and Italian.
Cristo Rey High School students who had traveled to the larger campus at Jesuit for the talk were also excited and inspired by the superior general’s address.
Cristo Rey freshman Daniel Pettit declared that Father Nicolás’ “impressive mastery of so many languages shows what you can do when you set own standards.”
Pettit agreed with Father Nicolás that his education gave him an opportunity to influence change, and said he intended to improve the world through work in the sciences, creating fuel-efficient technology.
Cristo Rey junior Monica Sanchez said that the superior general’s talk had reminded her “never to lower your standards for anything — always aim higher.”
Sanchez, who works at a law firm in Sacramento to help pay for her tuition at Cristo Rey, said she believed that her education will enable her to make big changes in the world. She hopes to work in criminal courts, helping people in trouble.
The Cristo Rey high schools across the country are modeled after Jesuit-sponsored Cristo Rey High School in Chicago, which provides a college preparatory education to low-income families by partnering with businesses to employ students part time.
In Sacramento, the California province of the Society of Jesus is joined by the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas-West Midwest Communities, and the California province of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in sponsoring Cristo Rey High School.
After speaking with the high school students, Father Nicolás moved to the Jesuit-administered St. Ignatius Parish, to address the children of St. Ignatius School. He spoke to the assembled school body of kindergarteners through eighth grade students on the topics of magic and love.
“People your age are magicians,” he told the children. “You are inventive and creative.” For a young child, a box can be an airplane or a car, he said. But after children turn 11 years old or so they leave magic behind, he said, and begin to decide what kind of a person they want to be. To make the right decision, Father Nicolás said, students must “keep their hearts open.”
“Consider everyone you meet your friend, even the people you do not like very much,” he said.
“How do you do that?” he asked on behalf of the children. Then he answered, “Smile at them.”
“Most of us are scared,” Father Nicolás told the children. “We’re afraid that people don’t like us. But when people smile at us we are healed from fear.”
The superior general ended his brief talk at St. Ignatius Parish with this advice to the children: “Consider that everyone you meet is someone you can help or someone who will help you.”
During his visit to California, Father Nicolás met many of the nearly 390 Jesuits in the province, hundreds of parishioners, students, volunteers and benefactors associated with Jesuit parishes, schools and ministries.
On Feb. 3 he met with Bishop Jaime Soto and Jesuits serving in the Sacramento Diocese.
The Jesuits’ California province serves Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah.
In 1996, the province adopted four main apostolic goals: fostering partnerships in the Jesuits’ Ignatian mission, strengthening solidarity with the poor, responding to the diversity of the province and evangelizing contemporary culture.
Italian Jesuits first came to California from Oregon during the 1849 gold rush. In 1909, the California province was separated from Italy’s Turin province. Soon, the California province developed a distinct American identity and mission geared toward the needs of people living in the western United States.
Some information for this article was provided by Catholic News Service.
