The Lord of Friendship: Friendship, Discernment and Mission in Ignatian Spirituality

A favourite phrase that the first Jesuits used in talking about themselves was that they were a group of “friends in the Lord”. In his Autobiography, Ignatius of Loyola describes how they would take time out from their studies at the University of Paris to picnic on the wooded slopes of Montmartre. There they would share their hopes and dreams of future ministry, dreams that would soon lead one of them, Francis Xavier, to India and Japan, and another, Pierre Favre, to walk an estimated 14,000 miles along the roads of Europe in his seven years of active apostolate.

The Lord of Friendship presents a series of studies (originally prepared for a seminar run by the Dutch and Flemish Jesuits) looking at this hitherto undervalued aspect of the foundation of the Society of Jesus. How was Ignatius able to pass on his vision of a new kind of religious order, dedicated to taking the gospel to the borders of the known world and beyond? What might the idea of such companionship have to say to the renewal of religious life today? The links between friendship, mission and discernment explored here remain potent forces for all concerned with the attempt to bring the Good News to the people of our own time.

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