Balance

(a small reflection on movie Bad ma ra khahad bord)

Every spirituality develops in the minds and hearts of particular people as a response to the crisis of their age and culture. Jesuit spirituality also came from that typical situation. Ignatius’ age was an age of rottenness in the body of the Church and the opposition of Reformation movement towards the Church. Ignatius’ way to reform the Church was from within, one of which was to found the Society with his friends, while the Protestant’s way was from outside, that is by proclaiming its separation from the Holy Church . The politic and economic situation at that time was very influential to the development of Jesuits spirituality. As time passes by and the situation of the world keeps changing, our spirituality has been suited to those changes.

We live amongst many tensions, which oblige us to discern and choose one of those tensions to follow. In this age, we live between the challenges of poverty and the life style of hedonism, between the challenge of obedience and the era of democracy, and between the challenge of chastity and the culture of free fraternization. It’s undeniable that we live in this era or some of us are people of this era, and somehow we have to compromise with those secular tensions in order to serve better in our ministry. For me, however, the vow of poverty is most needed to balance ourselves from the danger of those secular tensions. In other words, to balance the simplicity of our life as Jesuits and the fast movement of the globalization era, we have to cling to our vows of poverty, obedience and chastity. We can adapt our life to the new life style of globalization era, but, on the other hand, we have to maintain the basic principle of our lives.

Religious people are needed in this era of globalization to do effective ministries and, at the same time, to maintain their virtues as religious. To do this, they need to adjust their spirituality to the demands of their time. The ability to read the signs of time, therefore, is highly needed.

So, what am I going to do now? Formation is a good time to learn how to balance the simplicity of our life with the fast movement of the globalization era. The participation of the formators in my formation is still influential, although I have also a freedom to develop the kind of formation going with me. Therefore, if there are still some errors in my efforts of balance these two aspects, I can still get a lot of advice and direction from the formators. Indeed, it’s a good time to nourish these virtues with the help of many seniors and formators. Otherwise, if I am not able to nourish it now, when I am not in formation anymore, it will be very difficult for me to start balancing my life between these two aspects. When that happens, I may endanger my vocation.