4. Friends in the Lord, members of the Society

If the concern to be servants of Christ's mission gives its fundamental shape to our community life, how might it affect our relations among ourselves? We are not employees or volunteers in an international organization, or more or less paying boarders in our houses. The most recent General Congregation even rejected the phrase "fellow workers". As far as this Congregation was concerned, we are "friends in the Lord" (GC 34, 545).

This expression comes from the pen of Master Ignatius. As far as we know, he used it only once, and that was long before the founding of the Society of Jesus. Now the expression has been proposed to the communities of the Society to see how they recognize themselves in it.

Judging by the ex-officio letters, the reaction has been far from unanimous. Differences in age and in cultural sensibilities would certainly explain fairly well why a significant number of Jesuits share Master Ignatius's reserve in using the word "friend" even while he lived in genuine friendship with the companions. These age differences and cultural sensibilities, at the same time, would also explain why many others recognize themselves perfectly well in the last congregation's clear declaration that solid friendships among brother Jesuits "can not only support a life of dedicated chastity, but can also deepen the affective relationship with God that chastity embodies" (GC 34, 260). All appear to be in agreement that community life supposes a demanding brotherhood. But we have to ask how we can respond to this demand without allowing a fond friendship – perhaps better, an intimate relationship – to put a restraint on the deep personal love for Jesus and for his mission that is absolutely the first priority in our life together (GC 34, 537ff).

In spite of military and political connotations that could lead to misunderstanding, Master Ignatius and the first Jesuits defined their community life in two words, still in use today: "Society of Jesus", "Societas Jesu". Ignatius appreciated the comradeship of military life, in which he found true companions. He made his confession to one of them before the battle of Pamplona. For him a companion was one on whom he could rely: in his own words, "he would expect help from him when he was hungry; if he fell down, the man would help him get up" (Autobiography 35). Much later, the first Jesuits had the experience of becoming companions of Jesus in the spirit of "sequela Christi", the following of Christ in suffering so as to follow him in glory (Ex 95). But it was only after the Roman deliberations of 1539, when the companions unanimously expressed their desire to be "devinctos et collegiatos in uno corpore", that the word societas surfaced as an expression for their desire of union. Then they could call themselves "socii Jesu". Master Ignatius himself hoped that the word society would recall the vision at La Storta, where we were all together united by the Father's will (NC 314) to the mission of the Son (FN 2, 133). Later on, Father Laynez read in the word society all the biblical richness of koinonia (FN 2, 154).

Whereas Company and Society were readily accepted during the first century of the foundation, the words companion and socius were not. In speaking of our fraternal relations, the Constitutions reject all imagery connected with family life. The recent General Congregation remained faithful to that Ignatian intuition and emphasized that a Jesuit is a man without a family (GC 34, 243) and that living in community does not take the place of having a wife and children (GC 34, 248).

Our relationships with one another do not function like those in a family, and even the most satisfying community life will never fully oust the sense of solitude that can be filled up only by intimacy with the Lord. In the Constitutions, Master Ignatius restricts himself to expressions that emphasize our common responsibility to the Society's mission. Jesuits are "members of the body of the Society", "persons of the Society", "those of the Society", or quite simply "we".

With these rather subdued expressions, Master Ignatius puts into our hands responsibility for the union of the universal apostolic body and of its local communities, for this union must continually be created and renewed with the help of the gift of the Eucharist and sacramental reconciliation in Christ. Nothing really stands in the way of our calling ourselves "brothers" or "companions" or even "friends". It is enough that these terms express for us, as they did for Master Ignatius, the many forms of our mutual presence to one another and of our investment in one another's lives, as mediators to one another of the presence of that Lord (GC 34, 248) to whom we have offered ourselves to grow in missionary companionship with Him "solely at the service" of our Father (Ex 135).

There is a growing yearning in the Society, if one is to believe the ex-officio letters, to recover this urgent Ignatian requirement. However, the tendency remains strong for all to await either the initiative of the superior or the wholehearted consensus – hardly likely – of the entire community, instead of each assuming his own responsibility.