Serving Christ’s mission today means paying special attention to its global context. This context requires us to act as a universal body with a universal mission. (General Congregation 35, Decree 2: A Fire that Kindles Other Fires, 20).

This past summer, I traveled to Krakow, Poland with Catharine Steffens, JSN’s Director of Global Partnerships and Initiatives, to meet with Agnieszka Baran and Brian Flannery, our counterparts from JECSE, the European network of Jesuit schools. During the course of our four days together, we learned about the deep faith and religious traditions of the Polish people, experienced their rich culture, customs, and cuisine, and engaged their struggles endured through the persecutions, wars, and occupations of the twentieth century.

We also had the opportunity of experiencing Jesuit education within a global context by visiting two Jesuit schools – Kostka Public Jesuit High School in Krakow and Jesuit Educational Center in Nowy Sacz. Kostka is a relatively new school, founded in 2012 and Jesuit is a little older, founded in the 1990s, closer to Poland’s liberation from communist occupation in 1989. Both are vibrant Jesuit schools with many of the same classes, activities, athletics, and retreats that characterize Jesuit schools in North America, yet delivered within a uniquely Polish context. Both sponsor exchange programs with schools in the United States and throughout Europe.

In addition to visiting Kostka and Jesuit, Catharine, Agnieszka, Brian, and I discussed projects and initiatives we hope to share in common. We began by reviewing safeguarding and ways our networks can work together to ensure Jesuit schools provide safe and sacred environments in which our students can learn and grow. We compared sponsorship review processes and shared effective practices that both regions have developed over the years.

We reaffirmed our commitments to the ongoing development and implementation of Educate Magis, our shared global digital platform. We laid the foundation for inter-network formation efforts in the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP), in which the Europeans have made significant progress, and the Ignatian Global Engagement Mentors (I-GEM), one of JSN’s premier global engagement programs. (Colleagues from FLACSI, the Latin American schools network, are already participating in this now globally collaborative effort.)

This past summer, 25 members of the JSN walked the Camino Ignaciano, St. Ignatius’ journey from Loyola to Manresa. Catharine, Agnieszka, Brian, and I shared the goal of co-sponsoring a North American – European pilgrimage in collaboration with Camino Ignaciano in the near future. Finally, we reviewed upcoming global initiatives, included in which are the global commemoration in November of the 50th Anniversary of Fr. Arrupe’s “persons for others” speech and our second global seminar, scheduled for Jogjakarta, Indonesia, in June.

In the fall of 2022, the Delegates of the six global Regions of the Society of Jesus, along with representatives from Fe y Alegría, the education effort of Jesuit Refugee Service, and Educate Magis, approved the charter of what is now known as the Jesuit Global Network of Schools (JGNS). Acting as “a universal body with a universal mission” is a fundamental characteristic of this global network, and we at JSN, in the words of GC 35, are committed to tending this “fire that kindles other fires.”