This year, 2023, as we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Fr. Pedro Arrupe’s famous exhortation “Men and Women for Others” we are delighted to share article #8 of the series Beloved Don Pedro “Man For Others”.

This series of articles written by Fr. Hedwig Lewis SJ, a great Jesuit writer of Gujarat Province in India, covers anecdotes from Fr. Arrupe’s life, his writings, lived experiences, and spiritual thoughts.

All educators in our global community are invited to learn and reflect on who Fr. Pedro Arrupe was and his legacy to Jesuit education!

You are all welcome to share your reflections and comments in the comment section located at the bottom of each article.

We wish you an enjoyable journey getting to know Fr. Pedro Arrupe and the roots of his famous exhortation “Men and Women for Others”.

Here is article #8 “EDUCATION FOR JUSTICE’”.

EDUCATION FOR JUSTICE

“Today the prime educational objective,” stated Fr Arrupe (during his landmark speech to alumni of Jesuit institutions in 1973, in Valencia, Spain), “must be to form men for others; men who will live not for themselves, who cannot even conceive of a love of God which does not include a love for the least of their neighbours, and who are completely convinced that a love of God which does not result in justice for all is a farce… Our students are not to see themselves as isolated individuals learning how to elbow their way through hostile masses to positions of power and prestige. Rather, let them discover in ways they can never forget that they are brothers and sisters in a global village.” …

Arrupe provided a “shorthand description” of the charism engendered in genuine service: “men for others”. The phrase was subsequently translated as “men and women for others”, to include Jesuits and their collaborators, and eventually “persons for others”. The catch-phrase “Persons For Others” (PFO) enthused Jesuits around the world; it crystallized the mission for Jesuit-based training, and was recognized as the face of “Education for Justice” in all our institutions, not limited to Social Work Centres alone.

Educational objective: “JQ”

Arrupe insisted that Jesuit schools continue the tradition of providing their staff and students with excellent all-round training: physical, moral and social, and in developing the intellectual (IQ), emotional (EQ), and spiritual (SQ) aspects. But these ought to be equated with the Justice Quotient (JQ), the dimension of ‘Education for Justice’ that makes education more integral. Solidarity with the suffering masses must be taught through “contact” rather than through “concepts”: direct experience touches the heart, challenges the mind to the cutting edge of change, and serves as a catalyst for solidarity which then gives rise to intellectual inquiry, reflection and action….

Education for justice creates dynamic leaders who shun ambitions toward building ‘ivory castles’ or creating ‘comfort zones’ for their selfish satisfaction. Such leaders are equipped with strategies for making sound choices: in what they study, who they learn from, and how they choose to spend their time. They help build bridges of love so as reach out to people, irrespective of class, caste, colour, or creed, people who do not have the basic necessities of life, those unjustly treated and deprived of their rights and privileges… through compassion and selfless service; for we are all children of God, brothers and sisters, in one human family.

Implications

There are no mark-sheets or SATs (standard assessment tests) to grade your JQ or quantify your PFO level. The JQ-PFO combine burns into your character and blazes with your passionate commitment – as you let your light shine through good works in the dark and dank quarters of poverty-stricken societies. Your value lies in the measure of your generosity: giving without counting the cost, fighting without heeding the wounds, labouring without seeking any reward – content only that you are being filled with God’s grace and blessings. …

Akin to education itself, personal development does not end with schooling but demands an on-going formation. To keep your passionate commitment burning every brightly, it is very important that you objectively check the crucial choices you make at every turning-point in life. What role does your JQ play both in the defining and the expected outcome of your respective choices? Can you rest assured that you are doing justice to the education received and are progressing the JQ-PFO way?

Arrupe’s criterion provides a powerful point of reference
“Let each one examine oneself to see what one has done up to now, and what one ought to do. It is not enough to recall principles, state intentions, point to crying injustices, and utter prophetic denunciations; these words lack real weight unless they are accompanied for each individual by a livelier awareness of personal responsibility and by effective action.”

Becoming a “PFO” par excellence requires divine grace, charisma and complete dedication. To attain a “PFO-100%” status is a process that may take a life-time. But if education has instilled in one a high JQ, then one cannot but constantly and consistently strive to be a better and worthier “man/woman for others”, till one is the very best – for the greater glory of God! Hedwig Lewis, SJ

A Jesuit school should be easily identifiable as such. There are many ways in which it will resemble other schools … But if it is an authentic Jesuit school – that is to say if our operation of the school flows out of the strengths drawn from our own specific charism, if we emphasize our essential characteristics and our basic options – then the education which our students receive should give them a certain ‘Ignacianidad’ if I may use such a term. I am not talking about arrogance or snobbery, still less about a superiority complex. I simply refer to the logical consequence of the fact that we live and operate out of our own charism. Our responsibility is to provide, through our schools, what we believe God and the Church ask of us.     P. Arrupe SJ

“What kind of man or woman is needed today by the Church, by the world? One who is a “man-or woman-for-others.” That is my shorthand description. A man-or-woman-for-others. But does this not contradict the very nature of the human person? Are we not each a “being-for-ourselves?” Gifted with intelligence that endows us with power, do we not tend to control the world, making ourselves its centre? Is this not our vocation, our history?

“Yes, gifted with conscience, intelligence and power each of us is indeed a centre. But a centre called to go out of ourselves, to give ourselves to others in love – love, which is our definitive and all-embracing dimension, that which gives meaning to all our other dimensions. Only the one who loves fully realizes himself or herself as a person. To the extent that any of us shuts ourselves off from others we do not become more a person; we becomes less.

“Anyone who lives only for his or her own interests not only provides nothing for others. He or she does worse. They tend to accumulate in exclusive fashion more and more knowledge, more and more power, more and more wealth; thus denying, inevitably to those weaker than themselves their proper share of the God-given means for human development.

“What is it to humanize the world if not to put it at the service of mankind?  But the egoist not only does not humanize the material creation, he or she dehumanizes others themselves. They change others into things by dominating them, exploiting them, and taking to themselves the fruit of their labour.

“The tragedy of it all is that by doing this, the egoists dehumanize themselves. They surrender themselves with the possessions they covet; they become slaves – no longer persons who are self-possessed but un-persons, things, driven by their blind desires and their objects.

“But when we dehumanize, de-personalize ourselves in this way, something stirs within us. We feel frustrated. In our heart of hearts we know that what we have is nothing compared with what we are, what we can be, what we would like to be. We would like to be ourselves. But we dare not break the vicious circle. We think we can overcome our frustrations by striving to have more, to have more than others, to have ever more and more. We thus turn our lives into a competitive rat-race without meaning.” P. Arrupe SJ, Valencia, 1973

***

The image Fr Arrupe reflected was that of a person who was poor, austere and fully detached – one who did not seem to have any needs of his own, and spontaneously gave away whatever he received, one who was profoundly happy and free:: a man who lived for God, never thought of himself, but only of others. Fr Francisco Ivern describe two incidents that reveal these characteristics of Fr Arrupe

Whatever presents he received he gave them away… I remember that one day, while I was in his office; some Jesuits brought him a beautiful Basque beret. He graciously thanked them, for a few seconds kept it in his hands, playing with it, but almost immediately placed it on my head saying “I think it fits you.” The donors were not too pleased; seeing their expression  (they were looking daggers at me), I thanked him and gave it back, to him with some lame excuse, though I must confess that I would have liked to have kept it.

When it came time to bade me farewell, Fr Arrupe] embraced me, wept, put the had in his pocket and gave me, as a parting souvenir, the golden fountain pen that he had just received as a present. I never used it, but have kept it unto this day.

***

It was a practice among the founding fathers of the Society of Jesus to always have the poor at heart. In fact, when two esteemed scholars from among them set out as delegates to the Council of Trent, St Ignatius instructed them to take up residence in a hospice, instead of the luxury quarters reserved for them, and to be of service to the sick in the available time. Such close contact and solidarity with the poor was important in order that the ‘option for the poor’ would influence their perceptions and priorities, their thought and interventions. Solidarity – being persons for and ‘with’ others – enhances rather than diminishes academic accountability and intellectual integrity. Hedwig Lewis SJ