island life- in a monastery: FALLING IN LOVE WITH GOD

Fall in Love

Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way.

What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.

It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read,
whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in Love,
stay in love,
and it will decide everything.

— Attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J.

Those who read my Blog, know I have a special love for the Jesuits, having been educated by them. One man in particular has always caught my attention due to his being Jesuit, but also Basque. One of my grammar school friends was 100% Basque. I was the only one of her friends who loved going to the annual Basque festival. Some of the shepherds could not even speak English, but that did not stop us from enjoying the festivities. It would start with Mass, a picnic and then dance. From Rita and her parents, I learned to love the culture.

Last week it was announced that the canonization process for PEDRO ARRUPE, S.J. was going ahead, so he is now Servant of God.

He was born in Bilbao, Spain in 1907. After receiving his bachelor’s degree with the Piarists, he began his studies of medicine in Madrid for four years. At the same time, he visited the poor quarters of the city, getting to know firsthand situations of the need and misery.

After a profound spiritual experience in Lourdes, France, he came to understand that the best way for him to respond to these realities was to abandon his earlier plans and to enter the Society of Jesus, which he did in 1927. These were difficult times for him, as the Order was expelled from Spain, necessitating his continuing formation in Belgium, Holland, and the United States at St. Louis University. He was ordained in 1936, and two year later sent to Japan, where he lived for 27 years as a missionary.

When the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, it was December 8 in Japan. Father Arrupe was celebrating the Eucharist for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception when he was arrested and imprisoned for a time, being suspected of espionage. On Christmas Eve, he heard people gathering outside his cell door and presumed that the time for him to be executed had arrived.

However, to his utter surprise, he discovered that some fellow Catholics, ignoring all danger, had come to sing Christmas carols to him. Upon this realization, Father Arrupe recalled that he burst into tears. His attitude of profound prayer and his lack of offensive behaviour gained him the respect of his jailers and judges, and he was set free within a month.

Father Arrupe was appointed Jesuit superior and novice master in Japan in 1942, and was living in suburban Hiroshima when the atomic bomb fell in August 1945. He was one of eight Jesuits who were within the blast zone of the bomb, and all eight survived the destruction, protected by a hillock which separated the novitiate from the center of Hiroshima. He later described that event as "a permanent experience outside of history, engraved on my memory."

He used his medical skills to help those who were wounded or dying. The Jesuit novitiate was converted into a makeshift hospital where between 150 and 200 people received care. He recalled, "The chapel, half destroyed, was overflowing with the wounded, who were lying on the floor very near to one another, suffering terribly, twisted with pain." In 1958, Father Arrupe was appointed the first Jesuit provincial for Japan, a position he held until being elected Father General in 1965.

After World War II, as Superior of the Jesuits in Japan, he traveled all over the world inviting Jesuits from about thirty countries to join this mission. He became well-known because of his sympathetic personality, and his direct concern for each person, and his humility and his dynamism.

In 1965 the Jesuits elected him Superior General of the order. They saw in him a man of God who was able to understand and face the difficult situation that the Church and civil society were passing through. He was known to be a man profoundly united to Jesus Christ. Father Arrupe spent long hours in prayer every day. When he was asked where he found the time to do so, he usually replied that “it’s simply a matter of priorities.”

He was praised for his efforts to put the Second Vatican Council into practice as well as his profound obedience and fidelity to the Church and the popes.

He also highlighted his evangelizing mission and his “preferential option” for the poor and needy, resulting in the Jesuit Refugee Service that he founded in 1980.

He encouraged and proposed modes of moving forward to a Church that was seeking to live out the teachings of Vatican II. He was a pioneer who entered heretofore unexplored terrain, such as that of secularized and pluralist society and the plight of refugees. He led former students of Jesuits schools to follow these paths, and he invited intellectuals to study the causes of injustice and lack of faith.

During those years, a good number of Jesuits experienced martyrdom, especially in Central and South America, as a consequence of attitudes promoted by Father Arrupe: serving without distinguishing race or class; living with those who were suffering, to the point of giving one’s life and defending their rights to the very end. As a good friend and guide, he accompanied others in their journey.

Seeing Father Arrupe as "the right man for our time", he was elected five times as the Superior of the Jesuits.

In 1981, during a trip from Asia, he suffered a stroke as a result of cerebral thrombosis. In the midst of his illness, which continued to worsen, he experienced an even greater surrender of himself to God, until his death in Rome on February 5, 1991, the anniversary of the 26 Martyrs of Japan. His final words had been: "For the present, Amen; for the future, Alleluia