Community Prayer book on UAPs

Mission is the heart of Jesuit spirituality (as it could be seen in Ignatius’ Autobiography, Spiritual Journal, Spiritual Exercises and the Constitutions). The initial missionary zeal “to help souls” eventually, during the history of the Society of Jesus, took more and more concrete and contextual shapes. We have been witnessing this especially from GC 32 onwards. On convoking GC 36, former General Fr. Adolfo Nicholas had posed the question before us to reflect: “To what sort of mission is Christ the King calling us today?” After GC 36, the present General Fr. Arturo Sosa, in continuing with the same concern, initiated the discernment process involving the whole Society in order to articulate our Universal Apostolic Preferences (UAP) for the coming decade. We, the Jesuits of South Asia, have further fine-tuned those preferences at the Conference level (CAP) and at the individual Province level (PAP).

As a way of sustaining the new missionary vision, Fr. George Pattery – the POSA, came up with an inspiring idea of a prayer book on these Apostolic Preferences. And rightly, he requested the Jesuit theology staff and students both at Pune and Delhi. Although a number of Jesuit staff have contributed to the book, it is predominantly a work of love on the part of our young Jesuit scholastics, who will be, mainly, shouldering the responsibility of these preferences during the decade to come. The Jesuits at JDV campus prepared the prayers on UAP and the Jesuits at Vidyajyoti on CAP. Among other things, the prayers in this book focus on two things: Introspection and Intercession. The reflections and questions help us to ponder on the challenges and opportunities these Apostolic Preferences offer before us. The intercessory prayers remind us of the fact that, ultimately, it is the Lord who works through us and we constantly depend on His Grace. (Please read pages 8 and 9 of the Preface for further guidance). We hope that this prayer book will help us Jesuits to bring our daily work into prayer and take the prayer into our daily work and thus enable us to become contemplatives in action for the greater glory of God.