Jesuits and Education

The Society of Jesus, a Christian Religious Order founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola in 1540, has been active in the field of education throughout the world since its origin. In the world, the Jesuits are responsible for 3,897 Educational Institutions in 96 countries. These Jesuit Educational Institutions engage the efforts of approximately 1,34,303 teachers, educating approximately 29,28,806 students. In India, The Society of Jesus has founded 118 Primary & Middle Schools, 149 High Schools, 58 University Colleges, 22 Technical Institutes and 16 Business Administrations Institutes with 11,525 teachers, educating 3,34,538 students, belonging to every social class, community and linguistic group. These Institutions are part of the Catholic Church's effort to share in the country's educational undertaking. The Jesuit College aims at the integral and personal formation of youth. To accomplish this, special efforts are made:

The Indian mission of the Jesuits lies at the very origin of their Order. It is to India that Ignatius of Loyola, the Founder of the Society of Jesus, sent his greatest son, Francis Xavier. Xavier was a zealous "missionary on the move". He constantly traveled along the Fishery Coast, then west, into Marava country, then to Mylapore (present day Chennai). He sailed to Malacca and Japan in 1549 where he spent two and a half years. In April 1552 he sailed to China via Malacca from Goa, never to return alive. He died at Sancian, a small island facing China, on the 2^nd of December of the same year. Wherever he went, he plunged himself into charitable and pastoral work preaching the message of God's love to people. He worked in India for ten years, from 1542 to 1552, it is called the Xaverian decade.

After more than two months the grave and coffin were opened, and his body was found to be incorrupt and fresh. It was taken first to Malacca and then to Goa where it is still enshrined in the Church of the God Jesus. Canonized in 1622, St Francis Xavier is also honored as Patron of all Missions as well as of navigators.

St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus was born in 1491, as the last child of a large Basque family of Spain. The name of Loyola came from the ancestral castle that was the family heritage of St. Ignatius. According to the traditions of his family, Ignatius was trained to arms and to the etiquette of court life. He was badly wounded in a battle with France at Pamplona in 1521. This was how God entered his life. As he lay convalescing at Loyola, he read the Gospel Narratives and the lives of Saints and was inspired to follow Christ by giving up all worldly ambition and trappings of power and embracing a life of poverty, sacrifice and service after the example of these saintly mentors. He began his new life at the age of 31. He spent a year of severe penance and intense prayer in a solitary cave on the banks of the river Cardoner near the town Manresa. He recorded his experiences in the book of the Spiritual Exercises, which became the soul and centre, the rule and character of every Jesuit, who came after. Reflecting on the crisis in the Church of his time, he felt that the need of the hour was for the learned and holy priests, free of greed and ambition and ready to serve the poor and to give witness to the love of Christ for men.

To achieve this objective, he set himself in earnest to study from grammar school to college and university in the various Spanish centres of learning, and finally took his Master's Degree from the Sorbonne University, Paris. At the same time, he won over a group of brilliant and like-minded university men one of whom was St. Francis Xavier (the Patron Saint of India), moulded them by the Spiritual Exercises and welded them into a religious fraternity which became the Society of Jesus. The followers of St. Ignatius popularly came to be known in the course of time as Jesuits.

It was St. Francis Xavier, who began the educational work of the Society of Jesus in India. St. Xavier's College, Ranchi is named after this great saintly scholar - St. Francis Xavier. This College was established by the Jesuit Fathers of the Ranchi Province on July 3, 1944. Though there are about 93 schools and 17 Colleges in India run by this world-wide Religious Order, St. Xavier's College, Ranchi was established to provide higher educational opportunities primarily to the Catholic Tribal boys and girls of Jharkhand.

The Society of Jesus has always sought to imbue students with values that transcend the goals of money, fame and success. We want graduates who will be leaders concerned about society and the world in which they live. We want graduates who desire to eliminate hunger and conflict in the world and who are sensitive to the need for more .. equitable distribution of the world's goods. We want graduates who seek to end sexual and social discrimination and who are eager to share their faith with others. In short, we want our graduates to be leaders-in-service. That has been the goal of Jesuit education since the sixteenth century. It remains so today.

Jesuit education is value oriented. There is no aspect of education, not even the so-called hard sciences, which is neutral. All teaching imparts values. A value literally means something which has a price, something dear, precious or worth-while and, therefore, something that one is ready to suffer or sacrifice for, which gives one a reason to live and, if need be, a reason to die. Values, then, bring to life the dimension of meaning. Values provide motives. They identify a person, give one a face, a name and character. Without values, one floats, like driftwood in swirling waters. Values are central to one's life and define the quality of that life, marking its breadth and depth.

Values are anchored in the "head". I see reasons why something is valuable and I am intellectually convinced of its worth.

Values are also anchored in the "heart". The language of the heart tells me that something is worthwhile. I am able to perceive something as of value. I am also affected by its worthiness.

Values are also anchored in the "hand". When the mind and the heart are involved the whole person is involved. Values lead to actual decisions and real actions-and necessarily so.

A value-oriented educational goal like ours-forming men and women for others-will not be realized unless it is infused within our educational programs at every level. The goal is to challenge our students to reflect upon the value implications of what they study, to assess values and their consequences for human beings.

They run no less than 52 university colleges, 17 institutes of business administration and 220 high schools spread throughout the country, almost all of them among its most reputed. More than 360,000 students belonging to every religious, linguistic and socio-economic group receive their education. In the context of glaring inequalities and widespread poverty, the insistence is no longer on influencing the rich, the learned and the powerful as the best means of doing good, but rather on helping the common man to live a decent human existence as the first prerequisite for any spiritual concern.

A new thrust is seen: a single-minded and wholehearted response to the multi-religious and multi-cultural realities of the modern world. Their response is promotion of justice as an integral dimension of faith and a dialogue with unbelievers and with those of various secular ideologies. These three bearings now guide the course of Jesuit activities and institutions.

Prominent Jesuit Higher Educational Institutes in India:

1. St. Joseph's College, (1844), Tiruchirapalli
2. St. Xavier's College, (1860), Kolkata
3. St. Xavier's College, (1869), Mumbai
4. St. Aloysius College, Mangalore, (1880), Mangalore
5. St. Joseph's College, (1882), Bangalore
6. St. Joseph's College, (1888), Darjeeling
7. St. Xavier's College, (1923), Palayamkottai
8. Loyola College, (1925), Chennai
9. St. Xavier's College, (1944), Ranchi
10. Loyola College, (1949), Chhattisgarh
11. St. Joseph's College of Commerce, (1949) Bangalore
12. Andhra Loyola College (1954), Vijayawada
13. St. Xavier's College, (1955), Ahmedabad
14. Loyola College of Social Sciences (1963), Kerala
15. St. Xavier's College, (1964), Thiruvananthapuram
16. Arul Anandar College, (1970), Madurai
17. St. Joseph's Evening College, (1972), Bangalore
18. Loyola Academy Degree & PG College, (1976) Vijayawada
19. Loyola Degree College, (YSSR) (1979), Pulivendla
20. St. Xavier's College, (1988), Nepal
21. North Bengal St. Xavier's College, (2007) Rajganj
22. Loyola College, (2009), Vettavalam
23. St. Xavier's College, (2009), Patna
24. St. Xavier College, (2010) Jaipur
25. St. Xavier's College, (2015), Burdwan and more..

Renowned Management Institutes:

• Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar
• Xavier Labour Relations Institute (XLRI)
• Xavier Institute of Social Service (XISS)
• Xavier Institute of Management Jabalpur (XIMJ)
• Loyola Institute of Business Administration (LIBA)

Ever since its creation, the Ranchi Jesuit Society is engaged in multiple ministries—education, pastoral, social justice, human and tribal rights, spirituality, etc. As of now there are 10 Commissions trying to take the mission-vision of the Province forward. In the last few decades Ranchi Province has undergone a transformation from a mission province to a missionary province and spread its wings in Africa, Cambodia, Egypt, Guyana and Israel. In the Indian sub-continent itself, Ranchi Province has expanded to Assam and the Andamans. The Province has some presence in national and international houses. The India Desk is also trying to consolidate the relationship between Ranchi and Belgian Provinces. The efforts for the beatification of Father Constant Lievens are in progress.

Over the past fifteen decades the Jesuits of the Ranchi Province have successfully discerned, the content and method of their ministries. We have just celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Restoration of the Society of Jesus. We need to discern our ministries which will give outer and inner freedom to our people.   Read More..