of p. Massimo Pampaloni

The first Jesuit Pope in history arrives during the celebration of the second centenary of the reconstitution of the Society of Jesus after its suppression. I hope that this gift that the Spirit has given to the whole Church will also be an opportunity for us Jesuits to rediscover with renewed commitment that fidelity to the mission of the Church and to the Roman Pontiff are the vital roots of our vocation and the reason for 'being for whom Ignazio wanted his "minimal Company".

The approval of the Society in 1540 marks the welcome that the Church gave to the Order founded by Saint Ignatius. At the death of Ignatius (in 1556) there were already a thousand Jesuits, already spread across various continents. For a long time, attacks and hatred were unleashed on the Society by those who wanted to destroy the Church, and without a doubt the Jesuits were often considered the last bastion to be eliminated in order to strike it at the heart. Apparently they succeeded in 1773, obtaining its suppression until 1814 (signed by a Franciscan Pope, if we want to smile at the irony of history), when Pope Pius VII, just two months after his return from the French captivity to which Napoleon had forced, with one of his first measures he reconstituted the Company. Having gone to Rome to make oneself available to the Pope is the sign of the desire to serve God with a gaze that, at the same time, is universal and totally free. Universal, because the Pope represented the center of the entire Church and therefore was aware of its most urgent needs; totally free because he renounces choosing what he thinks and desires, submitting himself to the will of God in an act of trust in concrete human mediation. It is useless to remember that the Church was at that time shaken by the turmoil of the Reformation, where any visible mediation between man and God was put in check. Ignatius makes a gesture which, in my opinion, is precisely reminiscent of that of Francis, when he comes to Rome to ask for the Pope's approval.  Ignatius also delivers himself and his Company to the Pope, through the famous fourth vow of special obedience to the Supreme Pontiff. Only an ideological and superficial reading can question the importance of the Successor of Peter for these two great saints. His personal experience of God will pass into his Spiritual Exercises, one of the most effective tools for conversion and nourishment of spiritual life that have ever existed. been given to the whole Church. And always listening to what reality suggested to him - it is reading with interior discernment of reality, in fact, the place where God's will is revealed - Ignatius understands that God calls him to be a "collaborator in the mission of Christ" together with companions, for a service always aimed at seeking the magis. After the first part of his life dedicated to the search for honor and glory, the first part ending with a blow to the leg during the siege of a fortress in Pamplona in 1521, Ignatius lived a profound experience of interior and personal conversion. The characteristic trait is his ability to pay attention to everything that happens in his soul and reflect on all the experiences he finds himself having. He slowly discovers that God can truly be found in all things and nothing of reality and of what is available to man is extraneous to the path towards understanding His will and immediately putting it into practice. A story that could have been rather limited, if it weren't for the fact that among that group of friends there was a Basque man, a new priest (who still hadn't wanted to celebrate his first mass in order to prepare well) despite the fact that he was no longer green, due to the era, age. His name was Iñigo de Loyola, later known by the name of Ignazio. A "simple" international situation, the outbreak of war between Venice and the Turks in 1538, prevented a group of friends from going to Jerusalem to spend their lives serving the Gospel.