Life as Jesuit…yesterday and today
Most of the requests received by our historical archive are aimed at investigating the life of the Jesuits, their path in the Society, their eventual publications, their daily work as teachers, scholars, spiritual assistants. Jesuits still hold many of these positions today, they are religious who live in community following the constitutions of St Ignatius, but how different is their life from that of their predecessors?
Often in reconstructing a biographical profile, we forget that these are people who had to deal, as much as we do, with the little big problems and inconveniences of everyday life, with duties and schedules to adhere to.
Habits and house rules
Reading the house diaries of the 1920s, we discover what the customs were in the professed house of Jesus in Rome. The convivial atmosphere that friends, relatives and co-workers, who were often invited to lunch, breathed at mealtimes with the community, for example, was very different from that which prevailed less than a century ago.
Talking during meals in the refectory was not allowed, and silence was a good daily practice recommended even during daily activities or meetings between the fathers in the corridor and in the common areas of the residence. During meals the Jesuits were still dedicated to the practices of penance, recommended by the early confreres of St Ignatius, to atone for their sins.
The brothers were often reminded not to call each other “tu” and to put “father” or “brother” before the name of each Jesuit, and were often reprimanded for being late for meals or other communal occasions.
Life in the residence was not without its difficulties such as the low temperature in winter, the first stoves were installed at the request of the Fr Provincial in 1925, the Major Superior himself a year later noted the lack of variety in the food.
In a consultation in 1925, one of the faults noted by the community fathers was ‘the raising of voices on the telephone, the constant ringing of bells’. Habits and behaviour not very different from those prescribed for novices, as we have already seen in the post “Novice Life”.
Orderlies and collaborators
The Jesuits in the house also had to co-ordinate with the janitorial staff who helped in the kitchen, in the church or in other tasks and who often gave the fathers some concern. As when, in March 1923, it was hoped that ‘Vincenzo would not throw the garbage out of the window’, evidently an expedient used by the house servants so as not to have to walk the stairs and long corridors …
A note is reported about another caretaker who had ‘too much of a head on his fiancée’; attention to cleanliness is often mentioned for the co-workers in the church and in the sacristy ‘cleanliness is recommended for the stained glass windows in the church atrium and the crescent moon on the entrance door’.
Rather noisy places, despite repeated appeals for silence, seem to be the pantry and the kitchen, where moreover “the cook sings and whistles” and again “the scullery maid is very filthy and should be instructed”.
Economic management
Economic management, borne by the community, is one of the most heartfelt issues and we learn a curious Neapolitan tradition from the diary.
In order to meet the necessary expenses for the upkeep of the church in 1925, in fact, a proposal is put on the record – which does not convince the fathers, however – to introduce here too the custom also found at Gesù in Naples of charging for church chairs’, however ‘the consultants raise difficulties: it is not in Roman usage’.
Moreover, at the end of 1925, the fathers had approached the Questura for the surveillance of the Church, however ‘it was answered that it is up to us to police our own affairs’, relations with the civil and government authorities, in the absence of the Lateran Pacts, promulgated only four years later, were not yet marked by cooperation.
There were also numerous activities that the fathers were called upon to perform as part of the community: the celebration of masses, confessions, but also the organisation of the ceremony for the delivery of Easter eggs to the children of tram drivers.
Praising the brothers
Always very valuable and appreciated is the work of the brothers in the community, i.e. those who, despite not having attained the priesthood, live in the community as consecrated lay people: “The activity and spirit of sacrifice of the good brothers is praised” and “the good agreement and industriousness of the brothers”.
What may seem, to anyone reading them with today’s eyes, to be strict or excessively rigid rules, are nevertheless daughters of their time and also characterised the life of the laity.
Maria Macchi
