Pope Francis, speaking both as pope and a Jesuit, asked members of the Society of Jesus to continue to journey to where Christ is most needed, and always ask God for consolation, compassion and help in discernment, reported CNS.
The Jesuits aim to "move forward, overcoming the impediments which the enemy of human nature puts in our way when, in serving God, we are seeking the greater good," the pope told more than 200 Jesuits chosen to represent the more than 16,000 Jesuits at the order's general congregation.
Given that the Society of Jesus' way of proceeding for "the greater good is accomplished through joy, the cross and through the church, our mother," the pope said he wished to help revive its zeal for mission by reflecting on those three points.
He said the Jesuit way of journeying and moving forward as followers of the Lord requires: asking God insistently for consolation; allowing oneself to be moved by Jesus crucified on the cross for one's sins; and doing good by being led by the Holy Spirit and by thinking with the church.
The true work of the Jesuits, he said, is to offer the people of God consolation and help them so that "the enemy of human nature does not rob us of joy — the joy of evangelizing, the joy of the family, the joy of the church, the joy of creation."
May this joy not be stripped from "us, either by despair before the magnitude of the evils of the world or by the misunderstandings between those who intend to do good," he said, and may it not be replaced "with foolish joys that are always at hand in all human enterprises."