Fr. Mesa defines and outlines a roadmap for our way of proceeding in a truly global dimension to ensure that the universality of the Society of Jesus and its mission is represented and lived out by all our schools. It is in consonance with the direction that our Father General, Fr. Arturo Sosa gives us, “By developing networks among us we also open wide possibilities to collaborate with others in the adventure of planning and working for the future of the humanity.” This is a new sign of the time to which we need to respond with lot of enthusiasm.
I am enthused by the assertion of Fr. Mesa that we are a global network and what we need to do is to feel the universality of our mission and experience a sense of belonging to this global network. Any action that emanates from such an experience can enable us to share our ideas, innovations, best practices, resources and talents to make our International network of Jesuit schools to be truly Jesuit.
I would like to suggest a three-pronged approach to this endeavour of ours to make everyone associated with our schools to feel belonging to this global network. We need to take steps for interaction at three levels viz. among administrators, among faculty members and among students. The administrators of our schools set the tone and climate of our schools. Therefore, it must be second nature to the administrators to interact and collaborate with administrators from Jesuit schools across the globe.
The real pillars of our schools are our faculty members and it is with their collaboration that we achieve our goals. I suggest that we encourage each faculty member of our schools to be in regular exchange with at least one faculty member from another continent. This will help them to build relationships and share ideas and best practices and lead them to experience the universality of our mission. They will experience a sense of belonging to a global network.
Then of course our focal point is our students and they should be involved in this to make our schools truly part of this global Jesuit Network. Programmes and possible exchange programmes (especially culturally enriching and promoting human values in a world that is increasingly getting fragmented) could be designed with administrators and faculty members to give our students an opportunity experience a sense of belonging to this global network.
Fr. Mesa mentions that our schools need to be locally rooted but should have a real global international perspective. The recent developments in various parts of the globe (some of which have the potential to challenge human life itself) are of serious nature and it should be our concern to respond to these. We need to educate our students to bear witness to the diversity in the world and to appreciate the contribution each other to making a better world every day rather than limiting oneself to the narrow boundaries of one’s own country. In this context our attempt to provide this global networking experience to our faculty members and students become much more the need of the hour and we should shy away from responding to this need in a true Jesuit Spirit.