Sanctuary for the Heart

Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education, Sep 2017

By Howard Gray S.J., Published on 09/01/17

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Sanctuary for the Heart

Sanctuar y for the Heart Howard Gray S.J. Follow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/conversations Recommended Citation - Sanctuary for the Heart By Howard Gray, S.J. Introduction. Marilynne Robinson’s trilogy (Gilead, Home, and Lila) has been widely praised for the density of its themes, the palpable sympathy for its characters, and the elegant simplicity of its style. The series celebrates the theology that lies within human experience. One of Robinson’s recurring themes in the trilogy is that of human loneliness and the longing for a home. What some commentators on the trilogy have noted is the parable-like structure of the narratives, pointing beyond themselves to a deeper and wider reality about North American culture, specifically our hunger to belong and our pilgrimage for a wel Publ8ished bCyOe-NPVuEblRicSaAtiToInOs@NMSOarNqueJtEteS,U2I0T17HIGHER EDUCATION coming and safe environment that we can call this enforced alienation is wickedly a violation of “home,” as a place where we belong. Before I pursue what it means to be human. As the pilgrim himself, this theme, I want to emphasize that this longing is Ignatius learned to respond to the plight of the outnot exclusively American or unique to our contem- cast. As a new religious order, finding its identity and porary culture. It is a longing embedded in our sa- its mission by following the sometime obscure jourcred narratives, the Exodus of the Hebrew people ney God called them to undertake, Jesuits became Jeand their dream of the Promised Land, as well as in suits. The experiences of Ignatius and of his early our formative literary tradition, the journeys of companions explain why Jerome Nadal could say that Odysseus. It is also an Ignatian theme caught in Ig- the Society of Jesus was founded to care for those for natius’ self-designation as “the pilgrim” and in the whom no one cared. Ignatian humanism is to recogearly Jesuits’ self-description of their order as a nize that “Christ plays in ten thousand places.” “pathway to God.” To be human is to want to find a How does all this fit into Jesuit-sponsored place where we can belong. higher education? Let me call attention to one of the Nonetheless, we find ourselves at a cultural and most succinct presentations about Jesuit education. political moment when many AJCU personnel expe- It is to be found in Part IV of the ten-part Constiturience directly or vicariously challenges to the secu- tions of the Society of Jesus, the introductory reflecrity and certitude of being at home. Often political tions on the education of young Jesuits. There the divisions resist genuine communication and cooper- aims are succinctly laid out: to live a good life, to ation; racial and ethnic distinctions are exploited by learn well, and to communicate effectively. These are demagogues into islands of mutual fear and resent- what Ignatius expected his young recruits to bement; meanness, caricature, and downright lying come: good people who practice what they preach, and exaggeration too frequently displace dialogue intelligent and effective ministers of the word of God and civil discourse. These might not be the worst of and its significance for life. Let me employ this partimes but they are certainly not the best of times. We adigm to our work in higher education. experience and share in this sense of social imbalance and ethical ambiguity, sometimes bewildered The sanctuary of higher education. The word about how to respond without ourselves becoming sanctuary refers to the custom of designating sacred part of the problem, struggling to check our own re- sites like a cathedral or church to house fugitives from sentments, tame our own fears, and discipline our imprisonment or even death by the state. Recall the own drift towards polarization. Yes, we have a tra- plot contrivance employed in Victor Hugo’s The dition of seeing our loneliness as a witness to soli- Hunchback of Notre Dame, where the gypsy Esmeralda darity with the human family. Yes, we have a is whisked from imminent execution by the hunchcommunal hope to find a safe resting place for love back Quasimodo and swept into the sanctuary of and understanding, for compassion and forgiveness, Notre Dame, safe from her persecutors. and for reconciliation and new beginnings. Like the As I write this essay, the movement to declare wayward son in the Lucan parable we just want to some sites, such as churches or schools, sanctuaries come home. Or as Robert Frost put it, “Home is the for undocumented immigrants has attracted interest place where, when you have to go there, they have and active participants. I want to use the metaphor of to take you in.” sanctuary to describe an important aspect of Jesuit Telling anyone that there is no room for them higher education as a sanctuary from the inhumanity here, no home for them to rest and be safe, to identify that has cast a cloud over our contemporary culture. them only as the stranger, (...truncated)


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Howard Gray S.J.. Sanctuary for the Heart, Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education, 2017, Volume 52, Issue 1,