This year’s meeting of the JCEP Education Delegates was held in Miskolc, Hungary, under the theme ‘Jesus at the centre: educators who inspire faith’. From 25 to 29 November, 25 members of the JECSE Education Commission (Education Delegates and Regional Coordinators) met to reflect on the Catholic identity of our schools and to seek together ways to promote faith formation in schools in our increasingly secularised region. The meeting was also attended by Fr José Alberto Mesa SJ, Secretary for Education of the Society of Jesus and Fr Dalibor Renić SJ, President of the Conference of European Provincials (JCEP).
The delegates’ meeting focused on deepening the reflection begun in Yogyakarta during the JESEDU Global Seminar last summer. Led by Fr Daniel Huang SJ, Professor at the Faculty of Missiology at the Gregorian University in Rome, participants reflected on how our schools can realistically respond to Fr Arturo Sosa SJ’s call to be apostolic bridges and evangelisers in today’s challenging times. Dr John Stoer, former Delegate for Education of the British Province, then helped to deepen our reflection on religious education in our schools.
A special moment of the meeting was dedicated to deepening our own relationship with God. A retreat prepared for us by Fr Jimmy Bartolo SJ, with time for individual prayer and faith sharing, ended with a beautiful Eucharist celebrated together with the students of the Fényi Gyula Jesuit boarding school. It was a very moving moment to pray together with the young people and to hear their honest testimony of being “salt of the earth and light of the world”.
The meeting was also an opportunity for delegates to share experiences. We heard about the important events and challenges of our schools in the different Provinces, discussed many practical issues related to the new PCCP training, the future JECSE formation and the collaboration with Educate Magis. It was with particular emotion and a sense of unity that we listened to Fr Denis Meyer SJ, the Near East Education Delegate, who informed us of the current situation in Lebanon and expressed his gratitude for the support given to the schools in the Beqaa Valley by the various schools in our network.
Our meeting ended with an inspiring speech by the President of JCEP&JECSE, who congratulated our network for the work it has done in recent years and encouraged us to continue our journey in the service of our common mission. Fr Dalibor reminding us that “JECSE is a mission of Father General and we can now truly experience that it is Missio Dei”.
We concluded our annual meeting with a strong sense that God is at work in our diverse, secular and post-secular context. We want to continue our discernment of what evangelisation means today and how we can place faith formation at the heart of the work of our schools.
“We live in a time of mixed emotions: there is a war in the region and there is a lot of uncertainty and fear about our own future and even about the future of the whole world. In such cases, the gift of faith is very relevant. The joy, hope and desire to take an active part in the affairs of the world can be felt in the students I met in this school in Miskolc. This is the goal, the responsibility of the teacher, who not only teaches a specific subject, but also models the perfect human being, nourished by the Ignatian roots. True Jesuit education is not in the head, but in the heart. For 500 years, the spirituality of St Ignatius has touched and transformed people, shaped and nourished teachers, and through them, as a result of their work, shaped young people”.
Fr Jose Mesa SJ in the school interview
We are very grateful to Fr Ferenc Holzinger SJ, the Hungarian Education Delegate, for inviting us to Miskolc and for the extraordinary hospitality of his school. We would also like to express our gratitude to our wonderful guests and keynote speakers who led us in prayer, reflection and discernment during these days, and to all the participants for their commitment and dedication.