MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
Dear Gonzaga Community: When I started my time on Eye Street ten years ago, one of my first duties was to write the President’s Welcome Message for our website. My intent was to state as clearly as possible from the start what a Jesuit education is all about. I did this because there are many misconceptions about why Jesuits operate schools, and I wanted to make it clear from the beginning why we Jesuits and our lay colleagues do what we do. The primary goal of a Jesuit school is not to enroll its graduates in the best colleges and universities. The primary goal of a Jesuit school is not to produce accomplished athletes, artists, and performers. The primary goal of a Jesuit education is not to make sure that our graduates become independently wealthy, although if you do, you can be pretty sure that a Jesuit will ask you for a donation at some point! Surely, we Jesuits see the value in these goals. However, rather than being the primary purpose of a Jesuit education, these things are what I like to call some of the “happy side effects” that result from a Jesuit education. They are also the rewards of living life well no matter where you study. The true purpose of a Jesuit education stems from the spiritual legacy of St. Ignatius Loyola as found in his spiritual masterpiece, The Spiritual Exercises. The Spiritual Exercises are not a book to be read, but rather a retreat experience masterfully constructed by St. Ignatius to guide the retreatant to a real encounter with God who is revealed in the context of the created world. For those who make the Exercises,, the “happy side effects” of the retreat are unique to each person and last a lifetime. A Jesuit high school, by extension, has as its primary goal the very same thing, to give its students the opportunity for a real encounter with God as found in the created world. So, how is this done? Following the general pattern of The Spiritual Exercises, a good Jesuit High school tries to do the following over the course of four years. A Jesuit education encourages a student to engage the world fearlessly, honestly, and intelligently, and in doing so, to discover who he is before God. Once a boy discovers who he most truly is before God, the next step is to make sure that he understands that he is loved absolutely, profoundly, and eternally by the God who created him, even if the he has not yet learned to love and accept himself. Once a boy has learned that he is loved by God with all of his gifts and talents, strengths and weaknesses, virtues and failings, we try to help him hear God’s call. Once a boy understands who he is, that God loves him just as he is, and that he is called by God, we then give him the tools to discern God’s ever evolving call to live in response to God’s love. This is because God is love, and loving well is the whole purpose of life. This might seem like an unorthodox way to get a boy into college. However, the fact is, that for those boys who internalize the deeper meaning of a Jesuit education, all of the other “happy side effects” tend to take care of themselves. What we Jesuits and our colleagues want most of all for our students is what St. Ignatius called, “the salvation of souls.”
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