A NEW BRAND for new horizons

Jesuit Missions has a new look! Director Paul Chitnis brings us along on the evolutionary journey of their work.

For over sixty years, Jesuit Missions has been supporting Jesuits serving communities overseas. As Fr Peter Gallagher SJ, the provincial, said at the launch of our new brand, Jesuit Missions is at the heart of the British Province.

Being a ‘missionary’ is not something unique to Jesuits or priests. Pope Francis reminds us that we are all ‘asked to obey [the Lord’s] call to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the “peripheries” in need of the light of the Gospel.’ Indeed, every Mass ends with a co-mission: to ‘go and announce the gospel of the Lord’.

Announcing the Kingdom of God has been a life’s work for countless British Jesuits ‘on the missions’. In 1966, there were over 200 working in countries including Guyana, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Today, that number is in single figures.

This partly reflects the huge changes in these countries. Colonial ties have been shed, often at great cost, creating different relationships with former colonial powers.

The Church and the Society of Jesus have also changed. For example, the Southern African province is now comprised of nearly 90% local Jesuits.

These demographic, cultural and ecclesial changes inevitably affect the work of Jesuit Missions. Our traditional role in supporting missionaries by procuring missals, spare parts for jeeps and football strips has ended.

Today we encourage and promote the local communities largely in low-income countries. Above all, we seek to amplify their voices in our advocacy work.

The horizons of our work have changed from supporting British Jesuits on the missions to supporting the universal mission of the Jesuits globally.

Perhaps not everywhere, in practice, but certainly in over twenty countries, Jesuit Missions is accompanying a wide range of partners implementing a diverse array of projects.

At its heart, our mission remains unchanged: ‘the service of faith of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement.’ (General Congregation 32, 1974)

Less prosaically, we share the mission of Jesus: ‘to bring the good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives, to the blind new sight and to set the downtrodden free.’

As our work has evolved, so has our branding. You can see several iterations of it at the bottom of this page.

This rebrand will make it easier to communicate our work digitally, especially to a younger audience. The colours, including ‘Jesuit yellow’ (not its real name!), are bold and distinctive, something which was part of the brief.

In the design process, the nails in the traditional Jesuit logo were drawn out and reshaped around the words, ‘Jesuit Missions’. They serve to remind us of the crucified people who endure hunger, disease, human rights abuses and the degradation of their environment in many of the poorest parts of the world.

The brand is more than the logo. We also identified three core values for Jesuit Missions: generosity, passion and hope.

Generosity is a characteristically Ignatian value: an invitation to respond, in gratitude, to God’s own love and generosity by loving and serving God in all things, especially where people are marginalised in any way.

Our generosity invites from us a passion – a desire – to work in a discerning way for systemic change and not just be content with alleviating the symptoms of injustice. Only then can we hope to end the evils of poverty and injustice.

To be hopeful is something rooted in every human heart, says Pope Francis. ‘Hope speaks to us of a thirst … a desire to achieve great things, things that fill our heart and lift our spirit to lofty realities like truth, goodness and beauty, justice and love … Hope is bold’.

Being bold requires of us the same courage and resilience shown by the people in the communities in which we serve as they confront huge challenges.