5 February 2025 - Father Pedro Arrupe - homily for Wednesday of the 4th week in Ordinary Time - Psalm 103

Father Pedro Arrupe was a priest from the Basque region of Spain who served as the Superior General of the Jesuits from 1965 to 1983. He is considered the “second founder”of the Jesuits based on the huge impact he had on that religious order. Trained as a medial doctor as well as a priest, he was stationed in Hiroshima, Japan in 1945 at the time of the nuclear bombing there at the end of WWII. He used his medical training to attend to the wounded and the dying there. As the superior of the Jesuits during the implementation of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, he had this to say: ”If we speak a language no longer appropriate to the hearts of people, we speak only to ourselves because no one will listen to us or try to understand what we say.”  A strong advocate of social justice in the Catholic tradition, he said this: "To be just, it is not enough to refrain from injustice. One must go further and refuse to play its game, substituting love for self-interest as the driving force of society." He resigned as superior of the Jesuits in 1983 after having suffered from paralysis from a stroke. He died on February 5, 1991. His cause for sainthood was opened by the Jesuits in 2018. I remember seeing a lot of exhibits related to him in the sanctuary of Loyola in the Basque Country in Spain when I stayed there for a month praying the 30 day spiritual exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola in the summer of 2019. I was really inspired by his leadership of the Jesuit order in a very tumultuous time in the Church right after the Second Vatican Council. 

The refrain from the psalm today states: “The Lord’s kindness is everlasting to those who fear him.” By fear, it is not a sense of retribution or punishment or harshness from the Lord, but rather being in awe and wonder in God's presence. I would think that someone like Father Pedro Arrupe would not been able to live out his life of deep faith and conviction if he did not have this sense of awe and wonder. May we aspire to approach the Lord on our journey of faith in this same way.