His Holiness Pope Francis received some 60 students and staff of the Jesuit International College of the Gesù of Rome, exhorting them to be founded on Jesus and to grow and mature in Him for the greater glory of God. The Argentine Pope, himself a Jesuit, told the group that the celebration of their golden jubilee means going back to what is original and essential, to be founded again on Jesus, in His life, reaffirming a “clear “no” to the temptation to live for ourselves, to serve and not to be served.”
As reported by Vatican news, To be formed, the Pontiff said, means first of all to be founded or rooted in Jesus, to be of service like Him, to empty and annihilate like Him, obedient until death like Him, ready to face even slander, persecution and humiliation. “I beg you, in all your things, to found yourselves totally on God, ” the Pontiff told the group recalling the words Francis Xavier, the saint whose feast falls on December 3.
In conclusion, His Holiness Pope Francis wished that the international community of the College of Gesù continue to be an active gym in the art of living, including the other, carrying one another’s burdens, frailty, histories, cultures and memories of peoples.
