The Emergence of a Lay Esprit de Corps: Inspirations, Tensions, Horizons

Likening the Ignatian tradition as embodied at Jesuit universities to a family photo album with many pages yet to be added, the author locates the “heart” of the Ignatian sensibility in the movements of freedom and spirit (inspiration) in the life of the community. There are no fixed entry points or criteria of inclusion and exclusion for Ignatian lay educators save a desire to share in the questions proper to all the university disciplines that pull us toward a horizon beyond ourselves. Nevertheless a number of creative tensions endemic to Jesuit apostolic life from the beginning and also new challenges in the climate of American Catholic higher education threaten to unmoor Jesuit universities from their spiritual, mystical, and theological roots. The author explores the state of the question today as raised fruitfully by many others: How will lay faculty, staff, and administrators imagine the future of Jesuit higher education, and what resources can help them cultivate and sustain an authentically Ignatian and vibrantly lay esprit de corps