EJIF Summer 2000 Meeting in Albania
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 Participants of the EJIF Summer Meeting |
The annual encounter of "European Jesuits in Formation" for the year 2000 took place in Albania. "What a destination?". The Adriatic coast, wild and unspoiled landscapes together with sunny weather make Albania a most inviting prospect. Lodging, tourist trips and transport were looked after. Three unforgettable weeks. You come back home with a heart full of memories, and with a heavier bag pack. And you would like to return again… But with such a description, you run the risk of confusing EJIF and the "Club Med", which would hardly be appropriate !
We were received in Peza, a small rural valley on the outskirts of Tirana so we had the chance to visit Tirana as well. We celebrated the feast of Saint Ignatius with the catholic community of Tirana, invited by the local Jesuit community. We celebrated Ignatius by dancing accompanied by the charming tunes of Albanian flutes ! We also visited the Jesuit community in Skhöder in the north of the country, a hundred kilometres from Tirana. It took four hours to get there, in an old dilapidated 1970's Greek tourist bus, which had to swerve repeatedly to avoid donkeys, cattle and the potholes… Albania is still essentially rural, life is tough and business hardly existent…
But enough of tourism, the meeting for which we came, took place in three stages : the forum, the retreat and the symposium.
The forum was a six day formation session, guided by Father Tom Michel on the topic of interreligious dialogue. An American of the Indonesian province, Tom has much of his life with and among Muslims. He is the society's delegate for putting into practice decree n° 5 of the 34th General Congregation on "Our mission and the interreligious dialogue". Each morning, he presented us the history and the main institutions and principles of the major religions, and especially of Islam. We also met up with representatives from other religions and churches, and visited the mosques in Tirana - 80% of the local population is Muslim. We also had the chance to visit a project supported by the Society of Jesus : a community aiming at the reinsertion into society of former drug addicts (Albania is an important transit zone for drugs and prostitution for Western Europe).
This forum gave us the chance to study this decree of the 34th General Congregation in great depth. I feared that we would doze through soft and edifying discourse on this matter. In fact, Tom spoke from his own personal experience and this approach was very rewarding. Our debate was also affected by our varying degrees of proficiency in English. These sessions did not so much provide great quantities of knowledge, but rather sought to evoke a fundamental attitude towards the dialogue of the Christian churches with the other world religions : the desire to encounter believers from other faiths and all this whilst being fully aware of belonging ourselves to a particular religious tradition.
The retreat on the same theme and in English, was preached by Father Christian van Nispen (most of us could however benefit from personal direction in their own language). The questions and issues raised during the forum were starting points for me. This way of giving and doing a retreat according to a particular theme was interesting and fruitful for me. It made me think of improvising on a musical theme : the basic score doesn't change, but the melody that one plays, allows the theme to be heard in a different light.
I was surprised by the unity of spirit which the exercises brought us. I
sense this is partly due to the spiritual poverty brought about by the
necessity of communicating in foreign language and also by the fact there was
a given theme for the retreat. What I got out from our celebrations and our
daily inputs, was limited to basic indications which helped me to enter into
prayer. These same inputs in the morning were structured according to the
major steps of the Exercises, and this in a language everyone was able to
understand. In order to pray, one doesn't need to know a lot.
The symposium (three days) was a kind of general assembly of EJIF in the
presence of Father Christopher Dyckhoff, Assistant to the President of the
Conference of European Provincials (CEP). The symposium evoked in us the
feeling of belonging to a European apostolic body. The Jesuit "Euro
groups" listed by the Conference are numerous and cover a wide range of
apostolic fields. EJIF is a valuable group well placed to sensitise Jesuits to
the European dimension of their apostolate. For this reason EJIF receives the
full support of the C.E.P. We were surprised that EJIF actively involves such
a limited number of people : 20 participants this year for a mere three weeks
a year. But the statutes establish that each province has its own coordinator
who is then charged with this mission for one year. Ultimately it is up to us,
to make it work !
In no way is EJIF to understood merely as a summer meeting. If the coordination committee invites a limited number of new delegates to attend this strong moment of formation annually it is up to us to question ourselves during the rest of the year if our formation really prepares us to work and live with companions from other European countries. I have to agree that being brought together by the Exercises helped me to be aware that my mission calls me beyond my own cultural universe. The fact that we met in Albania, which is so seriously affected by economic, social and military violence seems to me to put the European project into sharp relief. I became more aware of the need for a deeper and more extensive cooperation across our European continent.
... Reported by Georges Ruyssen (North Belgian Province)