~ by Fr. Jack Bentz, SJ

For Jesuits, the Eucharist is at the center of their prayer and their life together. Most Jesuit communities have a space dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament for private prayer and all Jesuit communities gather together for regular Eucharistic celebrations. While the quality of this celebration can vary as widely as the character of the Jesuits participating, the Eucharist is where we have the opportunity to find God every time we allow ourselves to be found at Eucharist. For when we gather with each other in Eucharist we are gathering as friends in the Lord. And friendship in the Lord becomes the glue holding us together and preparing us for mission.

Almost as soon as an individual man enters the Jesuits he becomes part of a group. This group would be perfect were it not made up of individuals. And this is where the Jesuit phrase friends in the Lord appears on the scene. The novice Jesuits are at first shocked and then comforted by the fact that they do not have to become friends but must become friends in the Lord.

After entering the Jesuits on a high tide of heroic, if untested selflessness, novices slowly begin to see the limits of what one can endure without the Holy Spirit doing the heavy lifting. Without access to some super power one will never survive the inescapable dullness of another’s conversation or the reality of another man’s lack of generosity or that a third brother, is just plain mean-spirited. But these are the very men God gives the novice Jesuit. These are the men with whom he lives and will, some years in the future, die. And thankfully, these are the men who will gather around the Lord’s table each day as friends in the Lord.

Jesus gathered with his friends for supper many, many times. These disciples were friends of the Lord but not necessarily friends with each other outside of this shared friendship with Christ. This reality begins to comfort the novice Jesuit. He can look around and see other men who are drawn into friendship with the same Christ. He can look across a shared table of Eucharist and find hope that one day these men will become fully friends in the Lord. This implies that they will respect each other, pray for each other, and see more and more value in each other. And as Jesuits begin to do this with each other they can then begin to befriend the world as well. Sharing in the Eucharist helps Jesuits to do this.