The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [171]
In these villages, scattered throughout present-day Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay, the Jesuits taught a variety of crafts, leading to an unprecedented flowering of indigenous Christian art, inspired by the European Jesuits but creatively translated into the artistic idiom of the local peoples. In A History of the Society of Jesus, William Bangert describes a typical village in its heyday:
From a central plaza, pointing north, south, east and west and built of the material of the area, even stone and adobe, spread the homes of the people, who sometimes numbered up to 10,000. Close by stood the assembly of workshops with tools for carpentry, masonry, metal work. Behind the homes stretched the fruit orchards, the pasture land for cattle, and the farms which provided wheat, rice, sugar cane, and cotton. In the church, the noblest edifice of all and the center of community life, the Indians, instructed in the dignity of the liturgy and inspired by the beauty of the altar, sang their hymns and played musical instruments. . . . To establish such vibrant centers of faith . . . the Jesuits brought, in addition to the sacraments and the word of God, their skills as metallurgists, cattle raisers, architects, farmers and masons.
Some of these immense stone churches, or their ruins, located deep in the jungles of South America, are popular tourist attractions today; others still serve as working parishes for the local peoples, who follow the faith introduced to their ancestors three centuries ago. Here is a clear legacy of the magis: people who were, in difficult circumstances, trying to do the more, the greater, the better for God and for God’s people.
The magis also lies behind more unsung achievements: the high-school teacher who spends hours painstakingly grading exams; the college campus minister driving a bus filled with boisterous students on a service trip to Appalachia; the priest who carefully guides a couple through the preparation for their wedding. This way of fulfilling the magis may be less dramatic than, say, the Jesuit Reductions, but no less important.
But by no means is the magis confined to the accomplishments of Jesuits or members of religious orders or priests. Anyone who dreams of doing great things for God can live out the magis—whether you are a father caring for your young child, a middle-aged woman nursing your aging parent, or an inner-city teacher working overtime to tutor a needy student. Great works are often quiet works.
In addition to Lowney’s four pillars for organizations, institutions, and businesses, I would add three more to this list of “best practices” for a more specific group: believers in the working world.
The first is an appreciation of the dignity of work.
One of the most overlooked aspects of Christian spirituality is the fact that Jesus worked. And I don’t mean simply preaching, healing the sick, and performing all those miracles, like stilling the storm, turning water into wine, and raising the dead. I mean something that took place earlier in his life.
We know almost nothing about the time in Jesus’ life between the ages of twelve and thirty. All the Gospel of Luke has to say is, “Jesus increased in wisdom and in years” (2:52). What was Jesus doing? Working. According to Luke, Jesus followed his foster father in his trade as a tekton, usually translated as “carpenter” but also as “craftsman.” (Scholars say he may also have been what we would call today a “day laborer.”) In his time this could have meant not only working with wood, which was scarce in the area, but also doing day jobs—building walls, hoeing fields, and so on. As a boy, he was probably apprenticed to Joseph in the carpentry shop at Nazareth. Because little is known about this time, it is often called Jesus’ “hidden life.”
Jesus was a craftsman and a businessman. Working as a carpenter would have meant selecting the right kind of wood, negotiating a fair price