Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Matt EmersonJune 11, 2014
Fr. Adolfo Nicolás, S.J. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) (Oct. 26, 2012) See SYNOD-LEARN and SYNOD-MESSAGE Oct. 26, 2012.

In October of 2013, in Chicago, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Fr. Adolfo Nicolás, S.J., spoke to representatives from the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. In his address, Fr. Nicolás reflected on some of the themes of Chris Lowney's book Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company that Changed the World. I came across an excerpt too good not to share, and very much worth reflecting upon in preparation for the next academic year. Reflecting on the important of vision, Fr. Nicolás said:

For Ignatian institutions there is nothing, however big it might be, that can limit the apostolic imagination of a leader. We can see this attitude in the courage with which some of the great missionaries in Jesuit history who went out facing an entire continent -- in times with no airplanes, internet, nothing -- and were capable of becoming these audacious and imaginative missionaries. They had a broad vision well beyond their knowledge of their own limited capacities. Even those in poor health knew how to carry out a creative vision and eventually move across the continent because their concrete steps were all ordered to the great vision they had in mind. José Anchieta traveled on the back of a mule throughout Brazil as far as Peru and Bolivia, because he was led by his ideals and vision.
 

Read the rest of this excellent talk here.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

“We must pray for the conversion of many people, inside and outside of the church, who still do not recognize the urgency of caring for our common home,” Pope Leo XIV said while celebrating a new formulary of the Mass “for the care of creation.”
A Reflection for the Thursday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time, by Ashley McKinless
Ashley McKinlessJuly 08, 2025
No one ever expected a U.S.-born pope. In this first-ever I “Inside the Vatican” Deep Dive series, those who know him best reveal who Pope Leo XIV—“the American pope”—really is. In Episode 1, we hear from the genealogist who uncovered his Louisiana roots, a teacher, and fellow Augustinian friars
Inside the VaticanJuly 08, 2025
The Vatican Synod office has released a set of guidelines for local churches and bishops to implement the proposals of the recent Synod on Synodality.