http://jesuits.org/aboutus?page=dtn-20130520123642

Jesuit History, Tiruvadanai (2025)

16/11/2025

TODAY IN SJ HISTORY
17 NOV 1579
Blessed Rudolph Acquaviva, SJ and two other Jesuits set out from Goa for Surat and Fattiphur, the Court of Akbar.
Rudolf Acquaviva was the son of the Duke of Atri, related to the family of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, and nephew of Fr. Claudio Acquaviva, the fifth General of the Jesuits. He was admitted in the Society at the age of 18, and after being ordained Priest at Lisbon was sent to Goa, in India. Acquaviva was one of the two chosen for the mission at Fatehpur Sikri, where Akbar built the Ibadat Khana (House of Worship) where he invited leaders of the Muslim, Hindu, and other religions to debate points of religious truth, including Acquaviva and his companion Jesuit António de Monserrate, besides their young translator, Francisco Henriques, who spoke Persian. Akbar was interested in founding a new pantheistic religion with elements from different traditions. His new faith was called Din-i-Ilahi (Faith of the Divine). Although he came equipped with the Bible translated into many different languages, and was the object of Akbar's sympathetic personal attention, the Jesuit felt his efforts were fruitless, one obstacle being the ruler's repugnance to monogamy, and he decided to withdraw, though other Jesuits maintained the mission at the courts of the Mughal Emperors and in Agra for the next two centuries. He was then put in charge of the Salette mission, north of Bombay. He and four companions, Fr. Pacheco, Fr. Berno, Fr. Francisco and Br. Ar**ha, together with other Christians, set out for Cuncolim, the heart of Hindu opposition in that mission, intending to choose there a piece of ground for a Church and to plant a cross thereon. They were met with armed force by the villagers. Rudolf and Alfonso were killed praying for their murderers, and the other two priests were likewise slain outright. Francis was left for dead, but found living the next day; he was given a chance to venerate an idol, and on refusing was tied to a tree and shot with arrows. It was not till 1741 that Pope Benedict XIV declared the martyrdom proved, and even then the formal beatification did not take place till 1893.

16/11/2025

17 NOV SAINT OF THE DAY
S JOHNDEL CASTILLO, SJ (1596-1628)
Castillo was born in Belmonte (Toledo), Spain, and initially decided on a career in law. He attended
the University of Alcala but during his first year, realized that he had a vocation and he entered
the Novitiate at the age of 18. In 1616, he was on his way to the South American Mission and one of
his companions on this journey were Alfonsus Rodriguez. Castillo was ordained in 1625 and was at the reduction of the Incarnation at Itapúa in 1628 when Fr Roch Gonsalez visited it. Fr Gonsalez then took him as his associate to Iyui which he named Assumption. Fr Gonsalez left Fr Castillo in charge of the settlement and then went on to found another settlement, All Saints at Caaro with Fr Rodriguez as his companion. Because the three Jesuits were making noticeable progress amongst the Indians, the local witch-doctor, Nezu seeing that his influence was waning, decided that it would only be by the Priests’ death, that he could regain control of his people. Hence he was determined to kill the missionaries on his territory. Fr Castillo was unaware that Frs. Rodriguez and Gonsalez at All Saints were murdered by Nezu’s men on November 15 and that he was to be the next victim. Nezu’s men entered the reduction of the Assumption and found Fr Castillo reading his breviary. The visitors surrounded him, attacked, and beat him and forced him to go into the woods where they beat
him to death. He was only 32. He and his companions were later canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1988.

16/11/2025

17 NOVEMBER
OUR MOTHER OF ZION (FRANCE)
Zion is one of the places in the Diocese of Toul where the seed of Christianity first took root. The Basilica of Our Mother of Zion is built over the ruins of a temple once dedicated to the worship of a Roman goddess. Bishop Gerard of Toul first built the parish Church of Zion in the 10th century and placed a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary behind the Altar. In the year 1306, Henry III built the present choir and placed a new statue there of the Blessed Virgin nursing the Infant Jesus. Notre Dame de Sion is a Roman Catholic congregation founded with the intention of converting Jews to the True Faith and the congregations radically changed its orientation after Vatican II to convert the Jews. In 1873, on September 10 by order of the blessed Pope Pius IX, the statue was crowned.

15/11/2025

16 NOVEMBER
OUR MOTHER OF CHIEVES (BELGIUM)
The Chapel Our Mother of the Fountain is in Chieves. In the early part of the 12th century,a young woman named Eva de Chieves decided to have a Chapel built to house the statue and protect it from the weather. The shrine was famous as a place of pilgrimage due to the numerous
miraculous healings there and was also a Chapel of respite where stillborn babies were sometimes miraculously brought back to life long enough that they might be baptized and go to heaven. In the year 1315 a Norman pilgrim was cured of gout, an illness from which he was suffering in all his joints. In the year 1568 there was another Norman by the name of Antoine Depres, who had come to Belgium for a lengthy hospital treatment which he hoped would be a remedy for the skin disease afflicting his legs. He was completely cured after visiting Our Mother of Chieves. In 1579 there was a man named Nicolas Lens who suffered from a contraction of his muscles so that his legs remained continually drawn up to his chest. Appearing before the statue of Our Mother, Nicholas’ limbs were suddenly loosened and he ran to kneel before the image of Our Mother. In the present day, there is a procession which takes place on the Sunday after Ascension Thursday. The statue of Our Mother of Chieves is carried in a beautiful Gothic-style litter.

15/11/2025

16 NOV SAINT OF THE DAY
SS ROCH GONZALEZ, SJ & Cc (1576-1628)
Gonzalez was born in Paraguay and the son of the Spanish colonists. At the age of 22, Gonzalez was ordained a priest to serve that diocese. In 1609, he became a member of the Society of Jesus, beginning his work as a missionary in what is now Brazil. He became the first European person to enter the region known today as the State of Rio Grande do Sul, extending the system of Jesuit reductions begun in Paraguay to that region. Gonzalez' arrival in the area happened only after his developing delicate relationships of trust with local indigenous leaders, some of whom feared that the priests were preparing the way for the arrival of masses of Spanish colonists in their land. He led the founding of the Reduction of San Ignacio Mini and the City of Posadas in the Argentine Province of Misiones. Then he had to move the reduction to the other side of the river. While preparing to oversee the installation of a new bell for the Church at the Mission, Gonzalez was struck down and killed, along with his fellow Jesuit, Juan del Castillo, upon the orders of the local chieftain who opposed the missions. After their deaths, their bodies were dragged into the Church, which was set ablaze. Two days later, their colleague, Alonso Rodriguez was also murdered. In 1934, Gonzalez and his companions were beatified by Pope Pius XI and later were canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1988. Gonzalez is the Patron Saint of the cities of Posadas, Argentina, and Encarnacion, Paraguay.

15/11/2025

TODAY IN SJ HISTORY
16 NOV 1989
The assassination of six Jesuits in San Salvador of Ignacio Ellacuria, Ignacio Martin-Baro, Segundo Mondes, Joaquin Lopez, Juan Ramon Moreno, and Amando Lopez, along with their cook, Elba Julia Ramos, and her daughter Celina Maricet Ramos to destroy the University of Central America (UCA).
The war was fuelled by the US government, which between 1981 and 1990 gave the Salvadoran military a huge amount to defeat what it regarded as a communist uprising. According to the UN Truth Commission, the new infantry battalions financed by US aid became the main perpetrators of war crimes. Outspoken Catholic priests such as Archbishop Oscar Romero, his mentor Fr. Rutilio Grande and the Jesuits of UCA were despised by the ruling elites for speaking out against injustice. Grande was assassinated in 1977; Romero was murdered as he said Mass in 1980. “There is nothing more dangerous in this world than telling the truth,” Sobrino said. The UCA was bombed four times – in one attack 17 devices exploded in a single night – and the campus was also searched by security forces. Ellacuria, the university Rector, was regarded with hostility as he was a linchpin in prospective peace negotiations with the rebels. Originally from Bilbao in Spain, he occupied a unique position in the conflict, trusted by the guerrillas and junior military officers. The head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Col Rene Ponce held two meetings at which the atrocity was planned. Ponce ordered Col Guillermo Benavides to kill Ellacuria and leave no witnesses. Troops from the Atlacatl battalion were told to make the attack appear to have been committed by the guerrillas. Amid mounting international pressure, the Salvadoran authorities tried eight of the soldiers in 1991. Six were acquitted and four of them had admitted before the trial to participating in the murders. Today, Father Sobrino remains an outspoken proponent of peace and social justice, but says he is uninterested in the legal developments surrounding the atrocity, especially as the country he has chosen to call home remains mired in violence. In his office full of theological readings and homilies, Sobrino points to framed photos of Ellacuria, Romero and Grande, and says: “All my friends are on the wall, and all of them are dead, assassinated and the killing continues.”

14/11/2025

TODAY IN SJ HISTORY
15 NOV 1856
The Birth Anniversary of Fr. Herbert Thurston, SJ (1856-1939), a prolific author on Saints and spirituality. Thurston wrote more than 150 articles for the Catholic Encyclopaedia (1907-1914), and published nearly 800 articles in magazines and scholarly journals, as well a dozen books. He also re-edited Alban Butler’s Lives of the Saints (1926-1938). Many of Thurston’s articles show a sceptical attitude towards popular legends about the lives of the saints and about holy relics. On the other hand, his treatment of spiritualism and the paranormal was regarded as “too sympathetic” by some of his fellow Catholics.

14/11/2025

15 NOV SAINT OF THE DAY
S ALBERT THE GREAT (1193-1280)
Albert was born at Lauingen, Donau. He studied at Padua, where under the influence of the second
Dominican General, he joined the newly-founded Order of Preachers. Soon he was sent to Germany, taught in various cities, particularly Cologne; Thomas Aquinas was his student. In 1248 he received the honour of Master in Sacred Theology at Paris. Throngs attended his lectures. At the age 61, Albert was chosen Provincial of his Order in Germany. For a time, he lived at the court of Pope Alexander II, who made him Bishop of Regensburg; two years later, he returned to his community at Cologne. There he acted as counsellor, peacemaker, and shepherd of souls with great success. He died at the age of eighty-seven. Pope Pius XI numbered him among the ranks of the saints in 1931, and declared him a doctor of the Church. Albert, the greatest German scholar of the Middle Ages, the "light of Germany," was outstanding in the fields of natural science, theology, and philosophy. He is called the Great because of his encyclopaedic knowledge.

14/11/2025

15 NOVEMBER
OUR MOTHER OF PIGNEROL (FRANCE)
Our Mother of Pignerol was built in honour of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin about the year 1098, by Adelaide, Countess of Savoy. It is a national shrine of Savoy. The pious and far-seeing countess anticipated by almost one thousand years the dogma of the Assumption of Our Mother. Mary was publicly honoured under this beloved title, and frequently repaid the generosity of her devout Adelaide by answering the pleas of her children, crying to her for help in every need. Answering their prayers, curing their ills and obtaining miracles for the faithful where human aid was despaired of, but where faith always conquered. When the Assumption of Our Mother was proclaimed a dogma, the rejoicing at the Pignerol shrine was indescribable. The Church is clothed with the Son of God, while Our Mother has the moon beneath her feet, representing the things of the material world. She is crowned with 12 stars, the Apostles, and is in labour to bring forth the children of God amidst a world full of affliction and misery.

13/11/2025

TODAY IN SJ HISTORY
14 NOV 1980
The Jesuit Refugee Service was established by Blessed Pedro Arrupe, SJ (1907-1991), former Superior General of Society of Jesus from 1965-1983.
In the late 1970s, Fr. Arrupe, then Superior General of the Society of Jesus, was moved by the perilous journeys to exile of the Vietnamese boat people. Although the Vietnam War had ended in 1975, it was not until 1979 that great numbers of people began to leave the country and seek refuge elsewhere through risky journeys by sea. At that time, Fr. Arrupe appealed to Jesuit major Superiors for practical assistance. The generous "first wave of action" provoked him to reflect on how much more the Society of Jesus could do if its responses to this, and to other contemporary crises of forced human displacement, were planned and coordinated. From that initial sentiment, has grown a world-wide service to forcibly displaced people. On 14 November 1980, Fr. Arrupe announced the birth of the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS). Ignatian spirituality drives us to recognize that God is present in all things, and inspires us to find him daily. It is guided by keen discernment and an unwavering dedication of becoming a person for others through service. The JRS, together with the people they work with strive to continuously embody this, therefore actively servicing hundreds of thousands of brothers and sisters across the globe. Keeping the tenets of Ignatian Spirituality in mind, JRS focuses on seven values within which they pattern the organization's mission — compassion, hope, dignity, solidarity, hospitality, justice, and participation. The organization continues to work in various unfortunate areas of the world in a mission to find God in all things.
Today, the global agency is working in 48 countries, meeting the educational, health, social, psychological, pastoral and other needs of those forcibly displaced from their homelands. The word “accompany” is key to any description of JRS’s work.

13/11/2025

14 NOV SAINT OF THE DAY
S JOSEPH PIGNATELLI, SJ (1737-1811): He was born in a palace in Spain; entered the Society; was ordained a Priest and performed humble works. When King Charles III expelled the Jesuits from his kingdom and confiscated their property, five thousand Jesuits lost everything and instantly became homeless. He took on a more active role when he wrote to the Jesuit Provincial in White Russia asking for ready mission. Pignatelli had been on exile for 40 years when he arrived in Rome, still cherishing the hope that the Society would be fully restored. He was confined to bed and died three years before Pope Pius VII restored the Society.

13/11/2025

14 NOVEMBER
OUR MOTHER OF THE REVELATION
In a hillside grotto in the Tre Fontane district of Rome, there stands a statue of Our Mother which commemorates her victory over an ardent communist in 1947. His name is Bruno ornachiola. Although baptized, Bruno knew little about the faith he was supposed to profess. Seeking adventure after his marriage, he enlisted in Franco’s army in Spain in 1937, where he became a victim of the communist creed. Returning to Italy full of hatred toward the Church he attempted to destroy the Faith of his wife and children and propagated communism eagerly. On September 8, 1947, he decided to assassinate the Pope. He attacked Mary’s Immaculate Conception by preparing a speech against her. To find leisure for this, he took his children for an outing to Ostia to enjoy the seaside, while he worked over his talk. Missing the train to Ostia he took the children to Tre Fontaine instead, to a hillside grove near a Cistercian Abbey. While helping the children recover their lost ball, he was astonished to find his youngest child on his knees before a cave grotto, hands joined as if in prayer and exclaiming, “The beautiful Mother”. Angrily sneering, he turned to the other two children but instantly they fell on their knees gazing toward the grotto, Bruno thoroughly frightened, cried out, “God have mercy on me.” The Mother was dark of hair with an olive complexion. She wore a white dress bound by a sash of pink; over it and her head was a mantle of green. In her hand, she carried a book; on her bare feet he saw a black cloth and a crucifix broken in pieces. He heard a voice say, “I am the Virgin of the Revelation”. Our Mother spoke to them more than an hour, stressing the need of prayer, especially of the Rosary for the conversion of sinners and for Christian unity, giving Bruno a secret message for the Pope. Later Gianfranco was baptized and not long afterward Bruno was received in audience by Pope Pius XII to whom he confessed his murderous intention and conveyed the message given him by the Mother of God. The black cloth on Mary’s foot, with a crucifix broken into pieces, was a reminder to Bruno
of the home crucifix he flung to the ground and broke into fragments on his return from Spain.

Jesuit History

16/11/2025

16/11/2025

16/11/2025

15/11/2025

15/11/2025

15/11/2025

14/11/2025

14/11/2025

14/11/2025

13/11/2025

13/11/2025

13/11/2025

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Shortcuts

Share

Category