Venerable Mary Ward, founder of the Congregation of Jesus

The purpose of this page is to help interested women connect with resources to study our shared history, and also to share resources that are helping me to discover, describe, and live out a Jesuit life.  I have tried to link wherever possible to make your reading easier.  The list will be growing!  If you have a resource to nominate, or an online pdf version for linking, please send it to jesuitwomen via the Contacts page.

Our Jesuit Life

• The Autobiography of St. Ignatius Loyola
• Our Jesuit Life.  The Institute of Jesuit Sources: St. Louis, MO, 1990.
• The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complementary Norms.  John W. Padberg, S.J, ed.  The Institute of Jesuit Sources: St. Louis, MO, 1996.
• Our Way of Proceeding: To Make the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complementary Norms Our Own.  William A. Barry, S.J.  The Institute of Jesuit Sources: St. Louis, MO, 1997.  (If you’re drawn to this, see a prayerful reading plan I’m experimenting with.)

First Principle and Foundation

• Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World, 1999.  Henri J.M. Nouwen.
• First Principle and Foundation: Two Interpretations

Jesuit Women: History and Context

• “Juana, SJ: The past (and future?) status of women in the Society of Jesus.” Studies in Jesuit Spirituality, 1999.  Lisa Fullam, D.V.M., Th.D.
• “Women Jesuits?” The Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits, 2008.  Gemma Simmonds CJ.
• “No Women Need Apply.”  Jesuits: A Multibiography, 1991.  Jean Lacouture.
•   Women’s Religious Orders that you might like to know about!
• “Live the 4th Vow: Jesuit Women in Today’s Church.”  (This is the working title of an article I hope to publish in America magazine.  I am still collecting facts and perspectives to make it great.  If you are curious or interested in collaborating, please contact me.)

Prayers to Memorize

• Some prayers to help us our way.  Try it!

Our Mission from the Pope

• “A Big Heart Open to God: The Exclusive Interview with Pope Francis.”  America, 20 Sept 2013.  Antonio Spadaro, SJ.  (Read the whole interview, or click here for a digest of quotes that could guide our mission, should we choose to accept it.)

Church Documents

• Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home (“Praise Be to You,” Papal Encyclical, 2015)
• Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love,” Papal Exhortation, 2016)
• Gaudium et Spes (“Joy and Hope,” Pastoral Constitution of the Second Vatican Council, 1965)

These documents, clearly, are not beach reading – though you could start a trend!  They are here because they are shaping our faith and our Church.  A Jesuit way of life both intimately claims, and directly engages with Jesus as friend and Lord, Mary as Mother, the entire Church as both holy mother and body of Christ.  Both personal experience and Church documents are a great place to start.