C. Hightower, S.J.

Here we introduce a column dedicated to unraveling Jesuit terms and values; to introduce the contours and distinguishing characteristics of this language.  We start with the term Magis. It is a simple definition; however, it requires one to incorporate its meaning into one’s everyday life through prayer.  A hard task, but necessary as a first step toward living language that helps guide the Jesuit way of processing.

MAGIS (Latin for “more,” not as in quantity, but quality) — The yardstick of St. Ignatius suggesting the spirit of generous excellence in which all action ideally is carried out; always undertaking that which was “the better choice,” “the more effective enterprise,” “the more widely influential,” “meeting the greater need,” not because such a course was harder, but rather because it will ideally yield the greater good for the Kingdom of God and thus be more loving.

Jesuit language can be hard to decipher.  After studies at four different Jesuit universities and 15 years as a member of the Society of Jesus, I frequently am corrected in the Jesuit Rec Rooms in my use of Ignatian terms and phraseology.  I am reminded of Inigo Montoya’s response to Vizzini in the “Princess Bride,” “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”  The difficulty in Jesuit language is that it is born of the loving encounter of an actual person, Ignatius of Loyola, with the Father’s love, breaking into human history by means of another real person, Jesus of Nazereth.  Jesuits and our colleagues use this loving encounter in our use of Ignatian language today.