Page 89 - Gonzaga at 60
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GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS
Why was he so inluenial in Gonzaga? From Fr White emanated a sense that he lived for
and wished the very best for others; that nothing could or would please him more than easing
the load or promoing the cause of another, at whatever cost to himself.
Yet, let’s not be misty-eyed here. Part of this cura personalis was a ‘tough love’ which
ambiioned and demanded the very best for and from pupils. Laziness was a form of inexplicable
personal waste, which found no favour among the Jesuits of Gonzaga or Belvedere. One was
seen to have been privileged by opportuniies in life, which one was duty-bound to exploit for
the beneit of self and others. Hints, perhaps, of noblesse oblige.
But, what was the unique or disincive git of Jesuit educators in their striving for academic
excellence and holisic personal development?
That they made their students feel important and worthy of respect as human beings?
This certainly inculcated a sense of personal worthiness and valuable self-belief. They did much
to unearth and foster talent in the belief that it was the student’s vocaion to fulil it. Thus the
Jesuits elicited [educare] the potenial from individuals in the expectaion that the pupils would
gratefully recognise and atain their capabiliies.
Indeed it surprised me in later years that, compared with the other Jesuit schools, there
were so very few Jesuit vocaions from Gonzaga, since very many of the Gonzaga Jesuits were in
many ways excellent models for their own way of life.
One of the most wonderful outcomes of Jesuit schooling was that its efect, far from being a
GONZAGA AT SIXTY: A WORK IN PROGRESS
Why was he so inluenial in Gonzaga? From Fr White emanated a sense that he lived for
and wished the very best for others; that nothing could or would please him more than easing
the load or promoing the cause of another, at whatever cost to himself.
Yet, let’s not be misty-eyed here. Part of this cura personalis was a ‘tough love’ which
ambiioned and demanded the very best for and from pupils. Laziness was a form of inexplicable
personal waste, which found no favour among the Jesuits of Gonzaga or Belvedere. One was
seen to have been privileged by opportuniies in life, which one was duty-bound to exploit for
the beneit of self and others. Hints, perhaps, of noblesse oblige.
But, what was the unique or disincive git of Jesuit educators in their striving for academic
excellence and holisic personal development?
That they made their students feel important and worthy of respect as human beings?
This certainly inculcated a sense of personal worthiness and valuable self-belief. They did much
to unearth and foster talent in the belief that it was the student’s vocaion to fulil it. Thus the
Jesuits elicited [educare] the potenial from individuals in the expectaion that the pupils would
gratefully recognise and atain their capabiliies.
Indeed it surprised me in later years that, compared with the other Jesuit schools, there
were so very few Jesuit vocaions from Gonzaga, since very many of the Gonzaga Jesuits were in
many ways excellent models for their own way of life.
One of the most wonderful outcomes of Jesuit schooling was that its efect, far from being a
