It might be said that the growing awareness among Pay people of their apostolic roles in our institutions is one of the more significant developments during my time as General, and this brings us to some of the other points raised in Fr. The Congregation called all Jesuits to stand ready to serve lay people in their search for the spiritual foundations and wellsprings that sustain their own particular vocation. Some of you, for sure, carry out your apostolic vocation in the three Jesuit works here in Jersey City. With you the Jesuits form an apostolic team. We work with and support one another.
Teams depend on a mutuality of giving and receiving on all sides.
If such apostolic teams remain vibrant, the works in which they labor will retain their vibrancy. Certainly to speak of Jesuits and their colleagues as members of an apostolic team in our schools is rather new. I would say that today the Society's educational apostate is focused on the transformation of cultures, to make them more Christ-centered, more deeply conscious of the political and economic realities that affect the lives of the poor, who are so close to the Heart of Christ. This greatly deepened sense of our mission in education, I would say, is perhaps the most significant change in this apostolic area during my term in office. To be a bit more specific, in response to your question about the newest apostolic ventures of the Society, I have been impressed in recent years with the growth of the Nativity-type schools in your inner cities, and with the two newest Jesuit high schools in Detroit and Chicago serving the young from those cities' ghettos who are most at risk.