One of the strengths of Jesuit formation is its emphasis on human formation. I am currently experiencing this in my stage of formation in the Philippines and I’m grateful despite the challenges in embracing my humanity. From the beginning to the end, human formation remains an essential dimension of Jesuit life. Ignatian spirituality as incarnational understands the spiritual and the human as intertwined. Once, I remember telling my own novice master that I felt I was not sharing much about spirituality in my sessions with him, and he replied that, in God’s eyes, nothing is secular. God can be found in all things, particularly in human experiences.
Jesuit formation is not just a formation of the head because it is holistic, involving the entirety of a person’s humanity balancing the head and the heart, the intellectual and the affective. God’s incarnation as the solid ground of Jesuit formation reveals the truth that the human and the spiritual are so interconnected that they grow in direct proportion: the more spiritual one becomes, the more one becomes grounded in humanity. This is the reason why Jesuits promote human means of formation such as psychology and human learning inasmuch as these deepen their relationship with and following Christ.
One of the important values of Ignatian spirituality is cura personalis which means “care for the whole person.” This kind of care is focused on the unique situation of the individual. Since each individual has a different context, personality, and needs, how one approaches the other must be flexible. For example, in the Spiritual Exercises, which we all know were devised by St. Ignatius himself, the retreat director will adjust the prayer matter and even the structure of the retreat according to the pace and the spiritual movements of the retreatant. That’s why each individual has a unique experience of the Spiritual Exercises because God deals immediately or directly with the human person and the human person with God. (SpEx n. 15) The role of the director is to allow God to come where the retreatant is—a grounded experience. This dynamic similarly applies to formation. Formation must deal with the individual.
Cura personalis is not merely spiritual. It is care for the whole person which includes the body. St. Ignatius is remembered as a caring superior to his fellow Jesuits. He once wrote to Jesuit Father Antonio Araoz ordering him to take good care of his health after learning that he was not eating properly and asked him to obey the directives of his doctor. “For the next three months, from now until September, you are to do no preaching, but are to look after your health,” he wrote. His biographer, the Portuguese Jesuit Luís da Câmara tells us about St. Ignatius’s desirable and positive qualities such as his “great affability” and “the great care which he took of everyone’s health.” He was “naturally the most courteous and considerate of men” especially to those who were struggling and having a hard time. He treated the novices, those who were beginning their Jesuit life, with gentleness. Following in the footsteps of Father Ignatius, Jesuits continue to strive to live out cura personalis in diverse ways.
After the novitiate, I proceeded to Loyola House of Studies, Ateneo de Manila University, to undergo the First Studies program. Since I had already obtained my bachelor’s degree in philosophy in my local seminary in Oriental Mindoro, I proposed to my formators my desire to pursue graduate studies in philosophy. I thought that this was a logical choice and might be helpful in my future ministry. After their discernment and planning, my suggestion was rejected. When I received the news, I was really shocked, and the decision affected me. The major concern was my formation. My formators saw my tendency to be engrossed in academics. I am a person who enjoys reading, studying, and writing very much, and they feared that I might neglect my human and pastoral formation. In short, I needed to balance the formation of my head with the formation of my heart. At first, I didn’t fully understand the decision affectively, so I brought this to my eight-day retreat last year. Through my prayer and reflection, I realized that this is how the formators demonstrate their cura personalis for me. They care for my holistic well-being as they pay attention to my unique context. They desire nothing else but my balanced growth as a human and a Christian, which aligns with God’s desire for me.
My personal experience demonstrated the flexibility of Jesuit formation. It is not a rigid structure imposed on everyone regardless of his context. The human formation I received in the novitiate does not end there after taking my first vows. Psychology tells us that human development is ongoing. Therefore, in order to move forward, human formation is still necessary for the well-being of Jesuits. Jesuit formation is also ongoing; priestly ordination and the final vows do not perfect Jesuits. Being immersed in academics and pastoral work don’t exempt one from cultivating his interiority. In fact, this is needed. I would like to reiterate this essential point: one distinctive strength of Jesuit formation is its sensitivity to the individual’s developing humanity. Jesuit formation is incarnational—deeply human, deeply Christic, deeply caring for the unique person. Jesuit formation aligns well with what Pope Francis said about formation:
“Formation is a work of art, not of law enforcement. We have to form their hearts. Otherwise we create little monsters. And then these little monsters form the people of God. This really gives me goosebumps …. We must always think of the people of God, as one of them. Let us recall those religious who have hearts as acidic as vinegar: they are not made for the people. In short, we must not form administrators or managers, but fathers, brothers, companions on the journey.”
For a lengthier treatment of human formation in Jesuit formation see my article “Spirituality in Endless Formation: Human Formation and Jesuit Formation” published in The Way, 64/4 (October 2025), 60–72.
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Kevin Stephon R. Centeno, SJ is a Jesuit scholastic from the Philippines. He earned his AB in Philosophy from St. Augustine Seminary in Calapan City. He joined the Society of Jesus on August 1, 2021. He is about to finish his First Studies at the Loyola House of Studies.