| Jesuit
Journeys
Spring/Summer 2006
Ignatian Spirituality:
Bl. Peter Faber's gifts live in contemporary voices
By Phil Nero
I feel as if I know Bl. Peter Faber personally. I feel so not
because I studied or embraced him as a historical Jesuit
figure, but because of a contemporary Jesuit I’ve been
graced and privileged to know now for 10 years – Fr. Jeffrey
Loebl, SJ.
Jeff has always felt a strong
connection with Faber. Even though
they were born more than four and a
half centuries apart, they have much
in common – not the least of which
is an amazing talent for giving the
Spiritual Exercises. Jeff would be
the first to humbly insist that other
Jesuits also are similarly gifted, or
even minimize his talents compared
to others. In the Wisconsin Province
alone, the names of Jesuits such as
Fr. Gene Merz, SJ, Fr. Larry Gillick,
SJ, Fr. Bob Leiweke, SJ are just a few
of many men Jeff has mentioned
over the years as among the many
spiritual directors in the Society
of Jesus he deeply admires as gifted
retreat givers.
But Jeff is the only one of these men with whom I have
done the Exercises, and the one I know best. When the
Province first hired me to be editor of this magazine, I was
instructed to call Jeff and ask him to meet with me regularly
to help familiarize myself with the Jesuits. He agreed, and
the seed for our friendship was planted.
I recall one night in June 1996 at a reception following
that year’s Ordination Mass. I spotted Jeff and Fr. Merz
seated across the room. As I arrived at their table and
greeted them, Fr. Merz put his arm around Jeff ’s shoulders
and said, “Isn’t he a holy man?”
His sincerity and admiration were as clear and as deep as
his question was rhetorical. I knew then how lucky I was to
know and have Jeff as my spiritual director. What I didn’t
fully understand then is just how high a compliment it is
when one Jesuit calls another “a holy man?” It is a term
of profound respect made all the more noteworthy when
uttered by a highly regarded and respected Jesuit like
Fr. Merz.
As my friendship with Jeff grew, so did the number of
times he mentioned Peter Faber. Through Jeff I learned that
Faber was tortured by religious scruples and that he suffered
ill health at an early age. And in talking with Jeff I could
see that he too was hard on himself spiritually while at the
same time wrestling with a range of physical ailments and
emotional setbacks that would change his life and limit his
capabilities to travel and give retreats.
Bl. Peter Faber
As a child, Bl. Peter Faber shepherded during
the week and taught catechism to other
children on Sundays. In response to his deep
desire to study, his parents allowed him to
leave home in 1525 for the University of Paris.
There this brilliant son of a Savoy sheep farmer
was assigned to room with a young scholar from Spain named
Francis Xavier.
They were joined later by a gimpy Spaniard, Ignatius Loyola,
who would profoundly influence their spiritual and academic
lives. In time these unlikely companions and four new friends
formed a small group that in 1534 – the same year Faber
became the first among them to be ordained a priest – vowed
to work for souls in Jerusalem.
After Ignatius, Faber was the one whom Xavier and the early
companions (who came to be called Jesuits) held in highest
regard – a respect and affection merited by his profound
knowledge, his gentle sanctity, and his influence over souls.
However, he was also tortured by religious scruples and was
overly demanding of his spiritual self.
By 1537, fate and events landed the early Jesuits in Rome,
not Jerusalem, where they put themselves at the disposal of the
pope. Though a successful scholar and accomplished university
professor, Faber’s forte was as a mission preacher and
giver of retreats based on the Spiritual Exercises.
In 1540 the Society was officially recognized by the
Vatican, and the pope sent Faber to Germany, where he
attended conferences aimed at working out doctrinal
agreements to reunite Catholics and Lutherans. While
the conferences failed, his work in Ratisbon, Worms,
Spires, and Mainz strengthened the Catholic faith in the
Rhineland and southern Germany, areas that remain
Catholic to this day.
In Germany he also persuaded St. Peter Canisius to become a
Jesuit. He had a strong impact on the Duke of Gandia in Spain,
who later became the Jesuit, St. Francis Borgia.
His spiritual passion and compassion greatly affected many
people, and his gentle spirit would not permit him to be harsh.
He believed in being of service to others and engaging people
with opposing views by first discussing “the things that unite
us.… Not the things that keep us apart.”
Pope Paul III also valued Faber as an authority on Church
matters and summoned him to take part in the great reform
Council of Trent as theologian of the Holy See. Already worn by
incessant labors and many journeys, always made on foot, he
arrived in Rome on July 17, 1546. He was 40 and weakened
by fever. He died just two weeks later on Aug. 1 with his friend,
who would become St. Ignatius of Loyola, at his bedside.
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Over the years these ailments have
worn on Jeff severely. Yet through
it all, his compassion and concern
for others always seemed greater
than his worries about his own
physical, spiritual, and emotional
health. So it came as no surprise
that when I visited him recently at
the assisted living center where, at
53, he lowers the average resident’s
age considerably, that he was on the
phone gently listening to, helping,
and caring for the soul on the other
end of the line.
It was early afternoon. The
shades were pulled down, the
room dark. Jeff lay in bed wearing
dark sunglasses to protect his eyes.
Though his voice was somewhat
strained at times, his tone was markedly uplifting. After
several minutes, he graciously ended the call so we could
begin our scheduled visit. In seconds, the phone rang again.
No surprise. Good spiritual directors are hard to find.
People tend to seek out the great ones.
He picked up the call, listened for a period, apologized for
not being able to talk, and promised to return the call that day.
“This is my ministry now,” he said pointing to the phone.
“I don’t get around so well, but this seems to work.”
I told him I want to write an article about Peter Faber.
He smiled and began telling me about a time years ago
in theology before he was ordained. A professor was
discussing some kind of modern day psychological workup
of Faber and noted that he might have problems today if he
wanted to join the Society of Jesus. For Jeff, the discussion
cemented what would be a lifelong affinity with Faber.
“I was voted by my classmates in the first week of the
novitiate to be most likely the first among us to leave the
Society,” he said. Jeff entered the novitiate shortly after
graduating from Marquette University High School in 1970,
common practice at the time. He said he was a geek back
then who, except for some forays into student government,
lived outside the high school mainstream. In the novitiate,
his fellow novices quickly picked up on his growing sense of
self doubt and a self-described “worrisome nature.”
It took years, but he can speak candidly now about
struggling with obsessive compulsive disorder. And while
most of his novitiate classmates have left the Society, Jeff
remains a Jesuit and finds ways to be of service to others.
“It always struck me that Peter Faber, through his own
intense suffering, knew how intensely Jesus suffered. And
knowing this, he could know Jesus and love him and follow
him in humility, even in humiliation.”
Then Jeff did something he has done for as long as I’ve
known him. He intuitively directed the conversation into
a discussion of the Spiritual Exercises. Small talk became
spiritual direction and details gave way to an unscheduled
journey into self exploration.
Our visit lasted about 90 minutes. Toward the end, he
apologized for being tired. When I stood up to leave, he got
up to see me out. I insisted he not bother and then, as if on
cue, the phone rang. He picked it up and settled onto his
bed to talk. I paused at the door just enough to hear him
summon some energy and begin a new conversation with
some soul on a search.
It’s been years since Jeff has had the physical strength and
stamina to give a retreat to a large group. And while I have
heard from others how much they enjoyed retreats at which
he was the director, I was never a retreatant at one.
A few years ago, however, he loaned me some tapes of
a retreat he gave in the early 1990s, and I took them with
me on a drive to the East Coast a couple of summers later.
I called Jeff from somewhere in Michigan to tell him I had
been playing the tapes for hours and he was making the
miles fly by. I said it was great to have him with me and now
understood his Faber-like reputation as a giver of retreats. He
laughed, and we talked briefly before I got back to his tapes.
They made for a great ride!
Phil Nero is managing editor
of Jesuit Journeys magazine.
With Fr. Jeff Loebl’s permission the
retreat recordings mentioned
in this article can be heard at
www.jesuitswisprov.org.
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