At the request of a cross-party group of members of Parliament, the Jesuit Institute of South Africa (in cooperation with the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office) has been emailing daily meditations to parliamentarians.
“Most of our parliamentarians come from religious, and particularly Christian, backgrounds,” a member of the Jesuit Institute said, “and according to our colleagues in the liaison office, many had expressed a desire to take a few minutes each day to pray during Lent.”
Spirituality has become a growth industry worldwide, even in heavily secularised countries in Europe. Many people find the need to slow down and reconnect with a deeper dimension within themselves, whether they call it God or not.
With its background rooted in the “finding God in all things” vision of Ignatian spirituality — the style of prayer developed by Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, but now practised across Christian denominations — the Jesuit Institute set about putting together ecumenical meditations that might appeal to a broad range of Christians in Parliament.
“We debated whether to go interfaith,” said Chris Chatteris, the general editor of the meditations, “but decided against it. These are Lenten meditations, after all, produced in the season leading up to Easter.”
“Having said that,” he added, “the way we put them together, we hope that persons of other faiths may find something of value in them.”
“We structured them quite simply: quotation, reflection, prayer,” said his colleague, Puleng Matseneng, a teacher by training who does extensive work giving spiritual exercises in Johannesburg townships. “Usually a piece of scripture is followed by a reflection written by one of the team. Finally there is a short prayer.”
The feedback from Parliament has been mostly positive. Of about 420 on the mailing list, fewer than 10 have asked to be taken off the list. While there is no way to tell how many simply press “delete” each day, there have been a number of sympathetic messages from individual parliamentarians. A number have also responded to the invitation to email their prayer requests.
“Spirituality online may seem a little odd,” said Raymond Perrier, the director of the Jesuit Institute, “but it’s happening all over the world. People are subscribing to websites and daily spiritual downloads from a range of religious traditions and in various languages, including English and, most recently, Portuguese.
“Here we are doing something fairly new for South Africa. It’s nice to see that our MPs are leading the way.”