Cura Personalis, Homines Pro Aliis, Magis, and ...?

Abstract

Cura personalis, homines pro aliis, and magis have long been key themes of Jesuit education. Care for the whole person, men and women for others, or maybe men and women together for others, and excellence—the never ending search for improvement—have been foundation stones upon which many, perhaps all, Jesuit educational institutions have built their approaches to teaching, research, and service. Many non-Jesuit, non-Catholic, and non-Christian universities would also very likely agree that these three themes are deeply consistent with how they see their own missions, even if they might not use those particular Latin words to capture their own commitments. In many ways, those words are also guides to the good life—to lives well and richly lived. Recent events, however, are suggesting ever more strongly that we— as educators and as citizens, and simply as members of the human species—are called to make explicit a fourth foundation stone for our commitments to serve our communities and ourselves. That fourth foundation stone is “care for God’s creation”—or whatever phrase each individual may be most comfortable with. In the deepest spiritual sense, care for God’s creation refers to the call to meet our obligation to honor the loan of this planet that we have been given responsibility for, at this time in the planet’s very, very, very long existence and in our almost in! nitesimally short length of time on it. In a purely practical and perhaps even sel! sh sense, this call refers to the need to protect the planet’s capacity to support our immediate personal existence and the existence of our own species. Of course, we also have