Seventh Sunday of Easter

Father Francis Jordan
A phrase in today’s Gospel was considered very important by Father Francis Jordan, the founder of the Salvatorians: ‘Now this is eternal life, to know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.’ John 17:3.
It was a text he frequently meditated over and it became the centrepiece of the spirituality of our Order. The name Salvatorians is an abbreviation of our proper title: The Society of the Divine Saviour. And from this you can see that our spirituality is focused on Jesus Christ the Divine Saviour.
The important word in that phrase is ‘know’. Father Jordan wanted his new Society to focus on making the Divine Saviour known to as many people as possible in the world.
For this reason, one of his earliest tasks was to set up a printing press which disseminated magazines to the German speaking countries. Eventually we had a large printing house in Berlin which published among many other items the encyclical ‘Mit brennender Sorge’ (1937) in which Pius XI made clear his opposition to Nazism.
Moreover, Jordan wanted each member of his Society to use his or her talents to further this mission of making the Saviour known to the world which is one of the reasons that our Order is open to accepting the widest possible range of apostolates.
Father Alex SDS