The Inspirational Paradigm (IP) calls Jesuit business educators to realize the importance of student’s “sense of hope” and meet “hungers or desires… that drive or inspire” (IAJU, 2020, p. 4) hope. A focus on hope intentionally corresponds with commitments of the Jesuits and their mission collaborators to accompany young people in the creation of a hope-filled future (UAP 3). Indeed, hope is vital to encouraging meaningful responses from students and stakeholders to the needs of the marginalized (UAP 2) and ecological system (UAP 4). Considering its role in Jesuit mission commitments, this essay takes a closer look at how a Catholic understanding of hope (linked to UAP 1) may create opportunities for Jesuit business education.
Taking a closer look at Catholic understanding of hope was informed by three key factors:
- The IP identifies hungers for an adult spirituality, a moral compass, and integrative knowledge as facets of inspiring Jesuit business students and a Catholic-informed view of hope offers one path toward meeting these desires drawn from tradition and viewpoints related to the first UAP.
- The Catholic Jubilee Year of Hope reflects a time of emphasis and opportunity for connecting with hope.
- A Catholic view of hope offers both similarities and contrasts with other cultural expressions of hope that may support student and stakeholder inspiration.
Three themes from a Catholic understanding of hope represent a starting point for identifying IP implementation opportunities.
Hope as a virtue. While hope connects with emotion, a Catholic understanding of hope also identifies hope as a virtue, connecting it to habits and practices (CCC, 1803). Hope reflects a continual “aspiration to happiness” that inspires, protects, and “opens up the heart” (CCC, 1818). For the IP, this perspective of hope as a virtue challenges Jesuit business educators to help students practice and develop attitudes, dispositions, and understandings (CCC, 1804) that build a resilient habit of hope.
Hopes differ. Hopes, from a Catholic perspective, differ depending on their source. Although a combination of “greater and lesser hopes… keep us going day by day” (Benedict XVI, 2007, 31), habits of hope grounded in greater sources (closer to an infinite, transcendent longing) increase the likelihood that they can support bold and beautiful actions (Francis, 2020, 55). To support transformative action from the IP, Jesuit business school education would benefit from encouraging students to realistically reflect on and evaluate the sources of their hope and their potential to support a lifetime of “dignified work and meaningful impact” (IAJU, 2020, p. 5).
Hope and justice are integrally related. Hope implies a duty to “cultivate and put [it] to good use for the sake of all” (Francis, 2024) and to offer “new signs of hope” to the world in the forms of justice and solidarity (John Paul II, 1995, 6). From a Catholic perspective, hope animates, informs, and gives life to justice (CCC, 1813). To achieve major aspects of the IP, this perspective would recommend that hope is an indispensable starting point for encouraging students to engage in the pursuit of justice.