Emotion, mystery, wonder, and beauty serve an important role in Jesuit education and Ignatian spirituality, both in fostering the conditions for human flourishing and in creating the conditions for the education of the whole person. In the featured essay for this week, Thomas Lucas, SJ brings our attention to the insight of Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins who reminds us, “that beauty, as expressed in art or in the elegance of a quadratic equation or a DNA helix or the sunrise, opens the heart to the deepest levels of our human experience: to ask the profound questions about meaning, value, goodness, dignity, and, ultimately, hope.”

The arts have been critical to Ignatian pedagogy from the very beginning. The Jesuit educational tradition, with its focus on actively engaging with and creating works of art, has consistently held that knowledge is not simply generated through reason alone. Diverse ways of knowing are required in our mission to develop well-rounded and transformative students. The visual and performing arts allow our students to understand new perspectives, grapple with difficult realities, and to move beyond narrow ways of seeing the world.

As Aldo Billingslea argues in today’s video, the arts allow us to relate to the world beyond ourselves from a variety of vantage points and another person's point of view. The shifting perspectives we experience through the arts allows our students to better engage and transform the world.

Igniting Imagination Through the Arts | Connections, Jan 2020
Celebrating the Arts on Jesuit Campuses | Connections, Dec 2015

• Two issues of AJCU's Connections magazine focus on how other Jesuit institutions are incorporating the arts into their curriculum

 The Artistry of God | Peter Knott, SJ, Thinking Faith

• An essay on the connections between art and Ignatian Spirituality

How the First Jesuits Became Involved in Education | John O’Malley, SJ

• A Historical essay on the early years of Jesuit education, including the role of the arts in the founding values of Jesuit education