Welcome
Autobiography
God
in All Things
- Preface
- Chapter
1
Oh God,
Why?
- Preface
- Chapter
1 - 6
Autobiography
Gerard W. Hughes was born in Skelmorlie, Ayrshire, in 1924. Aged about three, he remembers sitting on the edge of his bed, looking out the window and saying ‘God’, because he wanted to see what would happen. Nothing happened. It was his first experience of curiosity about God and of God’s fondness for hide and seek He began his education at the village school in Skelmorlie. When the family moved to Glasgow, he had his first experience of Jesuit education at St Aloysius college when aged seven, running away from the school after half an hour, but he was forcibly returned and remained there until 1937, when he went to Mount St Mary’s, near Sheffield, another Jesuit school. In his last two years there he wavered between becoming a Jesuit, or a fighter pilot. He became a Jesuit in 1942, did the usual long course of Jesuit studies, with two years teaching at Stonyhurst college in Lancashire, four years reading classics at Oxford and then theology at Skt Georgen, Frankfurt/Main, chosen because of his interest in ecumenism.
He taught at Stonyhurst college from 1960 – ’67 and remains eternally grateful to those recalcitrant pupils who refused to be interested in his attempts to reach religion, an experience which forced him to question his own beliefs, a useful preparation for his next job as Catholic chaplain at Glasgow University 1967 – ’75, a post from which he was twice dismissed and twice reinstated. It was the Glasgow experience of meeting with people of different Christian denominations, of different faiths and of no faith, which attracted him to the study of spirituality. After leaving Glasgow in 1975, he walked 1100 miles from Weybridge to Rome, where he stayed for a few months studying Jesuit spirituality and writing some notes on his pilgrimage experience. The notes later became his first book, In Search of a Way, Darton, Longman and Todd.
In 1976-’78 he worked with Jesuits in their final year of training at St Beuno’s, N. Wales, and in 1978 he was asked to develop St Beuno’s as a Centre of Jesuit Spirituality. While studying Jesuit spirituality in Rome, he was fascinated by a quotation from Fr Jerome Nadal, a 16th.century contemporary of Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits and author of ‘The Spiritual Exercises’. On being asked, ‘For whom are these Spiritual Exercises suited?’, Nadal replied, ‘For Catholics, for Protestants and for Pagans’. When invited to develop St Beuno’s as a Centre, Gerard Hughes wanted it to be at the service of ‘Catholics, Protestants and Pagans’ and all his experience since has confirmed for him the truth of Nadal’s remark. He also wanted to make the Spiritual Exercises as accessible as possible for people unable to come to Retreat Houses, with little spare time and even less money, and so he set up three-month training courses at St Beuno’s which would offer people an experience of making the full Spiritual Exercises, which lasts about 30 days, and then of learning and practising ways and means of adapting these Spiritual Exercises so that they could be more accessible to all.
He left St Beuno’s at the end of 1983 in order to work on what he then called ‘peace spirituality’ but soon realised that all spirituality, being about God, must include every aspect of peace, and must be the concern of every human being, for in God we all live and have our being.
Soon after leaving St Beuno’s, he wrote his second book, ‘God of Surprises’ also published by Darton, Longman & Todd. ‘God in All Things’ published by Hodder and Stoughton, is a follow-up almost twenty years later, a further exploration of some of the themes in God of Surprises.
Encountering people, believers and unbelievers, who are actively committed to some form of justice, peace and reconciliation, and reflecting on the connection between inner and outer peace has helped Gerard Hughes both to see more clearly the attractiveness of God at work in all people and in all things, while also helping him to appreciate the truth of Martin Buber’s observation, ‘Nothing so masks the face of God as religion’, insights which do not make for a comfortable life for one whose profession is religion, but which keep him searching for the pearl beyond price, which is the reality of God, the shy and elusive one, closer to each of us than we are to ourselves.
Since leaving St Beuno’s at the end of 1983, he has worked ecumenically on spirituality in U.K., Ireland and abroad, including S.Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Sweden and Finland, introducing retreats in daily life and offering training courses to enable lay people to accompany other lay people in prayer and in retreat-giving.
All his experience in spirituality work has confirmed for him the truth of Jerome Nadal’s statement that these Spiritual Exercises are suited for ‘Catholics,. Protestants and Pagans’ of all cultures. His work has also helped him to recognise the great spiritual wealth in people, but such has been our church training that most of us cannot recognise the wealth that is in us and in others nor, if we do recognise it, do we know how to use it, and if we know how to use it, most of us do not know how to get started.
His hope is that this website can eventually become interactive and can enable us all to become more aware of the wealth that is in us for, as St Augustine of Hippo wrote, ‘God is closer to me than I am to myself’, and as St Paul told the Ephesians, ‘God’s power working in us can do infinitely more than we can think or imagine’. It will take time to plan and man an interactive website, but we shall give you progress reports.
Other books by Gerard W. Hughes are:-‘Walk to Jerusalem’, (Darton, Longman & Todd) contains reflections on the nature of peace which came to him as he walked most of the way from Ayrshire to Jerusalem in 1987, ‘God, Where are You?’.(D.L.T), ‘O God, Why’ (Bible Reading Fellowship) ‘God of Compassion’ (Hodder & Stoughton).