Jesuits telling jokes

A Jesuit arrived in Rome and wanted to go to St Peter’s Basilica. He asked a Dominican to show him the way. “Father,” said the Dominican, “I’m afraid you’ll never find it. It’s right in front of you.”

This joke is one of twenty in Jesuits Telling Jokes, a new book by Belgian Jesuit Nikolaas Sintobin SJ, which uses gentle Jesuit humour to introduce the reader to the Society of Jesus (Jesuits).

The point this joke illustrates is that communicating too directly can produce the opposite effect to that intended. St Ignatius would advise that you should “always enter through the other person’s door in order to exit through your own door”, meaning we can only hope to gain true contact with someone if we are prepared to engage with their own language and culture. You may well be disappointed if you try to force a situation, therefore a Jesuit may consciously choose to take a circuitous route with the hope of finally reaching his goal.

To read on see: www.jesuit.org.uk/jesuit-dominican-and-franciscan

Jesuits telling jokes is published by Loyola Press in Chicago and is available on Amazon: www.amazon.co.uk/Jesuits-Telling-Jokes-Introduction-Spirituality/dp/0829443738