Christmas & New Year 2026 Message

Dear Alumni of Jesuit Institutions, dear friends and companions in the Ignatian family,

In this Jubilee Year of Hope, as we stand on the threshold of Christmas and a New year, we pause with gratitude, humility, and renewed spiritual joy.

Our world is passing through profound crises: wars, injustice, environmental disruption, loneliness…

And yet, Christmas reminds us that God is with us. He remains. He walks with us.

In this disoriented world, we hear again the cry of Jesus… a child born into simplicity, bringing light not from above, but from within.

It is this hope… fragile yet firm, that we celebrate.

And it is this hope that we are called to carry.

Throughout this year, I have witnessed that hope in motion.

At each encounter, I felt a deep sense of peace and joy.

We need one another. We are people for others.

By gathering our forces as Alumni and Jesuit collaborators,we shape our shared identity. We build a living community…a global network of support, of mission, of meaning!

In a world tempted by division, negativity and despair, we are invited to embody listening, compassion and unity.

As Jesuit alumni, as members of the broader Ignatian family, we are heirs to a tradition that refuses to separate:

• Faith from action,
• Prayer from justice,
• Contemplation from the cries of the forgotten and marginalized.

Today more than ever, as Father Arturo Sosa, S.J., reminds us, we are called

• to be a universal body with a universal mission,
• to walk with the excluded,
• to care for our common home,
• to journey with the youth,
• and to open paths of discernment, wherever the Spirit calls.

Let this Christmas be a time of quiet listening and authentic love.

Let the New Year be a time of encounter, discernment, and renewed hope.

To each of you… alumni, Jesuits, teachers, collaborators, companions of all Jesuit and Ignatian institutions and friends around the world—We say:

Thank you!!

Thank you for your witness,

for your service,

for your faith that works through love.

May this celebration of the Nativity bring you peace, courage, and joy.

May the Year 2026 be for you and your loved ones a year of grace and light… reminding us that even in the night, the star still shines, and even in the tinniest puddle, the moon is reflected.

Let’s move forward together in prayer, in service, and in hope.

With my warmest wishes,

For the World Union of Jesuit Alumni

Francisco Guarner,

President