The FSE Cloud Community Responsibilities
An Australian Jesuit Initiative
We are a team of lay people, religious and Jesuits creating and nourishing an international community of Givers and Receivers of the First Spiritual Exercises.
These Exercises are a form of the Spiritual Exercises created by St Ignatius Loyola some 480 years ago. We are a Christian not-for-profit organisation, an initiative of the Australian Society of Jesus (Jesuits).
Australian Jesuit Province Mission Statement.
Australian Jesuit Website.
Australian Jesuit Province Express Newsletter
Australian Jesuit invitation to join.
Administrators, Moderators and Guides
This FSE Cloud Community site is administered by the Australian National Team of the First Spiritual Exercises Program: Michael Hansen SJ, Frances Tilly, Chris Gardner, Julie Tranfa and Martin Scroop. The FSE Community has two helpers on-site, Gracelyn Vega and Jeanette Fitzmaurice, who may be reached via helpers@first-exercises.com .
The Cloud Listening Books are moderated by trained givers and mentors of the First Spiritual Exercises. The Spiritual Conversation Groups are moderated by local group leaders and trained spiritual conversation guides. The School of How is moderated by experienced givers and trainers of the First Spiritual Exercises.
The Golden Rules
The Golden Rules are our FSE Cloud Community conversation guide. They are based on the FSE guides for group face-to-face sacred listening and spiritual conversation. We aim for the same quality of Ignatian communication in the FSE Cloud Community.
So this site is not about hard line fundamental evangelism, judgment of others, church politics, putting any spiritual tradition down, or even spiritual direction or counselling advice. Failure to follow the Golden Rules will result in removal from membership. If you encounter disrespectful, inappropriate or harmful communication please contact us.
The FSE Cloud Community is carefully monitored to create a safe spiritual place for everyone. We encourage warm gospel-based relationships that walk in truth. We believe the Spirit of God flows through this site and everyone active in it.
The Value of Two
Jesus sent his disciples out to work in pairs.
Ignatius writes that for his men it would be wise, when possible, not to send one person by himself, but instead at least two persons, so that they might be of greater aid to one another in spiritual and bodily matters, and also, by dividing up among themselves their labors in their service of their neighbour, be of more benefit to those to whom they are sent.
He adds the values of matching complementary talents, balancing characters, and sending the more experienced with the less. So for the FSE, having a companion in training or a Mentor, and a partner in giving a retreat, will give you support and enhance the quality of your FSE work.
In short, when you are sent out to do FSE work, it is essential to have a partner.
The Support and Safety Nets
Six safety nets or networks are outlined to support you and your receivers in the FSE.
To underline the importance of this, we ask that anyone using the FSE to agree to set up safety nets for the support of themselves and their receivers. This agreement is found at the foot of any page shared, printed or downloaded. The setting up of safety nets will be a normal and prudent part of your preparation to giving the FSE in any local community. The FSE Cloud Community itself can add to support of this kind.
The Code of Ethics
The norms for ethical conduct in the ministry of the First Spiritual Exercises are essential today because of the requirement of public accountability. The code of ethics for Givers of the First Spiritual Exercises provides behavioural standards for Givers, Mentors and Trainers of the FSE. The code is based on the code of ethics of ‘The Companions in the Ministry of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises’ in Australia.
The Privacy Policy
The FSE Cloud Community complies with Australian national privacy legislation. Your email and other personal information will be treated in an appropriate and lawful manner at all times. Unless we have your authorization or are required to do so by law or other extraordinary circumstances, we will not share any personally identifiable information that we obtain from you with a third party.
Read the Australian Privacy Principles.
We do not collect any personally identifiable information about you other than that which you affirmatively choose to submit to us; your e-mail address, postal address, FSE experience and name. We also have some very practical advice for when you do participate online in the FSE Cloud Community.
Read our Ten Things You Need To Know On-line.
From time to time we automatically collect certain non-personally identifiable information when you visit the FSE Cloud Community website, such as the IP address of your computer, the time and date of your visit, the pages that you access, and the number of times you return to the website.
This information is not used to identify you, but is used in the aggregate for strengthening and adding to those pages that members find the most helpful, and editing or removing those pages that members find unhelpful. This process may involve the automatic placement of a small, removable text file (commonly referred to as a “cookie”) on your computer’s hard drive.
We have taken reasonable steps to protect personal information we hold from misuse, interference and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
Cloud Community members wishing to unsubscribe from the FSE Cloud Community and email list are asked to use the unsubscribe function included in the email newsletter/blog or through the web site to communicate their desire to be removed from the community.
Gratitude
We thank the Australian Jesuit Provincial for supporting and guiding the FSE ministry. We specially thank all the volunteers who are helping to keep the FSE Cloud Community website alive and well.
We are grateful to the O’Shae Trust fund for financial help to set up the Cloud community and resources.
We affirm the special blessing we have in the community of FSE givers, mentors and trainers who freely give of their time and energy to offer the FSE to as many people as we can.
Care of Children and Vulnerable Adults
The First Spiritual Exercises Project is a formal ministry of the Australian Province of the Society of Jesus. Furthermore the FSE will be given to teenagers, families and vulnerable adults. For this reason our FSE ministry, and the volunteers who give it, need to be aware of our policy of safeguarding children and vulnerable adults, and agree to work with this policy.
We cannot ask for agreement to this policy outside of the ministry of the Australian Jesuits, but we hope that givers of the FSE internationally might read and agree to the spirit of it.
If you are giving the FSE in another country, Christian diocese, organisation, institution, social service or ministry, you will need to seek out and read the relevant policy that is applicable to you. Even giving the FSE in broadly spiritual settings, you will still need to be aware of any legal duty of care in your location.
Read the Australian Jesuit Policy for Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults.
If you are working in the First Spiritual Exercises ministry in Australia, you also need to read the resource document of Principles and Standards provided by the Catholic Church for Volunteers and Lay Workers.
Copyright
All materials, including words, images, audio and video on pages of this website, are protected by copyright.
The excerpts from The First Spiritual Exercises: Four Guided Retreats ©2013 by Michael Hansen and The First Spiritual Exercises: A Manual ©2013 by Michael Hansen, are used by permission of Ave Maria Press. All rights reserved.
Apart from FSE personal prayer, giving or receiving retreats, Christian ministry, learning or teaching, reproduction of material from any FSE Cloud Community page without written prior permission is strictly prohibited. © 2016 First Spiritual Exercises Program, 102 Mona Vale Road, Pymble. 2073 Australia. home@first-exercises.com
The FSE Cloud community is a free, transparent, community of equals. All posts to the Cloud Listening Books, Spiritual Conversation Groups, School of How and Blog remain the property of each writer and contributor.
Credits
Photography. All the images used in the site are either Adobe Stock photographs used with licence or photographs of Michael Hansen SJ.
We give a shout-out to the creative software and personal support we received from WP Symposium Pro and Elegant Themes Divi Theme.