The hall of the Congregation is sober and its furnishings are designed to favor, first of all, the concentration of those gathered on their task. The surroundings do not distract the eye. However, those who designed the hall asked Slovenian Jesuit artist Marko Ivan Rupnik to add some visual elements in the spirit of the work that would be done in this space. Rupnik is known especially for his sacred art mosaics some of which are displayed in chapels of the General Curia and of Canisius House.
For the aula, this Jesuit artist painted four large canvasses with the following themes:
- En todo amar y servir (To Love and to Serve in Everything), a well-known expression which Saint Ignatius uses prominently in the last part of the Spiritual Exercises (№ 233).
- 1 John 4:8, which refers to this verse of the First Letter of John: “Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.”
- 2 Cor 5, 2.17, another New Testament reference this times to Saint Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. Here are the two verses in question: “For in this tent we groan, longing to be further clothed with our heavenly habitation….So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.”
- A su divina majestad (To His Divine Majesty), an expression also taken from number 233 of the Spiritual Exericises.
The crucifix in the aula is also a work of Rupnik, produced at the Aletti Center, a study and research center of the Society of Jesus linked to the Pontifical Oriental Institute and dedicated to intercultural reflection.