Unimagined

What have I learned in the past several years that I couldn't have imagined several years ago?

• That I would learn Spanish, travel to two wonderful (and very different) Latin American countries, and accompany some amazing families through the arduous legal labyrinths and emotional tensions of navigating the immigration process.
• That, despite the pain and suffering I encountered daily during my six-week "hospital experiment" on a terminal cancer ward, looking back, it's among the experiences that brought out the deepest and most authentic elements of my character, my faith, and my vocation.
• That three years of study, ministry, community, friendship, and growth in St. Louis would change my life, in ways that I'm still discovering and appreciating.
• That I'd have to grapple with feelings of uselessness, even failure, in an assignment for which I'd initially thought myself reasonably qualified.
• That developing and sustaining a genuine prayer life is as challenging and demanding as training for and completing a marathon– and no less rewarding, I'd hasten to add!
• That, despite the company of support of some wonderful brothers and steadfast friends, I'd encounter periods of loneliness that force me to address my limitations and weaknesses, and dare to accept them as part of my very nature. Still working on this, and not always making progress.
• That I would change so much (or perceive this to be the case) that I would feel the need to get to know some important people in my life all over again, and afford them the opportunity to do the same.
• That, although the "easy" and "enjoyable" aspects of my Jesuit life are welcome blessings, it's been the lessons and graces received amid more challenging, difficult, and painful intervals over the past seven years that have grounded me in my vocation, and my desire to remain faithful to it.
• That some of God's best work in my life begins at the limits of my imagination. 

Siasconset Beach

Nantucket MA

Filled or Filling?

Where do I find fulfillment?
Is this even the right question to ask? I've tended to raise it in conversations geared toward helping a friend evaluate his or her life, deal with a challenging situation, or contemplate a change in his or her career, relationship situation, worship habits, involvement in the community, and so on. Yet turning this question back on myself usually seems a bit selfish. Why should I be so concerned about my own fulfillment when other responsibilities and needs solicit and attract my attention?


However, if I'm honest with myself, it was the sense of fulfillment that I encountered in the Jesuits whom I knew during my high school years, and in the priests and laypersons who served as Catholic chaplains at Dartmouth, that deepened in me the idea of a vocation. I had heard Christ's call fairly clearly during a semester in Prague, but in meeting and getting to know Jesuits who had embraced similar calls to religious life and priestly ministry, I grew in confidence and faith that I too could find, in accepting the invitation to be a Jesuit, the same measure of consolation and fulfillment that these men enjoyed.


Seven years into my ongoing formation process, returning to this question of fulfillment has brought some disturbance as well as direction. I'm still struggling to understand why a challenging teaching position didn't work out for me despite my best intentions, while the comparatively steep and swift learning curve in my current grant-writing assignment brings satisfaction as well as some lingering anxiety. When my short-term perspective presents constancy neither in abounding happiness nor in creeping despair, but rather in an often-changing mixture of successes and shortfalls, enthusiasm and error, I wonder what might bring a lasting sense of fulfillment, and whether or not I'd even recognize it. There's a certain ease in gravitating toward the things that I'm good at, and the situations in which I'm comfortable, but keeping myself confined to these areas is not the sort of existence that I desire, as I've learned from experiences that have pushed me beyond my comfort zone and my perceived limitations.

Autumn Woods

Hardwick, MA

The more I sit with this issue of fulfillment, the more I realize that it's not a feeling or goal I desire to attain; rather, it emerges as a validation of being in "the right place," doing "the right thing," recognizing a consistency between my vocation and my life, whether in an expansive sense or in a finite moment. St. Ignatius, in his spiritual writings, refers to this as "consolation"– a felt resonance among the mind, heart, and body that comes from being in relationship with God, living for the end for which one has been created, and moving toward the fullest possible expression of this unique identity and purpose that one has been given. I experienced this feeling often during my discernment process while at Dartmouth– serving as a catechist for fellow students, pursuing studies in human geography that touched on topics of community and environment, shepherding and accompanying a variety of friends and acquaintances through some deep darknesses, and amid weekly visits and cribbage games with residents of a local nursing home where I quietly volunteered for a few years. It has also occurred during countless experiences in my Jesuit formation– from working as an orderly on a terminal cancer ward to assisting with Holy Week liturgies in a rural Mexican village; from laboring to support the various programs of a dynamic Hispanic parish to memorizing the Gettysburg Address for a Civil War lesson in my 8th grade history class last year.  Sometimes, consolation surprises me in a far more ordinary moment– today, for example, I felt it while walking down the hill from my house to the office, joining the footsteps of fellow Jesuits and other Holy Cross faculty and staff on a pleasant autumn morning.

The question above isn't entirely off the mark, yet praying with it has led me to recognize anew that such consolation tends to come not when I'm seeking to be fulfilled, but when I'm living in a way that's fulfilling. Such consolation feels most rewarding and most authentic when I'm responding to a call I've received, needs I've witnessed, or even a gust of creative inspiration... and when I'm able to appreciate God's subtle power and influence giving my words and actions the potential to expand and deepen beyond the range of my vision and influence. That grace is what I continue to see in the Jesuits whom I admire, the colleagues whom I respect, and the friends whom I value. That's the attitude I desire to have, the freedom I desire to experience, and the source of fulfillment that nourishes my vocation.

Questions

Following up on Sunday's post, here is a response to one set of questions with which I've been inspired to pray through the course of this week.


How do I experience God's presence? Christ's call? The Holy Spirit's guidance?
God's grandeur greeted me in the horizon's fiery sunrise glow as I began a new week with a run around Worcester's hilly neighborhoods. My foggy breath, visible in the calm and frosty air, reminded me of the locomotives that ply Worcester's railyards– hulking machines with cores of diesel-fueled steel inspiring my meeker frame of blood-stoked, air-powered, muscle-driven flesh. 


In meeting and greeting two of my brothers around campus before 7am– one heading to his office, another heading to the gym– I recalled the variety of morning people and night owls in the house. We're a community that rarely sleeps; at almost every hour of the day, at least one of us is awake– rising before the sun to pray, correcting papers in the wee hours of the night, teaching a class or meeting with students, ministering to hospital patients in the middle of the day or the middle of the night, writing a scholarly article or an insightful homily, celebrating Mass, gathering for food and fellowship with the community. I'm one of the early birds; this morning offered me the insight of appreciating the place of my own daily rhythms of work, prayer, and rest within those of the community.


I feel called to see (and be) Christ's caring presence in the house as much as outside of it. I beheld such care today when, coming home for lunch, I found that one of my brothers had left at my door the special section of today's New York Times that detailed the results and stories of yesterday's New York City Marathon. Later in the afternoon, mulling over a new project for work and some other ideas brewing over the past few weeks, I noticed a growing desire for creativity that's slowly nudging aside some old attitudes of frustration. I'm used to waiting for an invitation to get involved in a project, and am more comfortable responding to immediate needs and requests than I am with proposing new ideas to address a given issue or area of concern. That won't change overnight, yet notions of such a shift in my way of thinking, doing, and being are slowly reaching into my heart, just as the streaks of late-afternoon sunlight slant delightfully through my windows and spread their subtle illuminations into my room.

College of the Holy Cross

Worcester MA

(Re)calling

November 5 is the day when the Society of Jesus celebrates all of its members whom the Catholic Church has honored as saints and blesseds. It's quite a crew– from St. Ignatius Loyola and St. Francis Xavier to St. Alberto Hurtado and Blessed Miguel Pro. From the heroic to the humble, those revered by whole nations and those less widely known, no two are alike.

This feast is an occasion used for promoting vocations, encouraging young men who may be thinking about life as a Jesuit to gather in our houses, meet the men who make up our communities, and discuss personal experiences of calling, discernment, and wrestling with questions of what to do with one's life. As my community hosted such an event yesterday, drawing a number of students for Mass, lunch, and conversation, I was reminded of my own experience of calling during sophomore year, and a journey of prayer, discernment, and dialogue that stretched through my junior and senior years. Unlike at Holy Cross, there was no formal vocation discernment group at Dartmouth, yet I was blessed with the company, support, and generous listening of some good friends, helpful professors, and wise campus ministers who helped me to make the decision that matched my desires. And I'm extremely grateful for the Society's decision to accept my application, for the communities with whom I've been shaped, and for the fascinating directions in which my formation journey continually carries me.

More than seven years after joining the Jesuits, in the course of sharing the story of my vocation with young men pondering theirs, I found myself returning to several key questions, no less relevant for me than for them:

• How do I experience God's presence? Christ's call? The Holy Spirit's guidance?
• Where do I find fulfillment?
• What have I learned in the past several years that I couldn't have imagined several years ago?
• What do I wish to give, share, and pass on?

While I could think of some quick and "easy" answers to convey in the course of a few minutes, these questions warrant much more attention. So while I take them up in prayer during the coming week, I invite you to do the same. Look for some further personal reflections on these questions in the near future, and know of my prayers and encouragement for each of you in seeking, finding, and following your own vocations.

Jesuit Community Chapel

College of the Holy Cross

Worcester MA

Prayer Ledge

This week I decided that it was time to do some "fall cleaning" in my room. That meant washing windows, dusting shelves and ledges, and a thorough sweep with the vacuum cleaner. This decision afforded me the opportunity to rearrange one of my favorite parts of my room– the so-called "prayer ledge." Running the length of the three windows that look out upon a quiet dead-end street, the objects and images that I keep here anchor me in the friendships, inspiring figures, and memories expressing divine grace and instilling personal gratitude when I quiet myself enough to truly notice them. Just as gently as these windows draw my attention from interior concerns to the exterior world in which I dwell, the array of items on my ledge– from prayer cards to photographs, from decorative tiles to Boston Marathon medals– enables me to step more fluidly into prayer and meditation. It's a cozy space, one I'm pleased to appreciate anew after sprucing it up.

Comeback Cardinals

It’s been a few days since the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series, and despite the intervening excitement and challenges of experiencing the beauty and dealing with the damage bestowed upon the landscape by and October snowstorm, I’m still musing on the significance and meaning of their thrilling ride through the playoffs.

Facing elimination in Game 6, the Cardinals were down to their last strike on two separate occasions. As had been the case since late August, when their improbable run to the playoffs began, when they found themselves with their backs to the wall, the wall became more than 45,000 cheering fans, and the collective enthusiasm of an entire city, pushing them forward, holding them up. Even beyond the remarkable athleticism and skill of individual players that produced not one, not two, but three decisive hits (a tying two-run triple, a decisive RBI single, and a walk-off home run) in the 9th through 11th innings, the cohesion of the team and the devotion of its fervent followers created a memorable spectacle that is the essence of outstanding baseball.

Having lived for three years in St. Louis, and now in my third year living in Worcester, I’m familiar with cities and regions where a baseball team is more than just a group of players for whom to cheer– it’s a family that inspires an even broader community of devotion, support, and strong emotional involvement. During the offseason, one sees plenty of Cardinals or Red Sox apparel in everyday situations around those respective cities, worn by the full spectrum of the local population. There are jokes– not entirely without the ring of truth– that baseball is something of a religion for its most fervent followers, myself increasingly included. The greatest players, whether they’ve established long, successful careers or emerged at a crucial juncture to contribute some timely heroics, are honored, revered, and admired. These teams’ victory parades in celebration of World Series titles drew nearly a million people to the streets over the past several years.

I’m a firm believer in the value of community, on scales ranging from the local to the global. True community living does bring challenges alongside clear benefits of support, happiness, and good company, as I’ve learned in seven years of life as a Jesuit. The hundreds of thousands who united to cheer on the Cardinals likely have their share of differences about the neuralgic issues provoking heated rhetoric and creating affliction and tension throughout our nation. While those concerns hardly disappear during a game of baseball, I can’t help but hope in the possibility of transferring that energy to the realm of our nation’s key social issues, rallying around something greater than our differences, deeper than our worries, and more lasting than the thrill of a decisive win or a festive victory parade. Game 6 of the World Series taught me a powerful lesson– community makes it really hard to simply give up in the face of adversity, despair, or a situation that many could justifiably consider hopeless. The Cardinals, in standing tall with true determination each time they were pushed to the brink of defeat, not only achieved a remarkable and unprecedented triumph, but also affirmed the confidence of an entire city, and offered the entire nation a sterling example of teamwork. I hope that they can inspire some similar comebacks in our neighborhoods, our cities, and our nation. Otherwise, it’s going to be a very long offseason.

October Snow

The Class of 2015 at Holy Cross is probably wondering about the weather. They moved in during Hurricane Irene, and their first experience of Family Weekend occurred in the midst of a nor-easter that brought 6 to 8 inches of snow to campus. Although the heavy, wet snow caused some widespread tree damage and power outages around the greater Worcester region, spirits at the College generally remained high, bolstered by the influx of family and friends, as well as the beauty that emerged in the wake of the storm. It's fair to say that we've been both tricked and treated by this pre-Halloween snow.