Missouri Province Honors Volunteers for Ignatian Service

The Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus recently honored members of the three groups of volunteers working in St. Louis: the Alum Service Corps, the Ignatian Volunteer Corps and the Jesuit Volunteer Corps.

Jesuit Father Douglas Marcouiller, provincial of the Missouri Province, called the lay volunteers a “a close-knit group of friends — friends with each other and the poor.”

The volunteers include:

• Fourteen Alum Service Corps volunteers, graduates of Jesuit high schools who give back a year of service. They serve as faculty members at St. Louis University High, De Smet Jesuit High and Loyola Academy, live in community and maintain a simple lifestyle.
• Twenty-two Ignatian Volunteers, retired or semi-retired men and women who serve two days a week in a variety of social service settings and inner-city schools in the St. Louis area. They also gather monthly for prayer and reflection on the meaning of their service.
• Six Jesuit Volunteers who have made a yearlong commitment to live out the values of social justice, simple living, community and spirituality. They serve as teachers and community organizers, in health and legal fields or in efforts with elderly or disabled people.

Bill Winfrey, an Alumni Service Corps member and Saint Louis University graduate, is in his second year of service, this year at Loyola Academy. He noted that education is the best way to end the cycle of poverty.

Fr. Marcouiller said it is a gift to be drawn into the lives of others such as former prisoners or middle school students. “These are places where we can encounter the Lord,” he said. [St. Louis Review]