Jesuits In Their Own Words

Desire and Its Articulation

posted by: jcad on Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Bartolomeo Romano had been a Jesuit for two years when his spiritual struggles came to the attention of the Superior General in Rome. By initiating a correspondence with the disquieted youth, Father Ignatius of Loyola learned that Bartolomeo blamed his troubles on the Jesuit Community in Ferrara. Ignatius firmly disagreed. “This disquiet comes from within and not from without. I mean from your lack of humility, obedience, prayer, and your slight mortification, in a word, your little fervor in advancing in the way of perfection. You could change residence, superiors, and brethren, but if you do not change the interior man, you will never do good.” The sixteenth century certainly had its share of chaos and religious upheaval and so it is not surprising that the young man found it difficult to block out the noise of the world and get down to the business of nurturing his own spiritual identity.

Finding a haven and support for the inward journey is no easier today and is perhaps even more difficult, as we live in an age of spellbinding complexity and ever shifting perspectives. As I reflect on my own movement into religious life, I am extraordinarily thankful for the gift of my novitiate years. The Society of Jesus has provided a protected space where I have connected with the deepest desire of my life, a radical love for the human family that knows no boundaries. In the tradition of St. Ignatius of Loyola, who entreated his charge to focus on his interior life, my Jesuit spiritual guides have invited me to participate in my own liberation, the freedom that springs from within.

In the course of my two-year novitiate, I have enjoyed many opportunities to explore the world as a Jesuit and test whether or not I choose to commit myself to this life. In the dead of winter, I traveled to an Eskimo village on the frozen Bering Sea and was invited into the life of the community. I reflected on my experiences among those generous people some months later while canoeing across a scenic Idaho lake. We do a lot of traveling in the novitiate, and you might find yourself strolling down Manhattan Beach in Los Angeles or trudging through the snow outside a retreat house in eastern Washington State. One day you might be holding the hand of a dying man while the next you could be teaching first grade children to count. And if all your own experiences are not enough, you share in the lives of your fellow novices. During these years, you have the privilege of getting to know a few of the world’s most interesting and talented men and the honor of calling them brothers. My brothers have traveled from the island beauty of Jamaica to the tough streets of the Bronx. One worked in a Mexican prison while another broadcast a radio show in Chicago. I have a brother who is a professional scuba diver and another who is a medical doctor from Costa Rica. I could never have guessed that in the course of two years, my own life would become so inextricably connected to the lives of these wonderful men.

But such is the history of the Society of Jesus. We are a family of religious men united by our common experience of finding God in the world. So when Ignatius asked young Bartolomeo to attend to the source of his fervor, he directed him toward living a life defined by its commitment to the evangelical counsels of obedience, poverty and chastity. By mortifying the soul, the religious man empties out a resonant chamber within, where the voice of the divine might be heard. In the silent hunger of my own humanity, what wells up from inside is a love that defies the malleable categories of this or any age and impels me to reach out to my fellow sisters and brothers. “So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13). The articulation of that love is the person of Jesus Christ to whom I offer my entire life, all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my entire will. This I share with Jesuits who live in every corner of our world: a radical commitment to witnessing the Gospel in our own age and a burning desire for the everlasting kingdom of God.