Archive for the ‘Vocations’ Category

Jesuit Father Don Doll has been a photographer — his second calling — for 50 years. The New York Times Lens blog recently examined the connection between Fr. Doll’s first calling to the priesthood and his calling to photography.

Fr. Doll began taking photos while working on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota in 1962. He said that after taking photos for over two years, he became discouraged because he “still hadn’t taken a decent picture.”

He considered giving up photography and went for a walk in the South Dakota prairie to think about what his mission as a Jesuit should be. “I heard a loud voice saying: ‘Stay with photography. It’s the first thing you really loved doing. Stay with it. Don’t worry if it takes 10 years,’ ” he recalls.

Fr. Doll stuck with photography, and his work has been published in National Geographic magazine and three books. His newest publication is an autobiographical book “A Call to Vision: A Jesuit’s Perspective on the World.”

Grandmother Therchik, a Yupik Eskimo, enjoyed a moment with her grandchildren. The bonds of kinship are powerful in Eskimo society. Courtesy Don Doll, SJ.

Fr. Doll has used photography to promote Native American culture. “I learned to respect another culture, because we were immersed in it,” Fr. Doll said. “And I really learned about the values that the Native Americans have of sharing and their sense of generosity with one another, and how they honor you.”

In 1974, Fr. Doll returned to the Rosebud Reservation as a documentary photographer. He said he often prayed before releasing the shutter. “I used to pray that I could really make photographs that portrayed how special they are and something of the empathy they had and that God has for them,” he explained.

During a 30-day retreat, Fr. Doll discovered a link between prayer and photography. “I said: ‘Oh my god! Prayer is just like photography, where you have to let go of what you want to happen or what you think’s going to happen. You have to let go of your preconceptions and I think that same thing applies to photographing. You have to let go of your suppositions of what the picture is or should be and just be present in the moment.’ ”

Read the full story about Fr. Doll on the New York Times website and watch the Creighton University video that celebrates the photography of Fr. Doll below.

A Jesuit and two others with Jesuit connections will be among the newest Catholic saints canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 21, 2012. Among those being elevated are:  Blessed Jesuit Father Jacques Berthieu, a French Jesuit missionary; Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, who will become the first Native American saint; and Blessed Peter Calungsod, a lay Catholic from the Philippines.

“The Society rejoices that the church canonizes a new saint from among us, proposes him as a model to all the faithful, and invites them to seek his intercession,” writes Jesuit Father General Adolfo Nicolás in a letter to all Jesuits published in America magazine.

Fr. Berthieu, martyred in Madagascar in 1896, was a diocesan priest for nine years before deciding to enter the Society of Jesus at age 35. A highly successful missionary, he was appointed to the Madagascar mission where he nearly tripled the number of mission stations on the island’s northern end.

While accompanying refugees who were attempting to escape a violent rebellion, Fr. Berthieu was attacked and brought to the attackers’ village, where their chief lived. Fr. Berthieu refused to accept the chief’s offer to become a counselor to his tribe. The chief promised to spare Fr. Berthieu’s life if he would renounce his faith, but Fr. Berthieu replied that he would rather die than abandon his religion. Fr. Berthieu was then attacked and killed by several men with clubs, and his body was dumped into a river.

Reflecting on the new Jesuit saint, Father General Nicolás, writes:  “May the Holy Spirit help us put into practice the choices of Jacques Berthieu: his passion for a challenging mission that led him to another country, another language, and another culture; his personal attachment to the Lord expressed in prayer; his pastoral zeal, which was simultaneously a fraternal love of the faithful entrusted to his care, and a commitment to lead them higher on the Christian way; and finally, a life lived as gift, a choice lived out every day until the death which definitively configured him to Christ.”

Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha was born in 1656 in Ossernenon (now Auriesville) in upstate New York. Her father was a Mohawk chief, and her Catholic mother was a member of the Algonquin nation. At age 4, she survived a smallpox epidemic that killed most of her village and her family, and she suffered from poor eyesight and health for the remainder of her life due to the illness.

Blessed Kateri, deeply moved by the preaching of the Jesuits who traveled among the villages, was baptized by the Jesuits at age 20. She then dedicated her life to prayer, penance, caring for the sick and infirm and adoration of the Eucharist. In 1677, she began a 200-mile trek to a Jesuit mission in Canada where she could more openly practice her faith. Her health continued to deteriorate, and she died on April 17, 1680, at age 24.

Blessed Kateri also has a special connection to the Jesuits’ Fordham University in New York. While it was not the official miracle that paved the way to her sainthood, she is attributed with saving the life of Fordham football player John Szymanski over 80 years ago. When Szymanski suffered a severe head injury during a 1931 Fordham football game, his surgeon announced there was no hope for his recovery, and Szymanski received last rites. But Fordham students began praying a novena and asked God to heal their classmate through the intercession of Blessed Kateri. Szymanski made a full recovery.

Blessed Peter Calungsod, or Pedro, as he is known, was a lay Catholic from Cebu, Philippines. He accompanied Jesuit missionaries to Guam as a catechist and was martyred there in 1672. As a young boy, Calungsod studied in the Jesuit town of Loboc in Bohol. He was chosen at age 14 to accompany the Jesuits in their mission to the Marianas Islands. At 17 he and Blessed Jesuit Father Diego Luis de San Vitores were martyred in Guam for their missionary work.

For more on these new saints, visit the following: EWTN News, Fordham Magazine, Manila Bulletin and Catholic News Service. The New York Province Jesuits also have several podcasts about Blessed Kateri on their website, including one with Jesuit Father Peter Schineller, province archivist, on the canonization process and the meaning of her life for us today.

Ten Jesuit tertians from around the world are starting the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius today in Portland, Ore. This four-week retreat is an important component of tertianship, a part of the Jesuit formation process.

Tertianship is usually made ten to fifteen years after the novitiate and at the end of a Jesuit’s professional training. St. Ignatius called it a “school of the heart” because it’s a time when the tertian deepens his own commitment to the Society of Jesus.

“The retreat of the Spiritual Exercises is perhaps the key moment of tertianship. After years of living his life as a Jesuit, the tertian once again engages in this month-long program of intense prayer and reflection and brings his lived experience as a Jesuit before our loving God,” explains Jesuit Father Dave Godleski, the delegate for formation and Jesuit life at the Jesuit Conference. The Jesuit Conference represents the nine U.S. provinces of the Society of Jesus, promoting common goals and overseeing international projects.

Because of the long retreat’s importance in the tertianship program, the Jesuit Conference is asking for prayers for the tertians and their directors:

• Jesuit Father Mark Bandsuch (Chicago-Detroit Province)
• Jesuit Father James Conway (British Province)
• Jesuit Father Emerito Salustiano de la Rama (Philippines Province)
• Jesuit Father  Jean-Alfred Dorvil (French Canada Province)
• Jesuit Father Wieslaw Faron (South Poland Province)
• Jesuit Father Ian Gibbons (Missouri Province)
• Jesuit Father Edwin T. Gnanaprakasam (Madurai)
• Jesuit Father Michael Harter (Missouri Province) – assistant tertian director
• Jesuit Father Raymund Benedict Hizon (Philippines Province)
• Jesuit Father Charlie Moutenot (New York Province) – tertian director
• Jesuit Father Godwin Mulenga (Zambia-Milawi Province)
• Jesuit Father John Murphy (California Province) – retreat director
• Jesuit Father Ignatius Hadimulia Sasmita (Maryland Province)

After completing the Spiritual Exercises, the tertians will study Society documents, including the Jesuit Constitutions and decrees from recent General Congregations. After studies, they will do apostolic experiments, which often involve pastoral work with the poor. Once the tertianship period is completed, the Jesuit is called to pronounce his final vows in the Society.

Jesuit Father Paul Lickteig, who was ordained to the priesthood this past June, has written about his vocation for the Huffington Post. Fr. Lickteig, who also contributes to The Jesuit Post, explains how his vocation emerged in a piece titled “How I Became A Jesuit Priest.”

Fr. Lickteig writes that vocation is a strange thing:

“It is the idea that people can be drawn towards a particular way of life. Vocation is partially about the job, but more about the way a person’s choice of work allows something deeper to develop in his or her heart. For many, ‘the call’ comes at the expense of other aspirations. It is a trade-off. We let go of certain impulses and choose to follow other desires, in an oftentimes circuitous route, that we hope will lead towards a deeper awareness of how we might better love and serve humanity.”

For Fr. Lickteig, his desire to love and serve led him to “explore a single mystery in a deeper way: GOD.” When he found the Society of Jesus, he writes, “I found a group of people that were responding to this same mystery in a profound way.”

In the piece, Fr. Lickteig describes the wide variety of work he did during his eleven years of Jesuit training, which included working with addicts in the Bronx, gutting houses in New Orleans, taking classes in counseling, teaching religion at a prep school and building affordable housing in Omaha.

“I moved from community to community, never staying in one place for more than nine months at a time. In each new home I was asked to interact with the best and worst that humanity has to offer, and somehow find the grace of God thread through it all,” Fr. Lickteig writes. “Ultimately, this is the purpose of Jesuit training: to find Christ in all things.”

Fr. Lickteig concludes, “Eleven years ago I gave a commitment to continue exploring this great mystery in a faith that stretches back thousands of years. It is a yes I will continue to follow as this life unfolds mercifully before me.”

Read Fr. Lickteig’s full article at the Huffington Post.

Jesuit Fathers Gregg Wood, Tom Provinsal, Ted Kestler and Chuck Peterson with Jesuit novice Christopher Kepler in Alaska

The Society of Jesus founded the Diocese of Fairbanks 125 years ago, and today that legacy continues in the work of Jesuits actively promoting vocations and developing native leadership in Alaska.

In the past, Jesuit priests would either live among native people or visit them frequently. Jesuit Fathers Tom Provinsal, Ted Kestler, Chuck Peterson and Gregg Wood agreed that today the priority of the Catholic Church in “bush villages,” remote native communities only accessible by plane or boat, is the promotion of vocations and catechetical formation and training of lay people.

“How do you combine what we call practical theology with theology?” questioned Fr. Kestler, who described himself as a “theologyholic.”

Members of Alaska’s indigenous communities learn by doing, he explained, whereas the church, influenced by Western culture, puts theory before practice.

“In the Catholic Church, there are some things you can’t teach by doing, but other things you can. We need to find a balance,” Fr. Kestler said.

Relationship building is key in the efforts of finding that equilibrium, the Jesuits concurred, but that is equally difficult when the ministers are absent from the communities they serve for long periods of time.

However, in the absence of priests, local leaders are becoming more independent in making decisions to address social issues, such as alcoholism and drug abuse, affecting their younger generations.

“What this says to me is that our best role is to be somewhat on the sidelines encouraging them to say, ‘yes, you can,’” said Fr. Wood.

Today, he said, native deacons are active participants in the church’s planning, together with the Jesuits and diocesan priests.

The priests are convinced that Eskimos have unique insight and methods of learning that could be very useful if they’re given more opportunities to actively participate in the church in leadership roles.

Thus, their efforts are being focused on the training and formation of those leaders.

“[In Alaska] we are on a frontier,” said Fr. Wood. “And people are going through tremendous changes and transitions in a very short span, and we are in that frontier with them.”

Read the full story at U.S. Catholic.