It’s not uncommon for Jesuits to discover their vocation to the Society of Jesus while attending Jesuit-run high schools or universities. But Jesuit scholastic Jason Brauninger’s vocation story is different — he found the Society of Jesus on the Internet.

Brauninger was always curious about a religious vocation, but the diocesan and monastic life didn’t seem to fit him. The more he researched the Society of Jesus, the more he felt called to it, despite having never met a Jesuit. What he learned online made an impact. He was struck by the Jesuit commitment to working in the world and the emphasis on using one’s gifts and talents to serve others.

Born and raised in New Orleans, Brauninger had started training as a junior firefighter at the age of 14 and received a bachelor’s degree in fire science before entering the Society. However, while praying during a 30-day retreat as a Jesuit novice, he felt drawn toward the nursing profession. “It wasn’t quite what I expected to hear,” Brauninger says of the discovery. “But everything has fallen into place and it all happened because of the grace of God.”

Brauninger completed a bachelor’s degree in nursing at Saint Louis University and became a cardiac care nurse. Now Brauninger is at Regis University in Denver, where he lives with the Regis Jesuit Community, works as a trauma nurse at a local hospital and teaches in the school of nursing.

“It is a great privilege to be at Regis. I’m able to continue my formation as a Jesuit, work as a clinician and learn how to be a professor,” Brauninger says. “I love being with the students.”

—Regis University

To commemorate his inspirational life, the Society of Jesus, the largest order of priests and brothers in the Roman Catholic Church, has chosen to highlight Fr. Walter Ciszek and the theme, Life in Service, for November’s Vocation Month.

Father Robert Ballecer, director of the Office of National Vocation Promotion for the Jesuits, explains, “Walter Ciszek’s work is a legacy of the frontier spirit of the Society of Jesus. It’s the spirit of ‘Where is God calling me today?’ Walter Ciszek answered the call by going to the Soviet Union. Today, Jesuits are working around the globe on the frontiers – from building schools in Malawi to aiding migrants at a small border town between the United States and Mexico. That’s the spirit of the Society; that’s the spirit of service.”

According to Fr. Ballecer, Fr. Ciszek is still beloved by American Jesuits, and those who knew him remember his kindness and humility. Among other tributes, Ciszek Hall, the community of young Jesuits in “First Studies” at Fordham University, is named for Fr. Ciszek.

A Call Answered

Born in 1904 in Shenandoah, Pa., to Polish immigrants, Fr. Ciszek joined the Jesuits in 1928. The next year, he learned that Pope Pius XI was calling on seminarians to enter a new Russian center in Rome to prepare priests for work in Russia. For Fr. Ciszek, it was “almost like a direct call from God.”

Jesuit Father Walter Ciszek (center) in 1938.

Missioned to Rome to study theology and the Byzantine rite, Fr. Ciszek was ordained in 1937, but since priests could not be sent to Russia, he was assigned to work in Poland. When war broke out in 1939, Fr. Ciszek was able to enter Russia with false identification papers. He worked as an unskilled laborer until June 1941 when the secret police arrested him as a suspected spy.

After his arrest, Fr. Ciszek found himself in the infamous Lubianka Prison in Moscow, where he was interrogated as a “Vatican spy” and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in Siberia. Although forced to work in a Gulag coal mine, Fr. Ciszek found ways to hear confessions and say Mass.

“For all the hardships and suffering endured there, the prison camps of Siberia held one great consolation for me: I was able to function as a priest again. I was able to say Mass again, although in secret, to hear confessions, to baptize, to comfort the sick, and to minister to the dying,” he wrote.

In 1955, Fr. Ciszek’s sentence ended early since he had surpassed his work quotas, and he was freed from the labor camps but forced to live in the Gulag city of Norilsk, where he worked in a chemical factory. Happily, after decades of being presumed dead, Fr. Ciszek was finally allowed to write to family members in the United States.

In Norilsk, Fr. Ciszek and other priests ministered to a growing parish but, before too long, the KGB threatened to arrest him if he continued his ministry. Missioned to another city, the KGB quickly shut him down again.

Then, in 1963, Fr. Ciszek learned he was going home. In a release negotiated by President John F. Kennedy, he and an American student were returned to the United States in exchange for two Soviet agents. Following his return, Fr. Ciszek worked at the John XXIII Center at Fordham University (now the Center for Eastern Christian Studies at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania), until his death in 1984.

Jesuits Called to the Frontiers

Like Fr. Ciszek and his Jesuit brothers, the present-day Society of Jesus is also called to the frontiers.

Fr. Ballecer explains, “In Fr. Ciszek’s time, the frontiers were physical boundaries, parts of the world we hadn’t fully explored. Today, the frontiers are often in new areas, including media, science and technology. From Jesuits working with a development team on a particle accelerator in Europe to the Higher Education at the Margins program, which brings college courses to refugee camps, Jesuits aspire to serve where the need is greatest.”

An Inspiring Life in Service

A hometown welcome for Fr. Ciszek upon his return to the United States.

A quarter century after his death, Fr. Ciszek’s life is still inspiring those considering a Jesuit vocation, and soon even more people may learn of his legacy. This past March, the Vatican gave its formal approval to begin the canonization process for Fr. Ciszek.

Fr. Ballecer says Fr. Ciszek is more relevant today than he ever was. “A life in service like Walter Ciszek’s means commitment; it means something that’s unknown; it means relinquishing control of your life to something that’s bigger than you. What will you do when someone asks you to do something difficult, but worthwhile?”

In his memoir describing his years in Russia, “He Leadeth Me,” Fr. Ciszek wrote: “My aim in entering Russia was the same from beginning to end: to help find God and attain eternal life.” By devoting his life to serving God and his people, Fr. Ciszek succeeded in both goals.

Fr. Billotti’s assignments have taken him to many places, including Le Moyne College, his provincial’s office, Canisius High School and Micronesia, but he said that none of these apostolates would have happened if it were not for his vow of obedience.

“It was not only that my superiors missioned me to them, but without my vowed commitment to go anywhere I was sent, the opportunities to serve God’s kingdom in these scattered areas of the world would never have even presented themselves to me,” Billotti reflected.

“Never would I have been blessed to labor among such diverse peoples. Never would I have seen my own country through the eyes of so many cultures. Never would I have gazed upon the Body of Christ ornately clothed in so many colors, shapes and languages,” he wrote.

Read more of Billotti’s reflections at the vocation website for the Maryland, New England and New York Provinces.

Jesuit Father Paul Coelho, from Kohima, India, and currently working at the Center for Service and Justice and in campus ministry at Creighton University, has lived in Jesuit communities across the globe.

He admits that he came to the United States with a certain amount of apprehension. “I wasn’t sure how I’d fit in; I wasn’t sure how well I would be accepted. I had lots of doubts,” he said.

But, Fr. Coelho said, “It took me just two days to realize that a Jesuit community anywhere in the world is the same.”

While there are superficial differences, he said, he’s found that what it boils down to at the deepest level is amazingly similar.

“I’m convinced that when you’re a Jesuit you almost belong to a different nationality — the Jesuit nationality. It transcends natural borders and geographic and demographic borders,” Coelho said.

He has found that he’s at home in any Jesuit community because of the Society’s long, shared history. For more of Coelho’s reflections, watch the video below.

Jesuit Brother Pat Douglas, who has a master’s in counseling and works with youth in detention centers and with alcoholic recovery on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, says the most common response he gets when people learn about his vocation is: “Why would you just be a Brother?”

Br. Douglas says that while it hurts to hear this comment because “just” denotes some kind of lesser than or lacking, the question does seems to reflect many people’s thoughts on vocation in the Catholic faith.

He writes, “There seems to be a mentality that if one wants to serve God it can only be done through the priesthood…If God is the focus of one’s life it can never be a ‘just’ or lacking in any way.”

As far as his desire to serve as a brother, rather than a priest, he writes, “I guess one never fully knows and that is where faith comes in, but I do know what makes my heart happy and my soul sing and that is being a brother.”

Without the priorities specific to the vocation of a priest or married man, such as sacramental ministry or children, Douglas writes that as a brother he is “free to focus all his energy on his prayer, work and community life.”

Read more of Douglas’s reflections on being a Jesuit brother.

Jesuit Kevin Spinale, who entered the Society of Jesus five years ago, says his decision to become a Jesuit came slowly: “I didn’t fall off a horse or anything. I had no desire to do this in high school or college.”

Spinale graduated from two Jesuit schools —  Boston College High and Holy Cross — but did not feel called to the priestly vocation in general or the Jesuits in particular. Two years in the Peace Corps in Romania proved to be eye-opening for him.

“I’d find myself by myself,” Spinale said. “You get to do a lot of thinking, and something started to bite on my conscience or get me to think about what God is.”

Spinale wrote Jesuit Father John Brooks, the former president of Holy Cross and a friend and mentor from his college days. “I told him, ‘I’ve got this sort of subtle biting thing on my conscience,’” Spinale said. “He wrote back, ‘I thought you would ask me about that six years ago.’”

Read more about Spinale and his vocation in the BC High Today magazine.

Jesuit Kevin Spinale, who entered the Society of Jesus five years ago, says his decision to become a Jesuit came slowly: “I didn’t fall off a horse or anything. I had no desire to do this in high school or college.”

Spinale graduated from two Jesuit schools —  Boston College High and Holy Cross — but did not feel called to the priestly vocation in general or the Jesuits in particular. Two years in the Peace Corps in Romania proved to be eye-opening for him.

“I’d find myself by myself,” Spinale said. “You get to do a lot of thinking, and something started to bite on my conscience or get me to think about what God is.”

Spinale wrote Jesuit Father John Brooks, the former president of Holy Cross and a friend and mentor from his college days. “I told him, ‘I’ve got this sort of subtle biting thing on my conscience,’” Spinale said. “He wrote back, ‘I thought you would ask me about that six years ago.’”

Read more about Spinale and his vocation in the BC High Today magazine.

Lisa Johnston/St. Louis Review

Jesuit Father John Horn has been named the next rector and president of Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in Shrewsbury, Mo., seminary of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, effective July 1.

Fr. Horn is the co-founder of the Institute for Priestly Formation (IPF) at Creighton University in Omaha and has more than 30 years of experience in Catholic education, spiritual direction, pastoral ministry and administration.

He has been serving as director of program development at the IPF, which has served more than 1,300 seminarians from 140 U.S. dioceses and 24 international dioceses since its founding in 1994.

Horn’s experiences have ranged from nursing home and parish ministry to high school teaching and field education for a suicide hotline.

Many years ago, he said, he felt the call to serve diocesan priests, one of Ignatius’s original works, in seminary formation. Ignatius “desired to serve diocesan priests because he knew if you affect one priest you affected an entire parish,” Horn said. “A great love of Christ compels me to want diocesan priests to have the best possible spiritual formation.”

Horn said Ignatian spirituality “helps us taste the presence of God at work in our hearts rather than have God be an idea and [just] talk about God. It invites us into the everyday experience of God’s presence in our lives. I can’t think of anything better to teach and form seminarians than this way of knowing God.”

For more about Horn, read the St. Louis Review article.

New rector-president for Kenrick-Glennon Seminary from St. Louis Review on Vimeo.

You can watch Hansen talk about becoming a priest in the video below and read his vocation story here. For more videos of Jesuits talking  about their vocational discernment, the challenges and blessings of religious life,  prayer, the vow of chastity, and other interesting topics, visit www.thinkjesuit.org.