The Novitiate: 30 years, 30 Days, 30 Stories. Day 13 out of 30

Paul, our novice master, in the novitiate Kitchen. 

On August 25, 2002, I woke up at my parent's house in Westerly, RI. I followed my normal Sunday morning routine. I put on some Church ready khakis and a nice button down shirt. I was doing the readings at mass, so I threw on a tie and went down to the car and off to St. Pius for mass. Something was different that day though. When I got in the car the back of my Dad's SUV was loaded down with bags, more precisely my bags.  Right after mass, we were heading to Boston, to the novitiate, and I was becoming a Jesuit. That morning at the end of Mass, the parish prayed for me, and the next Sunday, and for every Sunday since, I have been prayed for by name at all of masses. (That is the kind of support that has sustained this vocation, even in its darkest moments.) After that mass we piled into the car and trekked an hour and a half up interstate 95 to Boston.

            When we arrived in Jamaica Plain, and in the church parking lot of Blessed Sacrament Parish, I stepped out of the car and across the threshold of the notivitate, and with one simple step I had entered religious life. I was greeted at the door by Paul, my novice master, and David, the director for formation.  I was then escorted into the living room with the rest of my family where some of the men who entered with me were already present. My classmate Matt has since declared that those first moments in the novitiate were something akin to a wake in terms of their general tone and unsure awkwardness. I remember looking at my sister, who was 5 at the time, sitting there perfectly still, and seemingly the most uncomfortable of all of us. 

         For those of us entering, we weren't quite sure what we were getting ourselves into, for those of us who came with us, they weren't quite sure that we were sure of what we were getting ourselves into.  Since the novice master, his assistant, the formation director, and the other novices were busy attending to the things that needed to be done, like waiting for the others, setting up mass up stairs in the chapel and cooking dinner, we were left to our own devices and it was nothing if not awkward, and I found myself feeling the weight of it.

The door to my cell in the novitiate. 

      The truth is that when I left the Holy Cross at dusk that bright May evening, every step was pointed solidly in one direction from that point until the end of that summer of 2002, towards Arrupe House, on Creighton St., in Jamaica Plain. I was very nervous for most of that summer. Was I doing the right thing? How could I know? That summer was filled with hanging out with friends, cruising around Rhode Island in the Volvo, and just a little bit of work to keep me flush with cash until the end of summer. I was fortunate that my friends Brian and Jill had moved just up the coast to Newport for that summer, without being able to hang out with them I may have had just a little too much time to think about what I was about to do. I stopped working on July 31st, because the feast of St. Ignatius just seemed like a good time, and spent the rest of the summer somewhere close to the beach. That day in late August, though, sitting there in the living room on Creighton St., it was all real all of the sudden.

The Arrupe House Chapel at Christmas. 

            When the time came, we went up-stairs for mass in the novitiate chapel, my second mass that day, and after we went downstairs for drinks an hors devours before dinner. I remember the family of one of my classmates (though I won't say who for fear of reprisal) hitting the bar immediately as soon as we got down stairs.  As we went into the dining room for dinner, we all sat with our families, and ate dinner before it would be time for them to depart. My little sister, who had been nervous all day, and very well behaved for a 5 year old, eyed the chocolate cake out of the corner of her eye, and that was the moment that I knew that everything would be alright.

            In that moment David, the formation director, had seen her looking at that cake, and in his usual larger than life and graceful way, got up, walked over to her, grabbed her by the hand and brought her over to the cake which was sitting atop the novitiate piano. He lifted her up so that she could grab a strawberry off of the top, and a big smile came over her face as she shoved the chocolate and frosting covered strawberry into her mouth. I know my mother still remembers that moment, and I suspect that it is a good part of the reason why she felt at least a little better about my entering that day. The truth is that that was David, there was nothing contrived or disingenuine about it, and I think that he may have delighted in it just as much as my sister did. His gentleness and joy with her that day would be echoed with me over the course of the next couple of years that he was my formation director. It was the same sort of gentleness which could support you in the middle in the middle of a tough conversation about where you saw yourself going in Jesuit life, while at the same time having a gigantic bowl of Jelly-beans ready to share just a little joy.

The view from the novitiate roof deck. The Prudential
Center hovering over Mission hill. 

            In that moment I discovered that, even with all of the new rules that were about to govern the way I lived my life, there was still room for me to be me in the society. There was still space to love my family, to joy in simple little things. I wasn't supposed to be aloof, or become separate from the people and places that had meant so much to me. The truth is that being a Jesuit has made me closer to my best self, and more present to those little joys and attentive to little blessings. Moreover, if the Provincial's assistant for formation could be that attentive to the cake that a 5 year old was eyeing from across the room, I knew that the way of life that I was entering was something warm, human, and life-giving.

            The sad part of this story is that David died far earlier than he should have, and unexpectedly, though in his maudlin Irish manner, I suspect that that was precisely what he wanted, though certainly none of us did. On that Sunday evening though, that look of joy in his eye told me that just maybe I could survive this place called Arrupe House, and the novitiate.