A Day in the Life of THE JESUIT NOVITIATE
A Day in the Life of a Jesuit Novice Master
‘How many novices do you have? ‘three' is that all? In my day there were sixty novices and we hardly ever saw the novice master. What do you do all day? The novices must never get away from you,”
You wouldn't believe the number of times I've had that conversation with older Jesuits since I took over this job four years ago. So I got great satisfaction when no less a person than the Superior General of the Jesuits, Fr Peter-Hans Kolvenbach himself, said to me on a recent visit to Britain. ‘I suppose they ask you what you do all day? Don't pay any attention to them. What they don't realise is that despite the very small number of novices, you still have to teach the same number of courses!” So there! Do I protest too much? Surely not!
So what's a typical day like in my life as a Jesuit novice master? I try to begin the day with time for prayer partly with the novices, mostly alone. I find I need to pray even more in this job if I am to treat the novices in freedom and, in the words of Ignatlus with discerning love. Mornings are usually spent in seminar style sessions where I introduce the novices to the Jesuit way to God. Afternoons I usually spend in my office, preparing material for our seminars - these novices are clever and perceptive! - or simply being available for spiritual direction for clients outside the novitiate. One morning a week I minister in a local parish where parishioners are 95% lrish. This suits me since I'm Irish myself and it makes me feel at home again. These good people prevent me from becoming too spiritual.
But what I treasure most in this job is the spiritual direction session with each individual novice. This happens maybe once a week, St Ignatius wrote that the novice master should be a person to whom the novices could open themselves with confidence, hoping to receive from him in our Lord, counsel and aid in everything. I hope that I am this person for the novices!
Sometimes there is a knock on my door and a novice asks. Can I chat for a while?' That's when the day on the life of a novice master Is no longer typical!
I find this job a great privilege, deeply fulfilling and always surprising!
Brendan Comerford SJ - Novice Director
Jesuits, unlike monks, do not usually live by fixed timetables, but have to develop their own pattern for the day. As novices, we live by a structured ‘Ordo' or timetable so that we can learn how to develop that Jesuit ‘way of proceeding'.
Contrary to popular myth we do not wake up at 5am; but we do gather at 7.3Oam to begin an hour of prayer. This is an important habit to acquire as novices, since later, when studying and working. there will always be a temptation to skip or postpone prayer. Then, after a non-silent breakfast, we spend 30 minutes on housework - our commitment to being ‘contemplatives in action' has begun.
The mornings are usually spent in seminars covering a variety of subjects: Jesuit history. the three vows, even Flemish mysticism. These are not intended to be academic courses, but rather an opportunity to deepen our knowledge of (and love for) the life we are beginning. We stop 15 minutes before lunch for our first Examen a chance to look back and notice God's presence in our morning.
In the afternoon we have 90 minutes of ‘Manualia'-gardening and painting both provide a limitless supply of outdoor and indoor tasks. After this, we spend two hours in silence, reading or studying. before community Mass and supper. After the ritual of washing up (a bonding moment in Jesuit houses) we 1ove another hour on our own with spiritual reading :1 silent prayer. Recreation from 9pm is usually a bout of TV watching - novices and the formed community have separate community rooms so there is no fighting over the remote control. On Fridays and feast days we come together for drinks and are entertained with stories of Jesuit anecdotage. At about 10.45 we have our second Examen of the day and then retire.
Raymond Perrier - 2nd year British Novice
It is Thursday morning, and so off to the prison for the day! Who will I see today? Does it matter?
The inmates we meet are finding it very hard to cope with life on the inside. All drag heavily on the rolled cigarettes I bring
They each face their own hell. What can I do? Firstly listen, secondly listen and thirdly listen. Each one scavages for a language to describe haltingly their hell, the loss of friends, family, their support systems, the reality of their deeds, the need for forgiveness, their need for a fair hearing, their loss of hope, their lack of a sense of purpose, the lack of a second chance, a desire to mend their ways, hut who, where is, who has the road map?
Slowly they open up then gradually, maybe. they turn. Slowly we unbundle and unburden their issues. Usually we share a laugh.
Their raw spirituality is like a raging fire, burning with desire, but lacking a harness. The turning may involve a recognition of what it is like for Jesus on the cross. why Jesus was crucified.
Does t matter? It does matter - for the Christ I meet in each one, for them, and for me!
Kevin Conway - 1st year Irish Novice
Before I left Birmingham for the Kilkenny L'Arche Community, I was a little apprehensive. After all, I was very different from my two friends who had previously worked in L'Arche - more reserved, and definitely quieter. Would I really be of any use, a 30-something academic on a six week placement as a Jesuit Novice?
And so I arrived, on a wet January evening, at a family-sized home called Lion De (‘God's Net' - from the Irish hymn, ‘Ag Criost and Siol') two miles outside Callan, a beautiful old town, which just happens to host the oldest L'Arche community In Ireland. Lion De Is a permanent home to three L'Arche members - Gina. Helen and Patrick helped by three other assistants - Miho, Andrea and Stefan,
As I settled into the simple rhythm of life, I found that the willingness just to be present, to care and spend time with people was what was needed, nothing more and nothing less. L'Arche is more about being than doing. And, perhaps a little to my surprise, I found that living and praying in the L'Arche was very easy, and as much for me as for my extrovert friends. If L'Arche is about anything, it is about acceptance, about being ‘home': and, as Emily Dickinson once wrote, ‘home is a definition of God!'
Cathal Doherty - 1st year Irish Novice
‘How many novices do you have? ‘three' is that all? In my day there were sixty novices and we hardly ever saw the novice master. What do you do all day? The novices must never get away from you,”
You wouldn't believe the number of times I've had that conversation with older Jesuits since I took over this job four years ago. So I got great satisfaction when no less a person than the Superior General of the Jesuits, Fr Peter-Hans Kolvenbach himself, said to me on a recent visit to Britain. ‘I suppose they ask you what you do all day? Don't pay any attention to them. What they don't realise is that despite the very small number of novices, you still have to teach the same number of courses!” So there! Do I protest too much? Surely not!
So what's a typical day like in my life as a Jesuit novice master? I try to begin the day with time for prayer partly with the novices, mostly alone. I find I need to pray even more in this job if I am to treat the novices in freedom and, in the words of Ignatlus with discerning love. Mornings are usually spent in seminar style sessions where I introduce the novices to the Jesuit way to God. Afternoons I usually spend in my office, preparing material for our seminars - these novices are clever and perceptive! - or simply being available for spiritual direction for clients outside the novitiate. One morning a week I minister in a local parish where parishioners are 95% lrish. This suits me since I'm Irish myself and it makes me feel at home again. These good people prevent me from becoming too spiritual.
But what I treasure most in this job is the spiritual direction session with each individual novice. This happens maybe once a week, St Ignatius wrote that the novice master should be a person to whom the novices could open themselves with confidence, hoping to receive from him in our Lord, counsel and aid in everything. I hope that I am this person for the novices!
Sometimes there is a knock on my door and a novice asks. Can I chat for a while?' That's when the day on the life of a novice master Is no longer typical!
I find this job a great privilege, deeply fulfilling and always surprising!
Brendan Comerford SJ - Novice Director
Jesuits, unlike monks, do not usually live by fixed timetables, but have to develop their own pattern for the day. As novices, we live by a structured ‘Ordo' or timetable so that we can learn how to develop that Jesuit ‘way of proceeding'.
Contrary to popular myth we do not wake up at 5am; but we do gather at 7.3Oam to begin an hour of prayer. This is an important habit to acquire as novices, since later, when studying and working. there will always be a temptation to skip or postpone prayer. Then, after a non-silent breakfast, we spend 30 minutes on housework - our commitment to being ‘contemplatives in action' has begun.
The mornings are usually spent in seminars covering a variety of subjects: Jesuit history. the three vows, even Flemish mysticism. These are not intended to be academic courses, but rather an opportunity to deepen our knowledge of (and love for) the life we are beginning. We stop 15 minutes before lunch for our first Examen a chance to look back and notice God's presence in our morning.
In the afternoon we have 90 minutes of ‘Manualia'-gardening and painting both provide a limitless supply of outdoor and indoor tasks. After this, we spend two hours in silence, reading or studying. before community Mass and supper. After the ritual of washing up (a bonding moment in Jesuit houses) we 1ove another hour on our own with spiritual reading :1 silent prayer. Recreation from 9pm is usually a bout of TV watching - novices and the formed community have separate community rooms so there is no fighting over the remote control. On Fridays and feast days we come together for drinks and are entertained with stories of Jesuit anecdotage. At about 10.45 we have our second Examen of the day and then retire.
Raymond Perrier - 2nd year British Novice
It is Thursday morning, and so off to the prison for the day! Who will I see today? Does it matter?
The inmates we meet are finding it very hard to cope with life on the inside. All drag heavily on the rolled cigarettes I bring
They each face their own hell. What can I do? Firstly listen, secondly listen and thirdly listen. Each one scavages for a language to describe haltingly their hell, the loss of friends, family, their support systems, the reality of their deeds, the need for forgiveness, their need for a fair hearing, their loss of hope, their lack of a sense of purpose, the lack of a second chance, a desire to mend their ways, hut who, where is, who has the road map?
Slowly they open up then gradually, maybe. they turn. Slowly we unbundle and unburden their issues. Usually we share a laugh.
Their raw spirituality is like a raging fire, burning with desire, but lacking a harness. The turning may involve a recognition of what it is like for Jesus on the cross. why Jesus was crucified.
Does t matter? It does matter - for the Christ I meet in each one, for them, and for me!
Kevin Conway - 1st year Irish Novice
Before I left Birmingham for the Kilkenny L'Arche Community, I was a little apprehensive. After all, I was very different from my two friends who had previously worked in L'Arche - more reserved, and definitely quieter. Would I really be of any use, a 30-something academic on a six week placement as a Jesuit Novice?
And so I arrived, on a wet January evening, at a family-sized home called Lion De (‘God's Net' - from the Irish hymn, ‘Ag Criost and Siol') two miles outside Callan, a beautiful old town, which just happens to host the oldest L'Arche community In Ireland. Lion De Is a permanent home to three L'Arche members - Gina. Helen and Patrick helped by three other assistants - Miho, Andrea and Stefan,
As I settled into the simple rhythm of life, I found that the willingness just to be present, to care and spend time with people was what was needed, nothing more and nothing less. L'Arche is more about being than doing. And, perhaps a little to my surprise, I found that living and praying in the L'Arche was very easy, and as much for me as for my extrovert friends. If L'Arche is about anything, it is about acceptance, about being ‘home': and, as Emily Dickinson once wrote, ‘home is a definition of God!'
Cathal Doherty - 1st year Irish Novice