What Jesuit Volunteering does for People
Sarah Rogers has spent the last few months investigating our volunteers. Here are her results.
If you want to know what is good about working with Jesuits, DON’T ASK A JESUIT! This is one of the main discoveries from the last few months of the research project I have been conducting for the Jesuit Provincial about Jesuit Volunteering. But despite Jesuit modesty, the picture painted by laypeople of the positive impact of direct Jesuit involvement is a very rich and bright one indeed. Many lay staff, and many volunteers, are unequivocal about the privilege of working alongside Jesuits, both in Britain and in the developing world.
Whether being supported overseas as a Xavier Volunteer Programme (XVP) volunteer, volunteering in office administration in a Jesuit work in this country, or working full-time with marginalised people through the Jesuit Volunteer Communities (JVC), Jesuit-inspired work has been giving people opportunities to find God in unexpected places, and to reflect on their experience in a fuller, more realistic, more balanced way. Sean Brockbank, who is currently finishing his masters degree in social work, explains,’When reflecting on my career as a volunteer with the Jesuits, I am constantly amazed by how much I was made aware of God’s plan for me. For the first time, through my work and spiritual direction, I was presented with God’s hopes for my life - what He wanted me to do/where he wanted me to be/what he wanted me to be/what he wanted to say to me. I hope that this one lesson has been carried into my life, post JVC, and I know that it is the most precious gift I have ever received.’ Chris Docherty, who has worked in Ignatian contexts throughout the UK and particularly in Glasgow, says that ‘it gave me a chance to test out the me I wanted to be. I was able to serve people and discover a new kind of relationship that was different from friendship and family ties. From this new vantage point, more focussed on Christ, I slowly practised new skills and began to notice new vocational possibilities. My JVC year led directly to a job in youth ministry with the Archdiocese of Glasgow.
Eleven years later, I’m still there, still attuned to the same four values and challenging and enabling others to do the same.’
For some volunteers, career enhancement is an important aspect of volunteering. Ben Holbourn answered my question about how he had benefited as follows: ‘I guess that the volunteering had two main effects on me: it focused my mind towards the non-profit side of the job market (or certainly pushed me in that direction), and it got me to where I am at the moment, gave me a chance to work in the ‘charity sector’. So in that sense it was both a mental development and a career boost.’ This, of course, does not make Ben a selfish volunteer so much as a realistic one - his work for XVP and for the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) has been very valuable indeed. But it does mean that Jesuit volunteering does not equate to ‘Career Suicide’ either! The range of opportunities open to recent graduates through the Jesuits means that they can satisfy both their CV-hungry future employers, and their conscience, and care for people.
Juliet Lombe says, ‘My Jesuit volunteer experience is one of the important events in my life. I had drawn so much strength and ability to take on new things. Here are things that definitely have been influenced by the four values (spirituality, community living, social justice and simple lifestyle) of JVC: a change of career - and through it have found fulfilment and joy in working with the marginalized people in society. My ambition is to become a community support worker, heading a project for young people who are maginalized in Zambia, or anywhere in the world. My understanding of God through the Ignatian spirituality, that God is in all things, has made a huge difference to my faith in worship and prayers. God’s presence automatically liberates us to do things for ourselves and other people.
‘Awareness of justice and injustice in society - pretending to be small and weak - does not serve the world, because there is nothing enlightened about avoiding responsibility, shrinking and turning a blind eye to issues affecting ourselves and others. All this has been made possible because of my experience as a JVC volunteer’.
The scope of this kind of influence is impossible to measure, but we can hardly fail to get excited about it. As Frank Turner SJ put it. ‘It draws remarkable people, and it makes them even more remarkable’. People are being transformed by God, by their own courage and exploration, by Jesuit structures and opportunities, and by individual Jesuits. Faithfulness, influence, vocation: these journeys strengthen and nourish us all as we build the Kingdom of God together.
