1. Where are you currently missioned and how’s it going?

I’m currently missioned to Bellarmine Preparatory School in Tacoma, WA. I’m assisting with three senior religion classes (Social Justice, World Religions, and Bioethics), a Community Service class, and I’m also JUG master (in charge of afternoon detention). Additionally, I’ve also worked on three retreats so far, with another to come at the end of March.Overall, it’s going well. The teachers I’m working with have been welcoming and supportive. While working at a high school wasn’t something I was looking forward to, I’ve found a place where I can fit in and where my gifts can be best utilized.

2. When was the first time you thought about being a Jesuit?

I first thought about being a Jesuit when I was in junior high school, after my parents took me to see the movie “The Mission,” and after my vice-principal in high school, whose spiritual director was a Jesuit, took me on a visit to the California novitiate. But my vocation was put on hold after high school, and the next time I thought about being a Jesuit wasn’t until I was in my late 20s and working as a Peace Corps Volunteer, when I started to consider again a vocation to the priesthood, and was able to learn more about the Jesuits through the internet.

3. How have your friendships changed or stayed the same since you entered the Portland novitiate?

Mostly, I’d have to say that my friendships prior to entering have stayed the same, although most of my friends live on the East Coast, so maintaining a relationship with them has presented a challenge. I have to be much more intentional about it. I’ve also found that I’ve developed a different circle of friends within the Society, so my various friendship networks represent different times and interests during my life: from my old job as a flight attendant, to my time in Malawi with Peace Corps, to my current life as a Jesuit novice.

4. Is there a particular author, artist, musician, etc. that has resonated with you during the transition into religious life?

I definitely listen to a lot of music in a different way now, and I now use a lot more music as prayer compared to before entering religious life. One artist in particular is Jeff Buckley, and his version of the song “Hallelujah.” Now when I listen to the song I better understand King David’s experience of being a man of many failings and yet still having the grace and desire within to offer praise to God, and I think Jeff Buckley sings the song with the same intensity of conflicted emotion that I think David may have written some of his psalms with.I think the biggest surprise has been that my discernment approaching vows continues to challenge me, in spite of the fact that when I entered I felt quite certain about my choice to enter the Jesuits. I don’t think this means that I’m changing my mind; rather I think it is evidence that God is challenging me to consider my discernment on ever deepening levels that I wasn’t capable of 20 months ago.

6. Is there anything you would want to tell a man considering the Jesuits?

I think that meeting regularly with a spiritual director is the best thing you can do in your discernment. A spiritual director will not only help you in your prayer, but will help you to ask the right questions of yourself in your discernment.My spiritual director during my discernment gave me the best advice: Don’t let your vocation be simply discerning your vocation. At some point, you need to make a decision and act on it. It was exactly what I needed to hear at the time, and it was only after I made the Spiritual Exercises that I realized that this was a central part of Ignatian discernment.

Bellarmine Prep

(update: Jason went on to make First Vows in the Society and is now a scholastic studying philosophy at Fordham U.)