~ Philip Sutherland, SJ on Why He’s a Jesuit

When I was discerning the priesthood as a young man in middle school and high school, I was attracted to the Jesuits because they did not live their entire lives as parish priests; they ran schools, wrote books, worked in parishes, served in soup kitchens, taught in classrooms, published magazines and lectured in universities. I found that way of life exciting and potentially fulfilling.

Later, as I attended Gonzaga University, I was struck that I was not so much attraced to what Jesuits did, but why they did it. My Jesuit education was transformative of my entire person – head, heart and soul – as a seeker of truth, a lover of wisdom and a doer of justice.

As a Jesuit, I have discovered that we are not simply about giving people the best education or writing the most erudite books. Those are simply entrees into people’s lives for the more important goals of evangelization and justice-promotion. Ever since the novitiate, I have been particularly attracted to the Cristo Rey high schools and Nativity middle schools that exist to lift students out of poverty and to prepare them for admittance to college. These schools not only provide students with a college-prep education, but also form them to be men and women who will use their success and their faith to help others, particularly others who are poor and marginalized.

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