~ Phillip Sutherland, SJ reflects on summer changes

Because we are so involved in academia – either as students or as teachers – the summer is a unique time of the year for Jesuits. It is a time of transition from one year to the next, from one assignment to the next or from one stage of formation to the next. Change is in the air and we anticipate the coming year.

This in-between time can be a spiritual challenge and I find myself struggling to let go of the past and wholeheartedly embrace the future. I am excited to begin my regency at St. Andrew Nativity School in north Portland, Oregon. But I’m still transitioning out of my community in Chicago where I have spent the last three years studying philosophy and theology, making friends, volunteering and growing increasingly at home in the neighborhood.

As I get older in the Society of Jesus, I find that I miss that which serves to root most people: closeness to family and friends, a particular job, and a stable address. But as Jerome Nadal, SJ once wrote, “the world is our monastery,” and so we must discover a spiritual sense of rootedness, something that keeps us grounded even as we move around the world.

I find most of that rootedness in my relationships with Jesuits and with God. There is certainly something unique about Jesuit life as we can enter any Jesuit community in the world and feel both welcomed and at home. So when I move to a new community, while my bedroom may look different, what really matters is that the quality of our companionship remains strong and deep; it unites us in our common vocation. And, of course, the quality and character of my relationship with God – that is, my religious vocation – can never be left behind or lost with my luggage. In other words, I remain rooted in what really matters – the relationships that fundamentally define me as a Jesuit – and I ask for the grace to let go of all the rest.

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