Jesuit magazine (4-11).indd - The New Orleans Province of the ...

Formation
First-year novices lead singing at Mass during a teen retreat. Primi novices talk on the life of St. Ignatius and the Spiritual Exercises
to a high school retreat group.
Novice group with Fr. Dan White, the assistant novice director,
atop a volcanic lake in Nicaragua
Novices with the retreat group in Kansas City
10 The Southern Jesuit Spring 2011
The novitiate is this time o
on the grace that he is praying for in his spiritual life or that he
received during the Exercises or on a particular challenge the
novice master believes that man needs.
Ignatius tells us that it is important for a novice to work in
a hospital, caring for the needs of the people there. In Ignatius’
day, this was by far the most grueling experiment because unlike
today hospitals were large places which held those for whom no
one else would care – those at the edges of society, the poor, the
mentally or physically disabled and the dying.
Today, novices find themselves working in the infirmaries
of the New Orleans and Missouri Provinces and places similar
in character and work to the hospitals in Ignatius’ day. They also
work at Good Shepherd or Loyola Academy “Nativity” schools in
New Orleans and St. Louis, l’Arche communities or the inner city
of East St. Louis, among others.
In the fall of his second year, each novice undertakes the
Jesuit Experiment, designed to give each novice an experience of
living in a Jesuit community while working at a Jesuit apostolate,
living the sort of life he would lead were he to take vows and
continue on in Jesuit life. Many novices find themselves in Jesuit
high schools, however some end up in Jesuit universities or other
locations.
During the Long Experiment that follows, each man is assigned
to a location for three months to work in a community,