On a cold and snowy January morning in Massachusetts, I sat in front of a big bay window watching the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean and sipping my coffee. I was somewhere in the middle--maybe day 13 or 14--of the Spiritual Exercises and I was trying to be a good Jesuit novice and ask for the grace that St. Ignatius suggests: “To know Jesus more intimately, to love him more intensely and to follow him more closely.”  But in the back of my mind, a thought crept in: “What the heck am I doing here?”

Upon entering the Jesuit Novitiate, as I did in August 2009, a man begins a two-year program designed by Ignatius Loyola himself; sort of like boot camp for Jesuits. The novitiate is comprised of 5 “experiments:” The Spiritual Exercises, Pilgrimage or Poverty experiment, Hospital experiment, “Low & Humble Service” and the Long Experiment. Ignatius designed each of these to introduce a young novice to a particular aspect of Jesuit life and to help him discern if the Lord is indeed calling him to be a Jesuit. Ignatius also wanted them to be tough, to push a novice far away from his comfort zone and help him encounter the Lord in his own discomfort. My own novitiate was no exception. I served in homeless shelters, cared for those dying of cancer in their final days, taught refugee children and spent 30 days in prayer with no contact with the outside world, all of which both challenged and consoled me in powerful ways!

Because “our home is the road,” as one of the Jesuit founders said, a Jesuit novice is constantly traveling. My novitiate included stays in Syracuse, Baltimore, New York City, Cochabamba, Bolivia, right here in Raleigh, Denver and Gloucester, MA, where I made the Spiritual Exercises. By far the most important of the five novitiate experiments, The Exercises, or “Long Retreat,” is a 30-day experience of prayer and reflection written by St. Ignatius in which a person encounters God’s love in the person of Jesus Christ in an intimate and ever-deepening way. This encounter serves as the core and foundation of the life of every Jesuit.  

As the sun crept higher in that winter sky, this question kept nagging at me. Why am I here, in the midst of this two-year spiritual boot camp? Suddenly, an answer arose in my heart. It was the very grace that I had asked for just moments before: to know Jesus more intimately, to love him more intensely, and to follow him more closely. In other words, Trust the Process, and let the adventure begin!

Fr. Adam Rosinski, S.J.
Parochial Vicar