In Good Company by James Martin SJ

Author:James Martin SJ
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sheed & Ward
Published: 2000-08-28T16:00:00+00:00

6.

The Manner Is Ordinary

In other respects, for sound reasons and with attention always paid to the greater service of God, in regard to what is exterior the manner of living is ordinary.

The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus

Traditionally, the Society of Jesus in the United States asks its novices to begin their training as Jesuits in late August. So on August 28, after I had quit my job, divested myself of at least some of my worldly goods, and said my goodbyes, I packed my bags and headed for the novitiate. My two roommates, Ed and Peter, along with Ed’s girlfriend, Beth, drove with me to Boston. My father, still separated from my mother, flew in from the West Coast to drive up with my mother from Philadelphia, picking up my sister in New York on the way.

After arriving at Arrupe House, my roommates and I brought my stuff to my room. Since it was a former convent, the rooms were large enough to accommodate only one bed (twin, of course), a chair, and a desk. Alas, no closets. The nuns had owned two habits—the one they wore and an extra one that they hung on the back of the door. But, as an accommodation to our more worldly wardrobes, we had the use of large armoires that stood outside our rooms.

At 2:00 in the afternoon, a Mass was celebrated in the small house chapel with our families and the other novices. During Mass two friends arrived at the novitiate and kept ringing the bell, shouting from outside, “Jim! Is this the right place? Hello?” Someone eventually ran down three flights of stairs to let them in; they burst into the chapel sweaty and out of breath.

During the lunch that followed, I watched my parents and sister try to make some sense of the situation. They were all somewhat stressed to begin with, as this was the first time that my mother and sister had been with my father in a while. And they also tried, for my benefit, to portray an image of a good Catholic family. I overheard the novice director ask my sister where she lived. “New York,” she replied.

“No kidding,” he said. “Whereabouts?”

“East 84th Street,” said Carolyn.

“Then you must be a parishioner at St. Ignatius,” he said, referring to the Jesuit-run church only a few blocks from my sister’s apartment. But I knew she rarely attended church there, or anywhere else for that matter.

“Uh, yeah . . . ,” she said.

“Isn’t the altar lovely?” asked the novice director.

“Uh, yeah, it sure is . . .”

Carolyn said later that she didn’t want to embarrass me. She also met Tom, one of the second-year novices, who asked her how she had enjoyed the Catholic students’ group at Harvard. (Very much, she replied cheerfully if not exactly truthfully.) But I appreciated the effort and understood the spirit in which it was offered.

My parents, particularly my mother, were also not used to being around so many clerics. “Which ones are priests?” she whispered during the afternoon.

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