Upon entering the Society of Jesus, it did not take long to realize that often the greatest joy and greatest challenge of novitiate life is living in community.

I entered the novitiate because the persistence of the call was undeniable. There was something about the Society that spoke of a potential, a certain substance I had only glimpsed, unfolding in the lives of Jesuits I had known. I was never convinced the voice in my heart would ask me to stay, but I needed to at least try. And, at the risk of sounding like a schmoe, I wanted to try being like the saints. I wanted to stay up all night in prayer. I wanted to be the young man who leaves everything to follow the Lord.

We share most of our days with the same people, people as varied as the number of Jesuit ministries.With so many different, gifted personalities, egos can collide. Fortunately, one thing we share in common is our desire to trade in our egos for a deeper relationship with Christ through prayer, service and learning in the tradition of Ignatius. As we study the Ignatian way of proceeding, we learn to come together as a community, ultimately learning to love one another as creations of God walking together as friends and disciples of Jesus.
At least, this is the ideal. How this plays itself out is often, depending on one’s perspective, a little bit more ridiculous, comical, maddening, dysfunctional, etc. Luckily, I have no doubts about God having a divine sense of humor, so the revelation of his presence in the following story is not lost on me. I hear him laugh every time I tell it.

One morning, after spending a week of mornings painting walls in the novitiate, I was informed by a fellow novice that my brush technique needed work. There I was, going about my (novice) master’s business, when this “brother” of mine actually reached over and took the brush from my hands while explaining how I might correct my form. I was livid.

“ What does he know?!” I thought.“ I have painted so many times…! I
was a Theatre major! I know all about how to spread paint! I can’t
believe his nerve, talking to me like I know nothing.”