On occasion I am privileged to visit our Jesuit Community at St. Camillus in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, which we often refer to as our retirement community. However, retirement and Jesuit are two words that seem to never quite fit comfortably together.

All Jesuits take lifelong vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Therefore, to paraphrase recent remarks by our Provincial, we can no more retire from serving the Lord than a parent can retire from being a mother or father.

At the same time,community life is an essential aspect of Jesuit life.Even when a Jesuit’s apostolic life requires he live alone,say as pastor at a remote mission parish,he is assigned to be part of a community with which he is expected to maintain regular contact and be under the supervision of a superior.This has little to do with control and much to do with sustaining the necessary benefits of community life.Just as a family supports its members,our communities also offer support.Friendship,camaraderie, compassion for one another,concern,and so much more are essential elements of our community life – and community life is a key component of our charism as a religious order.

FR. DICK MCGARRITY, SJ PRESIDENT, THE JESUIT PARNERSHIP

Although a Jesuit might work in an isolated place,he is never abandoned and is always part of a larger whole.

Why do we call Camillus our retirement community if we sometimes resist and never really retire from being priests and brothers? Because as our lives progress,we do retire from different vocations within our vocation.A Jesuit might retire from teaching or some other life work, but we continue to serve in a variety of other pastoral and sacramental ministries.

Eventually,since no one eludes forever the diminishment of aging,we have Camillus.About 30 men live there, most of whom require some personal care ranging from limited assisted living to full acute care.I confess,as Iapproach 72,to being among some of my fellow Jesuits who consider Camillus a place they would rather not be. In a way,Camillus is our religious equivalent to an elderly family member moving from their home into a continuing care community of some kind.We equate going there with a loss of independence and personal worth.

Paradoxically,every time I go to Camillus my anxiety about some day going there diminishes as I witness what a vibrant,loving,spiritually transitional community it can be,depending on a combination of one’s desire and physical capabilities.

For example,Fr.Cletus Healy,SJ,85,lives at Camillus yet leaves daily to operate the Catholic Books and Gifts Store in nearby West Allis.Fr.Ken Walleman,SJ,who turns 80 this summer,works three days a week at our Jesuit Partnership office and takes on other pastoral duties when he’s not here.Fr.Robert North,SJ,the subject of a story in this issue of Jesuit Journeys,continues at 87 to write and was published again in an academic journal just last year.Fr.Norb Lemke,SJ,89,receives regular parish assignments.Other members may be less active,but no less apostolic as they continue to pray for the Church,the Society of Jesus,and our world.

Camillus functions as a living community with Fr. Eugene Dutkiewicz,SJ as superior.I recently asked Dutch (what we call Fr.Dutkiewicz for obvious reasons) if my perception of a strong sense of community at Camillus was more real or imagined.

“Real!” he said emphatically.He explained that something quite remarkable happens at Camillus,regardless of where a Jesuit previously has lived or how reluctant he might initially feel about going there.Like any Jesuit who is assigned to a new place,the men at Camillus,perhaps because their entire lives have been filled with similar callings to apostolic assignments,quickly acclimate and form new community bonds – sometimes with old friends and classmates from whom other assignments have separated them for many years.

Your continued prayers and generous support of The Jesuit Partnership help us sustain all our ministries and the communities that support the work of Jesuits throughout the world as we spread the Good News of the Gospel and the message of God’s eternal love. Moreover, this kindness is essential in allowing us to sustain the community at St.Camillus where our elder and infirm men,even as they resist conventional retirement,prepare in simple dignity for the ultimate joy of everlasting life.