Jesuit Journeys
Spring/Summer 2006

Social and International Ministries:
It's a Jubilee Year for Jesuit Volunteers too

By John Sealey

While we celebrate a Jubilee year commemorating three Jesuit giants – St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis Xavier, and Bl. Peter Faber, it seems fitting to their legacy that we also remember the anniversaries of two important, Jesuit-inspired programs.

In addition to the 25th anniversary of Jesuit Refugee Services (Jesuit Journeys – Winter 2006), we also celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) this year. The JVC program, which pre-dates the Peace Corps, started rather informally through a staffing need at the Jesuit mission schools in Copper Valley, Alaska.

As more people expressed interest in volunteering, Fr. Jack Morris, SJ (Oregon Province) took steps to solidify the support and formation elements of the program. From its Alaska/Pacific Northwest origins, new JVC regions sprang up throughout the country. By 1984, the program crossed national borders as Jesuit Volunteer International began placing volunteers in the developing world.

JVC provides an opportunity for direct faith-inspired service to the poor and underserved. Placements (one or more years) range from the Alaskan Yukon to the Gulf Coast, from inner cities in the Midwest and East to Himalayan villages in Nepal. As Jesuit Fr. General Peter- Hans Kolvenbach observed, we are formed more by contact than by concepts. While Jesuit higher education encourages critical thinking and academic excellence as well as shorterterm volunteerism, JVC provides longer term opportunities.

The four guiding principles of JVC life are:

1. Ignatian Spirituality: JVC volunteers come together for regular shared prayer and spiritual conversation. They join a regular parish community and attend regular quarterly retreats. In fact, it is the Jesuit in Jesuit Volunteers that is the strongest descriptor of the program and makes JVC distinctive from other service programs. Volunteers learn and practice the dynamics of the Spiritual Exercises. While it is not pre-requisite that one be Catholic to join JVC, it is understood that volunteers are motivated by faith and desire to share this dimension of themselves with others.

2. Social Justice: JVC placements provide direct service and accompaniment to the economically poor in a variety of sectors including education, youth ministry, nutrition, health, housing and refugee resettlement. Many of the jobs may also include work for social change to improve the lives of the poor through community organizing, public interest law, and immigration reform advocacy.

3. Living Simply: Volunteers pool their modest paychecks to meet their rent, food and retreat expenses. JVC homes are located in modest, working-class neighborhoods and volunteers’ disposable income is a spartan $80 personal monthly stipend. While their peers may think nothing of spending $50 on a concert or shopping spree, JVC volunteers cultivate new outlets for consumption and leisure. They may even examine patterns of attachment in their lives which they can begin to let go of.

4. Community: Volunteers commit to regularly planned meetings, shared meals, chores and community decisions. Living with an intentional commitment to share their lives, joys, and struggles is sometimes the most challenging component of the program in a culture which is increasingly privatized.

These principles often permeate the life values of former volunteers no matter what career option they pursue. Georgetown theologian Fr. Otto Hentz, SJ perceptively called JVC a “novitiate for life.” For many, it serves as an entrée to Jesuit-affiliated career ministries. For some, it’s a step toward a religious vocation. Jesuit novice Luke Hansen observed, “JVC helped me recognize the abundance of gifts and resources that God has given us and how, in some cases, we do not graciously share them with our more vulnerable sisters and brothers.”

Meghan Griffiths, a Manresa Project intern at Marquette University who spent the 2004-05 JVC year in New Orleans, said this about her experience: “I have been blessed with a very clear understanding of why I found myself in New Orleans for my JVC year. I left three weeks before Hurricane Katrina made landfall to take a position at Marquette University Ministry. It was through that experience of intentional living and relationship-building that I am now able to connect others to the relief efforts. New Orleans is a transformational city, and it was through my JVC year there that I learned this lesson: change happens when we allow ourselves to turn to one another and practice radical interdependence with our neighbors and our transcendent God.”