jesuit bulletin - fall 2013

jesuitFa l l 2013

B u l l e t i n

Celebrating 150 Years of Service

JESUITS OF THE MISSOURI PR

OV

INC

E1 thO1863

2013

2 Jesuit | Fall 2013

Dear Friends,

“Moved with a desire of serving you …” Last month, nine young jesuits professed their first vows at our novitiate in

Grand Coteau, La. in words that jesuits have spoken since the 16th century, they described themselves as moved with a desire to serve the Lord. Like the French jesuits who traveled the Mississippi in the 18th century and the Belgians who navigated the Missouri in the 19th, like the italian jesuit pioneers in Colorado and the British in Belize, like hundreds of jesuits who have ministered in the Missouri Province since it was formally established 150 years ago, these young men desire today to serve the mission of Christ, to be sent to “places others do not reach,” as Pope Benedict said.

Where would anyone get the nerve to talk like that? if we looked just at our-selves, we could not be so bold. the vows begin not in our desires but in God’s desires for us. in words addressed to God, a jesuit taking first vows describes himself first as “relying on your infinite goodness and mercy,” and only then as “moved with a desire of serving you.” everything begins in the divine love that creates, heals, calls, strengthens, raises to new life and remains forever. On the feast of st. ignatius, at the church of the jesuits in Rome, Pope Francis reminded us that we are just clay pots but still able to carry the love of God.

the mission of the worldwide society of jesus today is the service of faith and promotion of justice in dialogue with cultures and in part-nership with many other people. today, in the name of the jesuits of the province, i want to thank you for your partnership with us.

thank you for serving as presidents, principals and trustees of jesuit schools, as teachers, coaches, counselors and housekeeping staff. thank you for serving on parish councils, for working with children and young adults and for your social and liturgical ministries. thank you for your support of jesuit retreat houses, for your prayers and your friendship.

thank you, too, for your financial support of the province. Your contributions allow us to help start new apostolic works, like Arrupe jesuit High school in Denver and Loyola Academy in st. Louis, and to assist works that face particular challenges, like those in Belize. You allow us to provide good nursing care to elderly jesuits at Fusz Pavilion in st. Louis. today, i want to ask especially for your help in covering the cost of training those nine recently vowed young jesuits and others like them so that, however province lines might be redrawn, we will have young jesuits willing and ready to serve here for another 150 years.

Let us go forward now, relying on God’s infinite goodness and mercy and moved with the desire of serving him.

message from the provincial

Douglas W. Marcouiller, SJ Missouri Provincial

“everything begins in the divine love that creates, heals, calls,

strengthens, raises to new life and remains forever.”

contents

special issue

4 | Jubilarians 8 | On Becoming a Province the story behind the 1863 decree

10 | Time Capsule Jesuits who represent our heritage

16 | Frontier Legacy Adventurous rule-breakers

18 | Snapshot By the numbers

20 | Guide to Our Past Fr. Walter Hill

26 | Learning to Love Contemplating our memories

28 | Today’s Frontiers Young Jesuits look to the future

EditorThomas M. Rochford SJ

Associate EditorCheryl Wittenauer

DesignerTracy Gramm

Advancement DirectorThom Digman

4

28Cover:Engraving by Fred T. Larson

shows the hope that something great would develop from simple beginnings.

10

8

20


jubilarians 2013

James Burshek, 67, has held a variety of posts, including service as province socius and treasurer, theology teacher and interim high school president. He currently is director of White House Retreat and a retreat and spiritual director.

in the Society50Years

Karl Swift, 80, a jesuit brother, has performed various works in his native

Belize and currently serves as pastoral minister for the jesuit community of Belize.

Paul Sheridan, 70, held administrative positions in various social ministries before moving

into jesuit high school leadership in 1997, when he began serving as president of st. Louis university High school. He currently is president of Bellarmine College Preparatory school in san jose, Calif.

Ralph Huse, 67, has held various pastoral positions as pastor, retreat director and chaplain and is a former

novice director. He currently serves as a retreat and spiritual director at White House Retreat.

John Mueller, 68, who holds a doctorate in theology from the Graduate theological union in

Berkeley, Calif., has been a professor of theology at Gonzaga and saint Louis universities. He is a former chair of the sLu theology department.

Fall 2013 | Jesuit 5

Richard Vogt, 81, taught high school (Rockhurst, Regis, st. Louis university

and De smet), was associate pastor at several parishes, directed Hispanic ministry at Rockhurst university and the Diocese of Gary, ind., and was pastoral minister of Casa de salud medical clinic in st. Louis.

in the Priesthood50Years

James Blumeyer, 82, is assistant director of the ignatian spirituality Center in

Kansas City, Mo., which he directed when it began in 2001. Prior to that, he served nearly 20 years at Rockhurst university as campus ministry director, assistant dean, dean, vice president, and coordinator of mission and ministry. He held similar mission and ministry posts at saint Louis university. He also served as the provincial’s assistant for formation.

Robert Costello, 84, used his doctorate in counseling from the university of Missouri-Kansas City in his position as a staff psychologist for the u.s. penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kan. He also taught psychology at Rockhurst university, was Missouri provincial, president of st. Louis university High school, a counselor at southdown institute outside of toronto, ecclesial assistant for Christian Life Communities in Birmingham, england, and st. Louis, and faculty chaplain at De smet High school.

Gene Martens, 81, taught at Rockhurst High school, served the Diocese of springfield, Mo., was a

parish pastor, and associate director of province development for 20 years.


70 Years in the Society• RobertBosken, 87, a St. Louis native with advanced degrees and who studied in Brussels and Paris, spent a career teaching theology in his home town.

• WilliamUdick, 88, who grew up in Denver, received his doctorate in psychology from Boston College and went on to teach and do pastoral work in his home town.

• RalphVonderhaar, 87, who grew up in Omaha and St. Louis, taught math and science at St. Francis Mission in South Dakota, St. John’s College in Belize City and in St. Louis.

• LeoWeber, 87, who is a Denver native, studied at London University and was a two-time president of St. John’s College in Belize City, superior of the Belize Mission, Missouri provincial, and filled various pastoral roles. He has been chaplain of Arrupe Jesuit High School since 2005.

60 Years in the Society • E.EugeneArthur, 77, who has a doctorate in business administration from Indiana University, spent a career teaching business administration, economics and management at Rockhurst University, and has been a retreat director at Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat House in Sedalia, Colo., since 2000.

• PeterBayhi (NOR), 79, a native New Orleanian, taught high school in Dallas, New Orleans, Chicago and the Bronx, and served as a pastor, retreat director and hospital chaplain.

• JamesCostello, 82, a St. Louis native, taught and served as principal of St. John’s College in Belize, directed retreats, served as a chaplain, did campus ministry and other pastoral work. He is associate pastor of St. Francis Xavier (College) Church.

• MichaelDurso, 78, with advanced degrees from Saint Louis University, spent a career teaching, counseling and serving as principal of Jesuit high schools. The St. Louis native teaches English at De Smet Jesuit High School.

• WilliamHutchison, 78, who has a doctorate in social work from the University of Michigan, was professor of social work for more than 30 years at Saint Louis University, where he also led the Institute of Applied Gerontology. He also was assistant pastor at St. Matthew’s parish in St. Louis, and worked for the Jesuit Conference and Catholic Charities USA.

• LammertOtten, 81, who has a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Missouri, taught the same at Missouri, Saint Louis, Rockhurst and Seattle universities, and worked at the Vatican Observatory and the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Lab. He taught appropriate technology in Kasisi, Zambia, and is a consultant in the field for Monze Diocese, Zambia.

• JamesWalsh, 78, taught and led the social apostolate at St. John’s College in Belize City, and held several pastoral jobs in Belize and in his native Colorado.

RobertBosken WilliamUdick RalphVonderhaar

LeoWeber E.EugeneArthur

PeterBayhi JamesCostello MichaelDurso WilliamHutchison LammertOtten


25 Years in the Society • BernardBarry, 51, has taught at St. John’s College, been a campus minister at Saint Louis University and served as an assistant dean at Fordham. He currently is treasurer for the New Orleans Province.

• GaryMenard, 49, has taught math and computer science at Regis Jesuit High School and was director of pastoral activities at Rockhurst High School. He currently is assistant principal at Arrupe Jesuit High School.

• JoséAntonioVega, 53, who has a doctorate in educational administration, has spent nearly all his career at St. John’s College in his native Belize. He has served as headmaster and associate dean in the school of professional studies, and currently is director of the evening program at St. John’s Junior College.

60 Years in the Priesthood• CharlesHeiser(WIS), 91, spent most of his career as a librarian at St. Mary’s College and Saint Louis University. He has a master’s degree in library science from Catholic University of America in Washington.

• EdwardMaginnis, 90, had a long career as religious studies and music teacher and professor at Regis College, a visiting theology lecturer at Gonzaga University, the provincial’s assistant for higher education, and campus minister and alumni chaplain at Regis University.

25 Years in the Priesthood• JamesGoeke, 55, taught high school, was assistant pastor, and was a hospital chaplain for 13 years in St. Louis before being named last year as socius to the novice director of New Orleans- Missouri’s novitiate in Louisiana.

• GreggGrovenburg, 55, has taught at Rockhurst High School and St. John’s College in Belize, where he also directed Trinidad Farms, a Jesuit retreat house. He is a campus minister at Loyola University-New Orleans following similar stints at Fairfield and Rockhurst universities.

• PatrickQuinn, 57, with degrees in theology and computer engineering, has had dual careers in computer and information systems and campus ministry. A former minister of Bellarmine House of Studies and campus minister at Saint Louis University, he is now at St. Matthew the Apostle Church.

• JesúsRiveroll, 63, has spent his entire career at St. John’s College in Belize. He currently teaches philosophy and English at St. John’s Junior College.

JamesWalsh BernardBarry

EdwardMaginnis JamesGoeke GreggGrovenburg PatrickQuinn JesúsRiveroll

GaryMenard

JoséAntonioVega CharlesHeiser

Mary Queen of the Society stained glass window at St. Francis Xavier (College) Church


F r. Pieter jan Beckx was superior general from 1853 to 1883, the second-longest term of leadership in

the history of the society of jesus. During that span, he oversaw an extraordinary expansion of the society all over the world but also had to deal with the expulsion of jesuits from many countries in europe and Latin America including Germany, spain, French colonies, even Rome.

the Missouri jesuits realized that they weren’t following the conventional patterns that had been perfected in europe, but argued that the situation on the frontier did not allow the luxury of many years of study. they were responding with energy, generosity and availability to the needs of a rapidly growing Church.

When the first group of Belgian jesuits arrived in Missouri in 1823, st. Louis was still a small frontier town with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants, but by 1850, it was one of the 10 largest cities in the country with 80,000 residents. New immigrants and rapid population growth led to conflict and a power struggle about future development. in the 1840s and ‘50s, st. Louis became the leading immigrant city in the West. By 1860, one-third of the city’s residents were born in Germany. Most of them opposed slavery and favored the kind of business development found back east. that led to conflict with the older, pro-slavery st. Louis elite whose wealth came from the fur trade and land speculation.

Rapid growth brought demands for pastoral service to the people pouring into the center of the country. Bishops asked for help establishing parishes and offered more locations than the jesuits could accept. in addition to parishes and missions for Native Americans, early Missouri jesuits took on two colleges that had been founded by bishops: st. Louis College and st. joseph’s College in Bardstown, Ky. they established st. Xavier College in Cincinnati and started a parish in Chicago.

the German congregation that gathered in a chapel at the old campus of saint Louis university at Ninth and Washington streets built their own parish church, st. joseph’s, in 1846 and then replaced it with a larger church in 1865. By 1870, st. joseph’s was the largest parish in the city.

the number of jesuits grew from the original band of 11 to 195 in 1863.

“As the Missouri Province expanded, there were a lot of jesuits here, especially many of the older ones, that had seen the beginning of this place from absolutely

On Becoming a ProvinceHow an Italian Jesuit’s Visit Changed Missouri’s Fortunes

province history

By Thomas Rochford SJ

At that point, the only two provinces in the english-speaking world were england and Maryland. the Missouri mission was governed directly by the general before it became a vice-province in 1840, but the odds for it becoming an independent province in the near future were slim. Beckx, like his predecessor, Fr. jan Roothaan, thought the Missouri jesuits had taken on too many parishes and should focus their energy on fewer works. He also was concerned about what he saw as a lack of formation of young jesuits who spent more time teaching than studying.

Jesuit scholastics at Saint Louis University ca. 1882.


nothing,” jesuit historian Fr. john Padberg said. “Before they died, they wanted to see all of their work recognized as a fully estab-lished province of the society.”

so in 1861, Beckx sent an italian jesuit, Fr. Felix sopranis, as his emissary to assess the situation.

“And he made it very clear to the people here that the main reason up to this point for not establishing this vice-province as a full province was the fact that it simply did not have people fully trained in accord with the ordinary customs and legislation of the society,” Padberg said.

in one of his reports, sopranis criticized as premature even the establishment of the vice-province in 1840.

Local jesuits themselves were critical. “the radical defect which one might charge against

our Vice-Province is that it did too much for others and too little for ourselves,” wrote Fr. isidore Boudreaux, an official of the vice-province, in 1860.

“it was founded by novices or, to speak more correctly, by men who never made what might properly be called a novitiate. they saw an amount of good to be done on every side. they wanted to do all the good that offered itself. they devoted, sacrificed themselves and sacrificed those who came to join them. Not knowing precisely in what the training of a jesuit consisted, they had no adequate regard for such training and thought it was enough to devote themselves to the salvation of souls without troubling themselves too much about spirituality or studies.”

even the man who would become the first Missouri provincial in 1863 saw his own formation shortcomings.

“All the time i have been in the society, i have been occupied with duties without having a single year free for study,” Fr. Ferdinand Coosemans wrote in an 1866 letter to Beckx. “For one year only did i study dogma, but i failed my examination, partly for a lack of talent, partly because of the distractions occasioned by the pre-fecting and teaching. i was ordained a priest that same year. superiors no doubt did not foresee that i should one day find myself in my present position, Provincial of the Missouri Province.”

As sopranis visited the schools and parishes, he saw the Missouri jesuits had the resources to maintain their

works. the jesuits had learned what they needed by doing apostolic work, and they had learned how to train young jesuits for the future. “After he’d been here for a second visit, he changed his mind and agreed with the people here that, yes, it was time,” Padberg said.

sopranis recommended that Beckx elevate Missouri to

a province.“Were this to be done, so i judge,

it would help mightily to raise the spir-its of those Fathers, who, without any fault

of their own indeed, are destitute of higher studies but not of a genuine love of the society and

of an efficacious will to devote themselves heart and soul and this even beyond measure to the AMDG according to the spirit of the same society.”

Beckx had cited the shortage of properly trained men for his unwillingness to make Missouri a province.

“this shortage has not yet been corrected, though it begins now to be so, and therefore to foster this good will i am ready indeed to grant this favor,” he said. “But does not the uncertain state of the country suggest delay?”

Beckx had reason for caution. Missouri was in the center of a three-way struggle among the cultures, politics and economies of the North, the south and the West. the threat of attacks loomed over st. Louis at the Civil War’s mid-point in 1863. students from the south could not travel to saint Louis university or st. joseph’s College. jesuits had sympathies on both sides.

Nevertheless, the jesuit leader in Rome decided to grant Missouri’s wish to become a province. On Dec. 3, 1863, on the Feast of st. Francis Xavier, 194 jesuits assumed the title of the “Missouri Province” with Coosemans as the first provincial superior.

“the grave old fathers were absolutely ecstatic and the grave young fathers and scholastics felt, ‘Yeah, we’re going enterprise. the whole society recognizes we are as legitimate as any place else in the world where the jesuits had existed for a long time,’” Padberg said.

“it’s very hard for us to put ourselves back into those circumstances. they started with nothing, and here they were not that far along the line. Forty years later, they were a full province. that’s extraordinary; it really is.”

Fr. Ferdinand Coosemans


18631887

Y ou could describe the Missouri Province geographically, by the states it includes; or insti-

tutionally, by the schools, parishes and retreat houses it sponsors. Or best of all, you could describe the province by the men who make it up. the jubilarians who are profiled in the beginning of this magazine offer a sample of living jesuits who serve the Church in a rich mix of ways.

Over the span of 150 years since the Missouri Province was established by decree, thousands and thousands of men, each with his own accent and story, have been part of this particular band of the society of jesus. Here is a sample from the recent past. some names will be familiar because a jesuit won recognition for his ministry, but many did not. Rather, all of these men represent religious life faithfully carried out.

1921

Time Capsule

Jesuits who representour heritage

MissiOnsFr.MarionGaney(1904-1984) pioneered the credit union movement in Belize in 1943, giving people a practical way to solve their economic and social problems. He later took the credit unions to Fiji.


folio heading200319671979

2013Province Founders

Six benefactors have made such significant gifts that they have been recognized as honorary founders of the Missouri Province. Their generosity has touched the lives of thousands of people through institutions that their gifts have made possible.

AnnaBacker was a major benefactor of St. Louis University High School and St. Francis Xavier (College) Church.

HarrietFordyce donated property and money to Saint Louis University for expansion and endowment as well as a gift that enabled the building of a chapel at St. John’s College.

EdwardandMargaretDoisy established an endowment and donated toward the construction of buildings and expansions at Saint Louis University.

VirginiaGreenlease donated works of art, land and money to Jesuit institutions in Kansas City, including the land and construction costs for Rockhurst High School.

ThomasNevin was a major benefactor of his alma mater, Regis College (now university) in Denver and donated land to protect Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat House, Sedalia, Colo., from surrounding development.

RichardCampbell donated land in Aurora, Colo., for the new site of Regis Jesuit High School and was the driving force behind Arrupe Jesuit, a college-prep high school for economically disadvantaged kids in Denver.

In addition, LouisFuszSr., the father of two Missouri Jesuits, was named a founder of institutions that up until the 1990s were used for forming Jesuits. Fusz Pavilion for infirm and elderly Jesuits currently carries the family name.

Fr.RonaldZinkle(1928-2006) learned the missions as teacher and dean of St. John’s College in Belize, then applied the experience to fundraising as long-time director of the old Jesuit Mission Bureau. He also pastored three parishes in his native Wisconsin.

BishopRobertHodapp(1910-1989) was bishop of Belize from 1958 to 1984. He arrived in the former British Honduras in 1936 to teach Latin and English. Under his leadership, the diocese expanded schools, fostered greater lay involvement and more native priests, and appointed a native priest as auxiliary bishop.


| | | | | | | | | | | 1863 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1870 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1873 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1875 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1877 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1878 | | | | | | | | | |

Dec. 3, 1863Father General Peter Jan Beckx issues decree establishing the Missouri Province

1873St. Elizabeth is founded as a parish for black Catholics in St. Louis.

1870St. Ignatius College and High School opens in Chicago.

1877Sacred Heart College and High School opens in

Las Vegas, N.M., and then moves to Morrison, Colo. It will eventually become Regis College.

1869German Jesuits, who founded the Buffalo Mission, take over St. Mary’s Church in Toledo, Ohio.

1875Holy Trinity Parish is founded in Trinidad, Colo.

1878Creighton University and High School is founded in Omaha, Neb.

1877Detroit College and High School is founded in Detroit, Mich.

EducAtionFr.RichardBailey(1927-2006) was aprincipal and later president at St. Louis University High School where he honed his fundraising skills, later applied at De Smet High School, where he was president.

Fr.LeoBrown(1900-1978), a Harvard Ph.D. in labor economics, was a labor

mediator and arbitrator and director of the Institute of

Social Studies, which opened in 1944 to train Jesuits around

the country in sociology, political science and economics.

Fr.FrankCarey(1913-1995) was a World War II veteran who drove around

the Midwest recruiting students for Rockhurst College.

Fr.AugustineG.Ellard(1892-1970) was professor of ascetic theology at St. Mary’s, Kan., and friend and counselor of generations of Jesuit scholastics studying theology.

Fr.FrankFahey(1910-1996)taught chemistry first at Kapaun High School in

Wichita, Kan., and then at Rockhurst High School. He was a very effective counselor

in an informal way after class.

Classics professor Fr.GeorgeGanss(1906-2000) translated “The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus” and other

primary documents for the first time, the first steps toward his establishing the Institute of Jesuit Sources in St. Louis.

Fr.RobertHenle(1909-2000) wrote Latin grammar textbooks that are still used today, taught philosophy and served as academic vice president at Saint Louis University and was president of Georgetown University in Washington.

President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan.1,1863, declaring that all slaves in areas still in rebellion are, in the eyes of the federal government, free. Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s northward advance ends July 3 in defeat at the Battle of Gettysburg. Several hundred Missouri guerrillas led by William Clarke Quantrill raid the abolitionist town of Lawrence, Kan.


| | | | | | | | | | | 1881 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1886 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1888 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1893 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1907 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1910 | | | | | | | | | |

1887The British Province establishes St. John’s College in Belize, Central America.

1881Marquette University and High School is founded in Milwaukee, Wis.

1888Saint Louis University moves to property at Grand and Lindell in St. Louis.

1888Sacred Heart College and High School moves to Denver.

1910Rockhurst College and High

School is founded in Kansas City, Mo.

1913The Queen’s Work publishing

house begins in St. Louis.

1886German Jesuits from the Buffalo Mission found St. Francis and Holy Rosary Missions in South Dakota.

1893The Missouri Province takes responsibility for the British Honduras Mission.

Fr.JohnKavanaugh(1941-2012)was a popular preacher and philosophy teacher at Saint Louis University, columnist and author. He lectured on consumerism, culture, faith and medical ethics.

Fr.PhilKellett(1907-1973) was a fixture at St. Louis U. High as a

Latin teacher and an avid sports fan. Although he suffered from stuttering,

he was an effective preacher and a powerful influence on students,

especially after school in individual counseling.

Fr.CarlKloster(1917-2003)

as principal, and later as president,

oversaw Rockhurst High School’s

transition from Rockhurst College

onto its own campus and identity in 1962.

Renowned scholar and lecturerFr.WalterOng(1913-2003)showed how communication shapes thoughts, relationships and cultures. He studied under Marshall McLuhan in the 1930s and ‘40s at Saint Louis University and was later quoted by the media culture guru.

President Fr.PaulReinert(1910-2001) led Saint Louis University to national stature, admitting the first women to the College of Arts and Sciences, and appointing majority laity to its board of trustees, a first for Catholic colleges.

Physicist and meteorologist Br.GeorgeRueppel(1864-1947)started WEW, the nation’s second- oldest radio station in 1921, transmitting weather

reports, music, daily devotionals, even a cooking show from Saint Louis University.

Fr.AlphonseSchwitalla(1882-1965) was one of the most influential Jesuits of his day, nationally eminent in medical education and hospital administration.

1907The apostolates

and 195 men of the Buffalo

Mission transfer to the Missouri

Province.


| | | | | | | | | | | 1919 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1922 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1931 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1946 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1955 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1961 | | | | | | | | | |

1919The 77 Jesuits

in the state of Colorado

become part of the

Missouri Province

rather than the New Mexico

Mission.

1921WEW radio station begins broadcasting from the Saint Louis University campus.

1922White House Retreat begins operations.

1943Fr. Marion Ganey pioneers the

credit union movement in Belize.

1931Eleven Jesuits

die when monster

hurricane hits St. John’s

College.

1946Missouri Jesuits begin to serve in the Republic of Honduras.

1957Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat House opens in Sedalia, Colo.

1924St. Louis U. High School moves to Oakland Avenue

in St. Louis.

1951Missouri Jesuits open Nirmala College at the national university in Delhi, India.

PastOral and sPiritual

Fr.WilliamL.Wade(1906-1968) was a memorable philosophy professor, a master of argument in and out of the classroom, who taught Jesuit scholastics and other students at Saint Louis University.

Br.ThomasThornton(1919-2005), with only a high school education, managed the bookstore at St. Louis University High School for nearly 30 years, befriending students and the Mother’s Club and keeping operations low-tech, preferring a shoebox to a cash register.

Fr.MauriceVanAckeren(1912-1997) oversaw Rockhurst University’s transition to a co-educational institu-tion in 1969 during his 25-year tenure as president, and later chancellor. The charismatic Rockhurst legend was known for his fund-raising and political acumen, as well as for civic leadership and visibility that earned him the “Mr. Kansas City Award” from the Chamber of Commerce.

Fr.CharlesDismasClark(1901-1963) was an Army chaplain and key figure in the group of Jesuits who went from parish to parish giving missions. He was a friend to ex-offenders and founder of Dismas (halfway) House in St. Louis; his work was memorialized in the movie, “The Hoodlum Priest.”

Fr.DanielLord (1888-1955)was a

popular Catholic writer, playwright and media

consultant who drafted a code of decency for motion pictures in the 1930s. He also was a

youth organizer, national director of the Sodality of

Our Lady, and edited its publication, The

Queen’s Work.


| | | | | | | | | | | 1967 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1979 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1990 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 2003 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 2009 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 2013 | | | | | | | | | |

1967De Smet Jesuit High School is established in St. Louis.

1979Jesuits helped found Cardinal Ritter Prep in St. Louis.

1990Classes begin at Regis

Jesuit High’s new campus in Aurora.

2004The Girls Division of Regis Jesuit High School moves into the original building on the Aurora campus and the Boys Division moves into a new building.

2009Missouri novices help start the new St. Stanislaus Kostka Novitiate at St. Charles College in Grand Coteau, La.

2013Missouri Province celebrates

its sesquicentennial.

2003Arrupe Jesuit High School opens in Denver, serving poor students through the Cristo Rey model of secondary education.

2014Missouri and New Orleans Provinces form the Central and Southern Province.

Fr.FelixZiccardi(1890-1964) the “fiery bandmaster of Trinidad,” who directed a boys’ band and was pastor

of a predominately Italian parish in Trinidad, Colo.,

from 1923 to 1949. Ziccardi preached in Italian,

Spanish and English. His name lives on in a Trinidad

community center.

Fr.FerdinandCoosemans(1823-1878) guided Missouri through the transition from vice-province to province as the first provincial. His nine years of leadership spanned the Civil War years and the critical period of Reconstruction.

Jesuit FOrMatiOn and adMinistratiOn

Fr.WilliamMarkoe(1892-1969) and his brother, Fr.JohnMarkoe(1890-1967) were lifelong advocates of African Americans, pushing for change within the Catholic Church and in broader society. William Markoe

was pastor of St. Elizabeth Church and a St. Louis leader in social and religious issues. John Markoe was a West Point grad who went from gridiron glory to leading sit-ins, marches and boycotts long before they made national headlines.

Fr.FrancisWeninger(1805-1888), an Austria-born Jesuit who left Europe for the U.S.

in the middle of the 19th Century, traveling widely, preaching, conducting missions and

writing books in multiple languages.

Fr.JosephFisher (1914-1997) provided solid leadership and common sense as novice master and provincial during a time when rules were strictly enforced and inflexible. (l to r: Fr. Fisher, Fr. Pedro Arrupe and Ralph Passarelli)

Fr.RobertDoyle(1919-2002) was rector of Fusz Memorial at Saint Louis University, providing stable leadership during the turbulent period in the late

1960s. He served as treasurer at the provincial office and as a retreat director.


province character

t he first jesuits of what would become the Missouri Province may have committed a faux

pas when their superior refused a simple gesture of wel-come to the frontier of the Florissant Valley when they arrived in 1823.

Fr. Charles Felix Van Quickenborne famously snubbed Rose Philippine Duchesne’s gift of apple pie by insisting his men did not need the French missionary woman’s charity. she went on to canonization. He is largely unknown outside Missouri jesuit circles.

it’s easy to see from the vantage of 190 years that the serious and single-minded Belgian jesuit might have been more grateful, even celebratory of the feat that he and his cohorts had managed: seven novices, two brothers and two priests had arrived safely in Missouri after traveling from Maryland by raft and on foot with only a copy of “the River Man’s Guide” to steer them.

jesuit historian, Fr. john Padberg, described Missouri jesuits today and throughout their history as hard working, sober-minded and lacking in ability to celebrate life’s little victories.

“i think we are unimaginative in many of the small details of daily living,” Padberg said. “We don’t really know how to celebrate very well, but we’re greatly, extraordinarily imaginative in seeing new possibilities and taking on new apostolates (ministries).

“We’ve been that way from the beginning and we continue to be that way.”

those early Belgian jesuits and the men who suc-ceeded them were adventurers and entrepreneurs with an “apostolic itch” to do the work that was so obviously needed, Padberg said.

“the impulse toward apostolic work was very deep in the founding genes or charism of the Missouri Province,” he said.

the jesuits had come at the invitation of Louis Du Bourg, bishop of the Louisiana territory, who had given them land in Florissant, 20 miles north of st. Louis. With that and a subsidy from the u.s. government, the jesuits within a year of their arrival had started a school for Native American boys that they operated for a few years.

But as the influx of european settlers into Missouri pushed indians further west, the need for an indian school diminished. Meanwhile, Du Bourg was looking

for someone to take over the fledgling st. Louis College that had opened in 1818 in st. Louis.

seeing an opportunity and a need, the jesuits took it over in 1827, and a year

later, opened a new college build-ing west of the original campus with money from mission-funding societ-ies in Germany, Belgium and France.

they were on their way, securing articles of incorporation from the

Missouri legislature, initiating the first-ever business curriculum at a jesuit school

– to the consternation of authorities in Rome – and obtaining a waiver from jesuit rules that forbade them from charging tuition. Other jesuit schools would follow suit.

“they made it clear,” Padberg said. “‘if you want us to stay and exercise this apostolate, then we have to exer-cise it in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.’

“it was the jesuits here in st. Louis that did that.”in his history of 19th Century jesuits of the Midwest,

jesuit Fr. Gilbert Garraghan wrote that early Missouri jesuits had “an absorbing devotion to work, a readiness to spend and be spent in the service of the neighbor.”

But he notes that superior General jan Philipp Roothaan found his Missouri charges to be unconven-tional and unconcerned with jesuit precedent and tradi-tion, partly due to their lack of formal jesuit training, but also because the needs of the frontier required modifying the rules.

Adventurous, enterprising Rule-Breakers: Frontier Legacy shapes a Province

By Cheryl Wittenauer

“A readiness to spend and be spent

in the service of the neighbor.”


the Missouri jesuits continued to respond to needs all around them despite language barriers, limited resources and men, and difference of opinion about which ministries were most critical. superiors in europe and others worried they were taking on too much, to the detriment of adequately forming men.

Missionary Fr. Peter De smet, one of the novices in the original 1823 party, embodied the early jesuits’ adventurous streak. More interested in parish work and missions than schools, De smet traveled tens of thousands of miles in the West, exploring and establish-ing missions, and acting as quasi ambassador to Native Americans and the europeans who funded his work.

David Miros, a scholar who directs the Midwest jesuit Archives in st. Louis, said he would describe Missouri Province jesuits as cautious, enterprising, engaged, disciplined, religious, flexible, ambitious, patriotic, open, optimistic and even cosmopolitan.

He finds the latter trait in American-born jesuit Rudolph Meyer, twice a Missouri provincial and rec-tor of saint Louis university in the 1880s, who, he said used skill and balance to enfold the German-led Buffalo Mission into the Missouri Province in 1907. the prod-uct of an irish mother and a German father in a city of immigrants, st. Louis, Meyer wanted to discourage ethnic divisions among jesuits living in community, and

called for the rewriting of “custom books” to reflect the diversity of acceptable practices in houses as well as stan-dards for recreation and celebration. He wanted to make sure that German-born jesuits of the Buffalo Mission felt they were an integral part of the newly shaped Missouri Province, not a mere appendage, Miros said.

He credits the Missouri jesuits’ openness for their ministry with African Americans in the 19th Century, long before blacks were afforded civil rights. A parish mission in 1864 at st. joseph’s, a historically German par-ish in st. Louis, encouraged veneration of relics of jesuit Peter Claver, a spanish missionary to African slaves.

“that (Fr.) Francis Weninger was putting on a mis-sion for German Catholics in a city torn by civil war and was promoting the cause of a jesuit who ministered to African slaves was not coincidental,” Miros said. “there was a teaching principle implicit in his choice.”

in the summer of 1868, five years after the prov-ince’s founding, the first provincial congregation of the Missouri jesuits convened in st. Louis. Fr. isidore Boudreaux, province consultor, wrote an account of it to then-superior General Peter Beckx.

“it was a very consoling sight for all to see this happy beginning,” he wrote. “God seems to bless our little province. ... it depends then on us to fill the role which Providence seems to assign us.”

Missouri Jesuits en route to found Western missions in 1841 (Drawing by Fr. Nicholas Point)


by the numbers

20142010

2000

1990

1980

1970

1960

1950

1940

1930

1920

1910

1900

1890

1880

1870

1860

1850

Missouri Province by the Numbersthe mission of the Missouri Province remains constant, but the boundaries steadily evolved as frontier outposts became major cities and schools developed into sophisticated institutions. A few facts illustrate its changing shape.

4 Number of Jesuit provinces in the U.S. that developed from the roots of the first men who arrived at Florissant in 1823

Number of states where Missouri Jesuits were working in 1840 when Missouri became a viceprovince

Number of provincials of the Missouri Province since the decree establishing it in 1863

The Missouri Vice-Province in 1840

1840

7

26

1,295 The largest-ever number of province members, in 1928

2Number of English-speaking provinces before Missouri became a province

24Number of countries where Missouri Jesuits have served as part of the world-wide Society of Jesus

snapshot


Missouri Province by the Numbers

Number of states, plus Belize, that will make up the new province

Number of square miles

The province in 1929 at its largest size before Chicago and Wisconsin provinces split off

11Number of high schools

1,001,87514

The Central and Southern Province will begin in 2014.

The Missouri Province since 1955

Number of retreat or spirituality centers

7

13Number of Parishes

Number of colleges and universities6

New Central and Southern Province Numberssnapshot

416 Number of Jesuits currently in Missouri and New Orleans provinces


By thomas Rochford sj

F rom a distance of 150 years, it is hard to get a feel for what it

was like to be a jesuit in the begin-nings of the Missouri Province. Names such as De smet and Van Quickenborne resonate, but little is known about most of the men who built up the province.

Fortunately, one early jesuit left his memoirs. When Walter Hill (1822-1907) entered the novitiate at Florissant in 1847, the log cabin that the pioneers built on their arrival was still in use. By the time he died in 1907, College Church served the new saint Louis university campus on Grand Boulevard. in between, his life stitched together many of the themes that jesuits celebrate in the story of the Missouri Province’s 150th anniversary.

As a novice, Hill led the jesuit party from st. Louis to Bardstown, Ky., to take over st. joseph’s College. He was president of Xavier College in Cincinnati and executive assistant to the first Missouri provincial. He became a philosophy professor and wrote the first textbooks in english on scholastic philosophy. He wrote the first history of saint Louis university and served as a parish priest in Chicago.

Hill is a guide to the tumultuous years in which the Missouri Province took shape.

“He was a man of medium height, stockily built and of uniform good health, living to the ripe age of 85,” according to jesuit historian Gilbert j. Garraghan. “He was a vig-orous, stalwart personality, an enemy

of all pretension and sham, and had qualities of mind and heart that won him numerous friends.”

Hill was born to a large Catholic family on a farm near Lebanon, Ky. His grandfather emigrated from england to southern Maryland, which remained a Catholic strong-hold in the early colonies after the first english jesuit missionaries came with Lord Baltimore in 1636. Later, Hill’s parents migrated to the Kentucky territory where a growing Catholic population drew French jesuits from New Orleans to serve them. they began teaching in 1831 at st. Mary’s College in Lebanon, about 68 miles southeast of Louisville.

Hill’s parents died before he reached college age, so studying at st. Mary’s was difficult.

A Guide to Our Past


“My sister having made for me with her own hand a new jeans jacket and a pair of pantaloons, i went to st. Mary’s, between Christmas and New Year’s Day 1835, and was put into a grammar and arithmetic class in which i had no great success,” Hill wrote in his autobiography. “Most of the students were of aristocratic families, but in general they treated me well, better than i merited.”

“in the spring of 1837 i again was put to work on the farm, tak-ing my meals and rest along with the hired men; during all the time i worked, i was under an overseer who ruled both slaves and the white men and boys employed to work on the farm of some 400 acres.”

the young student worked for his tuition, first in the college’s flour

mill and later in the sawmill where he was known for his skill in man-aging the oxen that hauled the great logs down the mountainside to the mill. He began the regular classi-cal course in 1839 and received his bachelor’s degree four years later. He taught at the college during graduate studies, which he finished in 1846.

From the very beginning, jesuit missionaries in the united states

faced difficult choices about where to invest their energies. they asked which small frontier outpost would grow to be the right place for estab-lishing high-quality schools in the jesuit tradition? One would need a crystal ball to make the right choice, and the first choices often did not work out.

a memoir

“Hill was a vigorous,

stalwart personality,

an enemy of all

pretension and sham,

and had qualities

of mind and heart

that won him

numerous friends.”

St. Louis riverfront (left); Kentucky farm (above); St. Stanislaus Seminary,

Florissant, Mo. (right).

Fr. Walter Hill


in 1846, the French jesuits decided to leave st. Mary’s for New York, were Archbishop john Hughes “offered them the Fordham property then known as Rose Hill College,” Hill wrote. “they determined to quit the diocese of Kentucky for more genial fields of labor.”

the Kentucky native went the other direction, moving to st. Louis to study medicine at saint Louis university. He grew dissatisfied with medical studies and was drawn to religious life. He also was engaged to be married, and did not know what to do, so his confessor suggested that he make a retreat.

“i made up a little parcel of linen and walked up the then dreary, muddy, unpaved, and lonely Washington Avenue to the college to begin a Retreat, oppressed in spirit, and in a dark, uncertain struggle of soul,” Hill wrote.

Religious life won out and Hill decided to stay in st. Louis rather than join the jesuits in New York whom he knew from st. Mary’s. On Feb. 3, 1847, he rode in an open wagon out to Florissant, arriving at dusk. “the roads were rough, covered with snow, the country wild, and but sparsely settled,” he recalled.

the novitiate was housed in the original cabin first occupied by the pioneers in 1823, “with some addi-tions not less rude which had been made to it at different times,” he wrote. “But the foundation of the present stone building had been laid in the (previous) year, or perhaps in 1844, and was up to the top of the basement, or nearly so.” Hill and another man were the only scholastic novices; Fr. james Van de Velde, later

the first bishop of Chicago, was the novice master.

the most remarkable thing about Hill’s novitiate time was its ending. six months before Hill would have completed the normal two-year period of initial religious formation, Van de Velde informed Hill that he would be leaving the next morning with a group of five jesuits to Bardstown, Ky., where the bishop was turning over st. joseph’s College to the jesuits. Although he was just a novice, Hill learned to his surprise that he would be leading the group on the three-day

trip to Louisville by riverboat, pre-sumably because of his knowledge of Kentucky. He was 27 years old when he jumped from novitiate to his first apostolic assignment; he would not profess first vows for another eight months, halfway through his first year of regency.

Like so many other young jesuits in Missouri, Hill did not have the luxury of devoting himself exclusively to study and religious formation. the growing demand for professors in the colleges in the early 1850s meant that scholastics pursuing divinity studies

The orignal log cabin (above)

that Fr. Van Quickenborne put

up at Florissant in 1823 was still in use when Hill entered the novi-tiate in 1847. Fr.

James Van de Velde (left) was novice

master. St. Joseph’s College (right) in

Bardstown, Ky.


were tapped as instructors. During the 1851-52 school year at st. joseph’s College, Hill and five other scholastics took a philosophy course (part of the formation leading to ordination) while teaching full time.

immediately after the july 8, 1852 commencement, Hill and Fr. Nicholas Congiato left Bardstown to escort southern students to their homes. they traveled on the riverboat General tweed, a floating hotel after the fashion of first-class ocean liners. Music added charm to the evenings as the

stately vessels steamed down the broad Mississippi. students in the Bardstown college group conducted themselves as well-bred gentlemen throughout the 1,400-mile trip.

Hill got off the boat at Vicksburg with the Mississippi students and spent three weeks recruiting students for the college. He rejoined Congiato in New Orleans, where the two enjoyed vacation and the hospitality of the jesuits in the southern mission.

in August 1855, Hill was again in Louisiana and contracted yellow

fever. unlike many of his jesuit companions, Hill survived and returned to Kentucky where he encountered a different challenge.

“This was the year of the bloody Know Nothing riot in Louisville (when Protestant mobs attacked Catholic neighborhoods and busi-nesses),” Hill wrote. “The city was silent, still, almost as a perpetual Sunday, no one on street hardly.”

Hill went to saint Louis university that fall to study philosophy for two years and theology for three; he did a fourth year of theology in Boston.

On his way back from Boston in 1861, Hill witnessed one of the key moments in the early stages of the Civil War in st. Louis. in his autobi-ography, Hill wrote, “As i reached the college, the open lot 7 to 8th Green to Morgan sts. was filled with laborers whom the mayor was to meet and give them work: a raw German regi-ment passed a few minutes later, and were frightened; when they reached Olive and 7th being still badly scared, they fired on a crowd standing about the stable door, killing and wounding quite a number by this cowardly act.”

Missouri was a slave state poised aggressively on the frontier of southern territorial expansion. st. Louis was a key strategic asset for the union in the West, but saint Louis university drew a number of students from the south, mostly French-speaking sons of wealthy families; most of st. joseph’s students came from the south.

the war had an immediate impact on the colleges. “Our boarders here (st. Louis) and at Bardstown are southerners or secessionists, whom we shall be forced soon to send back some way or other to their families,” said Fr. William stack Murphy, who led the

“We could see his men on South Mtn. three miles off; their shells struck a protestant church; the shells flew for 2 days. Almost incessant, their peculiar droning sound had a saddening effect. … This battle spoiled our Retreat.”


Missouri vice-province.

“the city of st. Louis is in great danger

of being sacked and burned in case the secessionists get the upper hand in Missouri,” jesuit Fr. Peter De smet wrote in a letter to Father General jan Roothaan on Oct. 20, 1861. “several of Ours without regard to the instruc-tions of your Paternity, as published by the Provincial, continue to manifest secessionist sentiments, at least in the house. No good and much harm can result from manifestations of this sort. indiscretions are filling the prisons more and more every day.”

Hill and other young jesuits might have been in uniform had De smet not used his Washington political con-nections to win jesuit scholastics an

exemption from military service. st. Louis Archbishop Peter

Kenrick ordained Hill a priest at the Cathedral of st. Louis (Old Cathedral) on Aug. 24, 1861. two years later, he went to Frederick, Md., for tertianship, the final year of jesuit formation. even though he escaped the army, Hill could not avoid the Civil War.

“in going to and from Hagerstown i passed the scene of the battle at south Mountain; the trees were riven and torn to pieces by cannon balls and bombshell, and the ground was covered with the debris of a camp,” he wrote. “Near Hagerstown is the Antietam, a stream about a hundred yards wide, and of a lively current. A great battle was fought a few miles down it. “

Near the end of Hill’s tertian-ship, his final retreat was inter-rupted by war when Confederate General jubal early’s men advanced toward Washington.

“the Monocosy junction [sic] (in the Battle of Monocacy junction, july 9, 1864) was then held by the union troops to the number of ten thousand; during our retreat General early with forty thou-sand troops advanced from the shenandoah Valley and attacked the town; we could see his men on south Mtn. three miles off; their shells struck a protestant church, aimed at people in the cupola supposed to be there to reconnoiter: the shells flew for 2 days. Almost incessant, their peculiar droning sound had a saddening effect.

Bishop John B. Miege SJ used a log church (top) in St. Mary’s Mission, Kan., as his cathedral from 1851

to 1855. Students at Saint Louis University’s campus on Washington Boulevard (above) and aerial view

of campus (right). Early photo of Washington Boulevard (above right).

Fr. Walter Hill1866


“two regiments made an assault on General Wright and his ten thousand; they were two Louisiana regiments, and they were nearly anni-hilated. … this battle spoiled our Retreat.”

the jesuits faced a difficult choice. they closed st. joseph’s College

during the war because its students could not get to Bardstown from the south. should they reopen it after the war? As a boarding school, it required a lot of men to run. it man-aged to keep going before the war when jesuits from st. Charles College in Grand Couteau, La., became avail-able to teach in Bardstown after French jesuits from the province of Lyon took responsibility for staffing st. Charles College.

“We barely had enough people to sustain st. Louis and we knew we weren’t going to have enough for Bardstown after the war was over,” jesuit historian Fr. john Padberg said.

there were also questions about who owned the land at st. joseph’s College. the jesuits did not want to invest in buildings on campus land they did not own, and they could not resolve the question in Bardstown.

the jesuits decided not to reopen the college after the Civil War.

Xavier College in Cincinnati survived the conflict although its residences for faculty and students needed attention. Fr. Ferdinand Coosemans, the first Missouri provincial, named then-45-year-old Walter Hill Xavier’s sixth president. Over his term from 1865 to 1869,

Hill built a large four-story brick building that contributed to the school’s development and still bears his name.

Coosemans next tapped Hill to be his executive assistant and asked him to obtain a charter for st. Mary’s College, which the Missouri Province wanted to open in Kansas. Hill persuaded Kansas authorities to give the school tax-exempt status and academic standing.

After two years working in the internal governance of the society, Hill became professor of philosophy at saint Louis university in 1871.

“Fr. Walter Hill was the best teacher i have ever known,” wrote Dr. Louis Boisliniere, a promi-nent st. Louis physician. “He was

-Continued on page 30

St. Joseph’s Church (top left) served St. Louis’ German immigrant community. Student drill team at Saint Louis University ca. 1889 (left). Scholastics studied at Saint Louis University (top) until Jesuits opened a theology school in Woodstock, Md. (above).


ignatian spirituality

t he Fourth Week of the spiritual exercises focuses on the Resurrection with its future-oriented,

hopeful message. One of the key meditations of this final week, and indeed of the entire exercises, is often known by its Latin title, the “Contemplatio.” in the summer 2013 issue of the jesuit Bulletin, Fr. joseph tetlow called it the contemplation to learn to love the way God loves.

We can think of this meditation as a way of developing gratitude that enables us to live out our discipleship as men and women who walk with the Lord. Normally, an individual prays it to mark the end of a retreat and the start of a new life. We can pray it communally as we reflect together on the rich graces received during the 150 years that jesuits of the Missouri Province have served people in the heartland of this country.

ignatius asks us to begin the meditation by using our imagination to see ourselves stand-ing before God, with all of the angels and saints interceding for us. What saints would we want to have standing closest to God as our advocates? We might think of the best-known jesuit saints, such as ignatius and Francis Xavier, or less famous men like st. john Francis Regis, whom i probably would not have known about had i not gone to a school named for him. We might think of newly canonized saints like Chile’s st. Alberto Hurtado or the saints not yet recognized by the Church. What about holy teachers or pastors or retreat directors, jesuits not formally canonized but men whose holi-ness changed our lives? We might not ask for some of the more demanding or acerbic teachers we had, but they might turn out to be articulate advocates.

Next, ignatius says we should ask for what we want.

learning to love: Contemplating Our Memories

Basically we ask for an interior knowledge of the many great gifts we have received so we can be more aware of the One who gives them. We pray for a spirit of gratitude so that we can better love and serve God.

Finally, we begin the meditation proper. One con-temporary method calls for the one making this exercise to circle over his or her experience four times, with a different focus each cycle.

in the first step of reviewing our experience, we recall God’s creation and the places important to us. ignatius suggests thinking of this world with its incred-ible wealth of life and beauty: all of the plants and flowers, the animals and all living things, the annual

cycle of renewal that takes place. We might call to mind places that hold a spe-

cial place in our hearts, like the edge of the bluff at White House Retreat center with its view of the

Mississippi River, or tall cottonwood trees on Regis’ north Denver campus, or a corner of the “fish church” in Kansas City. some of those places are gone now or changed beyond recognition, but they remain in our memories. We might recall a favor-ite classroom or perhaps a place where we made retreats, or the sound of the snow crunching under foot at the retreat house in sedalia.

And the point is that God continues to be present in all of this, working away

at every moment to recreate nature and keep the gift of life. All this world is God’s gift to us. it is a gift, not just something out there by chance.

As we bring to mind each remembered place, we pray for the grace to see the hand of the Creator present in everything, and to see nature as a sign of God’s love for us. We pray

to be grateful not just for the Gift, but for the Giver.

By Thomas Rochford SJ


if we want to be loving, what should we offer to God? ignatius gives us the prayer called the “suscipe” to make with much feeling:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours, do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace. That is enough for me.

in the second step of the “Contemplatio,” we con-sider the people whom God has given us, including family and friends, but also teachers, coaches, pastors who have provided guidance and direction; classmates and friends from parish committees; and fellow retreatants. We remember the people who hold a special place in our hearts. some are no longer around to enrich our lives, but their absence only highlights the importance of the people we still have.

We pray for the gift to see the face of God shining in their faces. We pray for the grace to see each of them as a reflection of the unseen God.

just as at the end of the first step, we can repeat the “suscipe” as a way of expressing our love and desire to share ourselves with God.

in the third step, we consider experiences we have had, moments of blessing and suffering. What are key moments that stand out in our lives: plays we were in, service trips, dramatic sports moments, adventures, trips, family ceremonies we participated in; books we read, music we listened to, paintings and artwork we viewed? it may be that the stories about ourselves that we cherish the most offer clues to what is actually most important to us.

And then we pause and reflect on ourselves, as above, and make the “suscipe” again.

Finally, we do a fourth pass and consider blessings that have come to us in prayer, both liturgical and private. We might recall the formal Masses in great churches or the informal Masses on a Kairos retreat.We recall specific blessings and the special moments when we felt especially close to God. As we recall these moments, we savor the privilege of knowing the Gospel, and expe-riencing the spirit.

And then we reflect on ourselves, as above, and make the “suscipe” again.

ignatius asks an individual who makes the “Contemplatio” to end by praying what he calls a “Colloquy,” or a chat with God like an informal conver-sation between friends. Making the “Contemplatio” as a community calls for some creativity as we search for opportunities we can speak as friends and share those moments when we felt like the two disciples who said after encountering jesus on the road to emmaus: “Were not our hearts burning within us?”


A s an attorney who represented asylum seekers, undocumented minors and other immigrants,

Fr. thomas Greene served where many may not wish to go.the 50-year-old Louisiana native worked with people who crossed borders to enter the u.s., but their problems and predicaments chal-lenged him to enter the frontiers in his own heart, to find the limits of his compas-sion and generosity.

“they brought me to the frontiers, to these heights of consolation with their lives and particularly in their gratitude, when you are able to get them some type of

By Cheryl Wittenauer

relief, whether that’s legal relief or some type of food or shelter,” Greene said.

Greene, the jesuit Conference secretary for social and international ministries and a Missouri Province consultant, was one of a handful of jesuits asked about their sense of the “frontier,” especially as the planned merger of the Missouri and New Orleans provinces in 2014 will create a new identity and opportunities.

the word, “frontier” has gotten a lot of traction since Pope Benedict XVi described it as a “geographical and spiritual place where others do not reach or find it difficult to reach.”

the jesuits’ General Congregation in 2008 said jesuits are sent to build bridges and open up passes between those who live on either side of the frontier, and to be “bridges in a fragmented world.”

Greene said his understanding of “frontier” con-tinues to evolve, but it ranges from staying relevant in

Frontiers: Where a new Province May Be led

the new technology to working in human rights, peace-making and reconciliation, and protecting the earth and serving those world-wide who are suffering.

But just as jesuits are called to be on the frontiers, they also are asked to erase boundaries in favor of a global mission in a universal society, Greene said.

“One of the wonderful things about the new prov-ince is going to be that, no matter what your idea of frontier is, we have it,” he said. “so we are going to have a geographic frontier, which is of course the u.s.-Mexico border. But we also have frontiers of knowledge, fron-tiers of spirituality in some of the projects we have, fron-tiers of advocacy and social justice work through some of the social centers that we have. so, i think in some ways the new province has whatever we need, whatever we want in terms of where we feel our mission to the frontiers is.”

scholastic sean Powers, 26, who recently returned to the states follow-ing several months service in Belize, said the mostly rural toledo District has an extremely diverse mix-ture of races, language, cultures, lifestyles and religions.

“How do the jesuits respond to all that?” he asked. “How do we be ministers of the Christian Catholic faith in such a diverse place? it demands our creativity. it demands prayer.

“Our end goal is Christ, to be part of his kingdom. We have to be nuanced and go person by person.

“so the question of frontier, what does it mean to be a person in toledo? it’s up in the air. it is in flux. And somehow we have to navigate how does the Catholic Church present itself to a people in flux. Not an easy thing to do.”

scholastic Michael Rozier, 32, who taught at saint Louis university’s school of Public Health, did some bridge-building himself when he asked women colleagues who had worked in Bogata, Columbia, and Kabul, Afghanistan, to share with his students some of their work.


frontier today

He also thinks a little Walter Ong-style analysis of how com-munication shapes our humanity would go a long way in today’s digital world. Now there’s a frontier.

“As we engage into the digital age where our students are a search-and-find

culture, where social networks determine who they know, and it’s easy to de-friend somebody you disagree with, or to have your news feed only those magazines and newspaper articles you are already in agreement with . . . we could be shrinking the borders,” he said.

“so i think as jesuits and colleagues we can do something like Walter Ong and ask not just what is going on but how might this be shaping our humanity? those are the kind of big questions that we can ask. Why does it matter? What does it say about us as humans, about the world around us, and therefore, the Divine that created and sustains all of us?”

Rozier said one of his greatest hopes for the new province and his generation of jesuits is the flexibility and availability to respond to needs as they emerge.

“i think of the time of ignatius when new worlds were being discovered and pillars of authority were being challenged,” he said. “i think it is very similar to today in the way information travels more quickly and people travel more quickly than ever before. Questions emerge, and quite frankly, don’t get answered because of the cycle of information.

“We need to be more nimble, more responsive, more available than ever before and i think that my generation of jesuits is really excited about that challenge. it’s not going to be easy. “

“One of the wonderful things about the new province is going to

be that, no matter what your idea of frontier is, we have it.”

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Jesuit Bulletin XCII • Number 3 • Fall 2013

The Jesuit Bulletin is published and distributed by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. All communications about editorial matter should be addressed to the editor at: 4511 West Pine Boulevard, St. Louis, Missouri 63108-2191. All communications about change of address, memberships, burses, and requests should be addressed to Thom M. Digman, Advancement Office of the Jesuits of the Missouri Province, 4511 West Pine Boulevard, St. Louis, Missouri 63108-2191. Email: [email protected]

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methodical and direct. ... His clear arrangement of the subject mat-ter enabled the members of the class to under-stand the subject as a whole and the component parts in their interrelation.”

Hill wrote two textbooks, “elements of Philosophy” (1874) and “ethics” (1879) that were the first attempts to make the principles of scholastic philosophy available to American students in english rather than in Latin. “elements of Philosophy” became the accepted textbook of metaphysics in the english-speaking, Catholic world, and both books were used extensively in Catholic academic circles.

Writing “ethics” was a tougher assignment. “it is a hard, dreary undertaking,” Hill said.

the Kentuckian found a subject much more to his taste when he recorded stories of the early Missouri jesuits. except for De smet’s accounts of the Rocky

Mountain missions, there were no histories until Hill began to write about the pioneer jesuits, men he knew from his early days at Florissant.

in 1879, on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, Hill published “Historical sketch of the saint Louis university.”

Hill’s willingness to try new things, like making philosophy accessible to english speakers, echoed other risks taken by jesuits of what would become the Missouri Province. While normal practice said jesuit schools should teach just the classics in Latin and Greek, saint Louis university started what

amounted to a business school.

“it was the kind of thing the jesuits did by lis-tening to the needs of the time and responding as well as they could within the struc-tures of the charism of the society itself,” Padberg said. “some of the eastern schools at one point in

1863 really thought that st. Louis had betrayed the whole nature of the society of jesus.”

Hill gave up teaching in 1884, the year that the cornerstone of the new st. Francis Xavier (College) Church was placed. Hill devoted himself to priestly ministry at sacred Heart Parish in Chicago. When an accident impaired his eyesight, preventing him from active parochial work, he returned to st. Louis in 1896.

Hill died on May 18, 1907, at the age of 85. His funeral Mass was cel-ebrated at the College Church which was in use by then, although the bell tower was not finished until 1914.

A G u i d e T o o u r p A s T Continued from page 25

Laying the cornerstone of St. Francis Xavier (College) Church on June 8, 1884

The Missouri Province developed in its early years because it was

blessed with young men who wanted to share the mission of the

Society of Jesus in a new frontier. We are still blessed with

young Jesuits like these nine men who took their first

vows on Aug. 17 at St. Charles College in Grand

Coteau, La. Now they can devote themselves to years

of study at a deep level because of the generosity of

friends like you. Those years of preparation come at

a high cost that we cannot sustain just with gifts from

the past. We need your help as we move toward the

next 150 years. A gift of one dollar for each year that the

Jesuits of the Missouri Province have served the Church

would help greatly in providing for formation needs.

Consider including the Jesuits in your estate plan through a

charitable bequest. For more information, go to our web site

at www.jesuitsmissouri.org/support

Our future depends on them

Their formation depends on you

Jesuit Bulletin4511 West Pine BoulevardSt. Louis, Missouri 63108-2191

NoN PRoFiT oRGU.S. PoSTaGE

P a i dSt. Louis, Mo

Permit No. 495

Thank you

for being part of our story! ~The Jesuits of the Missouri Province

jesuit bulletin - fall 2013

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