Mr. Dan Corrou, SJ

Dan Corrou S.J. is a scholastic in the New England Province.  For his regency he is studying Arabic at the Université St. Joseph in Beirut, Lebanon and living with the Jesuits of the Near East Province.

In early January 2011 it was decided that I would spend my regency in Damascus, Syria studying Arabic and working with the Jesuit Refugee Service office based there. We could not foresee the transformations that would begin just a few days after that decision. As political movements began to spread from Tunisia to Egypt, Libya, the Gulf, and then to Syria the details of my regency had to be modified. The possibility that an American would receive a visa to stay in Syria became less and less likely. So the decision was made that I would study Arabic in Lebanon and live with scholastics and priests of the Université St. Joseph Jesuit community. 

Today, Syria and Damascus, in particular, occupy my thoughts on a regular basis. On a very immediate level we hear about the difficulties in Syria from Jesuits who work in Damascus, Homs, and Aleppo and who often visit us in Beirut. They continue to do incredible work in parishes, church centers, and refugee centers amid the difficulties.  

But Damascus also enters my thoughts every morning when I walk to my Arabic classes along the “Rue Damas”. I like to think that it becomes my very own Road to Damascus. There have been no blinding conversion experiences on this road, like that of St. Paul but the geography has affected my prayer. 

St. Paul describes his own conversion on the Road to Damascus with great simplicity. In his letters there is nothing of the cosmic light and booming voice that we hear in Luke’s account in the Acts of the Apostles. There is, however, a certainty in Paul, stronger than mere human certainty that the direction of his life before the conversion was an illusion and that his new direction, toward Christ, allows him to see reality as it truly is. 

This is the daily conversion for which we all pray, that we, individually and collectively, might forget “what lies behind” and all of the goals that we defined as important, and instead strain “forward to what lies ahead” (Phil 1:13) so that we might realize our true freedom by yearning for God – just as God has so long yearned for us.

Jesuits live out this call to conversion in thousands of different ways. At the moment, I happen to be part of a long tradition of American Jesuits who have been called to live out this conversion by working in the Middle East. In 1932 Pope Pius XI asked the Jesuits of the New England Province to begin work in Iraq.  They began a high school and a university that were very successful. In 1968 Americans were expelled from Iraq and the schools were nationalized but many of the American Jesuits continued to work in Jordan, or they joined the French Jesuits working in Egypt, Syria or Lebanon where they remain today. 

There is nothing terribly dramatic about my life or work here. I work with some student groups but my main responsibility is to be a student, learning a language. I try to finish my work soon after the Angelus bells ring from the neighboring Christian Churches and if I plan it right then my evening jog brings me to the Mediterranean Sea at sunset, while the Muzzein sings out the Maghrib prayers and we are again reminded of the greatness of God. We are reminded that we are most in control when nothing is certain.

That conversion that Paul experienced on the road to Damascus, that conversion that Mary exemplifies so perfectly in the Angelus, that conversion about which I am learning so much from Christians in the Middle East, that conversion about which we can learn so much from our Muslim sisters and brothers, that conversion is our response to the unbridled love that God is pouring out every moment of every day. We are handmaids of God, we are most free when we cling to God in love (Ps. 91). 

Much is uncertain, but the uncertainty is about how the present difficulties will be overcome, not that they will be overcome.  The certainty that comes from conversion, from clinging to God in love, is about what will happen, for we know that God will continue to love.  Resting in that love we can face anything that happens. Paul’s life after Damascus was not easy, but he knew that it was directed toward God and that made any uncertainty, any struggles bearable. Just as St. Ignatius would remind us centuries later, “everything has the potential of calling forth in us a deeper response to our life in God” (David Fleming S.J. interpretation). 

This remains our prayer today, amid much uncertainty. Our task is to place ourselves in a position where conversion is possible and to be aware enough to notice that it is happening. What I am most grateful for at the moment is realizing that the geography of this particular place, at this particular time, surrounded by a community of outstanding Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese and European Jesuits, is a place in which the grace of God, calling me to that conversion, is so easy to identify.