Fr. Mark Scalese, SJ

Mark Scalese, SJ is currently a professor of visual and performing arts at Fairfield University.

According to the Constitutions of the Society, every Jesuit undergoes three periods of “probation.”  Nowadays, the first occurs during the week or so after entrance day, before fully embarking on the prescribed experiences of the novitiate. The second consists of the two-year novitiate itself prior to first vows. The third probation doesn’t occur until many years later -- after philosophical and theological studies, after regency, and at least several years after ordination.  Jesuits traditionally refer to this third probation as “tertianship.”  St. Ignatius wanted tertians to re-visit the various formative experiences they had undergone as novices to help confirm their desires for final vows in the Society.  I have just concluded my own tertianship in a five-month program conducted by the California province in Los Angeles, and it has been a “school of the heart,” to borrow the expression St. Ignatius used to describe third probation in the Constitutions.  My experiences of tertianship have deepened my spiritual life in my relationship with Jesus, given me a new appreciation of the Society’s international character, and inspired my desire to be a better Jesuit apostle.

By far, both the centerpiece and highlight of my tertianship was the Long Retreat.  If our program had consisted of no other experience, it would have been a success for me.  During those thirty days, my relationship with Jesus was deeply revitalized.  I must confess that apart from my annual retreats, I could have been more attentive to prayer in the years after my ordination than I was.  I allowed myself to focus on the “action” component of my Jesuit life more than the “contemplative.”  But during the Exercises, Jesus gently called me back to myself, to the deepest desires of my heart to be his friend and disciple.  None of the issues that emerged during the retreat were new.  But the Lord had my undivided attention for thirty days, and he “got through” in a big way.  As a result, I want to deepen our renewed relationship in the months and years ahead.  It has already had an effect on my practice of the Examen and the Daily Office.

The eight tertians in our program were an incredibly diverse group of Jesuits from around the world.  Only two of us were from the United States; the rest were from Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, the Philippines and Nigeria. The Jesuit from Lithuania grew up during the Soviet era and could only begin to explore his faith after high school. The Filipinos were young adults when the “People’s Power” revolution overthrew the Marcos regime in 1986. The Nigerian not only lived through his country’s move from military dictatorship to democracy, but he experienced first-hand the transition of the Society from a dependent region run by Americans to an independent province run by indigenous Jesuits. The Irishman spent two years after college volunteering in Zambia and returned there many years later to work as a Jesuit priest.  The Italian witnessed the increased secularization of his country which occurred, ironically, during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II. (And the sweeping events we Americans lived through were summarized pretty well in the movie Forrest Gump!)  Yet despite these differences, it was clear from the beginning how much we had in common in terms of our formations, our apostolic experiences and our ecclesial outlooks.  There was never any question that we belonged to the same Society of Jesus, and we really came to love and respect one another during our five months together. If such a random selection of Jesuits from across the globe can yield people of such quality and integrity, then the future of the Society is in very good shape.

During these months, we also got to witness inspiring ministries done by Jesuits and non-Jesuits alike.  Among these was Greg Boyle’s work with former gang members at Homeboys Industries in Los Angeles. We visited the Kino Border Initiative, which straddles the fence between Nogales, AZ and its Mexican counterpart. There, we helped to feed migrants recently deported from the United States, learned about the Initiative’s advocacy on their behalf, and saw first-hand the tangle of concrete, barbed wire and steel which makes up our country’s “border apparatus.” In Palm Desert, CA, we visited Xavier College Prep, the first traditional Jesuit high school in the U.S. initiated and staffed entirely by lay people, all of whom manifested a palpable devotion to Ignatian pedagogy and spirituality. During several weeks in Mexico City, we assisted a former drug addict (and living saint) in his outreach to substance abusers on the streets near the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. For my month-long apostolic experiment, I worked at Arrupe Jesuit High School in Denver. Part of the Cristo Rey network, the school’s faculty, staff and administration expanded their students’ aspirations through its corporate work-study program, and increased their chances of attending college through strong academics and relentless follow-up.  No student at Arrupe was allowed to “fall through the cracks.”  Because of these experiences, I want to discover how my work back at Fairfield University can more deeply contribute to the promotion of faith and the promotion of justice which the Society has consistently emphasized since the Second Vatican Council. I’m inspired to become a better person and a more generous Jesuit apostle.

This is only a glimpse of the many experiences during my tertianship for which I am enormously grateful. Not only do I feel renewed spiritually and energized to plunge back into my very active life at Fairfield, but in this “third probation” I’ve been reminded why I became a Jesuit in the first place, and I’ve been confirmed in my desire to pronounce Final Vows and become fully incorporated into the Society of Jesus.