A.J. Rizzo, SJ

Before entering the Novitiate in August of 2007, I spent three years working as a campus minister at Loyola Blakefield, a Jesuit high school and middle school in Towson, MD.  After eight years of Jesuit education, first at Saint Joe’s Prep in Philadelphia, and then at the University of Scranton in Scranton, PA, this move to the suburbs of Baltimore felt like a natural next step in the journey of my life — to spend some time contributing to a project of the Catholic Church that had come to mean so much to me.  My three years at Blakefield were the happiest of my life thus far — I found a joy in working with the students there that filled me with gratitude and gave meaning to my life in a way I had never known before.

So when I made the difficult decision to leave Blakefield, responding to the tugs at my heart toward a Jesuit vocation, it was in many ways an act of faith and of hope.  While I could have spent the rest of my life working with the young men at Loyola Blakefield and been very happy, I trusted that God, who had given me an abundance of opportunities to love and be loved by others on a daily basis, would continue to be present to me through the people I would meet as a Jesuit novice.

My long experiment at Georgetown University has been a fulfillment of that act of faith and hope — a time during which God has indeed shown His fidelity and loving care for me, by once again filling my life with wonderful people and opportunities to love.  While working in the Campus Ministry Office over the past five months, I have had the chance to meet and spend time with students, colleagues, and brother Jesuits; each has brought me that same joy and gratitude I knew from my time at Blakefield — a gratitude I have come to recognize as the presence of God’s Holy Spirit in my life.  My time here has been spent engaging students in what St. Ignatius called “spiritual conversation,” that is, talking to students about their lives of faith, and whether/how a relationship with God makes a difference in the way they live their lives — at Georgetown and beyond.  This ministry has brought me to retreat houses, dorms, classroom, the chapel, coffee houses on campus, and yes, even the soccer field, as I have tried to meet as many students as possible and draw them into conversations about the living God active in the world and in their lives.

The almost twenty months of Novitiate life that preceded this long experiment have taught me to keep my days of apostolic activity grounded in prayer, in order that I might remain attentive to the workings of the Holy Spirit in my everyday interactions with students.  My relationship with Jesus, grounded in the Spiritual Exercises, has contextualized these months of working at Georgetown.  In them, I have experienced an invitation to labor alongside Jesus ad Majorem Dei Gloriam — for the Greater Glory of God.  This invitation and the joy it brings speak to the deepest desires of my heart and are the clearest ways that I am able to see God loving me in my daily life here.

As these months of long experiment draw to a close, I once again prepare for the difficult task of leaving a place full of people who have come to mean so much to me.  While a little sad, I am full of consolation, secure in the knowledge that wherever the road may lead me next, my friend and brother Jesus will be waiting there for me, loving me in the people I will meet.  My long experiment has given me the experience to know that God is indeed faithful in His love for me, and that I can trust in that reality above all else.  This fidelity and love form the context in which I prepare to profess vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the Society of Jesus.

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