Jesuits hosted their second annual beer tasting night on June 15 at the Mill Street Beer Hall in Toronto’s Distillery District. The evening brought together a mix of younger and older professionals of faiths in a uniquely casual way, with excellent beer and food along with younger members of the Jesuit community. Special thanks to …
By Fannie Dionne After discovering the first signs of his religious vocation at a young age when he attended Mass with his mother, Fr. John O’Brien, SJ, joined the Society of Jesus in 2008. After having held various roles with young people (teacher, school principal, spiritual director), he is now the Vocations Director for the …
By Katy Ramos-Borges If you had met Fr. Ted Penton, SJ, just before the turn of the millennium and told him that he would be ordained a Jesuit priest in 2019, he wouldn’t have believed you. Indeed, Ted was an atheist when he decided to go on retreat at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand. The experience he had there changed everything. Fr. Ted …
How A Buddhist retreat led Fr. Ted Penton, SJ, to the Jesuits Read More »
With great joy and gratitude, the Jesuits of Canada and Haiti welcomed six new novices who entered the Society of Jesus this past summer. We thank God for the great blessing of their vocation to the Society. Canada Nader Nasralla Montréal, Québec Nader, 24, earned a bachelor’s in physics from the Université de Montréal, where …
Learning to Find God in all Things: Jesuits of Canada and Haiti Welcome 6 New Novices Read More »
By Rachel Moccia Matthew Hendzel has always felt a calling to both academic study and pastoral ministry; his Jesuit formation helped him see how he could embrace both. Could you share about your early engagement with your faith? I was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. My mother was Anglican and my father was Catholic, but they weren’t practicing. I went to a Mennonite high school, and that’s where I started to ask questions about …
By Eric Clayton Kevin Kelly, SJ—director of Villa Saint-Martin, the Jesuit retreat center in Montreal—is a businessman-turned-Jesuit. But, to Kevin, that’s nothing unusual. “I see St. Ignatius not only as a brilliant and spiritual person,” he says, “but also as a businessman.” After all, the saint started and managed a multinational corporation: the Society of Jesus. So, how does business acumen translate into the life of a Jesuit today? Kevin shares how he …
Business Not as Usual: An interview with Fr. Kevin Kelly, SJ Read More »
Becoming a religious in today’s context is often a radical and difficult decision. To help young men in their discernment and to give them a taste of the life of the novitiate of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits of Canada have set up a house of discernment, first in Toronto (2019–2020) and then in …
A Taste of the Novitiate: The Jesuit House of Discernment in Canada Read More »
Before our interview, I had been told that Fr. Marc Rizzetto, SJ, was very funny, very deep, and also…very busy… Nothing I learned in the interview that I finally managed to have with him did anything to dispel these rumours. As a hockey player, photographer, comic book reader (his last read was Gender: A Graphic …
A high-level intellectual, a historian by training and ex-President of Campion College, Father John Meehan, SJ arrived a few months ago in Montreal, where he joined the Jesuit community at the Residence of the Holy Name of Jesus.
If discerning a vocation was simply a more holy version of making career choices there would be no need to talk about love. But for Jesuits, the conversation about a vocation is always a conversation about love. Over the last 30 years, spurred on by the Internet, this Jesuit conversation about love and vocations has …