Please pray for our five novices as they embark today for their various "experiments", a key stage in their journey towards taking their First Vows.

“Experiment” is a term Jesuits use to talk about the various activities (designed by St. Ignatius) that test a man’s vocation throughout the two-year novitiate period. All these experiments mirror the various steps taken by St Ignatius after his conversion. For centuries, Jesuit formation has included these same methods as a means to test, stretch, clarify, and confirm the novice’s vocation. Typical novice experiments include hospital work (meaning work with marginalised people, who in St Ignatius' day tended to live in "hospitals" or places of safety run by religious), a pilgrimage, the 30-day Spiritual Exercises, teaching and learning a foreign language. 

Paolo, Matthew and Ian (from left to right in the photo) are in their first year as novices.  They will be going to St Beuno’s Jesuit Spirituality Centre in North Wales to make the full Spiritual Exercises 30 day retreat, beginning on Saturday 19th. The 30 day retreat is a programme of meditation and contemplation focussing on the life of Christ, which enables the retreatant to deepen their awareness of Christ at work in their life, and the meaning of their vocation.  All Jesuits undertake the full 30 days Spiritual Exercises at least twice during their lives: once in the novitiate and again during tertianship, the final stage of Jesuit formation, which usually occurs about fifteen years later, after ordination and before final vows.

Luke and Pascal are in their second year as novices and their experiments involve working alongside marginalised people (hospital work). Luke will be joining Peter McVerry SJ in Dublin to assist in his day centre for homeless people, and helping Gerry Clarke SJ in the parish of St Francis Xavier SJ in Gardiner Street.

Pascal will be living in the L’Arche community in Preston, one of eleven such communities in the UK where people with and without learning disabilities share life together, living and working in community.  Pascal will join six disabled community members, supporting them to access local colleges, to get involved with local organisations and churches and to get out to leisure facilities. 

Please do remember them very especially in your prayers.