Growing Together in Faith and Mission
St. Ignatius of Loyola wrote about three voices speaking within each of us (Spiritual Exercises, paragraph 32). One is “mine.” By this, he means my inner awareness of myself as someone who makes choices and wants to do various things. There is another “voice,” what he calls the “good spirit.” This is Ignatius’ way of referring to every inner influence (e.g., God, angels, the prayers of saints, virtues) that we feel pressing, calling, wooing, and nudging us toward our true and highest good. The third voice, “the evil spirit,” is every counter influence that we feel pressing and pulling us in the opposite direction. The spiritual life is composed of the regular, continual interplay and dynamic interaction among these three “voices.”
An important inference from all this is that God’s spirit is always speaking and at work within each of us. Ignatius was viewed with some suspicion for inviting others to learn how to listen to God’s voice and discern God’s language deep within their own inner experience. Although Ignatius was viewed with some suspicion for his attempts to help others listen to and recognize God’s voice, he deeply believed that God communicates uniquely to each of us in and through our lived experience and our responses to these voices.
Similarly, as a community of faith, we are invited to consider what God might be saying to us as we strive to listen to the good spirit. What is God inviting us to at Strake Jesuit? What do we hear when we try to discern the ways God is working in our community? How do we influence and teach our students to develop their own ability to recognize the good and bad spirits at work in them?
Faculty and Staff Formation
Almost without fail, when our students are asked what they love most about Strake Jesuit, they mention the caring adults in the community. They feel loved. They feel that faculty and staff are ready to listen and offer advice. They frequently note adult concern for their spiritual and mental well-being. These remarks are so consistent that it is safe to say this is a hallmark of Strake Jesuit.
How did this happen? Finding adults who love being around young people and who model a life of faith and service does not happen by accident. The search for great people of deep faith to fill these roles is ongoing and undertaken with the greatest seriousness.
Finding great people, however, is only part of the story.
What is Catholicism? What do we believe about God, Christ, salvation, history, our purpose in this world, the future, and life’s meaning? How do we grow in virtue and become more caring and Christ-like? Who are the Jesuits? What spirituality animates their work? What do the phrases engraved in our buildings and written in our documents mean? What is our mission? What unifies us and keeps us on task? What is Jesuit education? What makes it distinctive? How do we maintain a common vision amid the distractions and pressures of an ever-changing world?
These questions, and many more, demand that we adults continue our own growth and deepen our understanding of all things Catholic and Jesuit.
Adult formation at Strake Jesuit is not merely professional development. It is spiritual, intellectual, and mission formation.
Spiritually, we are invited into the same practices and ways of thinking we hope to cultivate in our students: prayer, reflection, discernment, and openness to God’s action. Through regular formation meetings, spiritual conversations, and retreats, adults are reminded that our work here is, at root, a vocation. When faculty and staff are growing and taking all these things seriously in their own lives, they internalize the Jesuit charism, and their Catholic faith becomes increasingly more integrated into who they are. They become more attentive, more patient, more generous. Students sense this authenticity and genuineness.
Intellectually, formation means grappling with the richness of the Catholic intellectual tradition and the history and vision of Jesuit education. Jesuit education is not defined only by academic rigor, though it certainly includes that. It is animated by the conviction that faith and reason belong together; that all truth ultimately leads to God; that education is meant to form the whole person. Faculty formation helps teachers see their disciplines not as isolated subjects but as avenues into wonder, meaning, and responsibility.
I’ll bring special attention to one of many signs of the vibrancy of intellectual adult formation at Strake Jesuit. Boston College’s Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies offers graduate-level courses in Jesuit Studies. We have worked closely with this program for a number of years to provide more intense intellectual and spiritual formation for our adults. In the spring 2026 semester, 18 Strake Jesuit adults are taking one of these courses. I do not know of another Jesuit high school with this level of participation in such a program, nor with this level of commitment from the school to financially support this kind of formation.
With respect to mission, adult formation fosters a shared language and vision. Cura personalis, magis, Men for Others, are not empty slogans. They are commitments that shape our relationships. When adults deeply understand these ideals and discuss them together, they hold one another accountable. They learn to collaborate across departments, to support one another in difficulty, and to approach challenges with hope rather than cynicism. Students notice this unity. They feel the coherence of a community whose members believe in what they are doing together.
Discernment
When students encounter adults who are themselves striving to listen to God’s voice, something powerful happens. Students begin to trust that God might be speaking to them as well. When they see teachers wrestling with questions of meaning, pursuing virtue, serving generously, and speaking openly about faith, they learn that discernment is not abstract but very practical.
Faculty and staff formation is not peripheral to our mission; it is central. The adults’ ongoing conversion and growth make space for students’ awakening. The adults’ attentiveness helps students recognize the movements of the good spirit within themselves. The adults’ fidelity to mission strengthens the entire community’s capacity to hear God’s invitation.
Following Ignatius’ insight that God is always speaking, our task is to become better listeners. At Strake Jesuit, we are invited not only to teach students how to listen but also to learn, internalize, and model that way of listening ourselves. In doing so, we create a community where young men can begin to discern the quiet but persistent voice of God calling them toward their true and highest good.
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An important inference from all this is that God’s spirit is always speaking and at work within each of us. Ignatius was viewed with some suspicion for inviting others to learn how to listen to God’s voice and discern God’s language deep within their own inner experience. Although Ignatius was viewed with some suspicion for his attempts to help others listen to and recognize God’s voice, he deeply believed that God communicates uniquely to each of us in and through our lived experience and our responses to these voices.
Similarly, as a community of faith, we are invited to consider what God might be saying to us as we strive to listen to the good spirit. What is God inviting us to at Strake Jesuit? What do we hear when we try to discern the ways God is working in our community? How do we influence and teach our students to develop their own ability to recognize the good and bad spirits at work in them?
Faculty and Staff Formation
Almost without fail, when our students are asked what they love most about Strake Jesuit, they mention the caring adults in the community. They feel loved. They feel that faculty and staff are ready to listen and offer advice. They frequently note adult concern for their spiritual and mental well-being. These remarks are so consistent that it is safe to say this is a hallmark of Strake Jesuit.
How did this happen? Finding adults who love being around young people and who model a life of faith and service does not happen by accident. The search for great people of deep faith to fill these roles is ongoing and undertaken with the greatest seriousness.
Finding great people, however, is only part of the story.
What is Catholicism? What do we believe about God, Christ, salvation, history, our purpose in this world, the future, and life’s meaning? How do we grow in virtue and become more caring and Christ-like? Who are the Jesuits? What spirituality animates their work? What do the phrases engraved in our buildings and written in our documents mean? What is our mission? What unifies us and keeps us on task? What is Jesuit education? What makes it distinctive? How do we maintain a common vision amid the distractions and pressures of an ever-changing world?
These questions, and many more, demand that we adults continue our own growth and deepen our understanding of all things Catholic and Jesuit.
Adult formation at Strake Jesuit is not merely professional development. It is spiritual, intellectual, and mission formation.
Spiritually, we are invited into the same practices and ways of thinking we hope to cultivate in our students: prayer, reflection, discernment, and openness to God’s action. Through regular formation meetings, spiritual conversations, and retreats, adults are reminded that our work here is, at root, a vocation. When faculty and staff are growing and taking all these things seriously in their own lives, they internalize the Jesuit charism, and their Catholic faith becomes increasingly more integrated into who they are. They become more attentive, more patient, more generous. Students sense this authenticity and genuineness.
Intellectually, formation means grappling with the richness of the Catholic intellectual tradition and the history and vision of Jesuit education. Jesuit education is not defined only by academic rigor, though it certainly includes that. It is animated by the conviction that faith and reason belong together; that all truth ultimately leads to God; that education is meant to form the whole person. Faculty formation helps teachers see their disciplines not as isolated subjects but as avenues into wonder, meaning, and responsibility.
I’ll bring special attention to one of many signs of the vibrancy of intellectual adult formation at Strake Jesuit. Boston College’s Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies offers graduate-level courses in Jesuit Studies. We have worked closely with this program for a number of years to provide more intense intellectual and spiritual formation for our adults. In the spring 2026 semester, 18 Strake Jesuit adults are taking one of these courses. I do not know of another Jesuit high school with this level of participation in such a program, nor with this level of commitment from the school to financially support this kind of formation.
With respect to mission, adult formation fosters a shared language and vision. Cura personalis, magis, Men for Others, are not empty slogans. They are commitments that shape our relationships. When adults deeply understand these ideals and discuss them together, they hold one another accountable. They learn to collaborate across departments, to support one another in difficulty, and to approach challenges with hope rather than cynicism. Students notice this unity. They feel the coherence of a community whose members believe in what they are doing together.
Discernment
When students encounter adults who are themselves striving to listen to God’s voice, something powerful happens. Students begin to trust that God might be speaking to them as well. When they see teachers wrestling with questions of meaning, pursuing virtue, serving generously, and speaking openly about faith, they learn that discernment is not abstract but very practical.
Faculty and staff formation is not peripheral to our mission; it is central. The adults’ ongoing conversion and growth make space for students’ awakening. The adults’ attentiveness helps students recognize the movements of the good spirit within themselves. The adults’ fidelity to mission strengthens the entire community’s capacity to hear God’s invitation.
Following Ignatius’ insight that God is always speaking, our task is to become better listeners. At Strake Jesuit, we are invited not only to teach students how to listen but also to learn, internalize, and model that way of listening ourselves. In doing so, we create a community where young men can begin to discern the quiet but persistent voice of God calling them toward their true and highest good.
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