Testimony

Throughout my many years of Jesuit education at the secondary, undergraduate, and graduate levels, I had the opportunity to engage the “gritty reality” of my local community, as well as communities across the world, forming my mind and heart through “contact,” not just “concepts”—to use a few phrases that Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J. coined during his 2001 speech on justice in Jesuit higher education. I was deeply impacted by experiences that took me outside of my comfort zone while placing me in the midst of someone else’s reality. These included many weeks spent with migrant farmers in Southwest Florida, a summer volunteering as a teacher at a Jesuit high school on a Micronesian island, and participating in nonviolent protests at the gates of Ft. Benning to call attention to the U.S. role in the deaths of the Salvadoran martyrs. Through each of these experiences, I came to know fellow people of God, to understand their own joys and challenges, and to reflect on how my reality in the U.S. was integrally tied to their situation. I came to understand that it would be impossible to be a person of faith committed to acting out the Gospels if I were to not be a person of justice.

Today, I work for the Ignatian Solidarity Network, an U.S.-based organization that seeks to mobilize those connected to Jesuit education and ministry to work collaboratively for a more just world—including as students, alumni, teachers, parishioners, volunteers, etc. . Along with my colleagues, all laywomen and men, we seek ways to unite individuals and institutions through advocacy and public action to promote a culture of human dignity and care for our common home.

I have experienced God’s presence in so many places throughout my journey—most often in the presence of my brothers and sisters near and far. In Micronesia, it was in my students who shared the beauty and complexity of their homeland with me during snorkeling and kayaking expeditions around the island. They would explain the history and culture of their island as well as the challenges their people face amid a changing society and global climate.

Like in Micronesia, it was young people who taught me important lessons in places like Nicaragua as well. While leading a group of college students on an 8-day immersion experience to learn about the country and its people, it was a young boy, willing to tolerate our poor Spanish language skills, who helped us explore the rural countryside of the Central American country. We came to understand the challenges families face as farmers in a global economy and experienced the beauty of a country despite its economic struggles.

There are desolations too—particularly experiences when you feel like whatever you have to offer is not enough. During a recent visit to El Paso, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border for a Jesuit Migration Network meeting, I joined a group of colleagues to volunteer at an immigrant humanitarian shelter. Volunteers were working day and night to provide support to the hundreds of families seeking assistance at the shelter each day. We worked a full 8-hour shift—making meals, driving people to the bus station, treating basic medical problems, etc.—but the need would continue the following day no matter how hard we worked.

In our work at the Ignatian Solidarity Network, where we seek to educate, network, and form advocates across the Jesuit network to respond to the realities of injustice that exist in the U.S. and beyond, there are many days where hope is a fleeting idea. Our country’s leaders have sought to marginalize and villainize immigrant populations, dismantle policies that sought to protect the Earth, and remove programs that provide a safety net to those who are struggling economically. How do we respond to so many different situations of marginalization and dehumanization? is a question my colleagues and I often ask. Where is the hope amid all these struggles? Sometimes the answers do not seem clear.

Reflecting on my journey with the social apostolate to this point, I am most grateful for the people the Lord has placed in my life. I am especially grateful for those people who have shared their struggles and the struggles of their communities with me.

During a visit to Duran, Ecuador, many years ago, a young woman close to my own age at the time asked me why I came so often to Duran, an economically impoverished town on the outskirts of Guayaquil where people struggled to meet their basic needs on a daily basis. I responded that it was the people that I had come to know that brought me back. In response, she asked, “Who would you rather be with, poor people here in Duran or rich people in the United States?” I was a bit perplexed by her question but after some time I responded with a simple answer—both. Through my journey with the Jesuit social apostolate, I have come to see my ministry as part of a broader mission to build a world where the dignity of all people—regardless of their home country, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.—experience the dignity that God hopes for each of us. This dignity is rooted in our efforts to bring people together, to break down the idea of us and them, and work for a world where there is only “us” as Fr. Greg Boyle, S.J., has said. I am honored to be a part of this ministry and grateful to God for gracing me with opportunities to co-labor in this mission with Jesuits and lay colleagues.