Novitiate (noun): (1) an early stage of formation in a religious community. (2) the physical house where novices are trained. Example: Paul’s novitiate was from August 2023 to August 2025. His novitiate began in Culver City, California.
Novice (noun): a person admitted to novitiate to begin formation in a religious community. Example: When Paul was a novice, he did the thirty-day Spiritual Exercises in Denver, did his hospital experiment at a migrant shelter in El Paso, and did his long experiment at a parish in Belize City, Belize.
The Jesuit novitiate is a mysterious time for family and friends of Jesuits – even for men about to enter it. “You’re going away for how long? You won’t take your phone?! You’re doing what?!?” are some of the questions I was asked leading up to my entrance day, each with increasing disbelief. Often, I asked myself these same questions.
I entered the novitiate unsure what the outcome would be. I had a sense of what Jesuits did and was drawn to their active lifestyle, but definitively answering the vocation question scared me. In my first days, we were invited to pray for openness, generosity, and courage as we uncovered, over a full two years, God’s desires for us through our concrete experiences of Jesuit life and prayer. I was told that a successful novitiate didn’t necessarily mean taking first vows; it meant finding the freedom to respond fully to God’s call for me. That sounded ok to me!
The Experiments
These concrete experiences of Jesuit life are called ‘experiments’ (done by me and not to me, I would explain to my family and friends!) While “on experiment” I lived and worked full time in Jesuit communities and grew in my life of the vows, learning and practicing poverty, chastity, and obedience. Through experiences that tested and stretched me, I also learned about myself and who God created me to be, always seeking to better open myself to His love. My first year included the one-month Spiritual Exercises, three weeks at an El Paso migrant shelter, and a two-week pilgrimage (which began with $5, a one-way bus ticket, and no phone). In the second year I spent two months at a Jesuit high school in Denver and four months at a parish in Belize City, Belize.
Paul brings communion to Ms. Gloria during his long experiment in Belize City, Belize.
The most important experiment for Jesuit novices is making the Spiritual Exercises, which I did in November of my first year. During the Spiritual Exercises, a 30-day silent retreat developed by St. Ignatius, I encountered myself as a loved-sinner and Jesus as my friend and Lord who loves me uniquely and intimately. This encounter with Jesus was the foundation of the rest of my novitiate and influenced the other experiments I did. For example, on the Spiritual Exercises, as I wrestled with my ever-fickle heart I experienced the constant tenderness of Jesus. Tenderness became a theme for the rest of my novitiate. In my first year as I faced my fear of commitment and a lack of trust, Jesus’s tenderness was ever present, encouraging and accompanying me in my slow, steady growth.
In the second year, working as a hospice chaplain in Denver and spending four months at a parish in Belize, I found that the people to whom I ministered called forth from within me that same tenderness of Jesus. Somehow, in a beautifully mysterious way, Jesus’s tenderness became incarnate into the world through me: lending an ear to Dwayne Edward King Jr., a loving smile for Ms. Caricia, a foot-washing for Mr. Cai, or a communion service for Ms. Gloria (“If you can’t come to church, the Church comes to you!” I would tell her). It was on experiment in Belize when I saw that ministering as a Jesuit made me more free to love like Jesus. With this recognition I felt God’s invitation to take first vows. I professed them four months later that August.
Regular Ordo
I spent about eight months on experiments, all of which happened outside the novitiate (see definition 2). What happened during the other 14 months? A good portion was spent in regular ordo, a more rhythmic period of the novitiate that happens inside the novitiate house for the first few months after entrance and in between the various experiments. In regular ordo, my community of about 15 novices and our Jesuit formators had a daily routine of morning prayer, afternoon conferences, evening Mass, nightly examen and communal meals.
Twice a week we did apostolic work in the local community. I served at a high school, as a hospice chaplain, and with former gang members at Homeboy Industries. Our conferences were presented by Jesuit and lay experts. Some covered Jesuit-specific topics like the vows, the life of St. Ignatius, Jesuit history, and Ignatian Spirituality. Others focused on issues relevant to Catholicism and religious life more broadly – interreligious dialogue, Catholic Social Teaching, personality workshops, integral ecology, and the Spirituality of J.R.R. Tolkien were all in the mix. Through the conferences and communal life we grew in our understanding and love of the Society of Jesus, ourselves, and one another.
Especially important to fostering this love, and a quintessential novitiate experience, was the steady stream of dishwashing, garden weeding, bathroom cleaning, and floor sweeping. Our “low and humble tasks” as they are called by St. Ignatius in the Jesuit Constitutions, taught me about community life and, after a while, a spirit of generosity toward my brothers. This was a part of the novitiate for which my parents were especially grateful.
Speaking of parents, regular ordo was when I started to navigate new modes of relationships with family and friends. Stepping back from both proximity and frequent communication was, no doubt, one of the hardest parts of novitiate – it took time to learn a healthy balance between presence to my formation and presence to my family and friends. My rhythm was a phone call home about once a week. It was helpful, too, that I saw family twice a year: around Christmas when they visited the novitiate and over the summer I visited home. Ultimately, I learned that a well-integrated family and Jesuit life is a continual and necessary process, because family life and Jesuit life are continually changing. Yet, finding that integration point and bringing together as one the communities I love is possible and always a great joy.
Finally, regular ordo is a time of processing. With the formation staff and my novice brothers, the graces from experiments were savored and deepened. Each week I had spiritual direction or a conversation with my novice director to help me see how God was speaking to me through my experiences and prayer. Through these conversations I gained confidence to move toward professing vows.
Post-Vows Reflections
Paul professes his First Vows in Denver, Colorado on August 9, 2025.
Before the novitiate, taking vows seemed to be an impossibly scary leap of faith. By the end of the novitiate, I was still in progress, but I had tangible evidence that living like a Jesuit made me more open, generous, and courageous. It made me more like Jesus. I never had absolute certainty that I had one hundred percent correctly heard God’s call, but the novitiate taught me that Jesuit life made me free to love like Jesus does.
In the end that was enough for me. A process of formation began, and I could trust that, with Jesus, it would continue. At its core that is the novitiate: two years of learning to trust God as He loves me uniquely and intimately and seeing the incredible things that happen when I do. So,with my classmates, I took the leap and professed perpetual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience on August 9th, 2025 in Denver, Colorado. Two days later, on August 11th, I moved from the novitiate to First Studies in the Bronx, New York. Here in First Studies my formation continues!
Top Image: Paul with his parents on his novitiate entrance day, August 11, 2023.