January 20, 2023 – by Henry Frank

This story originally appeared in the Winter 2023 issue of “Jesuits” magazine, published by the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus.

In 1995, Jesuit leaders from around the world gathered in Rome to discern what the mission of the Society of Jesus would look like in the years that followed. 

A consensus emerged that Jesuits and lay people should think of themselves as “co-laborers” in mission. Jesuits were to envision their ministries less as serving their lay brothers and sisters and more as serving alongside their lay colleagues in addressing the needs of the world. 

The Office of Ignatian Spirituality (OIS), a ministry of the USA East Province, is dedicated to the Ignatian formation of lay people. It offers opportunities to learn to pray, to encounter the graces of the Spiritual Exercises, to learn about the Jesuit way of proceeding, and to grow as women and men for others. OIS makes these opportunities available and accessible to people with families, jobs, and all the normal joys and responsibilities of life as a lay person. And, in particular, OIS makes these opportunities possible for those people who work alongside Jesuits in Jesuit ministries. 

Vanessa Rotondo serves as the associate director of Campus Engagement at Fordham University, as well as the senior advisor for Ignatian leadership in Fordham’s Center for Community Engaged Learning. She is a Fordham alumna and a doctoral candidate in religious education. Vanessa is also an alumna of OIS’s Contemplative Leaders in Action (CLA) program, an eighteen-month Ignatian spirituality and leadership program for young adults. “Ignatian spirituality informs all the work that I do,” Vanessa said in a recent conversation. “It was something I was familiar with in college, but it really stuck with me in CLA. It took the academic learning into the real world.” 

“OIS’s Magis program introduced me to the world of Ignatian spirituality,” explained Jeff Kamradt, who is a medical oncologist by profession. In 2019, he completed the Magis program, which is an eighteen-month Ignatian spirituality formation program for adults of all ages, and then he joined OIS’s Cura community. Cura is a community of practice that brings people together from a variety of backgrounds around the Ignatian mission. While part of the Cura community, Jeff and another member discerned a call to work alongside Jesuits at Thrive for Life, training volunteers to lead Ignatian retreats in correctional facilities. 

Though its primary focus is within the USA East Province, OIS’s impact continues to expand. Sarah Jones completed CLA in Philadelphia in 2014, while working in campus ministry at Saint Joseph’s University. She has since moved across the country, and now serves as director of the JV Program for JVC Northwest. CLA was an opportunity for Sarah to ask as a young professional, “How do I structure my life around these [Ignatian] values? How do we strive for the magis?” 

Ignatian spirituality helps people find God’s love in their lives, and to accompany and care for one another. This inspiration and sense of purpose comes up again and again. 

“The commitment to social justice is central to how [my students] are being educated,” said Vanessa. “I use Ignatian spirituality as a tool to help them make sense of all these things they are learning about and seeing in the world.” Jeff said, “I think a corollary arising from a deeper understanding of Ignatian spirituality is a desire to share it with the world.” “I think about Ignatian detachment,” said Sarah. “Anything is possible, and it will be what it is. The beauty of the Divine is that organic reality is a part of it.” 

St. Ignatius Loyola understood well that the future is fickle. The invitation of the Spiritual Exercises is to learn to encounter God along the way. God alone knows what Jesuit ministries will look like a decade or a century from now, but if the Ignatian tradition is fundamentally about ministering to one another, then every person who wants to walk on this Ignatian journey, both Jesuit and lay, will find a warm welcome. 

Learn more about our Ignatian formation programs for lay people:
Contemplative Leaders in Action (CLA)
Magis
CURA