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Life
Instead of Despair: American Novices Reflect on Summer Spent in
Peru.
Wednesday,
October 02, 2002
Four of the Jesuit voices who traveled to Peru this past summer:
Bill Blazek, Matt Couture, Mike Shawver, and Chris Dierkes
Every two years groups of novices from the Chicago and Detroit Provinces
visit Peru during their summer break to learn Spanish and to get
an early experience of the universal Society of Jesus. This year
nine novices traveled to Peru: Pat McGrath, Matt Couture, John Mark,
Richard Ross, Ralph Cordero, Pat Kilroy, Bill Blazek, Chris Dierkes,
and Michael Shawver. The Chicago and Detroit novices studied Spanish
at the Ruiz de Montoya university. Fr. Kevin Flaherty, SJ, was their
padrino during the entire visit, and other U.S. Jesuits who gave
orientation talks to the novices were Kevin Gallagher, Matt Garr,
Bob Beckman, Jeff Klaiber, and Frank Chamberlain. Below please find
excerpts of an interview with the novices compiled by the Peru Province's
Magazine, Partners.
Why
did you come to Peru?
In principle we came to learn Spanish. But of course we could have
done that at a language school back in the States. So the real reason
for our visit was to get a broader vision of the Church and of the
Society of Jesus. All but two of us had never been in Latin America
before, and it was our first visit to Peru for all of us. As often
happens when people leave their homeland, it is an opportunity for
us to broaden our own cultural perspective.
What
are your first impressions about Peru?
For many people in the U.S., the reality of Latin America is just
too far away to appreciate. A lot of people have formed the opinion
that the economic and political situation is so bad that there really
isn’t any hope. And yet on our own visits what we have discovered
is life rather than despair. Maybe that sort of despair happens
among some people in the States, but all that we found here in Peru
was a vitality and a desire on the part of the poor people to break
out of their poverty and make something of their lives and that
of their children.
Did
you find that people’s religious experience is different from
your own country?
That sort of a comparison is just too hard to make. Religious practice
in Peru is very different from what it is in the States. In the
States there is a marked separation between the public and the private
sectors, and religion is seen to be a purely personal matter. Fortunately
there are increasing numbers of people in our own country who are
aware that religion should occupy a more public role within society.
One good example of this was the Jubilee 2000 campaign in which
large numbers of people became aware of the problems of other countries
especially as a result of the foreign debt crisis.
What
sort of experiences did you have with the Peruvian Jesuit scholastics?
The first thing that we want to do is thank them for their patience.
In general, of course, community life is pretty much the same everywhere,
but boy do the specifics change! It was interesting to have contact
with the two different Jesuit communities in Breña: the juniorate
and the Desamparados parish. We spent most of our day with the juniors
and participated in all of their in-house activities: not only the
meals and Mass but also the clean-ups and the siestas! On the 4th
of July the juniors invited us to prepare the festivities, so we
prepared our own traditional fare of hamburgers, hot dogs, and baked
beans!
Which
apostolic works did you get a chance to visit?
We got to see quite a few both in Lima and in the outlying provinces.
In Lima we visited several of the Fe y Alegría schools and
all of the Jesuit works, and we spent a couple of weekends living
at the poorer parishes, our own Jesuit parish of the Agustino, but
also diocesan parishes in the three outlying dioceses around Lima.
In Arequipa we stayed at the novitate and visited the Compañía
parish and the San José high school. And of course we finished
up with a tourist visit to Cuzco!
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