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Fr. Tom Widner, SJ

In 1985, at age 43 after 16 years as a diocesan priest, I arrived at Berkley, Mich., to begin the two-year novitiate that would result in my making first vows as a Jesuit. On Aug. 31, 2001, God willing, I will have lived as a Jesuit as long as I was a diocesan priest.

I entered the seminary after college and spent four years of theology studies at Kenrick Seminary in St. Louis. My last two years were spent at St. Louis University. When St. Mary's College, Kansas, closed and Jesuits began the St. Louis University Divinity School, we became a part of the consortium. Jesuits welcomed us into their social life as well as academic life. It struck me at the time that the Jesuits regarded all their men as Jesuits. It was clear that in the seminary our own faculty regarded us as candidates to be tested and not men joining a brotherhood.

By the early 1980s I found the thought of a Jesuit vocation something that kept coming back to me. I decided I had to either put it to rest or make a change. I drove to Cincinnati to speak with then vocation director Dick Baumann. After a year or so, I applied, was accepted, and entered.

I wanted to become a Jesuit because I wanted a community life and I wanted a variety of ministry. I didn't look forward to being the pastor of the same parish the rest of my life. After entering the novitiate, I realized that our community life isn't Franciscan and not exactly what I'd hoped for. I also realized that as a diocesan priest I had enjoyed various ministries as a parish priest, a high school teacher, and the editor of my archdiocesan newspaper. If I were going to remain a Jesuit, I had to find new reasons to stay.

The novitiate was extremely difficult for me but older Jesuits I met would remind me that the novitiate is not Jesuit life in its fullness. And after living in a Jesuit community during the summer experiment I knew I was in the right place. Eventually I learned I was a Jesuit because that's where God wanted me to be. It still is.

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