On April 27, the feast of St. Peter Canisius on the Jesuit liturgical calendar, I professed my final vows as a Jesuit. I had taken my first vows 18 years before at the end of my novitiate in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Jesuit vows are unique in several ways.
For Jesuit priests, final vows come after ordination and after we have had an opportunity to do “tertianship,” which is a bit like an abbreviated second novitiate. We take a period of time away to review the fundamentals of what it means to be a Jesuit and to do the 30-day Spiritual Exercises a second time. (I did mine in 2023 in Australia.)
The first Jesuit vows that we take at the end of novitiate are simple but perpetual. In fact, they are really a promise to enter fully into the Society of Jesus (to take final vows) when the Society decides it is ready. Some have described the process as you vowing to enter the Society at first vows, and the Society accepting your offer at final vows. In addition to the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the Jesuit vow formula contains a promise to show “special care for the instruction of children.” (If my students are reading, that’s you!) For many Jesuits, a vow of “special obedience to the sovereign pontiff in regard to the missions” is added. This implies an availability to carry out any mission that might be needed for the good of the Church. Pope Leo could order me to cheer for the White Sox if he wanted.
One further particularity of Jesuit vows is that they are taken at Mass in front of the Blessed Sacrament. As far as I know, we are the only order to profess vows in this especially moving way. I think it shows the deep sacramental sensibility of St. Ignatius, an aspect of our Jesuit life and tradition that is not always understood or appreciated. After the Mass, in the sacristy and surrounded by other Jesuits, we make five further simple promises not to try to wriggle out of poverty or to seek higher office in the Church.
I have to say that the latter set of promises was the easiest of them all because I don’t really want to do anything other than what I am doing right now. For me, final vows were a “yes” to the life that I have come to know and love and to the call for which I am unworthy but immensely grateful. I don’t want anything else. And moreover, I am particularly blessed with the mission to teach at the Gregorian University in Rome. It’s a challenging mission, to be sure, but immensely rewarding — thanks to great students and colleagues, a faithful community, and interesting and supportive friends. It’s hard to imagine a more important mission for the future of the Church, which is what I care most about. I honestly can’t imagine anywhere else I’d rather be.
Here are a few pictures from the day itself. The liturgy was celebrated in the Church of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, the chapel of the first Jesuit novitiate, and was as beautiful as its setting. I was able to make my profession together with Father Lancy Dias of the Karnataka Province in India, who I have known for many years; Father General Arturo Sosa made time between international trips to receive the vows personally and gave a fantastic homily. I was blessed to be surrounded by my parents, relatives, friends from the city, and especially my Jesuit brothers, both those older brothers who have been so welcoming to me and the Jesuit scholastics studying here in Rome, my younger brothers who it gives me so much joy to teach and — I hope — to encourage in this wonderful path.
The afternoon before the vows I was moved to think about all of our Jesuit saints: Ignatius; Francis Xavier; Peter Canisius, whose feast we celebrated that day; Stanislaus Kostka, who is buried just a few feet away; Robert Bellarmine and Joseph Pignatelli buried in churches across town; Miguel Pro and the martyrs of North America and the British Isles… It is hard not to get choked up imagining that I am a part of the same undertaking as those great men.
I am not one tenth the man that St. Edmund Campion was, but I felt moved to reread his “Brag” before I took vows. He laid down his life for the faith, and those really are the stakes. So I’ll do my best “cheerfully to carry the cross,” as he put it.
“The expense is reckoned, the enterprise is begun…”
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Tony Lusvardi, S.J. 