For over 400 years, Jesuits and their colleagues have had a presence in Canada.  Today they work coast to coast –  from Vancouver to St.John's.  In this series igNation invites you to join us as we travel across Canada stopping at cities where there are Jesuit apostolates to read personal reflections about the city and the work being done there.  Today's stop is Guelph, Ontario. 

My Guelph is a snazzy little quarterly published by Metroland Media Group Ltd, a subsidiary of Torstar Corp (i.e., The Toronto Star) which you can purchase for $4.95.  My Guelph, the unitalicized version, is free of charge, and begins on the 7th of September 1958, about 8:15 PM.  That was the moment I walked through the main entrance of Saint Stanislaus Novitiate and encountered Michael O’Donnell sitting there, waiting to be invited into the office of Len Fischer, the Master of Novices. 

“What are you doing here?!” we exclaimed in unison, a rhetorical question to which the answer was fairly obvious.  We had both been altar boys at St. Aloysius Parish in the east end of Montreal and had gone through its eponymous elementary school.  I was twenty-two years old at the time and Mike was twenty.  He died a year ago in August.

The novitiate building that once housed a hundred Jesuits – brothers and priests, scholastics and novices –  is still standing.  It’s now rented as office space and known as Orchard Park, though the apple orchard for which it’s named has had to be cut down.  The newer orchard is gradually being expanded with varieties of apples more suited to the changing climate.  The whole complex of 600 acres is known as Ignatius Jesuit Centre.

It’s still a farm, and Ignatius Farm welcomes young interns for six months of the year to sustainable methods of farming.  The produce is picked up weekly by people who buy shares in our CSA (Community Shared Agriculture), and many people rent plots here and cultivate gardens.

Though I live in a recently renovated old farm house (the Red House) on the far side of Highway 6,  my days are spent mostly at Loyola House, a retreat and training centre where the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius are offered over 40 days each autumn, to people from all over the world.  Jesuit novices from Canada and the U.S. have returned to Guelph, not to have the Exercises preached, as they were when I first made them, but to be guided through them individually in a daily conversation, as Saint Ignatius intended.  I’m part of a team of Jesuits and lay people who direct the Exercises as well as shorter retreats.  In our various programs we also have people in training to become spiritual directors and to give the Exercises as well as other kinds of retreats integrating ecology and spirituality.

A bronze statue of Ignatius the Pilgrim stands above the pond outside the windows of our lounge.  He leans into wind, inspiring people to follow him on their interior journey.  Occasionally in winter, someone (OK, it’s me) drapes a scarf around his neck. 

The statue is the work of renowned sculptor William McElcheran, who has another beautiful piece, three nude figures–father, mother, and infant child–called The Family, gracing the fountain just off Quebec Street in the heart of downtown Guelph.  It was donated by the Italian community of Guelph to shock their Orange neighbours.

Just up from the fountain is The Bookshelf–a first rate bookstore, restaurant, and cinema–which has partnered with us in an ongoing Ecology Film Series, screening documentary films once a month, followed by a discussion led by Yvonne Prowse, one of our team. 

Two streets over is Macdonell Street, whose final syllable the locals like to  emphasize.  On the hill at the far end of the street sits the minor basilica of Our Lady Immaculate, recently renovated.  The church was built by the first Jesuits in Guelph, and the remains of three of “Ours” lie buried in its crypt.

At the south end of the city is the University of Guelph, which was the Ontario Agricultural College when I was first here.  The OAC boasts John Kenneth Galbraith as one of its graduates.  Jesuits have had a long association with the University, at one time as professors, chaplains, and students (John Govan even played on its football team when he studied philosophy there).  A few of us (Bill Clarke, Roger Yaworski and I) celebrate Mass in a lecture theatre for the University Catholic Community on Sundays during the fall and winter semesters.

Our main insertion in the city of Guelph is now primarily through Holy Rosary Parish, where Jesuits have served for the last dozen years or so.  Vernon Boyd succeeded Bernie Carroll as Pastor in 2011, and Roger Yaworski carries on his other full-time job there as well.  Some of us have offered evening courses at the Parish (e.g., Artur Suski when he was with us as a regent), and people from Holy Rosary are deeply engaged in our ministry of the Exercises as members of our directing team.  As a single Jesuit community, we gather every week for a social and occasional sharing at the Red House, and once a week for supper at the Parish.

Finally (finis coronat opus) there is our cemetery.  We seem to bury about eight Jesuits every year.  Jim Profit is buried there, Mike O’Donnell is buried there, and many other friends.  When it’s my turn to join them, I trust they won’t say, “What are you doing here?”