Now that I have reached the ripe age of eighty, an event I celebrated this past July, people sometimes ask me when I plan to retire. My usual answer goes something like this: "People retire in order to be free to do whatever they enjoy doing, and, since I thoroughly enjoy what I am presently doing what would it mean for me to retire? Besides, we Jesuits rarely actually retire"....
For seven years now, I have taken teachers in the University of Manitoba's Post-Baccalaureate Diploma in Education (PBDE) program and undergraduates in the Catholic Studies program at St. Paul's College on an intensive three week Field Study program in India (Delhi, Agra, Darjeeling, Kolkata, and Varanasi)....
At the age of 65, after 48 years in the Jesuits, for the first time in my life I have nothing to do. Or, to put it more correctly, there is nothing I have to do. Being on sabbatical for a full year (August through July), I am experiencing for the first time in my life since childhood the almost complete absence of obligation. No required activities, no expectations, no formal duties, nothing!...
