Jesuits return to L’Arche after nearly 20-year absence

Priest hopefuls say the learning experience helped them embrace the order’s missionary spirit

BURNABY—Like the Jesuits of old, two novices recently set out from California on missionary work, coming to Burnaby to help out at L’Arche.

“In many ways it’s like early Jesuits St. John Brebeuf and St. Isaac Jogues, who came and established relationships,” Marcos Gonzales said. “It is exciting to think of reconnecting here, and when we go back we will share the excitement with the other novices.”

It’s been almost 20 years since Jesuit novices from the order’s California province, based in Calver City, Calif., have been assigned to volunteer here.

Denise Haskett, executive for L’Arche Greater Vancouver, said she was contacted by the province’s socius (assistant director) Father Chanh Nguyen, SJ, about bringing in Gonzales and Carlos Aubain from Oct. 1 to Dec. 10.

“Our experience in the past (with Jesuits) has been very positive,” she said.

L’Arche is an international non-profit organization that houses and provides programs for people with developmental disabilities (core members). Haskett calls L’Arche an “intentional community” where people with and without developmental disabilities share life together.

“Once you arrive in the L’Arche community you cannot help but experience the simple love of the core members,” Father Nguyen said. He was assigned to the organization in 1994. “For those of us in formation for the religious life to encounter that authenticity is the real experience of meeting Christ.”

Father Nguyen explained the province hadn’t sent any novices to L’Arche because of a lack of novices and because of problems with immigration. He noted immigration issues worsened after the Sept. 11 attacks on his country.

The process of sending novices to Canada became easier, though, after he worked with Msgr. Stephen Jensen, Episcopal vicar for Evangelization and Education for the Archdiocese of Vancouver, and Canadian immigration.

Jesuit novices are sent around the world to live in communities like L’Arche as part of their “short experiments” (assignments to test the Jesuit hopefuls with the order’s missionary lifestyle.)

“To me the purpose of the experiment is to learn how to trust in God and be flexible and obedient enough to say, ‘I’m sent to a place I don’t want to go, but if God’s calling me to that place then grace will be there waiting for me,’” Aubain said.

Aubain and Gonzales said they got a lot out of their two months at L’Arche. The novices were assigned different houses and had different responsibilities. Gonzales was assigned to work with “core-group members” while Aubain did maintenance work at the main office and at the six homes the organization owns.

“I had a wonderful community,” Gonzales said. “I feel really privileged to work with people with developmental disabilities. It’s not something I knew much about before coming to L’Arche.”

He said he enjoyed witnessing how people with developmental disabilities embraced their faith, and he learned how to minister to them.

“Sometimes Jesuits can be very ‘head-y,’” he joked. “It stretched my way of communicating the Catholic faith.”

One of his “core members,” Rick, was most joyful at Mass, he said. “The witness of this deep joy for the Eucharist is really a shining light. I know a lot of people who don’t like going to Mass, but this is what Rick lives for.”

Aubain’s experience wasn’t as positive at first. The 50-year-old former lawyer said he was used to being “in control” of situations, and he wasn’t in control while volunteering. But he learned that his experience was God’s way of teaching him obedience.

“Before I entered the society (Jesuits) I was a self-made businessman with a lot of control over my actions and a lot of people’s actions,” he said. “But during this experience I had no control over many things, and felt helpless and useless in front of God.”

Aubain appreciates what God taught him through his time at L’Arche, and believes the experience allowed him to grow spiritually and in his vocation.

“It gave me great moments of prayer and insights into the lives of Jesus and the lives of the ‘core members,’” he said.

“Sometimes you are there to witness, and not there to perform miracles or change anything. Things may not go as you want them to go, but they are going the way God wants them to go.”

Aubain and Gonzalez hope their time at L’Arche will lead to more Jesuit novices being sent in the future.

“We have been so appreciative of their incredible willingness to help us,” Haskett said. “It’s been an enriching experience on both sides, and we hope the relationship will continue.”