Profiles of second year novices 11-12
Geoff Te Braake, 36, Britain
Mount Street Jesuit Centre in London was where I first met Jesuits in 2006 while I was working as a computer programmer during a journey of several years during which I came to believe that God was calling me to religious
life. Other catalysts were joining a Christian Life Community (CLC) group and starting to meet a spiritual director regularly and going on a parishpilgrimage to Lourdes and going on an Easter retreat. As part of my
pre-novitiate year I lived in the L'Arche Lambeth community and joined a group of boys and staff from St Ignatius' College on a trip to Tanzania.
Gavin Murphy, 28, Ireland
I have always considered the Jesuits to be like an extended family for me, having been around them for most of my life. My first big experience with the Jesuits was at eight years of age when I did a pilgrimage from Lourdes to Loyola with some of my family in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the birth of St. Ignatius. I then ended up being educated by the J’s for another 14 years at Belvedere College Dublin and at the University of Scranton, Pennsylvania, USA. After taking a few years out to explore other ways of life, I finally decided to enter last September. All I can say is that it feels right!
Janis Melnikovs, 29 Lithuania
I was born in 1981 in Latvia to a family of 6 children. At 19 I entered the diocesan seminary to start my formation for priesthood. I finished my theology studies in 2007 and was ordained priest in Latvia. Throughout this period I was considering the Jesuit vocation primarily because of the Order’s spirituality. It gives me inner spiritual freedom to live my priesthood beyond the institutional constraints of the diocese. The essential difference from my former life is community, and this is another reason why I have chosen to enter the Jesuits. After experiencing 6 months of community life I have been made aware of this difference which encourages me in my future discernment process.
Mark McDevitt, 29, Britain
Growing up in Chelmsford, Essex, I didn’t have any real contact with the Society of Jesus until the two years before I started as a novice. It was reading about Ignatian spirituality and discernment, something that seemed to make sense of a great deal of my life experience, which initially drew me towards the Jesuits - along with an identification with St. Ignatius and admiration for the ideals he laid out for the order. Whereas St. Ignatius had once aspired to great things as a soldier, I’d had aspirations towards being a film director before realising that, no matter how successful or renowned I might become, ultimately it wouldn’t make me happy. Feeling drawn towards service of some kind, I looked at other possible paths, working in the charity sector and in education, before finally finding the courage to address the question of religious vocation that I’d been dodging for several years.
Christian Keeley, 19, Britain
I was born in London in 1991 (making me the youngest Jesuit in North West Europe!) and moved to Surrey in 2002. I went to an ordinary Catholic secondary school, and in many ways this is where my vocation or an awareness of something greater was nurtured. It was in Sixth Form that I began to really discover what I wanted out of life, and I certainly did not find any resonance in following an ordinary path, I wanted something a little more radical and found this in the Jesuits. So following a year working at the Catholic Children’s Society (Westminster) with vulnerable children and families I entered the Society in September.
