How do men discover todays Society of Jesus?
If you gathered a group of Jesuit vocation directors and asked them for the strangest way a man has discovered the Jesuits, there’s one story that would probably take home the blue ribbon. Br. Charlie Jackson, SJ, vocation director for the California Province tells of a man who was driving through Los Gatos in 1959–August 14 to be exact–when he saw a sign that read “Novitiate.” “Deciding that a novitiate must be something like a monastery, he drove up the hill and asked to see the ‘monastery.’ That day was entrance day—novices were entering—but someone was found to show the man around and answer some of his questions,” relates Jackson. “Following his brief tour, he climbed the hill behind the novitiate and sat on the baseball field for three hours-thinking. He then came down the hill and asked to enter. Three weeks later he did so,” says Jackson, adding that the man is a wonderful Jesuit. “I suppose that it goes without saying that such stories couldn’t happen today—our application pro
