 Thank you, everyone, for being here for the latest event in our spirituality series. My name is Jessica Colligan, and I'm happy to welcome you on behalf of Fairfield's Office of Alumni Relations. I'm pleased to be joined this evening by Father Jerry Blauszczak, who is our Vice President for Mission and Ministry, and Father Tom Semiski, who many of you know from his tenure as President at Fairfield Prep. Just a couple of quick housekeeping items. Please make sure your microphones remain muted throughout the conversation, just to minimize any distraction. And second, if you do have any questions that you would like Father Semiski to answer, please feel free to use the chat feature in Zoom, and we'll try to get to as many of them as we can. And now without further ado, I will hand things over to Father Jerry to get things started. Thank you, Jessica. As those of you who have been, excuse me, following our conversations for the last few months, this series is offered under the aegis of Murphy Center Campus Ministry, and especially the Office of Alumni Affairs as a spirituality series. Now, it's interesting and I think terribly apt that the way we approach spirituality is through people's experience, the lives of human beings. And our intention is that those of you who are interested and who have a long experience of Ignatian or Jesuit spirituality, you know that this is experience-based and the way we can see its characteristics is best through the lives of people who live them. And in this series, we're focusing especially on some Jesuits whom you know. And the man behind this beard is our beloved Tom Semiski. Tom, if you didn't catch it in the beginning, when there was some banter before we began, Tom is claiming that every gray beard on his face has a name from PrEP or has a particular date or incident. Whether or not that's true, Tom, we're thrilled to have you among us. Tom, although so many people who were here this evening are here because they know you from PrEP or they know you from other moments in your life, I doubt that there are many people here who know how really interesting and varied is your experience that you brought to PrEP. So much of what brought you such immense success, so much that explains your skills as a spiritual leader can be traced back to your own family history and to your own personal history way before you entered the society of Jesus. Tom, I wonder whether you can tell us a little bit about who you are, where you came from, and then leading up to how you met the society of Jesus. Sure, happy to Jerry, and again, thanks to all of you for having me on here this evening. I'm on the West Coast right now, Portland, Oregon, so late afternoon here in our time zone. Also, some of you have been looking at the flyer for this and seeing this nice clean-shaven young man and saying, wait, there's been some sort of bait and switch for what just happened. So I have the Pacific Northwest look going on right now, kind of enjoying this, and I'm in the stage called Tertianship, which is this final stage of Jesuit formation. I'm sure we'll talk more about that. But again, really happy to come back and talk to the Fairfield community, both Fairfield PrEP, Fairfield University. And in all of its uniqueness, Fairfield PrEP is the only Jesuit high school that is a division of the university. And so what a great blessing that was for six years to be part of the Fairfield family and to take all of that with me. As I was laughing beforehand that, yeah, a lot of this, I think some of the white hairs in my beard came from some stressful days and there were certainly a few working in a high school. But what you do walk away with and what remains other than just that look is our all the joyful memories and the good people. And I have had the chance to make a 30-day silent retreat, the spiritual exercises here, and to really bring to prayer all that happened over those six years at Fairfield. For me, it was really, it was a great fit. I was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. So certainly in New England or by heart and went to a Catholic high school as a very brothers high school that was a lot like Fairfield PrEP. It was St. John's and Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, all boys against the very brothers. So run by a religious order and the school of colors were red and white. So I felt like I fit right in coming to Fairfield PrEP. From there, I went to Assumption College in Worcester, which is actually now named Assumption University. I have to get used to saying that they just changed this summer for their new name. Again, a great experience there in Catholic education. Easy choice for me. My mom was a secretary at Assumption University. And so I had free education. So a great education to graduate with no student debt. I mean, what a great gift. And then I went in the Marine Corps after that and I went to Officer Cannon School in Quantico, Virginia, had a great four years. And really I entered the Marine Corps wanting to do four years of service. One of those things that most men in my family had done military service. Certainly my dad served in the Air Force and it was great to continue that tradition and serve our country in that important way. It really gained incredible leadership experience at such a young age. Here I was 22 years old and thrown right into this, probably the best leadership course in the world, training Marine officers. I'll also say this fall I was down at Holy Trinity Parish, part of Georgetown University. Down in DC and I had the chance to go back to Quantico, Virginia for the first time and I forget how many years, almost 30 years. So it was pretty neat to bring that experience full circle again. But again, to have been trained in that leadership that I was applying on a daily basis at Fairfield Prep. Just having to be able to lead those young men and the students and our great outstanding faculty and staff there. And I do feel a call in my own life towards leadership and this type of as a Jesuit, this servant leadership, pastoral leadership that all of my life experiences have helped bring me to that point and we'll see what the future brings. But after four years in the Marine Corps I was an artillery officer. I did serve over in the Gulf but as a pretty peaceful time I did a six month deployment to the Western Pacific and the Persian Gulf. Came back and then for the next three years I was a district sales manager selling overhead cranes. So I thought, you know, this is great. I went from this heavy equipment of five ton trucks and howitzers to big cranes. These overhead cranes, those big bridge cranes that roll inside factories. And so that was kind of neat. I was covering the entire Southwest, six Southwestern states. And again, great leadership experience, sales experience working with interesting people going inside factories and seeing how America makes stuff, which is pretty amazing. You see how great our country is. But three years of that I was making good money. This was the late 90s because I served in the Marines 92 to 96. This was 96 to 99, but not feeling entirely satisfied with my life and those questions kind of like, what am I doing actually? I'm just selling cranes, but what really am I doing to make the world a better place and feeling that same sense of service that I felt as a Marine? And I looked back to my time and I thought, when did I feel most satisfied in my life? It was when I was actually deployed overseas where I liked being an officer of Marines, which basically you're a teacher, you're trainer all the time, working with these young men and women, being deployed, having this mission, mission bigger than yourself, a mission that you're willing to sacrifice yourself for. And I like living in community, whether it's in barracks or on ship, but I like community life. And so I can see now sort of a proto-Jesuit vocation present in my story, but the next step for me was surely not into the Jesuits because that was still unthinkable at this point in my life, but to go to graduate school at Boston College, and I entered the doctoral program in economics at Boston College, had never heard the word Jesuit in my life in spite of having grown up tailgating at Holy Cross football games back in Worcester, but I never, never clicked. I knew that BC was a Catholic school, but I didn't know the word Jesuit, but I get to BC, I see a story in their paper, The Heights, the student newspaper about the St. Ignatius of Loyola, the Spanish soldier, wild man, hit by a cannonball, big conversion story. And I'm like, yeah, it's my kind of saint, like I like this guy, it sounds pretty interesting. So I start learning more about St. Ignatius, the Jesuits, I go on a week-long retreat through campus ministry at BC. I start meeting other Jesuits there that were incredibly talented. I love the whole, the history, the wild missionary history of the Jesuits. And so I actually, a couple of things were going on. One was here I am in doctoral studies in economics, and I realized that, you know what? I'm actually probably, I'm not as smart as I would like to be. So this is coming really hard to me. I mean, I was struggling, I could probably have gutted it out and gotten a doctorate, but it would have been just a really hard path. So I thought, you know what? I'll just, I'm gonna graduate with the master's degree, which at the time felt like a consolation prize, you know? And it kind of is in certain fields like economics, where you really have to have the doctorate. But I thought, you know what? I'm gonna take the master's degree, teach in a Catholic high school, start some discernment. I reached out to the vocation director for that time in New England province of the Jesuits, and I began talking with him, seeing a Jesuit for spiritual direction, making more retreats. And then finally, after two years of teaching at Catholic Memorial High School in Boston, in West Roxbury, that I decided to enter the Jesuits. And then I entered the Jesuit in 2003. And so here I've been now a Jesuit for, this summer will be 18 years. And really a tremendous, and we can go into all my different experiences along the way, but it was kind of a windy path to get here. But I can see that God was with me each step of that journey as well. Oh, Jerry, you're muted. Thanks, Tom. You talked about, I have to confess, I feel like I was raised at Camp Lejeune because my dad is a Marine. And I didn't say was a Marine because my father beat into my head that a Marine is always a Marine. You never say you were a Marine. Whatever happened to me in becoming a Marine is still part of you. Once a Marine, always a Marine. Okay, so how is that the case with you, Tom? You know, so that sense of service is certainly always there, the discipline of it. The, yeah, it's just the intensity, I think also. So I see so much of that present, but certainly the leadership. And a leadership that is always focused on, it can't be focused on yourself. It's got to be focused on the mission and always caring for the people that you're with. And so, and actually one thing at Fairfield Prep when I was serving as president there, for me, what was really important is that Fairfield Prep would easily go on without me. In the military, you're always trained that the real sign of true leadership is how well the unit does after you, right? And you always have to prepare because the military, what the military is all about is you might not be there tomorrow. And so you've always got to be able to cultivate leadership, bring people up and make sure everyone is really clear about the mission, certainly commander's intent about how to execute the mission. And you're always forming leadership. Leadership is a sacred duty in the military. It's not just a job, not just a role, but it is seen as something sacred. And I bring that to my life also. Well, then Tom, it must gratify you immensely and confirm you and in Ignatian terms to bring you consolation, to see people like Christian Cashman and Tommy DeCassada and Tim D and all the other leaders at Fairfield Prep whom you helped assume their positions. We'll get back to that in a second. Yeah, I'm well, Fairfield Prep's doing great right now. And tremendous leadership and to have such great Ignatian leaders as the folks you just mentioned. I mean, Christian has stepped in and he's taken it well beyond. He certainly, he begins as much more qualified than I ever was. And certainly he is at least as committed to the Jesuit mission of Fairfield Prep as me or anyone. So to see him, Tommy DeCassada also have him at my right side this whole time. And then to see him going back to Belen Jesuit a school that he loves so much. And again, to be able to support for me, I mean, I love Fairfield Prep but the Jesuit schools network is such an important thing. And however, I mean, to be able to form leaders and spread that leadership out in different places and the strength in our network of Jesuit schools I think is the real gift and that's our strength. We are more than just one institution. The same way that Fairfield University is part of the AJCU and just part of this larger network of colleges and universities. And that we realized we're part of a global network. That's a big deal. Tom, you said that when you were at BC for the first time in your life you got to know what the word Jesuit meant but also you met the figure of Ignatius of Loyola and that he was an appealing figure to you certainly cause he was a Scaliwag and a bit of a brawler in his youth that he had a checkered past but what is it about Ignatius that enduringly attracts you to him? Yeah, I think it really is that what I like about it, he was always passionate. So his conversion was not about becoming like getting rid of his passions. Now this was a guy, he was a passionate warrior as he would call himself being a soldier for Spain and then becoming a soldier for Christ but it wasn't about getting rid of his passions but focusing his passions that his passions would be about service helping other people. And even when things didn't go his way he had this big dream to go to the Holy land he wanted to be a missionary in the Holy land and that didn't work out. And so he then spent the rest of his life in Rome where he helped build up the society of Jesus and be that institutional leader being able to write the constitutions and a lot of our documents and to guide through letters and through his leadership to be able to form this fledgling institution to make it what it is today for all of us here. So he was able to accept his orders. Certainly his orders he was seeing coming directly from Christ and through the Holy father, the importance of that always operating within the church but certainly inspired so much by the whole eternity to be of service. And in a service that's always incarnate always with people, always apostolic being clear that we're not monks we're certainly supposed to pray but to be contemplatives in action and always engaged in the world engaged with other cultures and engaged with other religions engaged with people different from us and to try to bring about this gospel message this good news of God's love redeeming love to everyone. So Ignatius is a compelling character because he was always passionate and he realized he made mistakes and he went too far in different things he fasted too much at different times certainly is fighting and some of his wilder days in the past he saw that he needed that conversion but even on his early days on this path trying to figure out what he's supposed to do he went way too far in different things he was a man of extremes many ways but allowed himself to be taught by the master taught by Christ to serve a Christ that is poor, humble and even able to accept contempt, disdain, reproach be able to go wherever God has called him to be. Tom, everybody here at least most people who were with us know that the Jesuit process of training we call formation and the formation is long I think it's not an exaggeration to say it's arduous and the intention is to bring us to the experiences that will form us to be to give us the sorts of experiences that Ignatius's first companions and Ignatius himself had because we have such confidence that God works on us informs us through our experiences when you look back over your long years of formation what would you signal out Tom as the experiences that were most formative for you in preparing you to be the priest, leader, religious that you are and that you aspire to be? Yeah, you know, so many and actually I'll also say those six years at Fairfield Prep and I have to laugh because for most people that really is like the pinnacle of your career I mean to be head of a school but for me it was really just another stage of formation because I'm now in my final stage of formation I'm technically still a scholastic even though I'm a ordained scholastic but I'm not fully formed and so I'm sort of sorry to say that you know I was ordained as a priest so it's not the Fairfield Prep I spent one year where I was teaching Spanish and then transitioning, I was hired so I spent a semester transitioning to this role in five years learning how to be president and kind of doing the best I could with it running around my hair on fire most days but I always saw this like being president of institution wasn't the be on the end all of my life so in terms of Jesuit formation it's not for a job and I'm okay if I'm never head of a school again or if I'm asked to do it again, fine but I didn't join the Jesuits to do something or to be on any sort of career path and it's more just like being formed to be more open to what God wants from me what God wants for God's people and again it really isn't about so my development, my formation, my sort of flourishing in different ways is not about just my own personal path of salvation but how it can be helpful to other people and for us as Jesuits always keeping that service upfront about who we are and why we're doing anything why we're in studies, why we're going on retreats silent retreats, everything is just really to give us greater capacity to be of service to others and with this wealth, really as you know like each one of, we have like a million dollar education I mean, all of us we have lots of degrees but it's not about the degrees on the wall it's about how can these, how can this academic formation be able to help those who will never have the opportunity to get a degree or to help other people that hopefully they do have the opportunity to go on and get a degree and so for me, each stage of formation was just another way for me to grow in love for God and for the people around me lots of times with our formation will be thrown into these apostolic experiments with people who are tough to love you work with homeless folks or somebody like that who are having a bad day and how do I find God there? And it's all constantly being challenged of for finding God in all things, whatever it is I certainly found God every day walk around the halls of Fairfield Prep it was all over the, God was all over the place with all this stuff but each stage of formation and so again, just sort of backtrack on the formation that I've had that first, I guess one thing that I'll mention that in some sense is kind of a blessing sometimes our blessings don't look like blessings at first but I entered the Jesuits at one of the worst possible moments so I entered out teaching in a high school in Boston from 2001 to 2003. So my first week as a teacher at Catholic Memorial was 9-11 and so again, the tragedy of that and trying to figure out how to be an adult in front of kids when you don't even know what's going on in the world and then of course that year is when the whole spotlight series of the clerical abuse was unfolding in Boston and so Boston being ground zero of all of that and I'm discerning entering the Jesuits and possibly studying to be a priest and so when I did enter the Jesuits in 2003 I thought, you know, like well, nobody in their right mind would do this like to enter the Jesuits to study to be a priest in the middle of absolute crisis when literally in Boston everyone is leaving the church. I mean, it was just the floodgates were open and everybody was rightfully so upset with the church and I felt called to enter. Now part of it is me being a Marine I like to like charge into like the chaos but the good thing that I've kept that with me in that I've never doubted the fact that this vocation is of God because it couldn't have been by any logical human reasons it wasn't like I wanted to get more prestige or more anything because there was certainly was no prestige as I was entering and certainly throughout at different times of my Jesuit life. So that's kind of strengthened me that times where things are difficult he's kind of questioned like what am I doing to have that with me that this vocation is of God and I'm grateful for it and so then the next stage the first stage in Jesuit formation is the mission which was spent generally in Syracuse, New York but your constantly being sent on different missions experiences. So, I had the opportunity to for one semester I was working in the county jail meeting women over there. One semester I was working in the local hospital I was working on their detox floor and they had a 20 day rehab program and so work with folks that are struggling with addiction spent three months in Jamaica teaching in a grammar school certainly the center of the whole thing is the 30 day spiritual exercises, 30 day retreat also spent a semester at Boston college high school working in campus ministry. So a whole and also in six weeks in a palliative care cancer hospital in the Bronx just caring for people who were dying and providing that hands-on care. So those first two years in the bishop is this trial period for the society of Jesus and for the novice and then professing first vows which are lifetime perpetual vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and promising to enter fully the society and then the next stage of my formation was philosophy studies. Typically you go off for three years of what's called first studies and here was a good lesson in the vows for me because I have to laugh that the provincial asked me and the provincial at this time was Father Tom Regan may the Fairfield U community may know him he was a philosophy professor at Fairfield U for many years. So I'm meeting with him and he asked me where I wanted to go for philosophy studies and there's different options and I said, well Loyola Chicago and I gave good reasons for that. Have you ever thought about Chile? I said, no, I never think about Chile and so he sent me to Chile for three years but we're talking. Have you spoken Spanish before Tom? Had you? Yeah, I was working as a Spanish teacher so I spoke Spanish but it was conversational, it wasn't great and I came back to him and I said, well, you know Tom, I mean I'm happy to do it I'll obviously, I'll go wherever you send me to go but honestly, I don't think I can do philosophy studies in Spanish. I mean, I think that's well beyond me. So he said, no, no, no, you'll do fine to worry about it. Okay, well, I did and actually I did well in studies, I graduated with honors but that taught me a good lesson because I realized that left like actually for me the vow of obedience is very freeing and it allows me to do more than I would do on my own because left to my own devices, I would have said, no, I can't do that and I would have placed myself in a very small box of what I think I can do in the society over all these years has kept saying, well, you know what, tell you what we need to do this anyhow. So and I've realized that with God's help, with God's grace you can do a lot more than you think you can. And so for me that vow of obedience but really however each one of us vowed or not are able to open ourselves to God's grace is expansive in that we do get the grace we need at each moment. So yeah, three years in South America basically spent one semester in Bolivia and two and a half years in Chile studying philosophy and working in homeless shelters. Then two years teaching at Shever's High School in Portland. Let me stop you just for a second. When you think about your time in Chile you know obviously as a Marine you had served in Iraq, Iraq, right? Kuwait. Kuwait, I'm sorry. What was this experience like of being outside of your own country and immersed in another culture? Clearly as you suggested in the very beginning this is part of the Jesuit way that you enter through the door of one province but you know that you're likely to be sent anywhere in the world and you very early on had that experience in Jamaica when you were an office but then under Tom Regan's wise governance you found yourself for three years in Chile which by the way, prepared you for all your auxiliary ministries to the Spanish-speaking people of Brickport that I've seen you involved in but what did you learn about yourself and as a Jesuit by being outside your culture, outside your language, outside your sort of field of control? Because once you lose your language you've lost a lot, right? As well as gained a lot but my own experience is that you're de-raccinated a little bit and you learn a lot about yourself and life and cultures. Yeah, it's a very good point and for me those three years in South America were a sort of purifying process letting go of my ego in a lot of ways I still have a lot but I like a lot of it because you have to be so humble all the time and first of all, when you find yourself and even by the end of the time my Spanish is pretty good and as you alluded to too like one thing I loved during those six years in Fairfield I was celebrating mass in Spanish St. Charles Borromeo on East Main Street in Spanish and so to be able to, because of that experience be able to minister to Latinos of Bridgeport was total blessing that came out of that but it is tough because you know you're speaking like a child and so people treat you like a child and you get frustrated like hey, I'm gonna do all, treat me like an adult but I just can't say that. And so there's the frustration of it it's the no matter how close other cultures are you never always on the same sheet of music people think differently they have different world views and there's always a sense that you don't really feel understood where you are but then there's also you know wherever you go in the world there's gonna be an anti-Americanism and it kind of ebbs and flows depending on where you are and what's going on in the world certainly after we invaded Iraq in 2003 here I am in 2005 in South America and still just so much anger about that and people soon they find out that I'm an American like you're a president George Bush and so people... You didn't mention at that stage that you had been a Marine Yeah, I voted for Kerry too but that's okay but then they knew that and so they but then there was also you know just there was talk at that point I think we're talking about building the wall also and people are coming up to me like talking about a wall and like what wall, what are you talking about? But there's certainly at that point talking about building a wall in Mexico and people were really upset about that our policy towards Cuba and so as an American in another culture you're just going to just accept it and realize it's always a process first people always project their images onto you and you gotta realize that no one is seeing the person at first they're just seeing this straw man image and so at first you're just the American gringo and I'm sure like gringo is actually kind of a nice word but you're still getting called gringo all the time and you just realize that and I realized in my own life too as a Jesuit I mean I show up someplace dressed like this they're not going to know Tom Smysky they're just going to see priests whether that's good or bad and I'm going to always have certain projections whether it's being male being white being Catholic being whatever being Marine and so I'm going to or showing up with certain Catholic circles and you're a Jesuit so you just realize that people will project stuff on you but you just need time with them and over time you know once you both get to know each other better and because again I'm projecting my stuff on them that's just the human psychological transference that's happening that you both come to know and appreciate and really care for and respect each other a lot more but it requires engagement over time and that was sort of what Tommy so anywhere I show up I'm okay if I you know at first you know it just stirs up a lot of stuff but just to stay engaged with people and and try to keep the focus on the other person and caring about them and then good things will good things will happen thanks Tom let me take one more step back to the Jesuit and then we'll get to Regency you mentioned one of the St. Ignatius always talked about experiments or as Periencias experiences that he took to be formative and also probative of the kind of men he would want to be companions in his society and from the very beginning he insisted that the experience of accompanying and caring for the sick and the dying were one of these probative and formative experiences that should never be left out of the formation of a Jesuit what was your experience at Calvary it was at Calvary Hospital Tom Calvary Hospital right yeah would you say a little bit about what that experience was like for you yeah that is an unbelievable experience actually just to tie in also to think like how being a Marine is was helpful I remember at the end of officer candidate school that the drill instructors were telling us that listen we purposely we're putting you through more than you can do like we actually we're asking you to do asking asking my toddler you've been asking me wasn't anyone anyone humanly can do and so you're not going to be able to do everything you had to prioritize and stuff like that but you had to fail and so we're evaluating you on how you fail and things like that and actually a lot of the experiences as a Jesuit novice and beyond are putting you in positions where you literally have to fail and you have to fail because you have to trust God and you have to realize that my gifts my talents my will my strengths are not going to be able to solve this reality I'm in right now and for me to to realize and it brings to light my own shortcomings I need some work so now I can see them and work on them but also I come to realize more and more how much I truly depend on God and how much we all do in this world and so Calvary Hospital was the one that was the hardest for me and and I'll admit too that this was the one experience of all the things we did I did not want to do because this will be really this is going to be hard so we're going to be hard and so so this is a palliative care hospital so mostly cancer patients some AIDS patients and we're going to care for them in their final days and it's amazing because we as Jesuit novices after a short little training program were so two of us would be assigned three or four patients and we would be working with them we'd have to do all the care and so we would have to you know so basically bathe them in the morning feed them change put catheters on the we just have male patients put catheters on them change the diapers give enemies at times so it was really hands-on and hard heavy work again changing people's sheets with them in the bed is physical and it was really again we realized our own shortcomings that so basically myself and my novice partner there this guy Cesare Campagnoli he's a pastor in Italy right now but Cesare and I it was funny too because Cesare was a medical doctor before entering the society but we couldn't tell anyone that so we had to keep that to ourselves so he was an MD with a PhD in fetal medicine and we couldn't tell anyone we're just doing this hands-on stuff and we would be exhausted like we could barely get through four patients' care and these were all like generally they're a Caribbean woman who were doing this and each one of them had five patients and they could do eat five patients a day no problem and Cesare and I are doing everything we can being worn out and then over the course of these six weeks pretty much all of the patients we were working for died and and to be with them in those final days and even when they when they expired as they would say that to prepare the body and bring the body to the morgue and so really hard and I know my parents are on this call too my mom knows growing up I didn't like smells I had sensitive nose and so there's a lot of smells involved in an operation like this that that I didn't like and I didn't want to do and at first and here's for me the conversion at first every time we go into somebody's room all I thought about was like like for me they were like a problem like oh god I got to change this guy's diapers I need to I need to feed him and then I'm going to have to change the diapers again and then all this and so for me I first started thinking like this was a problem that I don't want to do but by the end you start you get to know the people and you really care about them and then you really love them and by the end I was like whatever I could do to make them happy if it was for them to be clean for them to be fed and in his times where some of them had a great appetite of feeding them away I'm like this this is I know I'm gonna be changing a diaper after this but I'm so happy this guy is he's just he's having a great meal for himself he's happy and so by the end I was I really was happy to care for all these patients and all that other stuff didn't even matter anymore and that's where I realized something had happened and God certainly softening my hard heart which has helped me so many other times too that if I keep things focused on the person and how God is at work and this person and me in the process everything else is is really not an issue at that point thank you Tom Tom I'm gonna skip over if it's okay the rest of your formation because I don't want to lose the opportunity before we finish to talk about what you're doing in the Pacific Northwest touch on Washington touch on what may still be coming but before we get into that that final segment I don't want us to leave Fairfield Prep that for so many people is their touchstone with you when you look back over those six years you've alluded to the blessings that you received if you were to signal the greatest consolations or the greatest gifts that you feel you receive by being there where your heart was moved most and where you say you found God or God touched you most strongly what would you say they would be Tom yeah you know it was it was always with the people you're around and everything else and to you know to be able to work with the cultivate leadership in the school certain things I love every year I just love the like we have a faculty staff retreat um I love being around going on the kairos retreats I make sure I went to every kairos for one afternoon evening and just to hang out with the students laugh at them with the tables and stuff to be around the students be shaking their hands different times but there's certain moments that like would always be really emotional for me and one was always the seed dinner seed was our diversity program is our diversity program students for educational excellence through diversity and again that was founded by Dr. Donna Andrade and who has just been named to talk about incredible Donna was just named to Father Generals committee on women and that's like six people six or eight people in the world and Dr. Donna Andrade Fairfield Preps Dean of mission and ministry is one of those people and and she's been a leader with diversity and and Jesuit mission Jesuit education for so many years so that was incredible and then Alicia Thomas and now Ruben Goodwin directors of the seed program and in every year what there's this big banquet at the end and you know the the students are talking about their experiences the parents are talking about their experiences and you would just see like wow like we are changing the world and and every time you know you bring in some one of these students comes to prep any one of our students comes to prep you know their whole family comes to prep and it gets that perfect experience and and how everybody wins too you know so where else especially in southern Connecticut do you have kids from Bridgeport and Greenwich and Darian and Shelton and and all over the place from all different backgrounds and they come together they become best friends and then you see in their families become great friends with one another and and to see how you know a kid who in any school district you know whether it's whether it's Greenwich or Bridgeport or whatever that their life could have been on a certain track and now it in all of their family are on a very different track in life and and just to hear that like the the testimonials from the parents at the seed dinner I would I would be crying every time listening to them hearing that but yeah so many different moments especially with people and in the tragedies and and I felt blessed it was powerful to be a a priest president and to feel that I was the pastor of this community even the sad moments you know tragedies like death and things and joyful moments it was it was a great place to learn how to be a priest I mean I came to Fairfield Prep right after being ordained to the priesthood and and what a place between Fairfield Prep and again St. Charles in on East Main Street Bridgeport the two communities that really support me as I as I grew in in this ministry Tom you know thank you Tom having described these beautiful and powerful experiences and especially the time at prep what sense do you make of this crazy last stage of Jesuit formation the tertianship the third year of of novitiate or what Ignatius and the early Jesuits called the school of affectus the school of the heart is it is it a mere formality was it a mistake or in your own experience to you you experience this this tertianship in such a way as that it really makes sense to you in terms of your own human and religious development yeah this is this is an incredible gift you know St. Ignatius was brilliant on a lot of different levels but especially in terms of formation and in humanism was is so important to Ignatian spirituality Ignatian humanism and and and keeping that that focus on the person always and so like a couple of different things like regencies that stage of working typically teaching in a high school between philosophy studies and theology studies the most welcome break when you need to just get out and work and and and do something and and and do that ministry full time and now this stage here that after you know a lot of studies a lot of formation uh six years of really an active apostolate it's in one sense it's a nice rest this quasi-sematical typically it's a nine month program but this being COVID all things have changed this year and I was supposed to go to Salamanca Spain for this program which would have been nice Spain's good you know so food pretty good people are very good but of course COVID has changed everybody's plans to at least plan B and so I couldn't get the visa to go to Spain but things worked out even better than I could have expected and so this fall this tertiary program Portland Oregon they decided to push their start and compress it to just January through May and so then I had the fall like oh what am I going to do for the fall and so talking with the province staff they asked me to go down a holy trinity parish down in Georgetown for the fall and so I spent the fall semester in DC and then here I'm in Portland Oregon we do a lot of weekend hikes around here in the Pacific Northwest and like oh this is great this is like the great American adventure here where I've been able to see two amazing parts of the country historical being Washington DC this fall I left I arrived August 31st and I left right after the insurrection right before the inauguration so I felt like I I was there for a lot and now this tertiary basically this is you would normally have an apostolic experiment which the fall sort of became that for me and the key thing is to do the 30-day spiritual exercises again beautiful experience especially to begin to bring all of this to prayer it was it was a pretty busy six years that prep it was graced in many ways and other ways I was kind of beat up by the time was all over there's a lot going on and to bring all that to prayer and to have God redeem all of it right so it's to see grace and all of it and and now the rest of the time is spent with these conferences where me it's just a small group of this three Jesuits on staff and this five of us tertians and we're studying things like Ignatius's autobiography the formula of the institute the constitutions Vatican II documents so it's kind of like an in-depth course on Jesuit spirituality history governance to prepare us for for leadership in the society to prepare us for final vows full incorporation into the society so it's been a great time I finish up May 14th and then I'll actually be coming back to Fairfield I'll visit my parents first so fly back to Boston visit my folks and come down to Fairfield I'll wait my next assignment but uh but yeah this has been good and I'm every day I wake up I am so grateful that I'm not trying to run a school in the middle of COVID so I'll just take that right there that's okay how much comes next awesome job right now yeah good for you what comes next and so next what I have I have my mission I just have to figure out how to get there but uh but I'm going you have your snowshoes right you have your snowshoes ready that may be how I get there because I've admission to the Russian region and I've actually worked in the Russian region now four times but basically they'd like me to go to in Tomsk Russia so in Siberia there we have a Jesuit parish and a very small pre-k through 11 school and it's the only Catholic school in Russia there's a k through four school in Novosibirsk but this is the only one that actually goes through pre-secondary and secondary education so it's certainly the only Catholic high school in all of Russia and so to I don't have a job title yet but just to get there and just like do stuff and and so to to do that unfortunately again there'll be visa complications with all this stuff so I have to get there and things are complicated but they're working on it try to figure out how to get me in on some visas so I can get over there COVID has closed all these borders but I'm excited for that next mission again to be in education to be in secondary education again I love to be with Catholics in a very marginalized in a very poor country once you get outside of the Russian oligarchs the Russians it's a pretty poor country but good people and like everywhere everywhere you go God is already there and good people are there so you can't go wrong to be there and so I'm looking forward to to being of service to to Russians and what I like about the school is that it's only 20% Catholic so it's a good chance to engage with with Russian Orthodox with Muslims with atheists and so to I think there's probably a few Protestants there Protestants have have a very hard time Russian government has been very hard on different Protestant churches but to be able to work with other other faith traditions and just other good people and to allow them to understand what we're all about with with our nation's spirituality so I'm excited for that I'm I'm sure if God wants me there God will get me there and it'll work out if I have to put snowshoes on and walk across the Bering Strait we'll make it happen well you've had plenty of experiences climbing tall buildings and swimming across bodies of water so I can see you trudging the cloths across this the the Bering Strait to get into Siberia Tom with you there's a will there's a way we'll get there that's it it'll it'll happen and and again no matter what though always that ignition indifference so that I am I'm excited about it but no matter what happens it's kind of like you know Spain didn't happen for Tertian ship but something even better happened and so you know it'll it'll work out in God's time with God's plans and and what's nice is that about life as a Jesuit allows you that sort of freedom that I realize I'm not on a career path I'm not trying to achieve much of anything in life but I'm just trying to you know try to help people out be a good person and to bring to others what I know works for me so whether it's the the good news of the gospel whether it's Ignatian spirituality that you try to help others you know encounter some some tools that might be able to help them in their lives and and to bring some sort of hope and joy to people who don't always have that Tom it's been great to have you home among us and to have this opportunity to invite you to share with us what's been going on these last few months but then from the vantage point of these last few months to share with us what you see about the past and the confidence enjoy in peace that you feel about the future we have a few more minutes would anyone like to ask any questions please you're welcome to submit them now if they're not too outrageous I'll try I'll pass them on to Tom well Larry Vitriolano says you bring us all so much hope amen thank you Larry is your comments there yeah yeah it's really great to see you Tom and just you know I know you don't appreciate it because of your humility but you know your energy and your positivity just radiates out I always felt that in our friendship that you know no matter what was going on you find the light and and you spread it in a way that's just so humble and and unassuming that you know you're you're you're competitive and you're just totally non-competitive at the same time I mean I love that about you I mean it well thank you Larry and again I feel blessed to have met great people like like you and Donna and and so many through here I see there's a question from from Barry Ryan who I'll get to also but actually I'm just looking across the screen Dana Kavanaugh I can't believe I ran into Jack when I was one of the days walking around through Georgetown streets there so it's good to catch up with him it didn't happen to be a bar did it Tom? no no I was actually on my way to Mass too so I was good oh Jack you met Jack on his way to Mass that's great Dana of course of course he was at I know he was going to Trinity he was right he was right on 35th street right Tom? he was right around the quarter from where we were I ran into him I was I was heading out up the Holy Root to go celebrate out to our Mass at the cemetery but yeah it was great to see him and he's gonna be he'll be getting commissioned as a Marine officer this spring great news there yeah he was so happy to see you and he and I can't wait he'll tell he'll see you in May when you're coming back to Fairfield awesome that'll be great yeah thanks Tom so you better all of you better book your appointments and your dinner engagements and your lunch engagements and your breakfast engagements early on so more questions more fan mail yeah let me go to that but first I'll say yeah don't book on May 25th I have jury duty in Bridgeport May 25th so we'll see watch my home visit be taken up with some massive murder trial or something like that we'll see for a moment God has a strange way Tom of giving you what you need even if it's not what you want I know now I see Barry Ryan has a great question was Ignatian spirituality developed fully during Ignatian's lifetime or hasn't developed over the centuries since and still in development and Barry I would say it's really still in development and it is a totally Ignatian as it came out of his really mystical experience at the River Card owner before he brought this group together as early on soon after his conversion and it was one he kept working it out by offering these exercises directing people in their retreats sharing it with others and but then it was like kind of he says that like Peter Faber gave the exercises better than him even and so it was really by a lot of other people giving these exercises them compiling notes and ideas even now that you do see so many different men and women who are who are directing the spiritual exercises and all of this this corpus of experience and wisdom that comes together on this too you know one of the important things to realize as Thomas suggesting is that you know as the exercises flow through other people's experience they come up with insights and certainly this is not to be politically correct but the for example the formation that we give to people like Don Androd and Ali Guilterri and John Hanrahan to have married people men and women experiencing the exercises and then being able to translate the exercises into the experience and categories of people of our own time is part of the ongoing development I think the core as Tom says is there because of the gifts that God gave to Ignatius but then the continued translation adaptation application of Ignatian spirituality so it grows if it doesn't grow instead Tom somebody wants to know whether you're still a Tom Brady fan what kind of question is that of course Christian Peter of course I still am so I was what now here's how weird this COVID year has become I mean here I became a Buccaneers fan like nothing everything is upside down in this world here now so yeah I was more of a Tom Brady and Gronk fan than actually Buccaneers fan but I wrote it for him Tom I'm not sure I can whether I can really answer this but somebody wants to know whether you were always a good pious boy going to church and how much your parents example all contributed to that so I don't know whether you want to answer that candidly since you're parent I see Betsy's question out there I listen to Betsy are you trying to get me in trouble here or something or what sounds like it and so you know again it's a little ebb and flow of my I certainly grew up I was an altar boy at church when I was a young kid and then kind of post-catholic high school it was a little bit of a little drift but you end up where God wants you to be so God's will cannot be denied and the firm foundation not to throw flowers at your parents but the firm foundation of their own example and you know your family's own commitment to Ignatian spirituality in fact I know it my mother is certainly she is a very prayerful person and and actually does goes on a retreats and gives a lot of retreats and say with both the support of my father and my mother two great influences in my life and in my sister and her family to have that love to have that support frees you up to be able to do anything thank you Tom that the love and the support and more than the form of the aspects of formal religious training yeah any more questions otherwise we'll call it a night Tom last words of wisdom I just gratitude you know the nation says we should always begin with gratitude but it's not not a bad idea to end with gratitude also just grateful for all the good people that supported me again when I came to Fairfield prep I had some teaching experience I had some leadership experience I had never been a school administrator and then all of a sudden thrown into this and asked to do this by the society did the best I could and overall worked out pretty well there's certainly some people who wouldn't agree with that it's always the case with some tough decisions you have to make over the years but but I was able to do all that because of the good people and one thing that you know I was what was really neat is you know my first year you know you do what all first year presidents do you put together a strategic plan and and I was really going into this talking to other presidents like well how do you do a strategic plan and it was really kind of funny it felt like you know as a Jedi you have to make your own lightsaber you know you're not a Jedi to you make your lightsaber well you're not a high school president until you make your strategic plan and over the course of those five years we achieved almost everything on it and and I felt good about that and it was a lot of stuff it was from everything from the you know the fine arts floor to the expanded really athletic complex now in the basement of a Rupe to all the the Barrett Science Center on the fourth floor Xavier to the McLeod Innovation Center on the lower level of Xavier to air conditioning Rupe air conditioning most Xavier now replacing all the plumbing in all these buildings 70 year old plumbing to endowing the dean of mission to ministry there was there was so much that was achieved over this time and I'm always happy to say not one of those was my idea it was all just like going around talking to people say hey what do like what should we do and you know fairfield perhaps a community where people are passionate they've been thinking about this they've got a lot of good ideas and it was really just a matter of like collecting the ideas synthesizing it keeping everyone together because a lot of passion people can spin off in different directions by keeping everyone focused and together and moving and we achieved all of those and and I'm happy to say I didn't have one of those good ideas it was just a matter of bringing together that and that was my my job we all you know we all have our role in the team each position is different I had my position and my job was just to bring together the good ideas the energy that was already there and is still there and just focus that forward and we were able to accomplish a lot thank you Tom blessings on the last months of your Tertianship have a great Holy Week and a blessed Easter everybody misses you loves you and looks forward to the brief time we'll have back with you when you come back as you await your next assignment and thank all of you for joining us for this evening and welcoming and thank you all so much and Father Tom didn't even realize this but he actually gave us a commercial for our next one of these events which is going to feature Father Tom Regan so that was so on April 20th and we'll make sure you guys all get all the info for that if you want to sign up and join us on April 20th at 7pm thank you all and have a wonderful Easter wonderful rest of this week and we will see you all again soon