A Jesuit volunteer's spiritual journey from Pennsylvania to Oregon by Carol Gabrielli

Author Carol Gabrielli (center), director of development for Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest, greets incoming Jesuit Volunteers at the airport in Portland this August: John Bechtold, Lou Lovallo, and Laura Morgan are on Carol's right; Mark Phelps and Jennie Walde on her left. The crew will be doing what Carol herself did six years back: living in JVC communities and working at ministries in need of help.

My Jesuit connection started early. It started even before I was born. Every Saturday in 1933, a Jesuit novice would drive a station wagon from the novitiate in Wernersville, Pennsylvania, to the corner of 3d and Chestnut in nearby Reading. My eight-year-old dad was one of the sons of Italian immigrants who were there waiting, ready to climb aboard for a day of religious education, lunch, and baseball back at the novitiate. I remember my father telling me when I was eight about playing baseball on their diamond: how two strikes, not three, were out when you played with the Jesuits; how every boy got a chance at bat. At age eight, the term countercultural wasn't a phrase I knew in words, but I think I knew it in spirit. These Jesuit novices my dad spoke of-they were following a road less traveled, and I was curious and eager to tie my sneakers and join them.

All of my siblings (there are five of us) have careers my parents can describe in a word or two-teacher, pediatrician, police officer, nurse-but they need a paragraph when they get around to me. When relatives would ask what I wanted to do when I grew up, I'd answer, "I don't know what it's called yet." Or maybe I did know. I wanted to grow into Carol Gabrielli, SJ. Without the suffix, I've experienced good fortune or intentionality or both: I have been doing what I love for the last five and a half years-working for the Jesuit Volunteer Corps.

During my years at Albright College in Reading I sustained my Jesuit affinity by attending mass two or three times a week at that same Jesuit novitiate my father used to visit. The experience was a great Catholic complement to my religious studies program at the Methodist-affiliated college. But it also reinforced my desire to become one of those justice-seeking, educated, well-rounded human beings who drove a station wagon to the south side of town on Saturday mornings. It was challenging to balance this desire to enter a Jesuit novitiate, my Catholic tradition, and my shared classes with women preparing for Protestant seminary.

After graduation in May 1988 I started working at the Devereux Foundation in Chester County, Pennsylvania, a school for special-needs children and adults, as a recreation counselor for autistic adolescent girls. I witnessed the inequity of education and services for special-needs children. And I asked how my nonverbal, aggressive, self-abusive kids were made in the likeness and image of my loving and just God.

The work at Devereux taught me how o interview and evaluate staff and how to encourage them; how to stay within budget without compromising program; how to work weekends and holidays; how to staff a twenty-four hour schedule for four residences. It also taught me how to remember birthday cakes and presents for kids who would otherwise have received none. My dad says that most of the world does not even know that kids like those exist. That is why I was drawn to the work. I liked knowing they existed. I liked being able to examine any one day and pointing to distinct moments when I saw God.

The work at Devereux shared many similarities with the work I later did as a Jesuit Volunteer. The homeless, marginalized people whose stories I heard as a Jesuit Volunteer at St. Vincent de Paul's Emergency Services in Portland expanded the community of people on the societal fringe with whom I had worked at Devereux.

After my year as a volunteer I started working for Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest. Here I began working with an entirely different population of young people. Those who volunteer for JVC are, of course, different from the girls at Devereux in that they are skilled verbally, well-educated, and and able to stay on task. My birthday card to them is one of many. But they, too, are made in the image and likeness of my loving and just God. They, too, affirm my faith that God is alive in my daily life in abundant ways.

Here's the group with whom Carol (right) spent a year back in '94-'95 as a Jesuit Volunteer: Janine Hofling, Steve Breit, Carolyn Carty, Kirsten Healey, and Pat Staiger. These six, who lived as a community in Portland, were visiting Crater Lake National Park in Oregon.

I have been serving JVC Northwest as development coordinator for almost six years, writing appeal letters, organizing benefit concerts and readings, editing a magazine and a newsletter, facilitating retreats for current and former Jesuit Volunteers, writing thank-yous and maintaining a database of 10,000 alumni, family of alumni, service agencies, friends of Jesuit Volunteer Corps, and Jesuits.

I cultivate donors and expand the notion of what it means to give; I nurture giving when I encourage former volunteers to give themselves a weekend of retreat, when I get Jesuit Volunteers to share their stories in spoken and written forms. I do the same when I provide connections to former Jesuit Volunteers moving to Denver, arriving in Portland, seeking community housing, needing employment.

Perhaps more than anything, I share stories. The chapters include Oregon Province Jesuit tales; JVC Northwest's commitment to morning prayer and cooperative decision-making; former volunteers' stories of how they have been "ruined for life," in JVC parlance; current volunteers' tales of the ruining process. This is how giving is cultivated. This is how development is envisioned. The residual returns are manifold and arrive with integrity.

A few years ago, Fr. Jack Morris, SJ, and I sat in a cafe on our way to a former Jesuit Volunteer retreat along the Oregon Coast. Somewhere in between a bite of cheeseburger and a spoonful of chocolate shake, Jack asked, "Carol, how are you here?" After another hearty bite of burger, I sat chewing and thinking.

Jesuit Volunteers hear me say that my arrival at JVC Northwest is my own proof of the existence of God. I could not have gotten here on my own; I am far too cautious a human being. Deciding to do JVC as a volunteer is the most groundbreaking decision I have ever made, and my year of Jesuit Volunteer service and my tenure on JVC staff is graced time. I have never before felt God so connected to my choices.

I have been moved to this Jesuit-connected work-moved by dad and by God. Deep down I know my dad was my first god. There wasn't a problem he couldn't solve, an answer he didn't know, a tool he didn't have. He was gently all-powerful.

It's been twenty-six years since I was eight, and my affinity for the Jesuits is at least twenty-six times greater. One of the best gifts I give my dad is to call him with stories of my shared time with Jesuits. Our phone lines stretch from my kitchen in Portland, Oregon, to his in Reading, Pennsylvania. Over those lines he hears my stories of Browning, Missoula, St. Ignatius, Omak, Seattle, Spokane, St. Mary's, Anchorage, Bethel, Portland, Uganda. He never stops marveling at the main characters, and neither do I.

I talk about Jesuits to my dad and my dad to Jesuits. Underneath my joy in either case is a dream that we all could be together at the same moment and in the same place. Maybe, someday. Until then, I continue to be awed by where I am and how I got here. Thanks, Dad. Thanks, God.  

Carol Gabrielli has been on staff at Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest since she completed a year as a Jesuit Volunteer in 1995.