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When he came to the U.S. to pursue graduate studies and then to embark on training as a Jesuit, Haitian-born Patrick Saint-Jean discovered something he had not known before: that he was a Black man, and that America was a white space. “This direct experience of racism became a crucible for me.”
In describing this painful journey, he embarked on a fresh reading of The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. The basic principles of Jesuit formation—the “discernment of spirits,” the examination of conscience, the identification with Jesus in his sufferings, death, and resurrection—became an entry to his own journey of hope and resurrection. These principles and practices, he concludes, hold promise of conversion and healing for a church and a society still caught in the crucible of racism.
“An urgent, vivid, accessible— and important—invitation to confront racism using the practical tools of Ignatian spirituality.”
—James Martin, SJ, author, Learning to Pray
A member of the USA Midwest Jesuit Province, Patrick Saint-Jean, SJ, is a regent at Creighton University in Omaha, NE, where he teaches in the Department of Psychology. He holds degrees from the Université Victor Ségalen de Bordeaux, the École Lacanienne de Psychanalyse, Paris, the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, and Catholic Theological Union, Chicago. He is the author of The Spiritual Work of Racial Justice: A Month of Meditations with Ignatius of Loyola.
