By
Never underestimate the power of conversation.
The path Associate Professor of Law Gregory Kalscheur, SJ, took to the priesthood was a journey that began with — and has been sustained by — important discussions with his friends and family, his Jesuit brothers, and God.
“I met the Jesuits while studying as an undergraduate at Georgetown and was impressed with them as scholars and teachers,” said Fr. Kalscheur. “As far as entering the order, it was when I was in law school and had a good friend, with whom I had lots of meaningful conversations about faith and the church. Something about that resonated with me.”
Even as Fr. Kalscheur continued pursuing law as a career – graduating from Michigan Law School, serving a clerkship in the US Court of Appeals and practicing law in Washington, DC — he “felt God calling me back. I think, at the time, I needed to go do that work, with the gifts and talents I had been given, but in my heart, I felt a calling to do more.”
On Sept. 9, Fr. Kalscheur fulfilled that calling when he took his Profession of Final Vows as a Jesuit, one of the most important, and joyous, rites of passage for a priest as it marks the commitment to a religious life.
Delivering his homily before the congregation at St. Mary's Chapel – the first three pews filled with his family and friends — Fr. Kalscheur, who entered the Society of Jesus in 1992 and has been on the Boston College Law faculty since 2003, reflected on the conversations that helped bring him to God.
“I’ve been told that the verb ‘to converse’ can mean both ‘to speak together,’ and ‘to share a life together.’ I will need to rely daily upon such conversations of shared life with my Jesuit brothers, and with my family and friends, to sustain and encourage me as I endeavor to live faithfully the vows that I profess today.
“Above all, I know that I will need to rely daily on the life-giving conversation of shared life with Jesus.
Such conversations up to this day have always nurtured in me God’s gifts of freedom, wholeness, and fullness of life. I will give thanks to God for such conversations in all the days that are to come.”
Fr. Kalscheur said afterwards that he felt “gratitude for the vocation, my life as a Jesuit and the gift of the experience. I feel immense gratitude for the friendship and companionship I have felt along the way.”
Fr. Kalscheur was recently the featured homilist at the Mass of the Holy Spirit, for the full text of that homily, click here.