Together in community
A small group of graduate students has had the opportunity to live together in a lay formation community guided by the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola—a new initiative launched this academic year by the Clough School of Theology and Ministry.
The CSTM Formation House, which opened in August 2024, fosters communal living, prayer, and conversation and is designed for lay students who have a sincere desire to deepen their discipleship of Jesus and intend to serve the Catholic Church in ministry after graduation.
“One of things we are seeking to develop in the student residents is a life of prayer based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius,” said Clough School Dean Michael McCarthy, S.J. “And the second thing we are developing is an identity as a minister for the Catholic Church, the people of God.”
Clough School of Theology and Ministry Dean Michael McCarthy, S.J. (Photo by Caitlin Cunningham)
“We want the residents of the formation house to be fully immersed in the Ignatian tradition,” added CSTM Associate Dean for Student Affairs and Career Services Jacqueline Regan. “We hope that from this experience of a lay formation community the students come away with habits of mind and heart that will sustain them in the future.”
The CSTM Formation House is located on Foster Street, adjacent to BC’s Brighton Campus. “It's a beautiful house and we are very grateful to be in there,” said Fr. McCarthy, who expressed gratitude to University President William P. Leahy, S.J., for the support he has given the initiative.
The formation house was created in response to conversations Fr. McCarthy had with CSTM students when he began his deanship. According to Fr. McCarthy and Regan, students expressed an interest in an intentional formation community similar to ones experienced by Jesuits and religious orders where spiritual formation and prayer would be central to daily lives and where there would be real community support.
The CSTM Formation House is intended for full-time master’s students, particularly those in the Master of Divinity and Master of Art in Theology and Ministry programs, both of which have a spiritual formation requirement. It is expected that students will reside in the house for one or two years.
Clough School of Theology and Ministry Associate Dean Jacqueline Regan (Photo by Caitlin Cunningham)
“My hope was to have a formation community where members of the community would help form each other and where there would be a relationship with the CSTM in which we would have a regular formation program with them over the course of the year,” said Fr. McCarthy.
“That kind of spiritual formation is central to the life of discipleship and certainly for ministry,” added Regan.
For Grace Gasper, an M.Div. student in her first year at CSTM, the formation house offered her a type of community life she was seeking. After graduating from the University of Notre Dame, Gasper spent a year in service at L’Arche in Chicago, a nonprofit for adults with intellectual disabilities. She lived in a home alongside other volunteers and people with disabilities.
“I loved living in community,” said Gasper, a self-proclaimed extrovert. “There's a liveliness to it. I love being with people and living in a busy home.
“One thing I wanted more of when I was at L’Arche,” she added, “was some formational, intentional community elements, which is what the CSTM Formation House offers.”
Molly Snakenberg and Grace Gasper (right) with other residents in the Formation House. (Photo by Lee Pellegrini)
Fr. McCarthy pointed out that the formation house is a program with a particular ministerial, religious, and educational intent that carries certain responsibilities and expectations for those selected to participate.
Student residents commit to daily prayer, the shared Eucharist once a week, a weekly community dinner, a monthly Saturday conference on a topic of formation, faith sharing, and service to the CSTM or local community.
According to Regan, residents also commit to living according to the rule of common life, a framework that sets out the core values of discipleship, community, and mission. Essential aspects include trust, simplicity, sacrifice, reconciliation, and the integration of the service of faith and promotion of justice, as well as a commitment to joint care of the house and common meals.
“Community life is central to Christian life,” said Regan. “It's a matter of letting go of your own needs, desires, and agenda for the good of the community.”
Gasper admits that community life is not for everyone. Living in community “has to be something that you're passionate about and something you're going to contribute to as much as you receive from. We are a community that is excited about being formed for ministry and a community that relies on one another. And that is something that makes us different from a group of people that just live together. We care for each other, we show up for each other.
“My roommate has been collecting quotes that people have said in house, and one from me was ‘Why am I roughing it when there's community?’
“We think a sign of being an adult is to be fully independent, but my work with people with disabilities has shown me that we are really interdependent beings and that our strength can be found in our connections with others.”
For Gasper and the other residents, that connection to others has been forged around the kitchen table, which she calls the “magical epicenter of our house.
“I value our formation and our formalized components; I don't want to downplay that. But, there’s grace to be found in the unexpected, ordinary moments at the kitchen table where we end up having really wonderful, profound conversations. I'm so grateful to have that space where we can encounter each other in the day to day. I think that’s valuable.”
A chapel is located in the basement of the CSTM Formation House. Formation Team member Gandaf Walle, S.J., celebrates the Eucharist with Formation House residents every Wednesday morning. (Photo by Lee Pellegrini)
The enormous task of getting the house and programming up and running has been the work of CSTM’s Formation Team, which includes Fr. McCarthy; Regan; Special Assistant to the Dean Gandaf Walle, S.J.; Spiritual Formation Assistant Director Crista Mahoney; and Jesuit scholastic Andrew Cera, S.J.
“It's been a lot of work, but a wonderful challenge,” said Regan, noting that the formation house is an extension of the work she and Mahoney already do in spiritual formation, offering retreats and immersive experiences, connecting students with spiritual directors, and conducting regular check-ins with students.
Cera, who is scheduled to be ordained a deacon in September, has expertise in Ignatian spirituality and the Spiritual Exercises. He visits the house monthly and guides the residents in prayer. He also led an Ignatian retreat for the residents at the start of the school year. Fr. Walle, a Jesuit from Cameroon, offers Mass at the house every Wednesday morning.
CSTM Ph.D. student Diane Oliveros is an in-residence coordinator who serves as the liaison between the students and CSTM. Regan also acknowledged the important role Maura Colleary, CSTM associate dean for finance and administration, has played in assisting with the operations of the formation house.
So far, Fr. McCarthy and other members of the Formation Team have been impressed with the response from the student residents.
“A regular element of our monthly Saturday session is a guided meditation, based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius,” said Fr. McCarthy. “I’ve been struck by the students’ openness to learn how to pray and genuine desire to deepen their spiritual lives.”
CSTM representatives say that while other divinity schools or schools of theology may have graduate student housing or living communities, the CSTM Formation House is distinctive.
“The CSTM Formation House is specifically centered around Ignatian spirituality and preparation for ministry,” said Fr. McCarthy. “We are in the process of creating the model.”
The CSTM Formation Team sees a special interconnectedness for the study of theology and living in a faith community.
“Spirituality is theology which is being lived,” said Fr. McCarthy. “As a school of theology and ministry, to have a dedicated space where people committed to similar vocational goals can come together offers a really good context to study theology. Studying theology raises all kinds of questions. Who am I before God? How do I fit in this Church? How do I maintain my core sense of belonging both to God and the Church? There are all kinds of important questions that are a part of theology and return to inform our doing of theology. And the hope is that this lay formation community is one context where a small group of people can ask those questions together and support each other and give each other a sense of belonging, support, and challenge while studying theology and preparing for ministry.”