I can say that a Jesuit education has made me aware of other
things besides schoolwork. Being in a Jesuit institution, I can say that I have
grown spiritually and socially.
I have grown spiritually in the sense that Jesuit education
focusses on teaching the word of God and what it means to follow him. For
example, in the Ignatius Loyola class, we learned what the spiritual exercises
are and what their purpose is. Father Dziak explained that with the spiritual
exercises we can learn about ourselves while getting to know Jesus and learning
to live the lifestyle he lived. What I am trying to say is that other religious
institutions do not show their students how to pray, while in this class, we
touched on the spiritual exercises, which is a very powerful experience to go
through.
A Jesuit education does not just improve someone’s life
spiritually, but also socially in the sense that it teaches its pupils to deal
with people through service. Service is an important concept in Jesuit
education because Ignatius showed love through his actions and did everything
for the greater glory of God, which is how we, as Jesuit pupils, should perform
service too. Service helps us socially because we are dealing with people
constantly. We deal with people in schools, hospitals, or in a bigger scale,
with the community.
I am thankful for being blessed with a Jesuit education. It
has taught me mostly how to live my life by giving me certain values. It has
also shown me how to make decisions using Ignatius’ rules of discernment. The
rules of discernment help me mostly in making an objective decision over a
subjective decision.