A radical life of faith

A Jesuit's values are different from the world's. To us, poverty feels richer than wealth. Obedience is wanting to be sent by one's brothers to be with Christ serving others. Chastity is a life of love and the freedom to offer love to everyone.

Far from binding us, the vows set us free.

A Jesuit's first companion is Jesus Christ. We find him in those we serve: students, parishioners, retreatants and poor people. We find him in people who share with us a common vision and with whom we labor to give it life. We find Christ in the Jesuits we live with, work with and pray with.

Making a difference in the world

We stand with Jesus in the crucial struggles of our time: the struggle for faith and the struggle for justice that faith includes. Our goal: to transform persons in faith and justice and to transform whole societies to live in justice and to have God's special love for the poor.

We will take up any task that standing with Jesus in these struggles entails.

In service of Christ's mission, we are journalists, scientists, counselors, musicians, teachers, administrators, missionaries, poets, chaplains, artists and accountants. We seek the best use of our gifts for people's greatest needs.

Our Roots in the Northwest

In 1841, when Fr. Peter DeSmet and his five companions arrived in Montana's Bitterroot Valley, they found no roads to follow, no government, and no Church. With only their horses and a wagon load of supplies, the six Jesuit went to work.

The work those missionaries started in Montana has spread westward to the Pacific, southward into Oregon and northward to Alaska's Arctic shore. This vast territory, more than a million square miles in five states, is the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus.

Two hundred sixty Jesuits now continue the missionary work of Fr. DeSmet and his companions, living and working as servants of Christ's mission.

How we serve

Our goal: to form women and men who will stand with Jesus in the struggles for faith and justice. In the Oregon Province 's two Jesuit universities, four Jesuit high schools, and one middle school, many of us work as administrators, teachers, scholars, coaches, chaplains and counselors.

True to our Province roots, some Northwest Jesuits live and work with native peoples, serving them as pastors and laboring with them to raise up new leadership for their church. We serve the Indians on their lands in Washington, Idaho, and Montana, and the Yupik Eskimos on the Yukon Delta.

Pastoral ministry is a big part of our life, too. Many Oregon Jesuits work in parishes administered by the Society. Others assist in diocesan parishes. Still others bring God's healing touch in hospitals and prisons.

Many Jesuit guide people in Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises and in other retreats and provide on-going spiritual direction. Some of us work to form lay people as retreat-givers and spiritual directors and to be formed by them.