On Friday, April 14, Frater Jacob Smith, SCJ, was honored with Marquette University’s Contemplative in Action Leadership Award. Fra. Jacob is an undergrad student at MU.
“Because Marquette is a Jesuit institution, studying here has been a constant interaction with God through the lens of Cura Personalis and Ignatian Discernment,” said Fra. Jacob upon receiving the award. “These Jesuit concepts are fused with an aspect of my own Congregation’s spirituality: Reparation. We Dehonians understand this concept as ‘a welcome to the Spirit, as a response to Christ’s love for us, as a communion in His love for the Father and as a collaboration in His work of Redemption in the midst of the world’ (Constitutions 23). My service here at Marquette is an act both for my own spiritual care as well as an act of Reparation impelled by the spirit to work towards Redemption.
“The Campus Ministry team has embodied these values for me and I have always felt at home in the office. My time working with them has been filled with laughter, jokes, intense debate, personal vulnerability, shared hardship, and lots and lots of discernment. Through these aspects I’ve felt my own soul be nourished and my person cared for. The natural response to such a thing, my Spirituality teaches, is to spread it. This was manifested through my time cantoring at Masses, serving as an Acolyte, working with Liturgical Choir, and generally assisting wherever and whenever I could.
“Leadership is, for me, not anything more than receiving the fruits of the Spirit and the Love of God, and imparting them to those who seek after them. When we receive this gift of Divine Love, we find ourselves unable to resist the Lord’s beckoning. I did nothing more than follow Him and His call. As a Dehonian, as a Priest of the Sacred Heart, I hope and pray that my time in Campus Ministry has borne authentic witness to the love of the Sacred Heart, both human and Divine.”
Joining Fra. Jacob at the ceremony were his Aunt Michelle and Uncle Jeff, as well as Fr. Duy Nguyen, Br. Brian Tompkins and Postulant Alfonso Pizano. Fra. Jacob is pictured above with Dr. Xavier Cole, MU’s vice president of student affairs.
