Young People: Temples of the Holy Spirit

Casey Beaumier, S.J.

Yyoung people crave spiritual conversation and, if given the opportunity, experiences to explore and to express the inner movements of their hearts within the community of their peers. Beginning in 2016, Boston College has been home to a program that introduces high school students to such an opportunity. These students are engaging the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola through Ever to Excel, a program that has now hosted nearly 800 students from all over the world. These students arrive on Sunday in time for an opening dinner and remain on campus until Friday after lunch. During the course of the week and under the guidance of Boston College undergraduates who serve as mentors, the students experience important movements of the Exercises through video presentations, k eynote speakers, faith-sharing groups, and nightly candlelight Masses. The goal is to make accessible those stirrings of the interior life that are worthy of attention and strengthening. Young people understand the value of physical exercise and the role it plays in contributing to living a good and balanced life. It is through this association that Ever to Excel presents spiritual exercise as a means for living out a faith life, which like physical exercise, contributes to living a good life.

Each day brings to the participants different exercises that afford them with opportunities to stretch t hemselves interiorly with the hopeful outcome of stronger character and faith. While not all of the students are Catholic or even Christian, the program is explicit in its Catholic spirituality in a way that makes the content appealing and engaging for everyone. For example, on the first day of the program, students explore the First Principle and Foundation of the Exercises, and they spend time pondering and discussing their identity before God as beloved sons and daughters, companions of Christ, and temples of the Holy Spirit. In other words, each person’s identity before God reveals worthiness of unconditional love, friendship, and respect. This identity is the great equalizer within the human family and this starting point e nables participants to begin to engage one another with eagerness and anticipation. The remaining days build upon this foundational beginning and include themes such as formation, discernment, pilgrimage, mission, and magis.

The undergraduate mentors are prepared with faith-sharing questions for each day. These key questions become the focus of the small-group activities that t he mentors facilitate. The outcome of these exchanges is increased capacity to listen with interior ears and to speak with greater vulnerability and sincerity. This style of spiritual conversation is foreign to most young people today and can even seem to be off-putting at the beginning. By Friday, however, it has not been unusual for students to say that Ever to Excel was the most important week of their lives. They have experienced a level of engagement that they have been craving and that the Lord has wanted them to experience in order to grow closer to Him. ■

High school students from around the world are invited to Boston College this summer for the Ever to Excel program. Drawing from the wisdom of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the program provides rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors the resources and supportive community environment to contemplate how to create a more meaningful life through the lens of Jesuit spirituality.

Session I:

Sunday, July 23, to Friday, July 28, 2023

Session II:

Sunday, July 30, to Friday, August 4, 2023

For more information about Ever to Excel and the application process, please visit bc.edu/ evertoexcel or email evertoexcel@bc.edu

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Melodie Wyttenbach