Just before graduation from middle college our Jesuits in Baghdad
used to invite all the Christian seniors to a three-day recollection.
This was the appropriate time to reflect prayerfully on what on
would like to do after high school. Sometime during the recollection
one of our good senior Jesuits, the late Fr. Joe Merrick, saw
me and he asked me what I hoped to do after graduation. Though
deep down in my heart I was then toying with the possibility of
becoming a Jesuit priest, I was really hard-put to speak out courageously
at the time. For his part the good Fr. Merrick just listened to
me. He advised me to see a Jesuit father later on and talk to
him when I feel more sure of what I would like to do in the future.
Actually the conversation was just what I needed at the time to
get started thinking, prayerfully, about my vocation. Soon after
that I informed my parents about my experience and desire to become
a Jesuit priest; and both were very positive in their reaction.
In fact, my dad was very happy telling me that he always prayed
that one of the children become a priest.
Before the end of the first year fire broke out, and we had to
run for our lives. And at night we got out and stayed at the Stockbridge
Inn over there. Then we were moved to different places. I was
sent to Poughkeepsie, New York. There I continued my juniorate.
It as really a change for the better: it helped me to open out
to the New York Jesuits at the time. The philosophy years continued
later on at Weston College. I loved very much my philosophy years:
it helped me to be more and more effective about my life and to
focus on God.
In between I went to neighboring Syria where I got acquainted
with the work of our Jesuits there. Some months after that I was
invited by our Jesuits in Damascus to join them in their pastoral
work. From there on, with the permission of my New England Provincial,
I became applicatus to the Middle East Province to work with the
Syrian Region of the Middle East Province. And from there onwards
I found myself, through the grace of God, very much at home in
various fields of pastoral work in the Arabic language, which
began in Damascus, and moved on to other cities in Syria, and
extended for twenty-three years. In fact, these years in Syria
were for me the beginning and very much the basis for my future
priestly activities.
And then we developed now the talk about the work with Iraqi refugees.
As time moved on my work also moved to this direction of helping
out our Iraqi refugees, who kept coming from Iraq seeking immigration
to other countries. Their situation became more and more desperate.
Many of them had to leave Iraq because of threats to their lives,
kidnaping, bomb blasts, deaths in the family. Most of them couldn't
find employment in Jordan, not having resident permits. Accordingly
I started to do more and more pastoral work with Iraqi refugees.
In the poorer sections of Amman I started to visit some of the
poor refugees. In due course I began to have weekly Masses for
them, to do spiritual sessions with grown-ups in their homes,
and I started organizing English-language teaching for grown-ups
in the classroom of a neighboring school.
Indeed, very much. Very, very much, and right through. Right through
from the beginning of my interest in the Society, and right through
to today, very much so. Though the future is very much unknown
I still remain in hope and trust in God. One would tend to be
very pessimistic on a certain level, but on our deeper level of
faith I would like to be very much optimistic.
