Called to Walk Together: Discerning a Beloved, Belizean Community
Claret Jacobs has a big job.
She’s the assistant local manager for Toledo Catholic Schools. Toledo is the southernmost district in the Central American nation of Belize. In that district, there are 29 Catholic primary schools — some of which can only be reached after hours of driving through muddy, mountainous roads, deep into the Belizean countryside.
Claret, based at St. Peter Claver Parish — the Jesuit church in the town of Punta Gorda — is responsible for supporting them all.
“It’s a vast geographical area,” she says. “It would take anywhere from half an hour to two hours to get to one of our villages.”
And yet, every week, teams from the parish make the arduous journey to visit these villages, checking in on teachers, students and administrators. Jesuit priests offer the sacraments and work to accompany and empower members of these disparate communities.
Even that, though, is challenging in a country of so many different cultures. Belize is home to Mayan communities, the Garifuna (descendants of West Africans who escapes slave ships), descendants of enslaved communities and British pirates-turned-loggers, and plenty of foreigners who have settled in this country on the Caribbean Sea.
“We are known to be a melting pot,” Claret says. What does that mean in practice? “You build up local communities, local traditions, while also helping people to understand what it means to be part of Belize as one country.”
These words reflect the hope and the tension inherent in the Jesuit mission in Belize — a mission that has been ongoing since 1851. And while the Jesuits have always done traditional ministerial work, more and more they find themselves deeply involved in the creative discernment of what it means to be Belizean.
The Jesuits are walking with Belizeans as together they engage in the hard-but-essential work of discovering a national community.
In the video below, hear how Ignatian spirituality is forming Belizeans to respond to the call to community.
Eric Clayton — a Jesuit Conference communications team member — went to Belize to offer a spiritual writing workshop. He was struck by how any talk of creativity immediately bled into talk of community; workshop participants were not shy about connecting their personal creative spirit with their shared responsibility to create a national identity. Fr. Brian Christopher, SJ, the superior of the Jesuit community in Belize, offered his reflections on why.
“You’re able to look around and see something vibrant, something beautiful, something lifegiving, even in the toughest of circumstances,” Fr. Christopher told Eric. “That’s a unique contribution that artists are able to make to any society. They’re able to see underneath the surface, and I would say to glimpse the soul, to articulate what that soul of the nation is.”
Read more of Eric’s reflection on his creative pilgrimage here.
From urban to rural communities, the Jesuits remain committed to accompanying and empowering local leaders. At St. John Vianney Parish in Belize City, the Jesuits are collaborating with parishioners to improve the church’s literal infrastructure.
In the farmlands of Punta Gorda, Jesuits are forming lay catechists to spread the Gospel message in word and deed, ministering to church communities that are part of St. Peter Claver Parish though unable to staff a fulltime priest.
“Each of these [30] churches are spiritual homes to distinct communities,” Eric writes in another reflection from his time in Belize. “Catechists like Teresa are responsible for any number of pastoral duties, ranging from holding communion services to visiting the sick to simply checking in on community members who haven’t been heard from recently. They do all this in close coordination with the Jesuit priests who are assigned to St. Peter Claver.”
The ongoing story of the Jesuit mission to Belize is reflective of the Jesuit commitment to accompanying all people as they discern God’s will for their lives. This work necessarily requires a vibrant and participatory community.
In this two-part series of “AMDG: A Jesuit Podcast,” you can learn why.
