May 7, 2018 — Let us pray in thanksgiving for the life of Father Robert J. Ochs, SJ, who died on May 4, 2018, at Colombiere Center in Clarkston, Mich.  He was 88 years old. May he rest in peace.

Bob was born on January 22, 1930 in Wichita, Kan. He attended his first year of high school in Sioux City, Kan. before moving to Chicago and finishing high school at Loyola Academy in 1947.  Bob earned a Bachelor's of Science in Mathematics from Loyola University Chicago in 1951. He studied at the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium before entering the Society of Jesus at Milford, Ohio, on September 15, 1952. Bob was ordained on July 26, 1961 in Innsbruck, Austria and pronounced final vows on April 22, 1972 at Augustana Church in Chicago.

In the Society, Bob earned a Master's Degree in Philosophy (1958) from West Baden College in West Baden Springs, Indiana and a Licentiate in Sacred Theology (1962) from Jesuitenkolleg in Innsbruck (Austria). After studying a year at the University of Chicago and a year the Sorbonne (Paris), Bob earned a Ph.D. in Theology from Institut Catholique de Paris (1969). 

Bob taught math and French at University of Detroit Jesuit High School for his Regency. Upon completion of doctoral studies, he was a professor of Theology at the Jesuit School of Theology in Chicago for two years (1970-1972) before teaching spirituality for one year with "Seekers after Truth" in Berkeley, Cali. (1972-1973). After further studies in Theology (1973-1976), Bob was an adjunct professor of Theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley (1976-1981). Bob was a researcher and writer from 1981 until he moved to Colombiere Center in December of 2017 to care for his health. During those years his attention to the workings of the Spirit and his intense engagement with ideas never diminished.

Bob published two books: The Death in Every Now (1969) and God is More Present Than You Think (1970).  Bob studied the Enneagram system of personality and is significantly credited with bringing it to Catholics in the USA — first to the Midwest Jesuits and then to students at Berkeley. The Australian Institute for Enneagram Studies website has this to say about Bob: 

In the 1970s, Catholic theology students were taught the Enneagram in Chicago by Father Bob Ochs, SJ. Ochs changed the Enneagram to suit his theological purpose of integrating the Enneagram with the teachings of St Ignatius Loyola. In doing so, Ochs radically changed the Enneagram and fundamentally altered its diagnostic purpose.