Damian Torres-Botello, SJ, is a native of Kansas City, Missouri. He earned a BA in theater from the University of Saint Mary in Leavenworth, Kansas and is an accomplished playwright and monologist who has worked with theater companies from Detroit to Georgia. Damian entered the Jesuits in 2012 and last August he professed First Vows after completing two years of study at the Jesuit Novitiate in the Twin Cities. He is currently in First Studies at Loyola University Chicago. |
|
|
|
Damian accompanies Creighton University students on a Service and Justice Trip for spring break at Chicago's White Rose Catholic Worker. |
By Damian
Torres-Botello, SJ
“What are
the differences between a job, a career, and a vocation?”
I asked this recently to a room full of freshmen
honors business students at Loyola University Chicago. On this particular day I
found myself in a course designed to acclimate first year students to the
academic and social life of college. As I was preparing this talk, filling it
with a fancy PowerPoint presentation and witty one-liners, I had a moment of
reflection. No, actually, I would say it was a moment of recollection. I
thought to myself, “I have had so many jobs, one career, but never a
vocation…until now.”
This past August – August 9th at 9:00am to be exact – I pronounced
vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the Society of Jesus. Leading up to
this moment was nothing less than a challenge, nothing more than divine, and
everything like excitement and joy. And inside all that, something I have come
to understand, in my 36 years of breathing, that moment, that very moment, I
was dedicating my life to something that moved my heart and sets it ablaze: the
people of God.
An exercise during this University 101 class involved writing down what you
understood to be written on your heart, that is to say, things that are more
than just something you like to do but rather the root as to why you like to do
them. This was an exercise I did during the Spiritual Exercises to begin
contemplating the question: What has Christ written on your heart? For these
new college students it could be anything from caring for their health, playing
on a sports team, and even why they chose the major they desire to study. For
me, in my heart, a little over a year ago on those last days of the Exercises,
I recalled writing: A Love of People. The things I chose to do in my life, to
fill my days, to wake me up in the morning, whether it was a job or my career,
all centered on people. Getting to know people, serving with people, working
for people…people, people, people.
Two years prior to taking vows I had a flourishing career as a playwright and
sometimes actor/director in Kansas City and Chicago. I had worked countless
jobs to supplement my meager artists income as an administrative assistant at a
couple of universities, a one-time pre-school teacher, a brief stint as a
waiter, and finally an event planner. All offered okay money for bits of my
time, but they all involved working with people and serving people in one way
or another. And on August 9th I found myself awake and aware, on my
knees, vowing my life to the church, to Jesus, and the Society that bares His
name, taking what has been written on my heart and making it real.
Explaining to the students in class, I say: “A job gives you money in exchange
for your time, a career gives you money in exchange for your time doing
something you love to do, but a vocation is something that fits you perfectly because
it fulfills all those things written on your heart.”