Every Jesuit novice must undertake an extended period of time in ministry among the poor. This experience is known as the long experiment. When I was missioned to Holy Cross Mission at the Wikwemikong Unceded Reserve on Manitoulin Island, Ont., for my long experiment, images of Francis and the Jesuits in the Reductions flashed before my eyes. However, I was about to find out that ministry among and with the natives is very different today from what it was in the past — different even from the ministry the holy Canadian Martyrs exercised among the Huron almost four centuries ago.

For five months I have worked alongside Jesuit Father Douglas McCarthy, serving the people in Wikwemikong, or Wiky as it is better known. Teaching catechism for First Communion and Confirmation were among my responsibilities and it was through my time with the youth that I started to discover and value the Anishinabe people.

I learned about a people proud of their culture and their traditions. I experienced first hand their great passion for life, beauty and their community.

Every experience of an aspect of community life taught me something very valuable about the Anishinabe, but most importantly about life itself. Anishinabe hospitality, as shown during festivals of life, wakes, funerals and other celebrations, demonstrate the warmth of a people who treasure their community and collective memories and traditions.

When I arrived in Wikwemikong, I had a doer mentality. I was preoccupied with all the things I could do to help, improve and maybe even transform the community. But my time there was a lesson in spiritual poverty and learning to be, rather than worrying myself with doing. I attained a better understanding of what it means to be human. After all we are human beings, not human doings. Day by day, I started to recognize that I was not missioned to Holy Cross to transform the lives of others, but that I was there in order to allow the love of God to be communicated to me through the people of the community.

Among the Anishinabe, I discovered a God of surprises who delights in all His children. I tasted God’s goodness in my encounters with youth, the elders and the hopeful. I experienced Christ crucified in the broken, the addicted and the wearied. I rediscovered my sense of awe and gratitude for the beauty of creation and I learned that gratitude can only be a spiritual experience when we are grateful with God for the blessings received.

My time among the Anishinabe helped me to revisit the stories of my heroes, the Jesuit missionaries. I regained an understanding of their lives through the eyes of the people in Wikwemikong. I saw that what truly attracted me to their stories were not the things they did for the greater glory of God but the way they surrendered to God and how they experienced God through those to whom they were sent. I rediscovered their humanity. I came to realize what made them holy was not their strengths but their great love for God and God’s people. I saw that they were able to touch the lives of so many not because they were strong, but because they were beset with weaknesses.

In learning to surrender it all to God, those missionaries allowed love to transform them. Everything they did became a song of praise to God.

My time in Wikwemikong was not a success story, but a love story. The story of God who calls me into being, and at times into action, to sing a song of praise and in so doing to help others lift their voices and their hearts to God. If I became a little bit more loving through this experience, it was all worth it. One thing is certain, I gained a whole new insight into what it means to be beset with weakness and to surrender it all to God.

(Rodriguez is a Jesuit novice preparing to take first vows in Montreal this summer.)