international service-immersion experiences
domestic service-immersion experiences
Alumni/Staff Trip to NOLA

The Vision Behind our Immersion Experiences
"God calls you to the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet."   -Frederick Buechner

Rev. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., the former Superior General of the Society of Jesus, in his talk to the members of a Jesuit University in the United States in 2000, implored that:

"Students, in the course of their formation, must let the gritty reality of this world into their lives, so they can learn to feel it, think about it critically, respond to its suffering and engage it constructively. They should learn to perceive, think, judge, choose and act for the rights of others, especially the disadvantaged and the oppressed.

Rev. Adolfo Nicolás, S.J., the current Superior General of the Society of Jesus, echoed this sentiment in an address to Jesuit Higher Education Institutions in Mexico City in 2010 with:

"the depth of thought and imagination in the Ignatian tradition involves a profound engagement with the real . . . the world as we encounter it; the world of the senses so vividly described in the Gospels themselves; a world of suffering and need, a broken world with many broken people in need of healing. We start there. We don’t run away from there. And then Ignatius guides us and students of Jesuit education, as he did his retreatants, to enter into the depths of that reality. Beyond what can be perceived most immediately, he leads one to see the hidden presence and action of God in what is seen, touched, smelt, felt. And that encounter with what is deepest changes the person."

Based on the vision of these leaders, Campus Ministry at Canisius College hopes our Domestic and International Service-Immersion Programs will accomplish the following:

The purpose of Canisius College’s Service-Immersion experiences is to increase our awareness of the world, so scandalously unjust, so complex to understand, and so hard to change.

The purpose of these trips is to fall in love and grow in solidarity with the people of the world and especially the poor, to let their stories become our stories, to let our voices speak for them.

The purpose of these trips is to help where we are needed but to know that listening and being with is as important as anything we can do.

The purpose of these trips is to challenge ourselves to live simply, to value relationships that we make, to engage our faith and spirituality in the experiences we have and to dig for the truth behind the injustices.

The purpose of these trips is to go into the gritty reality of the world and find God there and to let this God of the poor, this God of justice and liberation transform our hearts so that when we return we can act in a way that we become part of the solution, that we become women and men with and for others.

Domestic Service-Immersion Experiences:

Winter Service Week (WSW)
Alternative Spring Break (ASB)

Contact Sarah Signorino for more information on Winter Service Week or Alternative Spring Break at 716-888-2424 or signoris@canisius.edu. 

The Alumni/Staff Trip to New Orleans

Contact Joe Van Volkenburg at x2875 or vanvolkj@canisius.edu for more information on the Alumni/Staff trip to New Orleans.

International Service-Immersion Experiences:

The Working Boys Center in Quito, Ecuador

Home Building and Farming in Jamaica

War, Peace and the Pursuit of Justice in El Salvador

Summer Camp for At-Risk Children in Poland

Untouchability in India

2012 international service-immersion applications are available in Campus Ministry (OM 207) and can also be downloaded here (.pdf). Applications are due by Friday, October 14, 2011.

Contact Lu Firestone for more information about International Service-Immersion experiences at x2422 or firestol@canisius.edu.