Jesuit Collaborative

“It’s funny how connected my life is,” says Jacqueline (Jackie) Perez. She acknowledges that the connections seem too strange to be true, but they are. “I cannot separate medicine, music, and ministry in my life.” These connections and God’s unfolding in her life have inspired Jackie to share an abundance of gifts with men and women in need, physically and spiritually, in her own backyard and across the world.
 
Since the 1990s, Jackie trained and has worked as a primary care doctor in internal medicine in the Community Medicine Department at St. Vincent’s in Manhattan providing care for the marginalized in a variety of settings including shelters and drop-in centers. “I learned so much about my faith through working with the poor, and that’s how I got connected with the Jesuits.” Her involvement with the Jesuits goes back to the early nineties when she started attending St. Francis Xavier Church in New York City. At least that’s what she thought, until she discovered a few years ago that she was baptized by a Jesuit at the Church of the Gesu, in Milwaukee, WI. The connections apparently were taking the shape of a circle.
 
Jackie started making annual retreats in 1997, and in 2002, she made the 30-day retreat. She also completed the Veni spiritual direction training program at Mt. Manresa Retreat Center on Staten Island. She began thinking about working in a Third World country. Through prayerful discernment, Jackie experienced the desire to give back to the Society. A variety of grace-filled encounters followed. Jackie connected with Ken Gavin, S.J., and eventually travelled to Malaysia to work with Kumpulan A.C.T.S. (A Call To Serve), an affiliate of the Jesuit Relief Service.
 
In Malaysia, Jackie was part of a team that provided medical care to refugees, visiting people in the jungle as well as working in hospitals and clinics.   Although the settings were different from her work in New York City, the work of going out to care for people where they lived was the same. “I saw so much healing going on,” Jackie says of her experience in Malaysia. “People were loved and cared for, and that’s what made them better.”       
 
Music has been another major part of Jackie’s life and a source of connection. Jackie sings with the Xavier choir, the professional ensemble group Choral Chameleon, and as many people know, is a founding member of the Ignatian Schola, a group of lay and Jesuit music ministers who inspire with their liturgical singing and delight with their entertaining parodies. The Schola performances at the Fairfield Conference two years ago, the Ignatian Partners meeting last fall, and the Fordham Conference this past spring strengthened our communal prayer and our shared experience of Ignatian Spirituality.
 
Jackie has been involved with The Jesuit Collaborative since before there was a Jesuit Collaborative. She served on the Ignatian ministry taskforce that made a proposal in 2005 to the provincials of Maryland, New York, and New England. Out of that process, The Collaborative was created.   “With the Jesuit Collaborative, I am able to fulfill where God is calling me to the fullest,” Jackie says. Jackie is a true daughter of St. Ignatius; her desire to help others is rooted in the extraordinary gifts God has given her. Where there is gratitude, there is generous self gift.