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The latest executive director of the Jesuit Retreat Center of Los Altos (JRC), Thomas J. Carroll, S.J., in a sense has just returned home. Carroll was born in San Francisco in 1950, attended St. Ignatius High School in the city, then the University of San Francisco before entering the Jesuits. He studied at Santa Clara University for two years and taught at Bellarmine College Prep early in his ministry. Carroll spent 15 years at Loyola High School in Los Angeles, where he taught in the English, theology and music departments. He directed the choir and musical productions. Carroll crossed the continent to take courses at Boston College - and stayed five years as director of the Jesuit Urban Center and Church of the Immaculate Conception in South Boston. The center's proximity to several hospitals where many AIDS and HIV patients were treated generated a ministry to serve the patients and their families. The center became a haven for them and their families. And now, Carroll returns to where he began his ministry to oversee the tranquil sanctuary hidden off University Avenue since 1924, when William Ellman, a San Francisco businessman, sold his home and property to the Jesuit Community. Since his installation as executive director in July of last year, Carroll sees himself and the current JRC community as caretakers for future generations. His plans to preserve the physical plant and 35 acres of wooded paths and shrines and look ahead to future needs. Foremost in his vision is keeping the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola as the core of the center. He has no plans to tinker with a nearly 500-year history of success and succor. Over the years of his ministry in urban and suburban areas, east and west, young and old, healthy and sick, he has found the Exercises increasingly relevant. Anyone who questions whether the advice of a 16th-century saint can be applicable today will quickly hear Carroll's condensed summary of Ignatius, the man. When he drafted the Exercises, Ignatius was a single, 30-something adult, with no formal education and far from a saint. "The Exercises incorporate the Beatitudes as a way to happiness … to be free and happy," Carroll said. "That's not going to happen by acquisitions or attachment to things." The challenge remains unchanged - the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus (S.J.), continues to provided a framework to assist his Jesuits in directing men and women through an experience of prayer and discernment. "The Spiritual Exercises are really fine food for discernment," Carroll said. "They remain the core." He finds it rather ironic that "people from around the world, Germany and Ghana last summer for instance, come here. It's a great resource - yet so many people in Los Altos don't know we're here." The retreats serve adults of all faiths and walks of life with the spiritual direction and serene environment to nourish their spirituality. The Jesuit Retreat Center of Los Altos is located at 300 Manresa Way. For more information, call 948-4491 or visit www.jrclosaltos.org.
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