Soul
Doctor
With
hands folded in prayer or reaching out to heal, alumnus chooses
to serve God
BY KEN ANSELMENT, BUS AD '92, GRAD '03
The deserts
of Iraq may be thousands of miles from the free clinic at
51st and Ashland on the south side of Chicago, but in the
space between them, hands outstretched in service, stands
Bill Blazek, Arts ’86, a Gulf War I infantry officer
turned medical doctor turned Jesuit scholastic.
“God called me to an increasingly radical commitment;
to giving my life,” says Blazek, without irony, at his
residence at Loyola University Chicago, where the Jesuit is
studying philosophy and theology in preparation for regency,
a two- to three-year stage in a Jesuit’s training during
which he works in an active apostolate. Though he looks forward
to the day he officially becomes a Jesuit priest — which
will occur at least five years from now — Blazek says, “Ordination
is not the end point. Sure, I look forward to the day I can
celebrate Mass, but I am able to do a lot of service now.”
His “increasingly radical commitment” to
service has been accompanied by an ever-deepening submission
to faith — something that earlier in life was not even
on his radar.
“I was a pretty unremarkable Catholic,” he
says, recalling growing up in a Northbrook, Ill., parish.
It wasn’t until he came to Marquette
that Blazek began to actively embrace his faith life and — as has been
the case for many Marquette students — it started with daily Mass at
St. Joan of Arc Chapel.
Rev. Mike Zeps, S.J., made quite an impression,
as both a teacher and ROTC
chaplain. Still, Blazek laughs, “Nobody would’ve pegged me to
be a Jesuit by any means. You never know who God is going to call.”
That
call began as a whisper during Blazek’s time as an infantry officer
with the 101st Airborne from 1986-91. In Saudi Arabia and Iraq, Desert Shield
became Desert Storm and Blazek stayed a year beyond his original service
commitment. The desert, a desolate place, had the surprising effect of
consolation: “I
would pray the Gloria at sunrise,” he says, “and be fully aware
of God’s presence in the world.”
These simple prayers led Blazek onto a path
he had not considered upon entering or even graduating from
Marquette. “I
prayed my way into medicine during my tour in the desert.” Upon
returning to the Midwest, he enrolled at Loyola to complete
premed requirements and in 1994 began medical school at
Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
Much like military
life, Blazek’s medical school life evolved in a different
way than he had planned. Shortly after Blazek enrolled in medical school,
his younger brother, John, Arts ’88, a Northwestern-minted
attorney, entered the seminary. (Rev. John Blazek, a priest
of the Archdiocese of Chicago, is pastor of St. Therese
of Avila.) “Watching my brother’s spiritual
growth really forced me to think about what I believed,” he
recalls. Rev. Jack Lane, a Chicago Province Jesuit who
celebrated Mass at the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompei in
Little Italy (Chicago) near Blazek’s apartment, hinted
about the Jesuits a few times. “But I didn’t
bite,” Blazek says.
Not yet.
Meanwhile, within the eye
of the storm of medical school intensity, Blazek found great
joy a few times each month providing medical services to
some of Chicago’s
neediest families at Rush’s free clinics. His work with the poor
and his new interest in prayer-led servitude combined to catalyze a
crisis for Blazek: “By
my third year of medical school, my prayer life led me to desire to
serve in a more radical Christian way.” He began investigating
the priesthood and gave thought to following his brother into the seminary
at Mundelein. One thing, however, was certain: “I wanted to drop
out of medical school.”
Dropping out proved to be much easier
to wish than to do: “It was like
a bad biography of a saint,” he recalls. “Nobody would
let me drop out to enter the seminary. The dean of the medical school
said, ‘Stay in.’ Blazek’s
spiritual director, Rev. Myles Sheehan, S.J., M.D., said, ‘Why
don’t
you finish up, first?’” Even Blazek’s family encouraged
him to stick it out. So he finished up and began an internship at Loyola’s
Maywood facility, where — not surprisingly, given the drift of
this story — the
Jesuits popped back into his life. More time with the Jesuits, especially
a retreat experience led by Rev. Michael Sparough, S.J., clarified
Blazek’s call
to join the Society of Jesus. When he reflects upon his experiences
up to that point, joining the Jesuits makes perfect sense: “The
apostolic work of the Jesuits, the ethics, the Ignatian spirituality,
the call to know and love our fellow human beings and to serve the
poorest of the poor, this led me to the Jesuits.”
It would be another several years of medical training, but two months
after finishing his residency in June 2001, Dr. Blazek entered the
novitiate with the Chicago Province of Jesuits.
His training and social
action so far have taken him to Cochambamba, Bolivia, (where he
studied Spanish) to the McKenna Center at Gonzaga College High
School in Washington, D.C., (where he cared for the homeless
and hungry) to Detroit (where he worked with high school dropouts
to build homes through Habitat for Humanity) and, this summer,
to the free clinic on 51st and Ashland (where he provides free
medical services in a multilingual setting).
Life as a Jesuit
has woven the twin strands threading through his life — social
action and prayer — into a tapestry that illustrates the
interplay between his talents and desires and God’s will.
And like many works of art, Blazek’s
design has taken a form different from the original idea. He acknowledges
that it wasn’t his design in the first place. “I don’t
think I chose to be a priest. God chose me. The choice we make
is to accept the call.”
|
