Jim Kubicki, S.J.

My name is Jim Kubicki and I am the national director of the Apostleship of Prayer.  I joined the Jesuits in 1971 after graduating from Marquette High School in Milwaukee, WI and going to college for a year.  Thus, most of my higher education has been in the Jesuits:  Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from St. Louis University, the Master’s in Divinity and a Theology Masters from the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, MA.

I am a Jesuit today because of my high school counselor, mentor, and friend Fr. John Eagan, S.J.  At a difficult time in my adolescence he entered my life and changed it during the summer between my junior and senior years.  This took place on a camping trip around Lake Superior that he and five of my classmates took.  For me it was a profound experience of meeting God in the beauty of nature, in the companionship of those six men, and in the Eucharist which we celebrated in spectacular settings every day.  As I thought about what I wanted to do with my life it became clear: I wanted to do for others what Fr. Eagan had done for me.  And so I entered the Jesuits intent upon working as a Jesuit priest and teacher in an urban Jesuit high school like the one which changed my life. 

The amazing thing is that I have never done that.  God had other plans and I am grateful for them.  I’ve served God in so many different ways that I never anticipated and as a result have grown is many different ways that I never expected.  I went from a shy college student afraid to be called upon to speak in class to a director of preached retreats and parish missions who is involved in television and radio.  My role as the U.S. director of the Apostleship of Prayer ensures my involvement in “the new evangelization” that Pope John Paul II called for.  By promoting prayer for the Pope’s two monthly intentions I am helping people to see that our faith calls us to move beyond our own little worlds and to share the Holy Father’s concerns for the Church and the world.  Those monthly intentions call us to be concerned with those most in need, those who are forgotten in their suffering, and to work for the conversion of hearts that will lead to a more just and compassionate world.  And all of this because we know the deeply personal love of Jesus that he reveals to us through his Sacred Heart.  I can’t think of a better thing to give my life to.

 < Back to Living Witness home