Entered the Society of Jesus: 2015
As a Jesuit: Father Birjoo served in the Jesuit Refugee Service in Lebanon, alongside Druze, Sunni and Shia colleagues. He also ministered at a palliative care home in Paris and served as a deacon at the city’s anglophone parish, Saint Joseph’s Catholic Church.
Assignment Following Ordination: Father Birjoo will join the campus ministry team at John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio.
Expression of Gratitude and Inspiration: I am profoundly grateful for the countless blessings and support I have received throughout my 11 years as a Jesuit, and in my journey toward the priesthood. To the ineffable God, revealed in the face of Jesus, I give thanks for the gift of creation, and for the inspiration and freedom that accompany this vocation.
To my family, especially my parents, I am grateful for your examples of sacrifice, generosity and steadfast love. You have celebrated my joys and lifted me through challenges, offering a faithful witness to God’s presence in daily life. I am equally grateful to friends— married, single and consecrated—who have accompanied me, sometimes across distances, offering patient listening and sharing perspectives drawn from your own lives.
This period of formation would have been impossible without the care of Jesuit superiors, mentors and companions. Brother Jim Boynton, Fr. Mark Andrews and Fr. Brian Paulson gave me my first images of the Society of Jesus and helped me see that entering was possible. In particularly pivotal moments, I have been blessed with the guidance of Jesuit Frs. Greg Hyde, Joe O’Keefe, Nick Lombardi, Denis Meyer, Paul Brouwers, Charles Rodrigues, Karl Kiser and Dan Corrou, who have shown me Christ’s concern for the least and what it means to be a servant leader. To the many others I cannot mention—especially those I served alongside during regency—I hold you in my heart. Your generosity, friendship and prayers sustain my vocation.
A Jesuit who continues to inspire me is Saint José-Maria Pignatelli. Renowned as a leader during the suppression of the Society, he embodies creative fidelity, faithfully serving God and the Church amid immense trials. His witness resonates especially as Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ, founded Jesuit Refugee Service on his feast day, reminding me that our mission to migrants and the forcibly displaced flows from our own experience of being adrift. “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.” (Exodus 22:21).
