Our Team

Jane Patterson
Project Director
jpatterso001@CollegevilleInstitute.org

The Rev. Dr. Jane Patterson is the Project Director of the Communities of Calling Initiative. She also serves as Associate Professor of New Testament and Director of Community Care at the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas. In addition to Biblical Studies, she teaches in the area of Christian formation, where her work focuses on vocation and Christian practice, and she is Associate Project Director for the “Called to Lives of Meaning and Purpose Initiative” of the Lilly Endowment, Inc.  She is a contributor to Calling All Years Good: Vocation Across the Lifespan (Eerdmans, 2017) and the author of Keeping the Feast: Metaphors of Sacrifice in 1 Corinthians and Philippians (SBL Press, 2015).  With John Lewis, she is a Co-Director of St. Benedict’s Workshop, a ministry devoted to helping laity live their faith in daily life, and serves the Diocese of West Texas as a member of the Discernment Committee. She is active as a preacher, teacher, and parishioner at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in San Antonio, Texas.

Jessie Bazan headshotJessie Bazan
Program Associate
jlbazan@CollegevilleInstitute.org

Jessie Bazan is the Program Associate for the Communities of Calling Initiative and the Collegeville Institute Seminars. Jessie Bazan earned her Masters of Divinity degree from the Saint John’s University School of Theology and Seminary and her Bachelor of Arts from Marquette University. In addition to her work with the Collegeville Institute, Jessie writes regularly for U.S. Catholic magazine. She is editor and co-author of Dear Joan Chittister: Conversations with Women in the Church (Twenty-Third Publications, Fall 2019).

Consultants

Kathleen Cahalan headshotKathleen A. Cahalan is Professor of Theology at Saint John’s University School of Theology and Seminary and Director of the Collegeville Institute Seminars, a collaborative research project that has studied various aspects of vocation over the past 8 years. She co-edited two volumes from the project: Calling All Years Good: Vocation throughout Life’s Seasons (2017) and Calling in Today’s World: Voices from Eight Faith Perspectives (2016). She has also authored books for a broad church audience, including Stories We Live: Finding God’s Calling All around Us (2017) and Living Your Discipleship: Seven Ways to Express Your Deepest Calling, co-authored with Laura Kelly Fanucci (2015). In addition, Dr. Cahalan directs the coordination of the Lilly Endowment’s Called to Lives of Meaning and Purpose Initiative, begun in 2018.

The Rev. Dr. John Lewis is Director of Formational Outreach and Lecturer in New Testament and Spirituality at the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, TX. As a New Testament scholar, he also serves as Co-Director of St. Benedict’s Workshop, a non-profit ministry for Christian formation he founded in 2001. He is a member of the Collegeville Institute Seminar on Vocation and Faith in the Professions and will be co-leading the Communities of Calling Initiative’s pilgrimage to Israel in 2021.