As I was thinking about Pope Francis's upcoming encyclical, I played Bible roulette, letting God lead me to the passage I should pray with. This is the one that my Bible opened to, one I never remember reading before. And it shocked me. fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads"!!!...
Musicians, classical and otherwise, have often written music that is a variation on a theme or on another pieces of music. There is no reason why a poet should not do something similar. During a retreat at Loyola House, Guelph, Hilary Jenkins came up with the following "Variations" as she sat "in the common room for long hours looking at the surprisingly small) statue of Ignatius."...
Clickhole.com is a pop social media site whose articles are shallow, quizzes are arbitrary, and advice pieces are not relatable. And that is why I'm a huge fan of it!Clickhole is an affiliate of The Onion – the satirical news site – and like The Onion, all the content on Clickhole is fake. Yet, despite consisting of made up material, Clickhole carries the sting of criticism found in good satire.This article originally appeared in The Jesuit Post (thejesuitpost.org) on March 24, 2015....
In 1948, The Jesuits bought an estate known as Clarendon Wood which we now know as Manresa – Jesuit Spiritual Renewal Centre in Pickering, Ontario. Norm Hinton, SJ, Vince McKenzie, SJ and Alma Quilty. Source: Manresa.?Alma Quilty worked as Secretary to Father Fleming, SJ, the first director of Manresa, and over many years served the retreat house in many capacities. In 1960, Alma Captained the first retreat for women at Manresa.Marian Beck, a retired Captain of retreats for women at Manresa, knew Alma and penned this poem in Alma's memory....
My name is Andrea Carandang and I am a student in the Concurrent Teaching Education Program at St. Michael's College in the University of Toronto. I am ecstatic to participate in the launch of the summer program in partnership with Mother Teresa Middle School in Regina and I will be sharing some of my experiences....
One of the default themes in the repertoire of Pope Francis is an emphasis on God's mercy towards us. The compassion and mercy of God are expressed in many ways. A traditional way in the month of June is devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.The images that graced the walls of our parents' and grandparents' walls don't always work for younger people. As a matter of fact, they turn off many people. That's why it's great that the Gospel and the Church have such a variety of images of the love and mercy of God....
For over 400 years, Jesuits and their colleagues have had a presence in Canada. Today they work coast to coast - from Vancouver to St.John's. In this series igNation invites you to join us as we travel across Canada stopping at cities where there are Jesuit apostolates to read personal reflections about the city and the work being done there. Today we stop in Winnipeg, Manitoba....
Sacraments are like weather vanes; in the sacraments we make invisible things visible. I held the mic. That's about it. I had been asked to serve as an acolyte for the diaconate ordination of eight Jesuits here in Madrid. During an ordination liturgy the presiding bishop moves around more than usual -- sit, stand, kneel, from one chair to another and back again. It's like a byzantine improv game and mic-stands don't walk. So, that was my job. I was a big bearded mobile mic-stand all dressed in white. I held the mic so that everyone else could hear what the bishop was saying and pray along in a language I still struggle to understand.This article originally appeared in The Jesuit Post (thejesuitpost.org) on March 31, 2015....
Today's poem for igNation's Poetry Tuesdays is by Eric Jenssen, SJ. The title - "In Hora Mortis Meae" - translates as "At The Hour of My Death"....
Images of crisis fill our newsfeeds. Nepal? Crisis.Mediterranean? Crisis. Baltimore? Crisis. What are we seeing? Natural disaster? Irresponsible ship-captains and illegal humans? Violent thugs? I grew up in California, I know a bit about earthquakes, so I'll start there.We're seeing the effects of our faults.Faults naturally rupture and shift in order to relieve tension in a constantly changing world. What we see in each of these circumstances could rightly be considered a fault in this sense -- a momentary rupture, a temporary crisis, a tragic accident. Much commentary will focus on these stories as a passing crisis (pushing traffic and trending hashtags). But what is happening here is more than a crisis; this tremor is more than a trend, this violence is more than a viral video. To actually understand what's happening when a fault ruptures we must ask: What's below the surface?Reprinted with permission from The Jesuit Post (thejesuuitpost.org), April 29, 2015....
