April 25, 2015 was a day of a tragedy for the people of Nepal. The massive earthquake killed 8,000 people and injured 19,000. But one event - the ordination of Nepal's first native born Jesuit priest - saved the lives of about 150 people. Canadian Jesuit, Bill Robins, SJ - Socius to the Provincial, described what happened. The post begins with Bill's letter to me that accompanied his posting....
Over the next seven days, we will see ordinations at Our Lady of Lourdes in Toronto, the great Feast of Pentecost around the world, and in Rome on Saturday the beatification of Archbishop Oscar Romero. In today's post, Bert Foliot, SJ writes:"In beatifying Romero, the Church is offering us all a model of how, by listening to the Holy Spirit, we too can be transformed."...
The Church is celebrating Pentecost again. This blog has explored two gifts of the Holy Spirit on our celebrations of the past two years: courage and knowledge. This time, we look at wisdom. Wisdom is traditionally seen as the first of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. In scripture, wisdom is seen as an attribute of God, a breath of the power 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. Our first stop – Vancouver....
Ordinations are beautiful events. I usually leave the church with the feeling that I've just participated in a hope-filled celebration and a wonderful statement about church: the joyful family and friends, the words of the ordination ceremony, the carefully-chosen scripture readings, the music and singing, seeing friends I haven't seen in a while, and so on. I'm sure that there are people attending who are disturbed at yet another statement about a male, hierarchical structure. But that seems to fade away for a day....
In celebration of the Feast of Pentecost, Greg Kennedy, SJ - who will be ordained the day before Pentecost=offers us his reflections on Pentecost in this poem....
Sunday's Feast of the Ascension also marks the 49th annual World Communications Day. This is in fitting with the call in the Gospel to go out as witnesses to the ends of the earth." Mark's Gospel has Jesus say to his followers: "Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.""...
As I tapped Morneeng" (a special greeting that Fr Elton Fernandes performs exclusively to JAGs that he picked up from Filipinas somewhere) to confirm our 3 pm meeting last December 27, I was excited to be visiting the Xavier Retreat House in Cheung Chau, Hong Kong. I have heard so much about Xavier House from the Wah Yan alumni in our Jesuit Alumni Group that I had to add it to my itinerary. That it would take around two hours each way did not really matter. This was my Christmas gift to myself."...
The scenario is always the same. It's early in the semester, just a few days into my Introduction to Theology class. We are discussing the existence of God, which has always struck me as a logical place to begin a class about, well, God.I want to ask you a very personal question," I begin, "but you have to agree to answer it before I tell you what the question is. Any volunteers?"" This article originally appeared in The Jesuit Post (thejesuitpost.org) on March 5, 2015....
