Grade nine kids come to St. Paul 's from varied backgrounds-–socio-economic, religious, ethnic--- but they all face the same new challenge: theology. Our grade nine course is a primer in the basics of the Catholic Christian faith and we begin with a unit on the Society of Jesus....
If the only Jesuit you ever met was a character in a work of fiction in a library collection, what would this individual tell you about Jesuit life?In this series, IgNation blogger Kevin Burns, who is not a Jesuit, takes a look at some of the works that come up in a large urban public library when he entered the search term "Jesuit" and filtered it through the genre of "Fiction". The novels that popped up include some familiar names and some not so familiar Jesuits.This week: the martyrdom-risking missionary, Paul Laforgue SJ....
From time to time, over the next few months, as part of the "Our Culture" section, igNation will post poetry written by Jesuits. Poems from Gerard Manley Hopkins and St. Robert Southwell will appear as well as poems by contemporary Jesuits. Today's poem is by John D. O'Brien, SJ, a Jesuit scholastic who is an instructor at Corpus Christi College in Vancouver....
During a sabbatical several years ago, I walked the 800 km of the famous Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain. When I completed my Camino experience, I lamented the fact that such spiritual pilgrimages weren't so easily found in Canada. Thus I was intrigued when I heard of the efforts by Martyrs' Shrine and local Trail groups to establish a Canadian Camino, the destination being Martyrs' Shrine. I thought, "Of course! It makes perfect sense!" For the Canadian Jesuits, there is no space that rivals Martyrs' Shrine and Sainte-Marie Among the Hurons as being a place of sacred history. As well, the history of this region in Ontario is a key part of the history of this country....
Math problem!Little Johnny has 37 candies and wants to divide them evenly among his five buddies, leaving an equal number for himself. How many candies does each of the boys get?Answer: Little Johnny hasn't the faintest idea....
If the only Jesuit you ever met was a character in a work of fiction in a library collection, what would this individual tell you about Jesuit life?In this series, IgNation blogger Kevin Burns, who is not a Jesuit, takes a look at some of the works that come up in a large urban public library when he entered the search term "Jesuit" and filtered it through the genre of "Fiction". The novels that popped up include some familiar names and some not so familiar Jesuits.This week: a Spanish Jesuit, code-breaking, astronomy-obsessed, archive-sleuthing priest, Father Hector....
Have you ever borrowed anything from a hotel room? A nice fluffy bathrobe? A copy of Where Saskatoon? A souvenir hangar from the Hanoi Hilton?...
Several months ago, there was a joint meeting of Jesuit superiors from French and English Canada. We are preparing to unite into a new Jesuit province in Canada. A few of the older Jesuits there spoke of the famous "two solitudes" notion that is an element of the history of this country. The references were often in the broader context of the linguistic and cultural distinctions between English and French Canadians.One English Canadian Jesuit summed it up by stating that even if we all became bilingual in French and English overnight, we really would not bridge the cultural divide. They really are two cultures. I would say that there was an unspoken assumption by a few people that we are all either French or English....
Although Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great (ruled 1556-1605) is well known in the history of India, few have heard of Fatehpur Sikri (villagers in the area call it Akbar's "ghost city"). Most of the many thousands of visitors to Agra's Taj Mahal are not even aware that this UNESCO World Heritage site is just 40 km away. I was no exception. Although I had been leading University of Manitoba students on Travel Study programs to India for several years – including the requisite visit to Agra's Taj Mahal – it was not until I chanced upon reproductions of Persian miniature paintings by Nar Singh (early 17th century) that Fatehpur Sikri entered my consciousness. To my delightful surprise, one of the paintings (used as illustrations in the Akbarnama; Book of Akbar; three volume record of his reign) shows two Jesuits from the Portuguese colony of Goa (Rodolfo Acquaviva and Francisco Henriques) as part of a group meeting with the Emperor Akbar at Fatehpur Sikri. My curiosity led me to find out about this place and what the Jesuits were doing there....
Are we able to do in the twenty-first century what St. Margaret Mary Alacoque did in the 1670s regarding devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus? That's the question posed by Fr. Gerry O'Hanlon, an Irish Jesuit, in A Renewed Devotion to the Sacred Heart. He writes of this traditional devotion in light of modern theology and looks at what a renewed devotion might mean for our times. He suggests that the symbol of the heart conveys very well that the focus of this devotion is the person of Jesus Christ, someone with whom we can identify....
