On 7 April 2014, Fr Frans van der Lugt, a Dutch Jesuit who had been living and working in Syria for nearly 50 years, was shot and killed in the city of Homs. He had refused to leave that city when it came under siege, choosing instead to remain and share the pain and suffering of its people. Writing for America magazine, Patrick Gilger SJ reflects on the life and death of a man who won the hearts of Syrians, using the words of one of Fr Frans's brother Jesuits in Syria....
About a dozen years ago, I came to after a lengthy surgery for a brain tumour. There was a person sitting in a chair at the foot of my bed in the hospital room. She was there almost whenever I opened my eyes for the next several days. It was my mother. At some point I think I suggested that she could take more breaks. I remember her stressing that it was a mother's vocation to be there for her child in need, even if that child was 45 years of age. I'm told that the heavy drugs made me impatient and rude. Yet, my mother never complained about my attitude. Mothers are like that....
Let's add, "Mary, Star of Evangelization" to our Litany of Our Lady! I love the image of a star leading people to Jesus, just as the star led the Magi to him. These men were lucky to live under clear desert skies, not spoiled with light pollution. They had time to study those starts, name many, and create stories around the patterns the stars make in constellations. The Magi rose to the invitation the stars offered them, and found Jesus....
Good morning, class. Today's topic is: NHL hockey -- Big League or Bush League? Yes, we have to go there after Saturday night (January 18, 2014) when the Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames re-enacted that classic hockey movie Slapshot by starting a brawl off the opening faceoff....
This week's poem is by Viola Athaide, a student in the Windows of Theology program at Regis College, Toronto. She currently teaches Scripture at her local parish church....
I've been thinking a lot about saint in the past few weeks in light of the recent spectacle of two live popes sainting two dead popes. Getting "your person" through the system is the name of the game and the stakes are high. I stumbled on to one of the people in the running for sainting when touring Arizona recently....
A small child sees these pretty little yellow flowers and with great delight picks a bouquet as a love offering for "mommy" who receives the gift with great delight. The lowly dandelion is more than just a pretty face however. It labours constantly with the earth for our well being. Sending down its long tap root it loosens and aerates the soil and brings much needed nutrients more to the surface to feed other plant life with shallower root systems....
Today is the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker. For much of the world, May 1 is also International Workers' Day. The socialist idea of celebrating workers and the Christian reminder of St. Joseph the Worker weave together in Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement. The union is neatly summed up in something she wrote to Stanley Vishnewski, one of the first people to join the movement she started with Peter Maurin, "When it comes to the Catholic Church, I go to the right as far as I can go. But when it comes to labor, pacifism and civil rights then I go as far as I can to the left."...
Last October a good friend pronounced his final vows; a huge step for a Jesuit! We pronounce perpetual vows after the two year noviciate program, but only after long training and successful ministry does the Society of Jesus make its final commitment to its members. That took him twenty years! At his reflections during the vow ceremony Mass, he confessed that he first came north ". . . to see Nepal!" After ten years of schooling at home, he had spent two years in a minor seminary in south India before travelling north to enjoy his visit. After a year in our "pre-noviciate" program, his motives had changed. He accepted our invitation to join the noviciate at Kalimpong, pronounced those first perpetual vows two years later, continued studies and service, was ordained, and finally reached that happy October day....
From time to time, 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 Eric Hanna, SJ who is teaching at Campion College in Regina....
