In this six-part series, Kevin Burns selects a book for each week of Lent. Each book speaks to one of the great traditions within Catholic culture. Each book also shows how its author integrates that tradition. Six different approaches to the same journey through the desert of Lent to the Easter promise of resurrection. Week Three: Dan P. Horan OFM explores the Franciscan path....
My all-time favourite image of St. Joseph is a statue that is located on our Jesuit property in Guelph, ON. The piece features St. Joseph sitting on a large rock, located just behind the farm workshop. His hammer is resting in his lap. We usually associate statues of St. Joseph as showing the step-father of Jesus in a more active stance, actually using the tools of his trade, rather than letting them sit in his lap....
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....
Everyone's Irish on March 17! This is a day when anyone who wants to can become Irish. O'Rosinski! O'Fernandes! O'Nguyen! We can all go around wearing green or Irish-themed clothing. Or, why not wear a big pin that says, "Kiss me. I'm Irish." This is a day of green beer, green chocolate, green jello, and green cake. It's a day for the Irish, the Foreign-Born-Irish, and the wannabe Irish. Charles Madigan reminds us that, "St. Patrick is one of the few saints whose feast day presents the opportunity to get determinedly whacked and make a fool of oneself all under the guise of acting Irish."...
It is customary to abstain from something in Lent. Instead, this Lent I've decided that I'd like to grow in awareness of how my inclusion in the two percent is an invitation for me to act differently in the world. Over the past few months, I've taken to thinking of myself as being in the two percent club. I'm clearly not part of the infamous one percent who are the world's elite and powerful. But, I am among the two percent who have a fairly easy life....
In this six-part series, Kevin Burns selects a book for each week of Lent. Each book speaks to one of the great traditions within Catholic culture. Each book also shows how its author integrates that tradition. Six different approaches to the same journey through the desert of Lent to the Easter promise of resurrection. Week Two: Judith Valente explores the Benedictine path....
What's all this hype about "voluntary simplicity"? Duane Elgin's 1981 book Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich put a name to something that had already been gaining momentum in the preceding decades. Elgin noticed a societal trend: a good number of people were more and more fed up with the overtly commercial culture that began to inform almost all aspects of their lives. The "fatted calf" was no longer saved for the special occasion; it was making its way to the butcher's shop on a daily basis. Elgin noticed that a whole baggage of problems was accompanying this materialistic excess. To list some of the problems Elgin names: losing sight of what is truly most important (the interior life; friendships); the development of a culture of wastefulness, a drastic increase in environmental abuse (to sustain such a demand, something needs to give); and, closely related to the first one, an unhealthy craving for more stuff....
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 Jason Vaz, SJ, a Jesuit scholastic studying in Ottawa....
At the end of his blog entry - "Surviving Catastrophe" - Kevin Burns wrote: "What Philip Shano's article on the Restoration of the Jesuits provoked in me, and why I waded through these details, was that in addition to wanting the get the history clear in my mind, I wanted answers to another question. After 41 years of invisibility, how was it that the Society of Jesus managed so quickly to re-establish itself around the world?" . . how did the Ignatian vision live on? Today, Bill Robins, SJ responds to those questions....
Don't dismiss the Lego Movie as another vapid commercial display for children: it tackles some themes that run to the heart of how we interact with our world and teaches a wonderful message. Of course I'm not just saying this because I loved Lego as a kid and still love it today. I'm also saying it as a scholar of Thomas Aquinas....
