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 post is from Greg Kennedy, SJ...
For over a decade now, as August fades to September, each year at this time I remember the late Dr. Jane Poulson, who died August 28, 2001. In the final months of her life I worked briefly with her at her home and over the phone as she completed her memoir: The Doctor Will Not See You Now: The Autobiography of a Blind Physician (Novalis, 2002)....
I've been reading various responses to Pope Francis' call for a day of prayer and fasting on September 7th and two things have caught my attention: many people fear that prayer, while good, is an insufficient response; and many people are thinking about this call to prayer as if it were a personal and individual call, rather than a call to communal action...
Not another doctor's office with a receptionist flashing plastic smiles, phones ringing only to disturb the stupor of patients patiently waiting for entrance to the inner sanctum....
Vancouver is among the most beautiful of cities. It is especially attractive to us eastern Canadians during our long winter months. Of course, it rains a lot there, yet in my judgement that is better than the piles and piles of snow and dangerous icy patches lurking about everywhere east of the Rocky Mountains. Perhaps I'd change my mind were I to live there, but at present it is the closest we have to a civil climate between December and late March. Autumn can be lovely there. With that in mind, I once went for a brief rest and to visit a long-standing friend....
Today is the 12th anniversary of what we call 9/11. On That day, W. B. Yeat's poem - The Second Coming seemed appropriate. I post it here....
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 Frank Obrigewitsch, SJ, Dean at Campion College in Regina....
As I waited in the early morning chapel for the beginning of Mass, the stained glass caught the first rays of the morning sun. The darkness now gleamed with the warmed filtered light. The rectangular and angular slices of glass transformed the incoming sun into a kaleidoscope of colour. My gaze rested on the soft warm glow streaming in from outside....
At 54 years of age, I still bring wildflowers home to my Mom. It's a strange admission, something not normally shared in print. Most men my age are busy building the world or building their career, or as is increasingly common, enjoying retirement....
On May 3, 2013, St. Xavier's College, Maitighar, Nepal, was filled with joy and gratitude as it inaugurated its Silver Jubilee year by installing and blessing a statue of St. Francis Xavier, the patron of the college. The long awaited inauguration was witnessed by the joyful faces of the 3,000 students who gathered on the lawn of the college....
