A group of retired British pensioners move to a retirement hotel in India and there are forced to come to terms with their lives, their pasts, their present, and their futures....
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 Monty Williams, SJ...
I look forward to answering this question every year on the occasion of ordinations to the diaconate and priesthood. As rector of Regis College and superior of the Regis Jesuit Community, it is my responsibility to present candidates for ordination to the bishop, but only after they have been judged to be very well prepared. It is a huge responsibility with which I am accountable to the people of God. The people expect and deserve priests who will help them find God. Those who are ordained must be worthy, capable and committed to serve....
When Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio appeared on the Vatican balcony and was announced as Pope Francis on March 13, most of us had no idea who he was or what kind of pope he would be. Within a few minutes we learned about a few firsts: the first pope from the Americas, the first Jesuit pope, and the first non-European pope in nearly 1300 years. As the first days unfolded, we saw images of him on public transport back in Buenos Aires and other images and words that revealed who the humble man was that the cardinal-electors had chosen to replace Benedict XVI. These first months have shown the stamp he is likely to leave on the papacy and the Church. He continues to surprise us by his simplicity, honesty, transparency, spontaneity, humility and humanity....
Hecho polvo is a wonderful Spanish colloquialism which translates as "exhausted", but literally means "turned to dust". I arrived here in Santiago on June 27, hecho polvo. But the exhilaration, satisfaction, and sense of accomplishment which accompanied the arrival quickly overwhelmed the exhaustion. In the square in front of the Cathedral of Santiago, there was a spontaneous outburst of joy and excitement from myself and my walking companion Carlos, with whom I shared the last five days of the Camino. We embraced, we shouted with delight, we took each other's picture in front of the Cathedral and got someone to take pictures of both of us together....
It is impossible to look at the history of Canada without considering the life of Saint Jean de Brébeuf, the seventeenth century missionary and pioneer. Brébeuf was born in Normandy, France on 25 March 1593 and entered the Jesuits at the age of 24. In 1625, a few years after being ordained to the priesthood, he sailed for Quebec. It is ironic that his formation was shortened due to poor health, since "the giant of the Huron missions" would be recognized as the most robust of the blackrobes in the region of Huronia....
The film focus on the lives of an elderly French couple, Anne and Georges, who are retired music teachers. They have a daughter who lives abroad. One day Anne suffers a stroke which paralyses one side of her body and Georges undertakes to look after her. The film is based on an identical situation that happened in Haneke's family. What interested him the most was exploring the question: "How do you manage with the suffering of someone you love?"...
July 1st fireworks glitter in the ground gold, cobalt, diamonds, copper and because native entitlement only goes skin deep wherever our hard firms stretch out their fists from Toronto and Vancouver to scratch a dirty surface they find even more virginal Canada far away and waiting for the taking....
In a recent conversation, a friend spoke of her latest travels for some work in the Global South. Over the years, Jenny's work with Jesuit Refugee Service and Canadian Jesuits International has taken her to many countries in the world, including the most destitute and war-torn. She mentioned that regardless of how much she has seen around the world, she always returns to Canada and ponders just how fortunate we are in this country. She never ceases to be struck at the incredible gaps in the world. The others of us in the conversation have also experienced global poverty and inequality....
No, this article has nothing to do with Simon and Garfunkel. But I can't help recalling that memorable line from Alanis Morissette's rather edgy 1995 song "What I Really Want." The singer asks tauntingly: "Why are you so petrified of silence. Here can you handle this?" – and follows with a strange few seconds of complete ...
