26 Jan

I recently reread Thomas Moore's Care of the Soul (1992) a popular 'self-help' book that was significant for me over 20 years ago when it was first published. It deserves a re-reading. Moore takes his inspiration from the Renaissance writers Paracelsus and Ficino, as well as from his experience as a psychotherapist and aficionado of the analyst James Hillman. Moore's "care of the soul" understands the soul in a fairly conventional religious way as the seat of God's indwelling spirit. At the same time, he invokes the Greek notion of the soul as the animating principle of our entire existence. He is happy to source these early modern writers whose approach did not separate psychology from religion and spirituality. For Paracelsus and Ficino the soul represented both the voice of the unconscious and the pathway into the mystery of God....

15 Jan

As we settle down to a new year after celebrating Jesus' birthday, life focuses on getting back to work and school, and to staying warm in our coldest month. There is no room for depression, however, because Christ is alive in our world; in the warmth of fire, the sparkle of fresh snow, the condensation of our breath as we hurry through chilly streets....

09 Jan

On August 7 of this year, the Jesuits will commemorate the 200th anniversary of our restoration, having been suppressed by Pope Clement XIV in July 1773. Clement caved in to pressure from European kings and shut down the Society of Jesus in its entirety. However, two regions of the world refused to be dictated to by Rome. Thus, the Society of Jesus remained alive in Prussia under Frederick the Great and Russia under Catherine the Great. The Jesuits in those regions remained active throughout the suppression....

02 Jan

The year 2014 marks the 200th anniversary of the papal document - Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum - issued by Pope Pius VII on August 7, 1814. This document officially restored the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) which had been supressed forty years earlier in 1773. In the first of a two part series, Philip Shano, SJ looks at the reasons behind the suppression....

26 Dec

I wouldn't describe myself as a spiritual person. I find the whole concept of believing in something that can't be physically sensed very hard. Everything about praying is difficult to me, and thinking about God in my life does not come easily. Therefore, it might come as a surprise that I signed myself up to go through St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises....

25 Nov

sometimes prudence sucks sometimes the Spirit blows the whole welfare cheque at Macy's on perfume...

22 Nov

One of my guilty pleasures is reading "Chiesa" at espressoonline, a blog composed by the cheekily pen-named "Sandro Magister." Sometimes gossipy but usually well informed, Magister has been writing constantly about Pope Francis since his accession. In a recent entry he cites a commentary by Antonio Spadaro SJ, the man who interviewed Pope Francis in that now famous Civilità Cattolica article....

19 Nov

When words are invented out of the sheer impact or popularity of a phenomenon, we know that such an event has "arrived"; its status is of such importance that our language needs to adapt to it. For example, to google something is to search for its meaning on the internet by using the Google search engine. Another example is to tweet; while this word has its origin in the sounds made by birds, it mainly refers to the action of sending short messages through the social media platform that is Twitter. When a friend of mine recently told me that she was giving up Twitter for the Season of Lent, it dawned onto me that Twitter has reached a point where it is considered by many as an object of indulgence, one that creates a sort of dependency on its users....

27 Oct

As I get older, I realize that I know less and less about God. God - a simple three letter word. I can pronounce the word "God" with the same energy and breath as I pronounce the words "cat", "dog" or "mouse." But, that's the heart of the problem. Given our ability to speak of "God" in the same way we speak of any other "thing", we fall into the trap of thinking of God as simply another "thing" or "person." God become a category just like any other category,...

16 Oct

Since 1980 I have been living here on the land of the Ignatius Jesuit Centre of Guelph, where as it happens this year we Jesuit are celebrating the 100th anniversary of coming to this property. Over my 33 yrs here the many wonderful trees have befriended me in a way that is totally surprising to me. It was a tree that took the initiative in one of the early years during the month of May while I was making my annual 8 day retreat out at the Old Orchard Hermitage....

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