tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17223010780392050762024-03-21T12:36:11.384-07:00Loyola Institute for SpiritualityBringing spirituality to life.LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-60072815526506682682012-05-16T10:21:00.000-07:002012-05-16T10:21:05.628-07:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #a59881; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Zacchaeus</span></b><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">BY
BR. CHARLES JACKSON, S.J.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">ASSOCIATE
DIRECTOR OF LIS<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The story of Zacchaeus the tax collector is
well-known and we all know what he said to Jesus during the dinner with him:
that he would give half his possessions to the poor and that if he had extorted
anything from anyone he would repay it fourfold. </span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> But I believe that there is far
more to the person of Zacchaeus than simply a rich tax collector. I sense
in him a burning desire for understanding, acceptance and love. Allow
Zacchaeus to tell you his story.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I have to tell you what happened. I
like to think of myself as a thoughtful and intelligent man - and I am a
thoughtful and intelligent man - but all that began to get muddled about two
months ago. It was just after Jared's wife Naomi gave birth to Noah,
their first son. I began to hear reports about an itinerant teacher in
Galilee by the name of Jesus. I understood that this Jesus had grown up
in Nazareth, but now called Capernaum his home. People spoke of the
wonders and signs that he did, but they seem to have been more impressed by
what he said and how he said it than by anything he did. In a word, they
seem to have been most impressed by him. This Jesus seems to have touched
the hearts of all who listened to him or in any way met with him. But
what I found most striking about everything that people said about him was that
this Jesus welcomed everyone - and I mean everyone - and even shared meals with
them. Moreover, I am told that he even shared meals with public sinners
and tax collectors. I suspect that this was what first sparked my
interest. You see, I'm a tax collector - the chief tax collector, in
fact, here in Jericho. At first, I was only mildly interested in these
reports about this Jesus - I mean, one hears a lot of news in a place like this
- but several weeks ago, I became aware that I was getting more and more
interested in this Jesus and had begun to ask people about him. I suspect
that I was initially impressed simply by the signs and wonders he did, or by
the manner in which he seemed to touch the hearts of those who heard him, but
when I heard of him sharing meals with public sinners and tax collectors -
people so very much like me - well, that seems to have sparked something in me
and my thoughtful and intelligent nature began to get more than a little
confused. I mean, I was not simply interested in this Jesus; I found that
I was thinking a great deal about him and was beginning to imagine myself
listening to him and speaking with him and even sharing a meal with him.
But this was not simply daydreaming; it was something I most ardently desired.
But all of that seemed so impossible, so utterly beyond my wildest dreams -
until yesterday afternoon, when I heard that Jesus was approaching Jericho.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The word must have gotten out and gone far
and wide, because when I ran up to the north gate, I found that a huge crowd
had gathered. People were just everywhere. I was devastated. I so
very much wanted to see Jesus, but my hope of seeing him - simply catching a
glimpse of him or speaking with him - seem to have been dashed. You see,
I'm a short man, shorter than most everyone; I get lost in a crowd. I was
almost in tears. But as I turned to make my way home, I found myself
brought face-to-face with a small column that I had never noticed before.
It was no more than four feet in height and was probably just a remnant of a
larger column which, in turn, was part of some larger structure. I had no
idea why it was there, but it seemed that it was almost meant to have been
there - for me. A small tree stood next to the column and would help me
to climb up on it. I suspect that I looked more than a little foolish as
I clambered up on the column, but I was now able to see above the crowd.
I had found the perfect place to see Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">As events unfolded, I didn't have to wait
very long. No sooner had I climbed up on the column than I became aware
of considerable commotion: a large number of people suddenly began to enter the
city. As they entered, I noticed that they were soon stepping aside and
turning to look back through the gate as though they were waiting for someone,
and I suspected that they were waiting for Jesus. Finally, as a large
cluster of people came through the gate, I saw Jesus. I don't know what I
expected Jesus to look like - someone taller, perhaps, or more visually impressive
- but what I remember most about him from that first glimpse was the personal
warmth that seemed to radiate from him. I mean, as he looked out at the
crowd, it seems that he wasn't seeing a crowd of people, but individual persons
- people who had names and meaning and were worthy of love. In fact, it
seemed that love radiated from him - and I felt privileged simply to be able to
see him. And I was delighted that I had found such a wonderful place from
which to see him and that he would pass so close to where I was standing.
But what happened next is something I had never hoped for - or even imagined -
but it is something that I will never forget; it is something that has changed
my life. As he approached the place where I was standing, Jesus paused
for a moment. At first, it seemed that he was simply gazing at the people
around him - and I suspect that he was - but then he turned and looked up at
me. I don't know how long he looked at me, but it was more than a passing
glance, but in that glance I found something I'll never forget - for he seemed
to look into my soul. I don't know what he saw there - Did he see my
confusion and fear? Did he see my loneliness and hunger for love?
Did he see the uncertainty that seemed almost to define my life? Did he see every-thing
that I had ever hoped for and longed for? I don't know what he saw as he
looked at me, but as he continued to look at me I sensed in him compassion and
understanding and acceptance and love. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Now if Jesus had simply moved on, it would
still have been a life-changing experience for me - but he continued to look at
me. But then, just when I thought he might be turning away to continue
his journey - for it seemed that he intended simply to pass through Jericho -
he stretched out his hand toward me and with the love that seemed to radiate
from him he called out, "Zacchaeus." I was stunned to hear him
call my name. Perhaps he had heard others speak it, but he was calling
me. "Zacchaeus," he called out again, "Come down! - for I
must stay at your house today."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I really don't know exactly what happened
next. Everything is now a blur. All I knew was that Jesus was
calling me. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that Jesus would
want to speak with me - much less share a meal with me and stay with me.
Me! He was calling me! I fought off my dazed mind and somehow
managed to climb down from the column. My head seemed to be
spinning. I wasn't sure what was happening to me. Was all of this
simply a dream? But as I turned to face Jesus, I discovered that he was
right in front of me and was extending his arms toward me.
"Zacchaeus," he said warmly as he took my hands in his. He was
looking into my eyes, yet it seemed that he was looking into my soul.
"Zacchaeus," he said again, "I must stay at your house
today." I stood there, feeling like I was still in a daze as I
looked into his eyes. I wanted to stay there forever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">The Many Faces of Ohana</span></b><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">BY
REV. DAVID C. ROBINSON, S.J.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">ASSOCIATE
DIRECTOR OF LIS<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">If one turns to a dictionary to find a
definition of the Hawaiian term ohana, the most basic description refers to a
tradition of extended family units. However, the lived reality of the ohana
principle in the islands encompasses a wide range of interpersonal and social
connections that allows for a wonderfully flexible and encompassing notion of
what constitutes family-blood relations, adopted family status, intentional
social groups, and a variety of spiritual networks as well. When people refer
to 'my ohana,' they may mean any of a number of relational contexts in their
lives. Why is this significant? In many Western communities, the use of the
term family has tended to remain rather restricted to the realm of immediate
relatives and those linked to them by bonds of marriage. As a result, it can
become more difficult to recognize a wider significance to the world, which can
reinforce a sense of us and them, rather than a complex unity that can grow and
adapt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">In Luke's gospel, we find an extended series of
events in which the disciples are struggling to discern the nature of their
power and authority, and they propose to use that power to restrict or punish
others. Jesus is very emphatic in saying that "Whoever is not against you
is for you." He did not want the gospel to become a matter of who's in
charge, leading to division and competition at the heart of Christian
community. Unfortunately, history has tended to dull that admonition, as
witnessed by the sectarian conflicts and inter-religious disputes that have
marred our lives as disciples. Jesus' prayer in John's gospel, "that they
may be one," was certainly not intended to initiate a select religious
club or private spiritual coterie. Although he never spent a vacation in Kauai
or Maui, his inclusive view of life certainly paralleled the world of ohana in
a gracious and healing way!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">During my all-too-brief times of working in
Hawaii, I have come to appreciate the profoundly unitive possibilities of life
in an ohana. In the upcoming weeks of Lent, as we reflect on how Jesus loved
and died to manifest an all-encompassing love that did not distinguish between
'gentile or jew, slave or free,' we might ponder what it means to expand our
own boundaries of spiritual hospitality, to embrace the 'other' with greater
reverence. That would certainly be a healing gesture worthy of the family of
God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">The Transfiguration</span></b><span style="font-size: 18pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">BY
BR. CHARLES JACKSON, S.J.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">ASSOCIATE
DIRECTOR OF LIS<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <i>"Jesus took Peter, James, and
John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was
transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no
fuller on earth could bleach them. Then Elijah appeared to them along
with Moses, and they were conversing with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus
in reply, 'Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents:
one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.' He hardly knew what to
say, they were so terrified. Then a cloud came, casting a shadow over
them; from the cloud came a voice, 'This is my beloved Son. Listen to
him.' Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone
with them. As they were coming down from the mountain, he charged them
not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when the Son of Man had risen
from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what
rising from the dead meant." (Mark 9:2-10)</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">During the course of his public ministry,
Jesus proclaimed the kingdom and was acclaimed as a great prophet. Yet
along the way he also encountered closed minds and hearts, and then outright
persecution, and it soon became clear to him where all of this was
leading. One day, as he and his disciples were on their way to the
villages of Caesarea Philippi, immediately after having heard Peter's great testimony
of faith that Jesus was the Christ, he told his disciples that he must suffer
greatly, be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes and be
killed, but after three days he would rise. But as he spoke these words
it was clear to him that his disciples could understand nothing of this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Several days later, Jesus took Peter, James
and John, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. And there he
was transfigured before them and revealed in all his glory. His garments
radiated with the refulgence of the eternal light that was shining in him and
through him. Elijah and Moses then appeared and were conversing with
him. Finally a cloud appeared, casting a shadow over the disciples,
and from within the cloud they heard a voice: "This is my beloved
Son. Listen to him."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The transfiguration, so reminiscent of the
theophanies experienced by Moses and Elijah on the mountain of God, was a
profound and even overwhelming experience of God. Moreover,
the words uttered by the divine voice were reminiscent of the words which
Jesus heard at the Jordan. Yet there was an important difference: the
words were addressed, not to Jesus, as they had been at the Jordan: "You
are my beloved Son" - but rather to the disciples: "This is my
beloved Son." In fact, if we look closely at this passage, it is
clear that the transfiguration in its entirety was meant, not for Jesus, but
for the disciples - and, from this perspective, for us as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">As the disciples gazed at the transfigured
Jesus, they saw Moses, the law-giver, and Elijah, the greatest of the prophets,
conversing with him. The disciples were thus brought to understand that
Jesus followed in their great lineage. Yet the divine voice made clear
that Jesus was far greater than they. "This is my beloved Son.
Listen to him," the voice told them. Like all faithful Jews, the
disciples revered Moses and Elijah, yet they were brought to understand that
Jesus was far greater than they. Jesus would soon turn south toward
Jerusalem, where he would be arrested, tortured, condemned to death, and
killed. The faith of the disciples would soon be sorely tried. Yet
in this profound experience God had brought them to understand that Jesus was
utterly beyond all that the world could do - and in this God is speaking to us
as well - and that in spite of all the anxiety and fear they might experience,
they should never lose heart or faith in Jesus. "This is my beloved
Son; listen to him." It seems that we can almost hear the echo of
the words God so often spoke to the doubting prophets and Jesus so often spoke
to his doubting disciples - and who speaks to us today as we continue our
Lenten journey - "Fear not! I am with you!" <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Searching for the Promise of Easter<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">BY FR. DAVID C. ROBINSON, S.J.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF LIS<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">As the season of Lent draws to a close, we
carry within us the yearnings we feel for God, perhaps honed to a finer edge by
a heightened time of personal prayer and reflection. We are asked to recognize
our amazingly human capacity to see the path to our spiritual fulfillment and
then to turn aside to indulge in some ultimately insignificant distraction. At
times it might seem that our end-point of the season is Good Friday-the cross
that bears our failures. However, we know well that crucifixion is not the
destination of our journeying. Easter is the goal toward which we strive with
longing. If our Lenten pilgrimage is intended to last some forty days, our
Easter celebration stretches for fifty! Nonetheless, we sometimes need to be
reminded that we are indeed a 'resurrection people,' a family united in the
promise of life, not of failure and death.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">In 1875, a group of five Franciscan nuns,
exiled from Germany by the religiously restrictive Falk Laws, were headed to
England aboard the Deutschland and ran aground at the mouth of the Thames
River. For over thirty hours, the vessel was pounded by stormy seas, yet there
was no immediate rescue effort put in motion. The ship was gradually shattered
by the elements, and many people drowned, including the nuns who remained in
prayerful support of one another and their companions as death came for them.
The incident deeply impacted the Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, who
responded with a profoundly existential cry of the soul, titled "The Wreck of the Deutschland." In this lengthy poem, he struggles
with the violence of nature and the seeming silence of God in the presence of
such heart-rending anguish. He asks, as we all do, 'Why, Lord?'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">As with all great literary cries in the face
of suffering, the poet does not receive a rationale for disaster. Instead,
Hopkins discovers in the faithfulness of the nuns to their trust in God's
promise a beacon of hope in ultimate victory over death. He offers the prayer
of all who come with trust to the portal of Easter-"Let him easter in us,
be a dayspring to the dimness of us." Like the sisters united in the face
of destruction, we are invited to let God 'easter' in the uncertainties of our
own storms, or the foundering of our own dreams on the shoals of circumstance.
As Hopkins does, even if we struggle to grasp a vision of where our Easter
fullness lies, we can recognize in the faithful lives around us the seed of
God's presence, God's abiding life within. This is our Easter promise
enfleshed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Jesus knew in his life of ministry that the
victory of God was not a social or political triumph, but rather the eastering
of life in a world that is all-too-often difficult to comprehend or appreciate.
The cross was not simply a painful detour on the way to a greater prize, but
rather the threshold of the human path to a home in God. As this great truth of
Spirit easters in us, we can indeed find ample reason to celebrate the coming
season, for fifty days and beyond, because we celebrate the realization of a
promise that will be kept.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-22042302035403948192011-12-22T23:36:00.000-08:002011-12-22T23:36:21.100-08:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="background: white; mso-cellspacing: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 11.25pt 11.25pt 11.25pt 11.25pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184; width: 100.0%;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="padding: 11.25pt 11.25pt 11.25pt 11.25pt; width: 100.0%;" width="100%"><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">LIS Associate Highlight </span></b><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(</span></b><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">December, 2011</span></b><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">JOAN C. TRIVETT<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><b style="background-color: white;"><i>Laguna Beach, California</i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><b><i>ISFP Graduate 2004<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9Us7sK9-eBc/TvQpywDvjzI/AAAAAAAAGNY/BHMmWli34IQ/s1600/Joan+Trivett.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9Us7sK9-eBc/TvQpywDvjzI/AAAAAAAAGNY/BHMmWli34IQ/s200/Joan+Trivett.jpg" width="152" /></a>I was reading an Advent reflection the other day, about when Jesus turns to Andrew, who was then a disciple of John the Baptist, and asks, "What are you looking for?" (Jn 1:38). The author of the reflection goes on to say that these words were not a casual question, but rather one directed at the soul. When I came to LIS I was looking to answer that question for my own life. Finding my children grown and married, I retired early from a career in aerospace and began to consider what was next. Through a women's Bible study group, I was introduced to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. That ignited a fire in my heart to learn more about Ignatian spirituality, which, of course, led me to LIS. Joining the first Ignatian Spiritual Formation Program in 2001, I knew I had found the answer to what I really wanted in life. I had discovered my life's purpose and passion, which is to share the deep joy and wonder of God's abundant and compassionate love with others through the gift of Ignatian spirituality.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> The formation was profoundly transformative, deepening my relationship with God and challenging me to step into a world of ministry that required me to learn more about my faith and to be willing to live it out in new ways. In the years since, I have companioned people through the Nineteenth Annotation of the Spiritual Exercises, traveled to Colorado for weekend missions on Ignatian spirituality; taught about various aspects of Ignatian spirituality, especially, discernment; and given retreats and days of prayer with other members of the LIS team working with Deacon candidates and their wives, lay ministers from various parishes, individual parishes, public groups, and individuals. My life is full of purpose and deep joy. The staff and Associates at LIS are a source of wisdom, encouragement and fellowship. As is always true of the Lord, the more I try to give of myself in gratitude for God's grace, the more I am blessed and in debt to the One who cannot be out given. As Ignatius says, our lives are ones of grace upon grace. And that is enough for me. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-no-proof: yes;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75"
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style='width:78pt;height:102pt;visibility:visible;mso-wrap-style:square'> <v:imagedata src="file:///C:\DOCUME~1\David\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.jpg"
o:title="Joan Trivett"/> </v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--></span></b><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></b><b style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A Christmas Reflection</span></b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><strong><span style="background: white; font-family: "Century Gothic","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">Many years ago when I was a young Jesuit, I spent a year in a Jesuit brothers' juniorate program in Milford, Ohio, a small town about ten miles east of Cincinnati.</span></strong><span style="background: white; font-family: "Century Gothic","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> My purpose in attending this program was to be trained to be a kitchen manager. </span> things that year - about myself and about the Society of Jesus - but I also learned that I didn't want to be a kitchen manager. My training took place at Good Samaritan Hospital, a large Catholic hospital in Cincinnati. Each week on Sunday night, I made the trip from Milford to the hospital, where I would live and work until Friday afternoon, when I would return to Milford. I was not able to return to Milford to celebrate Thanksgiving that year, but I was able to do so for Christmas. I have many happy memories of Christmases I enjoyed as a boy, and I would enjoy many Christmases as a Jesuit in the years ahead. But I can point to Christmas 1964 as the most wonderful Christmas of my life. From one perspective, there was nothing that should have made that Christmas stand out above any other I experienced. But to be so suddenly transported out of a situation at the hospital that had lost all meaning for me and which I was simply enduring and to be dropped into the midst of a celebration with Jesuits whom I had grown to love seemed beyond my wildest dreams. I had never questioned my Jesuit vocation - it seemed like a wonderful fit from the very first day - but I look back to the winter of 1964-65 as the time when I had fallen head over heels in love with what it meant to be a Jesuit.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jbeTJ53C_tE/TvQqIeQq2cI/AAAAAAAAGNw/awHWis1ezpc/s1600/BrCharlesJackson_small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jbeTJ53C_tE/TvQqIeQq2cI/AAAAAAAAGNw/awHWis1ezpc/s200/BrCharlesJackson_small.jpg" width="150" /></a>In his book, The Restless Heart, Ronald Rolheiser makes an observation very pertinent to this: "In our day-to-day lives, when all is well, and health, friends, inner peace, and good cheer are in abundance, we tend to lose our awareness of reality as it really is. ... Put crassly, when times are good, and we are not lonely, we tend to worry more about our boat and our next vacation to Hawaii than about the wounds that bleed unattended and uncared for in our unfinished world. But when we are lonely, when we come face-to-face with emptiness and lack of meaning, we are given a great opportunity to understand life and ourselves." Long ago, an experience of loneliness and a struggle to find meaning in my life afforded me a graced opportunity to sort out my desires and to discover what I most deeply desired. We all yearn for security and comfort in our lives, and we look forward to happy events with family and friends. Yet if we are truly honest with ourselves as we look back over our lives, we invariably find that we grew most as persons when security and comfort were so terribly absent. It is no small thing to be able to say that "everything works together for good for those who love God" (Rom. 8:28; emphasis added), yet this is truly a part of the good news we celebrate this Christmas. Have a blessed Christmas! <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b>Written by:</b><b> Br. Charles Jackson, S.J.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">LIS Associates of the Month </span></b><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(November, 2011)</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">JACK GONSALVES and DOLORES MARTINEZ<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><i>Jack R. Gonsalves<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><b><i>Cerritos, California<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><b><i>ISFP Graduate 2004<o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">You may have heard that the Lord writes straight with crooked lines. It was an experience of desolation and a significant trial in my life beginning the summer of 2000 that led me to LIS. In desolation, I sought solace at El Retiro San Inigo, the Jesuit Retreat Center in Los Altos, California. After spending a week there in quiet and prayer I found peace and consolation. I discovered personally, and in a profound way, that God loves us even when we are broken and desolate, and accepts us right where we are at. During my retreat my spiritual director, the late Fr. Dare Morgan, S.J., encouraged me to continue spiritual direction upon my return home, which I did through the Loyola Institute for Spirituality. My spiritual director for the next 8 years was Sr. Jean Schultz, S.P., who invited me to take classes at the Institute. For me the three years of formation at the Institute were life changing and transformative. The Institute gave me a way of life that has led me closer and closer to God. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hvnZ0wzfqk0/TvQp6BvD-EI/AAAAAAAAGNg/NAsrfuv0PyE/s1600/Jack+Gonsalves.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-hvnZ0wzfqk0/TvQp6BvD-EI/AAAAAAAAGNg/NAsrfuv0PyE/s200/Jack+Gonsalves.jpg" width="148" /></a> Since completion of formation in June 2004, I have been involved in a variety of ministerial activities including guiding others through the 19th Annotation of the Spiritual Exercises, teaching the Ignatian style of prayer, and giving retreats and days of prayer. I have found that ministering to others and being a companion to them on their journey to God has been the most enriching and grace-filled experience of my life. I feel as though the Lord has been drawing me nearer and nearer to His sacred heart as I witness His gracious love at work in others. It is a wonderful gift Jesus shares with us in ministry, when we are open to His grace, because He enables us to see what He sees, to hear what He hears, to feel in our hearts what He feels, and then respond as He would respond, with love and compassion. What a gracious and wonderful gift it is to witness God's constant labor of love in our lives, and what a profoundly humble and trusting God who would invite us to pabrticipate in this labor of Love. I am very, very grateful for all that the Lord has done, is doing and continues to do in us. God is indeed, very, very good! Alleluia!!</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I came to LIS by the Lord's grace. I was working with someone at the Diocese of Orange and they kept insisting that I go to L.A. to take some spiritual direction courses. At the time I didn't want to go alone so I invited a good friend to join me but after talking it over with her we felt that L.A. was too far a drive for us to go to take these courses, so we never ended up going. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eGNxwDQWMko/TvQrGflB5gI/AAAAAAAAGN4/9ktXbxseoBI/s1600/Dolores+Martinez.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eGNxwDQWMko/TvQrGflB5gI/AAAAAAAAGN4/9ktXbxseoBI/s200/Dolores+Martinez.jpg" width="194" /></a> Several days after this program ended the same person at the Diocese of Orange asked me, “When are you going to take the spiritual direction courses,” and I said, "when they're offered in Spanish and five minutes away from my house." Little did I know that by saying this my course in life would forever be changed. A few months later I received a call from Fr. Tacho Rivera, S.J., who was working at the Loyola Institute for Spirituality, and he asked me if I would be interested in taking some spiritual direction courses in Spanish that he would be directing. Well of course I couldn't say no, and so my path led me to LIS and to a group of people who have shared great moments with me during the course of ELI, which is the Latino Ignatian Team.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> LIS is very enriching, especially for people who are not able to leave their parish because many cannot drive; others have to take care of their families; and it's difficult to attend retreat centers. What LIS does for people is bring the retreat to them, in their environment, near their home. They truly do bring spirituality to life in that sense.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Silence</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><i> "Be still and know that I am God."(Psalm 46:10) <o:p></o:p></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">One of the first things of which we become aware when we embark on our spiritual journey is that we live in a world pervaded by noise. We may find the noise pleasant, or annoying, or simply neutral but, regardless of its form, it is still noise. More importantly, we can become addicted to noise and find ourselves unsettled and restless if we are without the familiar background noise of a television, radio, CD player or whatever. God's action in our lives can be very subtle and is often recognized only by our being quietly attentive to him. If we are truly desirous of developing our relationship with God, we need to foster a comfort with and a desire for quiet in our lives. There are many means toward this end, yet a simple but very effective one is to create small pockets of quiet in our lives - by taking a quiet walk in a nearby park or around the neighborhood, or by sitting quietly at our desk for a moment or two, or by doing nothing more than driving home with the radio turned off - not to be quiet with our thoughts, but simply to be quiet.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gKO7fof21oc/TvQuA_N5pKI/AAAAAAAAGOE/hdbynOUfCrM/s1600/BrCharlesJackson_small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gKO7fof21oc/TvQuA_N5pKI/AAAAAAAAGOE/hdbynOUfCrM/s1600/BrCharlesJackson_small.jpg" /></a> Not all the noise in our lives, however, stems from the world outside us. There is also the noise that arises in our inner world: the voice within us that incessantly comments, speculates, judges, compares and complains; or our mind that incessantly revisits the past or rehearses a possible future through our imagination. When we become consciously attentive to a thought, we become aware not only of the thought itself but also of ourselves aware of the thought. We thus sense a conscious presence - our deeper self - beneath the thought. Surprisingly, the result of this is that the thought loses its power over us and quickly subsides. The thought has no meaning for us and quickly vanishes. We thus experience a discontinuity in the mental stream - a gap of what Buddhists call 'no mind.' At first, the gaps will be short, a few seconds perhaps, but gradually they will become longer. When these gaps occur, we will experience an inner stillness and peace. With practice, this sense of stillness and peace will deepen. It is the pervasive quiet we yearn for.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b> Written by: Br. Charles Jackson, S.J., Associate Director <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A Harvest of Wholeness<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">As we wend our way through the waning days of summer, it may seem that we have our gaze focused in two directions at once—one longing look back at the days of warmth, celebration, and seemingly all-too-brief relaxation that remind us of the fruitfulness of life and the earth; and another anticipatory look that guides our thoughts to the upcoming season of harvest, when the quiet march to winter is brightened by the gathering of the riches of our work and that of our communities. Yet we know our life is not lived in the past or the future, but only in the power of the present moment. What is it that we hold in this ‘space between?’ </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">In the tradition of the Old Testament, the Sabbath was a time of rest each week, a day in which the preoccupations of work and society were set aside to acknowledge the gifts of God and to rest in the knowledge of life’s ultimate abundance. After a ‘week of years’ (6), the land was to be left fallow for the 7<sup>th</sup> year, as a Sabbath rest for the earth. After a ‘week of Sabbath years’ (7), the 50<sup>th</sup> year was a time in which everyone and everything rested—indebted lands were returned to their ancestral owners, indentured servants were freed, and the equality of all within the society was reaffirmed. This cycle of cycles acknowledged the deep-seated human need for periods of rest, but also for a sense of restitution or equilibrium in life and society.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Perhaps as we move into the concluding months of 2011, we might adopt a bit of the Jubilee spirit, recognizing the need we have to enter into days of diminishing light and lowering temperatures with an inner awareness of the personal and social rhythms that can encourage us to balance the fecundity of summer energy and the limiting interlude of winter. We need not simply “load our harvest into barns” and batten down the hatches for storms or long, chilly nights. We can affirm this ‘space between’ as an invitation to welcome equanimity, to search for those aspects of our communal life which promote generosity, mutuality, and bonds that nurture our common future—rather than merely ‘waiting-out’ the time between visions of beaches, mountains, or family excursions, and the first, tentative nudging of spring growth and a welcoming breath of warming air. Our Jubilee will not be a comprehensive religious, legal, and political redistribution of resources and relationships, but it can offer us an opportunity to realize that the cycles of life, like the cycles of nature, thrive when we allow the ‘space between’ to blossom with its own vitality and promise. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q8cZazpsm-o/TvQp74GlGyI/AAAAAAAAGNo/zRGjZCx9DoQ/s1600/FrDavidRobinson_small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Q8cZazpsm-o/TvQp74GlGyI/AAAAAAAAGNo/zRGjZCx9DoQ/s1600/FrDavidRobinson_small.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Written by: Fr. David C. Robinson S.J., LIS Associate Director</span><o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><b><span style="color: #010000; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I Was a Stranger<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #010000;">We are all familiar with the famous lines of Jesus from Matthew's Gospel: "</span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><i><span style="color: #010000;">I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me...</span></i><span style="color: #010000;">" (Mt. 25:35). Of course, Jesus is not speaking of direct ministry to himself. Rather, he states that "<i>just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,</i></span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="color: #010000;"> </span></i></span><span class="apple-style-span"><i><span style="color: #010000;">you did it to me.</span></i><span style="color: #010000;">" (Mt. 25:40) Perhaps we have occasionally felt a twinge of regret that we have not responded often enough to God's family with the simple gestures of care which are highlighted in this gospel passage. However, as Jesus emphasizes repeatedly to the disciples, the call of God is not to look backward, but to be awake to what is inviting us in the immediacy of the present moment. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #010000;">Contemporary culture praises the months of summer as a time to kick-back, grab-the-gusto, and indulge ourselves. Certainly, relaxation and family fun are values we need to cultivate in a world all-too-given to the excesses of schedules and exploding calendars. Nevertheless, during the times of enjoyment, we can keep both eyes and hearts open to the sudden strangers in our midst. A casual invitation or unexpected occasion can provide us with a miraculous opportunity to offer a moment of nourishment or belonging to someone we might readily pass by without even a glance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #010000;">Last month, I was invited by a friend to accompany a group of middle-school students on a class outing to HomeBoy Industries and the MOCA exhibit of <i>Art in the Streets</i> in Los Angeles. The majority of these students come from complex and difficult family and social environments, not unlike the gang-family at Homeboy, or the artists whose works are on display at MOCA. Dealing with cognitive and behavioral challenges, these students are not the ones invited to participate in field trips or school outings. They are the 'strangers' in their own schools. There were certainly enough complications and nay-sayers to torpedo the whole project, but a handful of volunteers were inspired to take the risk, and to accompany these students on what was for most their first off-campus school activity. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #010000;">As might be expected, there were delays, glitches, and occasional misunderstandings. Yet, it could not be denied that something transformative had taken place. One boy embarked on a photo-shoot throughout the day, capturing people and geography in colorful and creative ways. Another student, semi-autistic, began the excursion sitting by himself at the back of the bus, and not interacting with his classmates. By mid-day, he was immersed in the group, and creating his own photo-narrative of his experiences. This was a collective of strangers, on the way to discovering the meaning of community. They are now putting together a video/DVD of their adventures, gathering their insights and inspirations, to be shared with families and the wider school community.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #010000;">Were there projects and unfinished work, or the call of summer relaxation, that beckoned the faculty, staff counselors, and volunteers who journeyed with this hopeful band of strangers? Yes. Were there some who only saw the difficulties and breaches of schedule that inevitably occurred? Yes. Was there, nonetheless, a breakthrough experience that pointed to the truth Jesus taught so many generations ago--What we do for the strangers among us, we do for him and all the people of God? Most emphatically, yes! <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #010000;">We, each and all, are met on our ordinary paths by the faces of the ones who need just a bit of nourishment, something to lessen their inner thirst, or a welcome home to a world that no longer labels them strangers. What a miraculous way to share a portion of our summer days.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #010000;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Written by: Fr. David C. Robinson S.J., LIS Associate Director</span><o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="color: #222222; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><br />
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</div>LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-35290165248561741202011-05-10T22:29:00.000-07:002011-05-10T22:29:43.333-07:00Lent: A Season for Yearning<div style="color: #006699; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 13px;">Lent is indeed a spiritual season for all Christians, and carries a unique meaning for each member of the community. For many, the focus of our Lenten observance is found on Ash Wednesday-the recognition of our mortality, our human foibles and weaknesses, our essential need for the presence of God. For others, Lent is a time of abstinence and fasting, a season to 'give up things' for God as a sign of our total dependence upon divine generosity for<span> </span>sustenance and nourishment. For others, the 40 days are an essential period of inner searching and reflection, a quest for attentiveness to the wonder of our spiritual life as companions of Jesus. For all, each of these realities plays a part in shaping community prayer and ritual, our identity as people of both the Passion and the Resurrection.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458;"><div align="justify" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"><div align="justify" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><div align="justify" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;">As we journey through the days and weeks of Lent, we can feel a certain tugging of the soul, that underlies our meatless meals, our times of reconciliation, our masses, stations of the cross, and Rice-Bowl offerings. Our prayers and practices are a rich resource for nurturing our attention to God and our fellow-travelers along the Lenten path. However, there is a deeper hunger than that brought on by our refraining from hamburgers or chocolate. There is an abiding current of longing that is constant, even if unexpressed. This yearning is a fruitful well for self-discovery in our approach to Easter. Learning that we are more than the sum of our forgiven sins, more than the sum of our unrealized spiritual ambitions, more than the sum of our images of God-we feel urged to immerse ourselves in a mystery we cannot name. We come to recognize that Lent is not a daunting march through death to hoped-for new life. Rather, it is a miraculous walk to the still-point, the center, of our search for God and for the godly in us. If we are attentive, we begin to sense our growing connection to the divine gift that filled the life and ministry of Jesus, and that calls to us in the midst of our preoccupations, distractions, and premonitions of failure.</span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;">Lent points to the victory of life, our life, and our life in the endless divine promise we can so often overlook. This is why we feel the yearning for more prayer, for times of spiritual retreat, for a surrendering of heart that says to God what God says to us in this season-I am yours; live in me.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
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</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><strong>Written by:</strong> Fr. David C. Robinson S.J., LIS Associate Director</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><img src="http://www.loyolainstitute.org/graphics/portraits/FrDavidRobinson_small.jpg" /></span></div></span></div></span></div></div></span></span>LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-63462760744336075592011-05-10T22:25:00.001-07:002011-05-10T23:21:06.290-07:00Reflections on Fifty Years as a Jesuit<div style="color: #006699; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 13px;">Fifty years ago, when I entered the Society of Jesus, I knew that I would pray. It came with the territory. I had heard about Jesuits spending an hour each day "in prayer," but I had no idea what it meant. Unlike most Jesuits, I didn't begin my Jesuit life as a novice. Until about thirty years ago, all brothers began their Jesuit lives as postulants. A postulant was simply a candidate to the Society of Jesus. He wasn't technically a Jesuit nor did he wear the distinctive garb of that time, the black cassock. During the six months that I was a postulant, I read the New Testament and lives of the saints, but I wasn't introduced to prayer. But I remember listening to novices talking about what they did as novices and, among other things, they talked about prayer. Although they used a lot of words I didn't understand, I understood enough to realize that prayer was something I wanted to be a part of. If they did it, I said to myself, well, so too would I. And so I discovered - somewhat on my own - prayer.</span></div><div align="justify" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"><div align="justify" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"><div align="justify" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span></span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;">I can't speak about other Jesuits. Perhaps for them prayer has always been an effort, a struggle they daily contend with. For me, however, prayer was something I took to like a fish takes to water, something I have loved from the very first day. Yet prayer was never anything that I did or any skill that I had. Rather it was what God did in me. It is awkward to speak about falling in love with God, yet that is what happened. No, it didn't happen overnight. It unfolded over time, but it happened. And in my Jesuit life, that has made all the difference.</span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span></span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;">There's a beautiful scene toward the end of Robert Bolt's play, <i>A Man for All Seasons</i>. Thomas More has been imprisoned in the Tower of London by King Henry VIII, and events seem to be turning against him. His beloved daughter, Margaret, has come to visit him. She's trying to find some way for him to swear to the Act of Succession, but he refuses all her entreaties. Finally, she just explodes in frustration, "But in <i>reason</i>! Haven't you done as much as God can reasonably <i>want</i>?" More pauses for a moment, as if looking for words: "Well ... finally it isn't a matter of reason; finally it's a matter of love."</span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span></span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;">On a wonderful October afternoon in 1957, God surprised a high school sophomore with the desire to be a Jesuit. And over the years he has continued to surprise and delight and invite that boy-become-a-man as he has grown in his Jesuit life. The God who had once grasped him has never let go. As Thomas More said "finally it's a matter of love."</span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span></span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><strong>Written by:</strong> Br. Charles Jackson, S.J., LIS Associate Director</span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><img src="http://www.loyolainstitute.org/graphics/portraits/BrCharlesJackson_small.jpg" /></span></span></span></span></span></div></div></div></div>LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-62727579369707964392011-05-10T22:22:00.000-07:002011-05-10T23:10:11.067-07:00Jesus' Baptism: Some Thoughts<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18pt;"></span></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="color: #006699; font-size: 10pt;"><i>"Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. And as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit, like a dove, descending on him. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, my Beloved; my favor rests on you' "</i> (Mark 1:9-11).</span></div><div style="color: #006699; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"></span><br />
<div align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"><div align="justify" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"></span></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are not told how Jesus came to hear about John. We are, however, told that Jesus came to John, listened to him and was baptized by him in the Jordan. But why? Why was it that Jesus, the Sinless One, chose to identify himself with sinners and be baptized? Was it that he desired to express solidarity with all those who had come to John, solidarity with those who recognized their sinfulness and sought forgiveness in a baptism of repentance? In effect, this is what he had done, but was this really what had motivated him? Could it have been out of a sense of his own humanness, his own need for God? Later tradition held that Jesus was without sin,</span> <span style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #857458;">but</span>this is not to deny that he was subject to all the moods, feelings, emotions and inner struggles that are part of being human. When all is said and done, we have to wonder if Jesus at this time of his life really knew who he was. Did he know that he was God's Son, and did he understand all that that implied? To the people of Nazareth, with whom he had lived for almost thirty years, he was ordinary in every way. When he later returned there and preached in the synagogue, the people were astonished. "Where did he get all this?" they asked. "What is this wisdom he has, and these wonders that are worked through him? ... Isn't this the carpenter, the son of Mary?" (Mk. 6:1-3). It is not unreasonable to imagine that Jesus thought of himself in these same terms - as an ordinary citizen of Nazareth.</span></span></span></span></div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Mark tells us only that Jesus "was baptized by John in the Jordan." It is difficult, however, to piece together exactly what happened. The imagery of the heavens being torn apart, a dove descending, and a voice being heard projects a profound experience of God, yet it leaves much unsaid. At first glance, it seems to describe what was nothing more than a dramatic statement of God's affirming love for Jesus. Yet it is important to recognize that within weeks of his baptism at the Jordan the unassuming carpenter from Nazareth was speaking with authority and acting with great power - and we must ask ourselves: What truly happened at the Jordan? What was at the root of Jesus' experience that so transformed his life?</span></span></span></div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic'; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="color: #857458; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-size: 13px;"><span style="color: #857458; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is not impossible to imagine that in choosing to be baptized by John, Jesus had made a dramatic self-offering to God and, in response, God 'embraced' him as a father would a son. For Jesus, the result was a profound experience of being loved by God and what may have been a new awareness of himself: as God's 'Beloved' and of God as his Father. His experience of this love was of "the heavens being torn apart and the Spirit, like a dove, descending on him." The Holy Spirit, God's abiding presence, entered into him, empowering him. For Jesus, his experience at the Jordan was more than simply a call; it was an overwhelming sense of being grasped by God for his service. He had been brought to understand that God had chosen to make his decisive intervention in history at this very moment and that he, Jesus, was to be the means of bringing this about. It would not be unreasonable to say that Jesus was overwhelmed. Mark's words only hint at what must have been his confusion and inner turmoil - "and at once the Spirit drove him </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">into the desert</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">."</span></span></span></span></div></div><div align="justify" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> <strong>Written by</strong> Br. Charles Jackson, S.J., LIS Associate Director</span></div><div align="justify" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><img src="http://www.loyolainstitute.org/graphics/portraits/BrCharlesJackson_small.jpg" /></span></div><div align="justify" style="margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>The Faces and Places of Advent</b></span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">The month of December can seem like a battle of attrition between the invitation of Advent to a time of reflective stillness and anticipation, and the speed of an ever-accelerating race to Christmas, that is marked by purchasing, preparations, and pressure-packed celebrations (if such can truly be called celebratory!). In a world of seemingly endless tweets, texts, voicemails, and emails, we are submerged amid tsunamis of ads and invitations. Where is the space for inner silence, the quiet place of rest as we look for the coming of the nativity promise?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">In the past few weeks, helping to facilitate retreats in English and Spanish, focused on the growth of personal and communal spirituality, I have been made more aware than ever of the deep longing people of faith have for inner connection to the God who calls them beyond the mundane and trivial to a rich encounter with an endless horizon of divine presence and surprise. Life <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">as </i>Church can become enmeshed in yet another round of activities, of movement, focused on external results before inner or shared awakening to God. To make such an observation is not to promote individual or communal passivity, a ‘me-first’ sort of preoccupation with how I/we can be enriched as part of a religious family. Rather, it is an invitation to be more attentive to the working of the Spirit before, during, and after our active engagement with duties and projects that grow out of our faith commitments.</span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">The human brain is an intriguing and complex organ, but it has certain redundant processes that track our way through life. An act of shopping bears many cognitive parallels to an act of feeding the poor or decorating the church sanctuary for Christmas. If all that we do gets reduced to unreflective ’action,’ we do not ‘learn’ or ‘grow’ in the spiritual dimensions of our being-in-the-world. Time for reflective prayer or contemplative focus on the mystery of divine love in the most elemental aspects of our daily walk helps us to ground or locate what we are and do in something more profound than the completion of a to-do list! The result is that activity is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">held differently</i> in our perceptions and in our memories. The God-stuff of our lives becomes clearer and more integral to our sense of purpose and meaning. We are not believers-who-do, but students of spiritual wisdom who grow to understand the richness and inner gift of all life, not just the select moments that our schedules set aside to ‘pay attention.’</span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><div style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Advent reflection is not a sudden turn to monasticism, or a wholesale separation from our engagement with the day-to-day. Rather, it is an inner choice, a decision for spiritual self-care, that allows us to nurture our capacity for divine connection, whatever the place or circumstance. This is not necessarily a matter of radical change that separates us from our current life (though some modification would probably prove quite useful!). It is a willingness to pay attention on a more consistent basis (once today, twice tomorrow—the discipline can become infectious) to the way in which our interior focus on the God who is present can help us to redirect our energies from the completion of tasks to the re-visioning of why we are tasked in the first place. Advent is a common space in which we are called to cherish our own daily experience as part of our inheritance among those who can discover the ever-new miracle of the Messiah, the birth of Jesus as our companion and guide to life with God.</span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;"> <strong>Written by</strong> Fr. David C. Robinson, S.J., LIS Associate Director</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;"><img src="http://www.loyolainstitute.org/graphics/portraits/FrDavidRobinson_small.jpg" /></span></span></span></div></div></div>LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-37978257457777567132011-05-10T22:17:00.000-07:002011-05-10T22:17:32.629-07:00Burdened with Much Serving<div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><i>"He entered a village where a woman whose name was Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak. Martha, burdened with much serving, came to him and said, 'Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me by myself to do the serving? Tell her to help me.' The Lord said to her in reply, 'Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.'"</i>(Luke 10:38-42)</span></div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">In the mid-1960s I was assigned to our novitiate in Santa Barbara, which had opened just a few years earlier. At that time, our community - 4 priests, 3 brothers, and 23 novices - lived in a sprawling ranch-style house, while a larger novitiate complex was being constructed on another part of the property. The house in which we lived was large, but our community of 30 stretched it beyond all imagining: we were packed in like sardines, but we were a wonderfully happy community. I was there only three months, however, when our lay cook was incapacitated by a serious stroke. So for the next year and a half another brother and I did all the cooking - three-meals-a day, seven days-a week - for the community. It was demanding and tiring work, but I loved it, mostly because I loved doing it for people I loved.</span></div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">During that time we often spoke with happy anticipation of the new and larger novitiate that was being built, commenting about how much more comfortable - and happier - we would be. In January 1968 the new novitiate was completed and we moved. It was indeed larger and more comfortable, but it was also, unlike the house we had just vacated, terribly institutional. It seemed that the magic was gone. On occasion I still did some cooking, but it was no longer with the same joy that I had experienced in the old house. For me, cooking had become a burden.</span></div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Something similar seems to have happened in the story of Martha and Mary. Martha and Mary seem to have been close friends with Jesus and probably entertained him on more than a few occasions - though this is the only occasion that is described in the gospels. On this occasion, we are told that after Martha welcomed Jesus, her sister Mary plopped down at Jesus' feet to listen to him, while she busied herself in the kitchen. Both sisters were expressing their love, though the manner in which they did so differed. I suspect that both initially delighted in their self-appointed tasks: Mary listening to Jesus and Martha preparing a meal for Jesus - but then something happened. Gradually Martha became caught up in all her work, and the delight that she had initially felt in it began to wane. Her focus was no longer on Jesus, but rather on her busyness "with much serving." Her labor of love had become for her a burden.</span></div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I suspect that our everyday lives are spent doing tasks that can often seem small and insignificant in the eyes of those who don't know what we are about. But it is important that we never forget the enormous value of the often inconspicuous things we do for others. Mother Teresa seems to capture the sense of all this when she reminds us that it is not what we do that ultimately matters, but rather the love we put into doing it.</span></div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Written by</span> Br. Charlie Jackson, S.J., LIS Associate Director</div><div><br />
</div><div><img src="http://www.loyolainstitute.org/graphics/portraits/BrCharlesJackson_small.jpg" /></div>LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-47073968381582281332011-05-10T22:14:00.000-07:002011-05-10T22:14:52.677-07:00Culture and Community: The Spirit of Aloha<div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">During the month of September, I was blessed with an opportunity to spend some time visiting and working at the Newman Center on the University of Hawaii Manoa Campus, in Honolulu. Needless to say, there were no complaints about workplace location! The community <span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">manifests so much of the grace that is part of the Hawaiian understanding of ohana-a family that is based on more than bloodlines, and includes all who are friends and members of an intentional group. Indeed, one is immediately immersed in the Spirit of Aloha, which is the hallmark of the Islands. Aloha is commonly known to most as a warm and familiar sign of greeting and parting. However, in Hawaiian culture, the word encompasses as well a sense of living in the sacredness of the present moment, of being united in a loving spirit of kindness and humility. This is not a matter of belief or civility, but of a deep connectedness of all people to one another and to creation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Newman Center family is in the midst of significant transition, discerning its future staffing, mission, and programming. Often, these moments are ones of anxiety, uncertainty, and even anger, that can lead to community division or paralysis. Certainly there are feelings of sadness and frustration that change has come to the doorway of the community. Nonetheless, my abiding sense of these days is one of true aloha, a time in which the sacred connections of faith and family provide a stable, hopeful climate for addressing the future with vision and creativity. This is an ohana, not a happenstance collection of individuals who gather for mass or projects. Their familial spirit is a glowing example of the ways in which the influences of indigenous cultures can help us to shape a healthier model for life and work, individually and communally.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was also graced with the opportunity to spend nearly four days on the Big Island (Hawaii). There, in the midst of the Hilo Coast botanical marvels, the smoldering caldera of Kilauea (a currently active volcano), and the underwater magic of multi-colored fish and sea turtles, I was reminded of (and inspirited by) the reality of the aloha that links everyone here to the land, the water, the spellbinding variety of living creatures, and to their human companions. So often on the mainland, we have too much space and too much speed for our own good balance of mind and soul. There is much we can learn from the reality of ohana in the Newman Center community, the union of heart in a family of faith, as we live out together the possibilities of our own spirit of aloha.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aloha nui loa!</span></div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Written by</span> Fr. David C. Robinson, S.J., LIS Associate Director</div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><img src="http://www.loyolainstitute.org/graphics/portraits/FrDavidRobinson_small.jpg" /></div>LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-40295609445014507522011-05-10T18:34:00.000-07:002011-05-10T18:34:22.521-07:00From Glory to Glory--Charles Jackson, S.J.<div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">When I was growing up during the 1950s, it wasn't unusual for a young man pondering his future to imagine himself taking a job, and continuing to work in that job, until he retired many years later.<span> </span>Life in those years was perceived - at least by me - as stable, secure and very predictable.<span> </span>When I entered the Society of Jesus fifty years ago, I imagined my own life in essentially those same terms - stable, secure and very predictable.<span> </span>Well, I suspect that it goes without saying that the lived experience of my life has been quite different from my expectations - and I also suspect that this has been true for you as well.<span> </span>Our lives may have begun with hopes and dreams, but they have invariably included more than a few twists and turns, false starts and dead-ends, surprises and even disappointments.<span> </span>Yet throughout it all, God has been very much with us.<span> </span>Ignatius Loyola loved to say that God is actively "at work" in us. </div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">One of the great graces in the life of Ignatius Loyola was in his being brought to understand that God's creative action did not end in the distant past.<span> </span>Rather, God is actively engaged in the world and in the life of each and every person, laboring in all things to bring all people into the fullness of life for which he created them.<span> </span>God is actively engaged in your life and in mine so that we achieve the fullness of life for which God created us.</div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Several weeks ago, I spoke with a happily married woman in her mid-40s.<span> </span>For some years now, she and her husband have been actively involved in the faith formation of their parish.<span> </span>She told me that during her high school years she became involved in youth ministry and was introduced to a particular youth retreat model that captivated her.<span> </span>This retreat model seemed to embody both the 'what' and the 'how' of everything she hoped to do.<span> </span>She said that she imagined herself eventually getting married and having a family, but continuing to work with this retreat model for the rest of her life.<span> </span>She said that as events unfolded, however, she worked with this retreat for just two or three more years before God moved her in a new direction.<span> </span>She then paused for a moment, apparently savoring all this, before she added with a smile, "and so God brings us from glory to glory."<span> </span>She didn't explain what she meant by her concluding words, yet she seemed to be speaking not only of something that was true for her, but of something that was also wonderful and of something that truly animated her life.<span> </span>It seemed that she understood God's continued action in her life as truly a labor of love: bringing her from something that was wonderful to something that was even more wonderful - bringing her, as it were, "from glory to glory."<span> </span></div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">But all of this is true for each of us as well.<span> </span>God's continued action in our lives is truly a labor of love.<span> </span>It is important, however, that we not only understand this, but also that we reflect on it, savor it, relish it and appreciate it.<span> </span>As the woman with whom I spoke discovered, God's action in our lives, if we have the eyes to see it, brings us from something that is wonderful to something that is even more wonderful.<span> </span>It brings us, as it were, "from glory to glory."</div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Written by</span> Br. Charles Jackson, S.J., LIS Associate Director</div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</div><div style="color: #857458; font-family: 'Century Gothic', 'ITC Avant Garde', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><img src="http://www.loyolainstitute.org/graphics/portraits/BrCharlesJackson_small.jpg" /></div>LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-62424085583179672252010-09-09T09:13:00.000-07:002010-09-09T16:06:25.944-07:00Martha Schwertner, CSJ: Art as Spirituality--September, 2010Martha Schwertner, CSJ, a member of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Orange community, is our featured artist in the Art as Spirituality forum. She works extensively in watercolors and with wood, to manifest what she calls "God's creative art." The link to our website forum is posted below.<br />
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<a href="https://sites.google.com/site/ignatianart/">https://sites.google.com/site/ignatianart/</a>LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-65304656972134688752010-08-30T15:53:00.000-07:002010-08-30T15:53:21.552-07:00Art as SpiritualityThrough the centuries, art has frequently expressed the deep inner movements, the yearnings of soul, that are central to the spiritual life. We can be facile in our ways of talking about the <span style="font-style:italic;">"spirituality of art"</span>--the ways in which our aesthetic creations represent or symbolize the nature of our spiritual pilgrimage. However, art is more than a representation of spirituality. It is, in itself, a form of spiritual praxis, a lived means of incarnating our inner quest.<br />
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Our blog is establishing an Art as Spirituality forum. We invite readers to join a community conversation regarding the role/nature of art (painting, poetry, theater, photography, music, dance, etc.) as a spiritual practice. This is not a dialog regarding the spiritual implications of art, but rather a celebration of art and artistry as spiritual practice in the lives of millions around the world. A sub-section of this forum will include contributions from artists (mp3 files, video/YouTube elements, photos, literary pieces, etc.).<br />
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Please send any questions or items for inclusion to <span style="font-weight:bold;">loyolablog@gmail.com</span>.LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-36686164562713160532010-08-30T15:52:00.000-07:002010-08-30T15:52:16.742-07:00The 19th Annotation Retreat at LISIn September, 2010, a new 19th Annotation Retreat Group will commence at the Loyola Institute. This nine-month spiritual journey is a unique and transformative process that allows individuals to persevere in their day-to-day responsibilities, while guiding them along the path of spiritual growth and insight. Further information is available at the Loyola Institute website<br />
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A brief description is added below:<br />
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The Spiritual Exercises in Daily Life <br />
(19th Annotation Retreat<br />
“Extend your arms into the future. The best is yet to be.” -- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.<br />
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<span style="font-style:italic;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">The 19th Annotation of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola is a profound, transformative retreat experience that can be made over a period of nine months in daily life. This is a very practical way to make the full Spiritual Exercises without going away to a retreat center for thirty days in silence.<br />
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The retreat process begins with a period of preparation where the potential retreatant will be paired up with a spiritual guide for ongoing, monthly spiritual companioning sessions. This should begin several months prior to entering into the 19th Annotation retreat. The 19th Annotation of the Spiritual Exercises will begin in September and last until June with weekly individual spiritual companioning sessions and monthly group conferences. The monthly group conferences are held at the Loyola Institute for Spirituality in Orange, CA.<br />
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Requirements for participation:<br />
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A desire to deepen one's prayer life and relationship with God<br />
Individual weekly meetings with the spiritual guide when the Exercises start in September<br />
One hour commitment of personal daily prayer with review and journaling<br />
Attendance at all monthly group sessions</span></span>LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-53544759830897328302010-08-30T15:51:00.000-07:002010-08-30T15:51:05.418-07:00Loyola Institute's Ignatian Spiritual Formation ProgramAs the days and weeks of summer go spinning by, the intentions we may have formed in the depths of winter or the emergence of spring can be lost in the haste of our days and activities. The Loyola Institute's <span style="font-style:italic;">Ignatian <br />
Spiritual Formation Program</span>, a three-year process for the development of a community formed in Ignatian practice and discernment, will be forming a new cohort for the fall. The first class begins on September 14th, a date that seemed so far in the future when the new group was first announced. <br />
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If you are interested, please check out the more extensive information available on the LIS website <span style="font-weight:bold;">http://www.loyolainstitute.org/cats.php</span>. <br />
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Below is a brief explanation of the program:<br />
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<span style="font-style:italic;"><span style="font-weight:bold;">PROGRAM OVERVIEW:<br />
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The Loyola Institute for Spirituality (LIS) recognizes the spiritual hunger of people in search of a deeper and more meaningful faith experience in contemporary times. This felt need creates a demand for spiritual development, especially for lay leaders within the church and society. LIS strives to address this challenging reality through a spiritual formation program. The Ignatian Spiritual Formation Program (ISFP) provides an opportunity to form lay leaders and LIS Associates, who will be lay collaborators working with LIS and/or local faith communities in spiritual ministry. ISFP is not a training program for certifying spiritual directors. Rather, it strives to make spiritual experiences and formation opportunities as practical and accessible as possible for people involved in spiritual ministries.<br />
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The formation program consists of three phases: <br />
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Phase I: Studies in Ignatian Spirituality that provides a basic understanding of Ignatian spirituality through classes.<br />
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Phase II: An experience of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius based on the 19th Annotation format that fosters a transformative personal relationship with Christ and a deep desire to serve others.<br />
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Phase III: A Practicum component that provides advanced spirituality courses and hands-on experiences with supervision to prepare Associates for spiritual ministry as graduates of LIS.<br />
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<span style="font-weight:bold;"></span></span></span>LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-16922688980015985612010-08-17T16:04:00.000-07:002010-08-24T13:46:34.109-07:00The New Loyola Institute BlogWe invite your input into the evolution of this Blog. It is a common vehicle for our future conversations, a place to share and to benefit from the riches of others’ spiritual journeys.LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-44739037057968484082010-01-28T09:03:00.000-08:002010-01-28T12:20:35.677-08:00A Spirituality that Transforms the World<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0v1qGS3RcfMHS9CVQgDRVE_N5ZVLXrIBQyie_xR8fY9-QT_dChG2BVyYqvpNi0QBJ5cz8wTqkLHKrty9KXDwZbhiVxweL_Ert5zbRKSQ8_ZPTHuttWv3_tmQQN-6Bn0CNdbVCQ2dzr4M/s1600-h/HG7.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 158px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0v1qGS3RcfMHS9CVQgDRVE_N5ZVLXrIBQyie_xR8fY9-QT_dChG2BVyYqvpNi0QBJ5cz8wTqkLHKrty9KXDwZbhiVxweL_Ert5zbRKSQ8_ZPTHuttWv3_tmQQN-6Bn0CNdbVCQ2dzr4M/s200/HG7.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431887897439672306" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4qL9ps9ROM_XFJ1_B7ZjJs7on4h1NYxEnyBXy8xTveC2rNiL7RfOW1Im8evqRgoYx__0Q0F_B-TAFUs5R4Jzs1zZEYj5it2I9J5XrCGcayi14SSZPliUTri3kf04ojiu0YkEmSN25kbs/s1600-h/HG11.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 155px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4qL9ps9ROM_XFJ1_B7ZjJs7on4h1NYxEnyBXy8xTveC2rNiL7RfOW1Im8evqRgoYx__0Q0F_B-TAFUs5R4Jzs1zZEYj5it2I9J5XrCGcayi14SSZPliUTri3kf04ojiu0YkEmSN25kbs/s200/HG11.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431887461769550706" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhehFH8KQOPu7sj7_IVqlCpAFOfhyR0Pr9rgUs8wVT5yt2AFLUKr6FMoZQmdB3SEf7CJSFmn4DXD8yBNjZQ0l08odbilMQDQHCGY9AgWRt90kooEW4CQUp19DwAruDT6T3dGIm0K8ibck/s1600-h/HG12.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 114px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhehFH8KQOPu7sj7_IVqlCpAFOfhyR0Pr9rgUs8wVT5yt2AFLUKr6FMoZQmdB3SEf7CJSFmn4DXD8yBNjZQ0l08odbilMQDQHCGY9AgWRt90kooEW4CQUp19DwAruDT6T3dGIm0K8ibck/s200/HG12.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431887214755223138" /></a><br />On the afternoons of January 23rd and 24th, Loyola Institute for Spirituality and the Ignatian Volunteer Corps (IVC) co-sponsored the presentation of two transformative talks by Fr. Howard Gray, S.J.. Focused on the topic of “Lay and Jesuit Colleagues: A Spirituality that Transforms the World”, the events drew approximately 135 attendees in Orange on Saturday, and over 110 in San Diego the following day. <br /><br />Fr. David Robinson, S.J. offers this reflection on Fr. Grey's presentation in Orange:<br /><br />On a radiant Saturday afternoon, Howard Gray, S.J., joined a community of spiritual seekers at the Saint Joseph Center in Orange to reflect on the nature, qualities, and ministry of spiritual discernment. Through the prism of the Triple Colloquy found in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, Fr. Gray invited his audience to contemplate a spiritual relationship with Mary, as one who embodied the passion and joy of the call of God, while surrendering her life to the possibilities of an unknown future; to Jesus as the embodiment of human experience that manifested the total self-giving of divine love; and to God the Father as the one who is profligate in loving, like the father of the prodigal son who runs to meet the returning child, filled with joy and without judgment. <br /><br />Out of this Ignatian model, he further reflected on the practice of spiritual discernment, both as a personal process aimed at seeing life and the world with visio divina, through the eyes of God, and as a ministry to others in the form of companionship on the path to fuller freedom and the capacity to help those in need for the enrichment of their daily lives.LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-65944459431487279892010-01-11T10:14:00.000-08:002010-01-11T10:31:43.128-08:00St. Columban Parish Mission - Everyone is Welcome!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpQhG0gyCr5WyJTq9XtBQhyphenhyphenNJJnaJtesuWLqMWzIJz_QvRnJ5pwfpTSzG_2v5xJZMNFHz16rXnCmMjaj_a3eM5xGwvrx7wUsmyonUZHvtW-b-j6JodkTdfRlAK2NWF73bbNzHAqA5eDWg/s1600-h/Fr+Steve+Pic.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 192px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpQhG0gyCr5WyJTq9XtBQhyphenhyphenNJJnaJtesuWLqMWzIJz_QvRnJ5pwfpTSzG_2v5xJZMNFHz16rXnCmMjaj_a3eM5xGwvrx7wUsmyonUZHvtW-b-j6JodkTdfRlAK2NWF73bbNzHAqA5eDWg/s200/Fr+Steve+Pic.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5425550830840761298" /></a><br />Fr. Steve Corder, SJ, will present a Parish Mission for the St. Columban Parish in Garden Grove that will also be open to the general public. Mass will be held each evening at 7:30, with an informative and uplifting Mission talk to follow:<br /><br />Monday, January 25 – Hope, Healing, and the Year of the Priest<br />Tuesday, January 26 – Imagining the Gospel and the Life of Jesus<br />Wednesday, January 27 – Finding God in Our Daily Lives<br /><br />Location: <br />Saint Columban Catholic Church <br />10801 Stanford Ave., Garden Grove, CA 92840 <br />(714) 534-1174<br /><strong><em><br />PLEASE JOIN US! All are welcome!</em></strong>LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-73040008881900452232010-01-07T09:37:00.000-08:002010-01-07T09:52:37.989-08:00Sometimes our hearts desire more than a job...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIJufgr2sKrb3dQff_a70wTRNJ0QLUBAZDrzkvXerpiS-bOg51ca2dW4LXcBX5yinuG2cpYIFdca_dtjCwh-Ky2j6_p6TVTevtffLqHIPiG92HoQoJBtKsPCHewGW45XSFxkTkjhkvADY/s1600-h/new-jesuits.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 249px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIJufgr2sKrb3dQff_a70wTRNJ0QLUBAZDrzkvXerpiS-bOg51ca2dW4LXcBX5yinuG2cpYIFdca_dtjCwh-Ky2j6_p6TVTevtffLqHIPiG92HoQoJBtKsPCHewGW45XSFxkTkjhkvADY/s400/new-jesuits.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424057289748118834" /></a><br />...sometimes our hearts desire companions on the spiritual journey. Have you ever <br />thought about entering religious life? Are you a single Catholic man, between the ages of 18 and 45? If so, we invite you to come explore the Society of Jesus at our upcoming “Come and See Day”. <br />DATE: Sunday, Feb. 28, 2010 <br />TIME: 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. <br />(lunch and Mass included) <br />PLACE: Manresa Jesuit Residence in Anaheim<br /><br />To RSVP or for more info, contact Br. Charlie Jackson SJ:<br />cjackson@calprov.org <br />or call 714-997-9587, ext. 24LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-86399360484608525432009-12-14T09:41:00.000-08:002009-12-14T10:51:44.074-08:00The Advent of Advent<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKYKI_Ud3rtixaPHetXA7o29qV0Jqc_YMCPFu1omMY4XjW24pdu0Nq7JeriZtxzY5HhZxa8AHpmCHtSi538xO2pWFkdL1lX8qkps4Zm0KQy8EgPB4KSFfPOhIxL3-uDJYI3PCj_IpnhBE/s1600-h/black-friday-has-gone-christmas-shopping-season-continues1.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 307px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKYKI_Ud3rtixaPHetXA7o29qV0Jqc_YMCPFu1omMY4XjW24pdu0Nq7JeriZtxzY5HhZxa8AHpmCHtSi538xO2pWFkdL1lX8qkps4Zm0KQy8EgPB4KSFfPOhIxL3-uDJYI3PCj_IpnhBE/s400/black-friday-has-gone-christmas-shopping-season-continues1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5415153934439621362" /></a><br /><em><br />By Fr. David Robinson, S.J. </em><br /><br />Once the turkey and trimmings of the Thanksgiving feast have vanished from the dining-room table, the rush and furor of Christmas planning begin in earnest. We find ourselves bombarded by an endless assortment of newpaper, radio, and television ads that promise the most rewarding venues for shoppers' bargains, and the 'best' ways to prepare for the great holiday of giving. The pace seems to accelerate daily, with an ever-growing perception that if we miss out on some opportunities for purchasing or partying, we have diminished our participation in the magic of the season. Of course, at heart we know this reckless rush to December 25th is a seduction and an illusion, a fabrication of marketing and publicity that holds no real substance in what we most treasure in life. How is it that we are so readily drawn in year after year, while knowing that what we truly want resides elsewhere?<br /><br />Even the season of Advent, with its wonderfully poetic vision of the fulfillment of God's promise(s) becomes enmeshed in the mystery of the manger. We cannot wait to begin decorating house and church. We yearn for Christmas music to fill our homes and our airwaves. It is as if we have no use for the learning process of anticipation, no willingness to savor what is to come. Could it be that we have succumbed to the lure of instant gratification, even in the spiritual recesses of our own preparation for the miracle of the nativity? It is certainly no accident that Christians throughout the centuries have recognized the need for a deeply reflective period prior to the celebration of the two great bookends of the life of Christ--Christmas and Easter. We receive an invitation to slow down, if only for a little while, on our headlong rush to who-knows-where. When Jesus faced a compelling moment in life, it seems that he always made a point of 'stepping aside' for prayer and connection with the God who had sent and guided him. We can learn a lesson from his practice as we count down the days to the great feast that is the savior's birthday. <br /><br />It is probably beyond the resources or capacity of most to suddenly put the brakes to so much planning and festivity this Advent season. Nonetheless, it may benefit each and all of us to take a few moments aside--in the early hours of waking to a winter day; at an opportune occasion when the day's preoccupations can be interrupted by a minute's reflection on the silent mystery that these days enfold; before surrendering to our time (often all too brief!) of sleep, when we can glance at the vision of future hope that these days symbolize. This is a season of receptivity and insight, a series of little gifts of wisdom that the Spirit provides to remind us we are more than our plans and strategies for a successful life.<br /><br />Advent is a time of God 'coming to' us. It is not a timed race on our part toward the joys and activities of Christmas. We know that, like the sun which rises and sets every day, the miraculous vista of Christmas will arrive. As Christ has come, the celebration of his birth will also come to remind us of the giftedness of life. As Israel waited for the messiah, and as Mary waited for her time of giving birth, so we can temper our feverish movement forward. We can savor the gift of reflection and quiet, the enrichment of anticipating what is to come. It is not always a burden or an obstacle to wait.LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-12301818411487434032009-12-09T14:08:00.000-08:002009-12-10T13:27:45.766-08:00The Season for Giving!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMLGnSyEBeHc9WvfCY7_MhvmRFLOnVlBip-YfYHZEKjKwJmQg6jIYgafBRmS0KP-QrRGKPkcaCNKSdPbmmV5RtBZS9kAzQkmAQ-6-6ATeHY2Cz1R7RODE4NLD2U-jGtnyl6lmOQWpJmSU/s1600-h/gift-to-the-magi.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 251px; height: 343px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMLGnSyEBeHc9WvfCY7_MhvmRFLOnVlBip-YfYHZEKjKwJmQg6jIYgafBRmS0KP-QrRGKPkcaCNKSdPbmmV5RtBZS9kAzQkmAQ-6-6ATeHY2Cz1R7RODE4NLD2U-jGtnyl6lmOQWpJmSU/s400/gift-to-the-magi.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5413363100926114178" /></a><br />Please Consider Making a Tax-Deductible Year End Gift to the <br />Loyola Institute for Spirituality!<br /><br />“Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”- Luke 6:38<br /><br />This year, we have been blessed to have served over 10,000 individuals! The demand for our programs has never been higher. Several of our classes have doubled or even tripled in attendance this year. However, our donations have been less that what we hoped for, a decrease from previous years. We pray that we will be able to continue to meet the growing demand for our services. Our program fees tend to be lower than other spirituality centers, because we are committed to remaining affordable and accessible for everyone, especially in this time of economic difficulty. Your contribution will help us to continue to provide life-changing classes, retreats, and events for ALL who are seeking a closer relationship with God. Please know that your gift in any amount is deeply appreciated! <br /><br />To make a donation by credit or debit card, please call us: <br />714-997-9587<br /><br />Thank you for your faithful partnership!LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-58542414178534033772009-11-10T11:50:00.000-08:002009-11-10T11:57:40.771-08:00A Spirituality that Transforms the World<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtj103tP6PFwATRgU8Aph84J2-qBzEBbI6-Ujki-cw9lNtD4uftlisIt0rg4zr509RQHX_n2WXEtYhLj5fYecRrw1Qi_WL2ptgsV59JhlOlBcTtULkO-zf08t_lEx9mXEwtfGxUbytjA0/s1600-h/Howard%2520Gray.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 360px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtj103tP6PFwATRgU8Aph84J2-qBzEBbI6-Ujki-cw9lNtD4uftlisIt0rg4zr509RQHX_n2WXEtYhLj5fYecRrw1Qi_WL2ptgsV59JhlOlBcTtULkO-zf08t_lEx9mXEwtfGxUbytjA0/s400/Howard%2520Gray.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402565385453270738" /></a><br />Rev. Howard Gray, S.J., a nationally recognized expert on Ignatian<br />spirituality and currently Special Assistant to the President of Georgetown University, will be presenting in Southern California the weekend of January 23 and 24, 2010. These events are co-sponsored by LIS and the Ignatian Volunteer Corps. Please join us for one of these inspiring and transformative afternoons on the topic of “Lay and Jesuit Colleagues: A Spirituality that Transforms the World.” Fr. Gray’s presentation will address the questions: How can I work together with others to bring about God’s dream of love and service for our world? How can I find spiritual direction in my life and discern the path God has for me? How can I find God in all things?<br /><br /><strong>January 23, 2010<br />Orange</strong><br /><br />2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.<br />Presentation:<br />“Spiritual Direction and Discernment"<br />Followed by reception<br /><br />St. Joseph Center Auditorium Lounge<br />480 S. Batavia Street<br />Orange, CA 92868<br /><br /><strong>January 23, 2010<br />San Diego</strong><br /><br />2:00 p.m.<br />Eucharist, Founders Chapel<br />Howard Gray, S.J., Presider<br />3:00 p.m.<br />Presentation: “Lay and Jesuit Colleagues:<br />A Spirituality that Transforms the World”<br /><br />University of San Diego<br />5998 Alcalá Park<br />San Diego, CA 92110LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-16029299589371158872009-11-06T10:22:00.000-08:002009-11-06T10:34:43.805-08:00Help LIS While Shopping on Amazon!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjnp6PUQUl-FmHM-Hc8EoEN0Tnh3qAC5hD6je5Z0CUqz6ExaAz6vAdhLSbcZpEGjhZCYDllDonNuzqFJqVY6zyRp9VDEj9wG9aiGuCsPENAsLQvfblWbbQNuUYcfCP4X8lybBC9Mgr-fk/s1600-h/Amazon.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 120px; height: 103px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjnp6PUQUl-FmHM-Hc8EoEN0Tnh3qAC5hD6je5Z0CUqz6ExaAz6vAdhLSbcZpEGjhZCYDllDonNuzqFJqVY6zyRp9VDEj9wG9aiGuCsPENAsLQvfblWbbQNuUYcfCP4X8lybBC9Mgr-fk/s400/Amazon.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401060374899144770" /></a><br />We are please to announce the grand opening of LIS's new "Amazon Store”! Just in time for your Holiday shopping, this is an amazing way to support LIS at absolutely no additional cost to you.<br /> <br />The store can be accessed directly, or though our web site. Any purchase you make through the Amazon store will provide LIS with a rebate of between 4% and 8% of the purchase price. You can use the LIS Amazon store to purchase anything available on Amazon, not just the books we recommend. <br /><br />We think you will also enjoy browsing the excellent selection of recommended reading materials, selected by the LIS staff for you convenience. Please watch for updates…books on Ignatian Spirituality and other topics of interest will be added on an ongoing basis.<br /><br />http://astore.amazon.com/ignatian-20<br /><br /><a href="http://astore.amazon.com/ignatian-20"></a>LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-45661616955577194392009-10-20T11:11:00.000-07:002009-10-20T11:13:06.684-07:00Pausing to Celebrate Advent: Weekend Ignatian Retreat<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT6gT8zJ6bOcbDt9JpYnZj5wN4KzLUB-XhwQ89WicX56huF2bNAOsnnXwDWWdcbbWPQbuNimudDPDOujvbfecO1jRwdMiQnSt2k9uZ1XH01FmLga9w_VPSLpneyETVZ-nC_6HKAY_r0FA/s1600-h/09-1211-Weekend-Ignatian-Re.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT6gT8zJ6bOcbDt9JpYnZj5wN4KzLUB-XhwQ89WicX56huF2bNAOsnnXwDWWdcbbWPQbuNimudDPDOujvbfecO1jRwdMiQnSt2k9uZ1XH01FmLga9w_VPSLpneyETVZ-nC_6HKAY_r0FA/s400/09-1211-Weekend-Ignatian-Re.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394746593897236290" /></a><br /><br />Click on the image to enlarge! Loyola Institute for Spirituality invites you to step aside from the bustle of the season and enjoy time with the One who is Reason for the Season at hand: Jesus, Emmanuel, God-WITH-us! This silent retreat will include guiding conferences as springboards to prayer, Eucharistic liturgy, and opportunity for personal accompani-ment with a director. <br /> <br />For information and/or registration: <br />Contact Sr. Barbra Ostheimer at 714-997-9587 ext. 26LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-90361897491249873132009-10-14T13:59:00.000-07:002009-10-20T09:36:27.970-07:00Ignatian Morning: Basking in the Loving Gaze of God<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRQRTtzCeusPlp-v6IYR4ZTYwyi5kCR3DOZfC1ryf-47mm0GnrkB12OVljaK7GSzqO_vjK-HPErZfgQqM6b9uMq4Li-YB9u7-1VaAMgVu9RVgel93cfvXvHcX2mtM7ZUhWv8J0Etk41EQ/s1600-h/09-1108-Ignatian-Morning-Fl.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 258px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRQRTtzCeusPlp-v6IYR4ZTYwyi5kCR3DOZfC1ryf-47mm0GnrkB12OVljaK7GSzqO_vjK-HPErZfgQqM6b9uMq4Li-YB9u7-1VaAMgVu9RVgel93cfvXvHcX2mtM7ZUhWv8J0Etk41EQ/s400/09-1108-Ignatian-Morning-Fl.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394721756272083410" /></a><br /><br /><br />Click on the image to see details! Our Ignatian Morning is here. Loyola Institute for Spirituality invites you today to come and join others explore the gift of daily life in the light of God's love and Ignatian Spirituality.. More information to come. For further information on this event please contact Sr. Barbra at (714) 997-9587 ext. 26LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-50157259225726761392009-10-01T11:24:00.000-07:002009-10-01T11:39:11.506-07:00“I’m Charlie Jackson, and I’m getting old!”<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEW1LDKUr2UcayIe8baDTC5GQyLO7bMsUyFvCBXXUUDwHurEMFDcsQkl8ePcDyxwV566UwGcHbmVprPS-8KtjNVhJDSA9zvl8dsoevaYQKHnM3h1dO7J8AfIdKwh50ag3VabEkVhKXBUE/s1600-h/BrCharlesJackson.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEW1LDKUr2UcayIe8baDTC5GQyLO7bMsUyFvCBXXUUDwHurEMFDcsQkl8ePcDyxwV566UwGcHbmVprPS-8KtjNVhJDSA9zvl8dsoevaYQKHnM3h1dO7J8AfIdKwh50ag3VabEkVhKXBUE/s320/BrCharlesJackson.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5387701219695771986" /></a><br /><strong>by Charles J. Jackson, S.J.</strong><br /><br />During the spring of 1994 I was surprised to receive from my provincial superior an invitation to “A Moment for the Middle-Aged: A Retreat for Jesuits 45-55 Years of Age.” To say that I was surprised to receive the invitation would be an understatement; I was incensed. I was fifty-one years of age, teaching in one of our high schools, coaching cross-country and track, and could still run ten miles in under an hour. Middle-aged! I wasn’t middle-aged!<br /><br />I remember the retreat as a wonderful and grace-filled experience. Unlike most retreats that Jesuits make, there was a great deal of talking, as the participants shared with one another their experience of being Jesuits. Among its many graces, the retreat brought each of us to the realization that we were not as young as we used to be and that we were, in fact, getting old. For me, the experience of that retreat was not unlike what I suspect an alcoholic experiences when he or she is finally able to state before everyone that “I’m John Doe…” or “I’m Jane Doe, and I’m an alcoholic.” Well, by the time the retreat ended, I believe that each of the participants could have said something similar: “I’m Charlie Jackson, and I’m getting old.”<br /><br />Well, more than fifteen years have passed since that retreat, and what was true for me then is even more true today: I’m getting old. I think each of us struggles mightily against our human frailty and eventual diminishment, but these define who we are as persons. Interior freedom is many things, but at its most profound level, it is the ability to thank God for making us exactly the way we are – not simply the way we were in the vigor of our youth, but the way we are today. It is not only putting aside our agenda so as to put ourselves into God’s hands; it is thanking God for the wonder of creating us. It is to this that God invites us when we ponder our frailty and diminishment, “For it was you who formed my inmost parts, who knit me in my mother’s womb. I praise you, Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works” (Ps. 139:13-14).LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-37983844268216791742009-09-24T14:55:00.000-07:002009-09-25T10:12:01.287-07:00“The Spiritual Exercises” of St. Ignatius<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI8v1mPZyM2kGO4zAPsEyYMiDiZY_pGujE69i1N_txqRv1h11bjpo7y2KWwr1jG-pYTa3mqyzyVuU1CP-ugvek01on8xMts0-vBbrWKduu9Hr9KrKZwA-wmZksM4uNLstdH483_5aS0Ng/s1600-h/baguio_grotto.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI8v1mPZyM2kGO4zAPsEyYMiDiZY_pGujE69i1N_txqRv1h11bjpo7y2KWwr1jG-pYTa3mqyzyVuU1CP-ugvek01on8xMts0-vBbrWKduu9Hr9KrKZwA-wmZksM4uNLstdH483_5aS0Ng/s320/baguio_grotto.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385161794904429842" /></a><br />“The Spiritual Exercises” of St. Ignatius, presented in the form of the 19th Annotation Retreat for Daily Life, has begun for the new 2009/10 year. LIS has been blessed with a record number of retreatants who have committed to the 9-month program of daily scriptural prayer, weekly individual spiritual direction, and monthly group faith-sharing. <br /><br />This year, 88 individuals have begun this life changing process, more than doubling the number of retreatants from last year! Of this number, 36 English speaking individuals will be a part of the Wednesday night group (27 are new to LIS and 9 are enrolled in the ISFP Program) and 8 Korean speaking retreatants will be meeting on Mondays. The Korean participation has been made possible by Associate Dr. Regina Hur, who painstakingly translated LIS’s 19th Annotation curriculum into her native language. Additionally, 44 retreatants are undertaking the Spiritual Exercises as part of the Los Angeles Archdiocese Diaconate Training Program. These participants (18 English speaking and 26 Spanish speaking) will attend groups located in Los Angeles. <br /><br />All classes are directed by Sr. Barbra Ostheimer, S.N.D., Brother Charles Jackson, S.J., Fr. Stephen Corder, S.J., and a team of dedicated LIS Lay Associates.LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1722301078039205076.post-31801713174169550452009-09-24T10:52:00.001-07:002009-09-25T10:20:39.723-07:00Final Vows<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_M096kga7ZPcc_jmxI3hiD1k_qjVlpObq1V8LuImxKRToneeplawpem83sXhSx7YmWK0BWu7ycX7WB1j60ISuej_VJWMpAQtur6RPjFejgEAUe-8dP17QoFbAj6ol9lUFiT8di4Qtb0Q/s1600-h/Cal+Prov+Convocation+144.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_M096kga7ZPcc_jmxI3hiD1k_qjVlpObq1V8LuImxKRToneeplawpem83sXhSx7YmWK0BWu7ycX7WB1j60ISuej_VJWMpAQtur6RPjFejgEAUe-8dP17QoFbAj6ol9lUFiT8di4Qtb0Q/s320/Cal+Prov+Convocation+144.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385099749656306786" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf9QYscUom0UAej9LtkPoAZPYxAp_6Q8Gi4Vl3xWA6swKB_i9OL-slH0ctYebU9d12DDFGPgguKoUplpR9ZNDNgBqjgownXRnb29DXdtIkz2ukHtCLyCsVM690SCtFhHUb5Ii1PgIv9Ks/s1600-h/Cal+Prov+Convocation+106.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf9QYscUom0UAej9LtkPoAZPYxAp_6Q8Gi4Vl3xWA6swKB_i9OL-slH0ctYebU9d12DDFGPgguKoUplpR9ZNDNgBqjgownXRnb29DXdtIkz2ukHtCLyCsVM690SCtFhHUb5Ii1PgIv9Ks/s320/Cal+Prov+Convocation+106.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385099737858199842" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE0NtbCQl-5KJ5QanSWcKdHiv1bKZaqilQO3M7MT53OPUM2jBHlHGYHWNp_ITyXLttrPFWDSTUEQ3CpYyE-2QJbJSSo8BEq4twcjVRSSZOTSxw3LaqcJV25x9qx8g8h8crLfgw3b5K68A/s1600-h/Cal+Prov+Convocation+035.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE0NtbCQl-5KJ5QanSWcKdHiv1bKZaqilQO3M7MT53OPUM2jBHlHGYHWNp_ITyXLttrPFWDSTUEQ3CpYyE-2QJbJSSo8BEq4twcjVRSSZOTSxw3LaqcJV25x9qx8g8h8crLfgw3b5K68A/s320/Cal+Prov+Convocation+035.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385099728461868050" /></a><br />On September 9, 2009, Rev. Stephen Corder, S.J. and Rev. Felix Just, S.J. celebrated their Final Vows in the Sacred Heart Chapel, located on the Motherhouse campus of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange. This beautiful event was attended by approximately 230 friends and family members, and was followed by a lovely dessert reception. Congratulations and blessings to Fr. Steve and Fr. Felix!LIShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07313180446159039761noreply@blogger.com