by Michael Rossmann, SJ | Aug 5, 2015 | In the News, Spirituality ~ Approx. 2min
“What are you going to do with your life?” can be a terrifying question. One summer, while giving retreats on Ignatian spirituality, the most popular talk we gave was on Ignatius’s “Rules for Discernment.”1 It indicated that most of us are hungry for guidance. I was...
by Brendan Busse, SJ | Aug 4, 2015 | Blogs, Sexuality, Spirituality ~ Approx. 4 mins
I had been talking around it for weeks. My spiritual director, on the other hand, was ready to get to the point. “It sounds like you just really want her,” he said. His voice lingered on the words really and want to make it clear that he was...
by Tim O'Brien, SJ | Aug 3, 2015 | Pop Culture ~ Approx. 6 mins
There are some music albums that become the soundtracks for particular moments in our lives. You know the kind I mean: the ones where simply hearing one of its songs – even years later – transports you instantaneously to a particular moment in the past. Amy...
by Joe Simmons, SJ | Jul 31, 2015 | Pop Culture, Spirituality ~ Approx. 5 mins
As readers of any comment section on the Internet know, people are compared to Hitler all the time. In philosophy classes, students readily point to Hitler as the embodiment of evil — so much so, in fact, that there is a logical fallacy named after him: Reductio...
by Jason Downer, SJ | Jul 29, 2015 | In the News, Justice ~ Approx. 2 mins
During my years in Chicago, I was a volunteer at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. It is a place where people, mostly young African-American males under the age of 18, are awaiting trial. My goal was to offer aid to these individuals, as well as to...
by Garrett Gundlach, SJ | Jul 28, 2015 | Blogs, In the News, Spirituality ~ Approx. 4 mins
There is nothing funny about having bed bugs. I tried to tell everyone in my Jesuit community this, but a few guys continued to post jokes on the bulletin board and make silly announcements about our community’s growing bed bug problem. That is, until they...
by Vinny Marchionni, SJ | Jul 27, 2015 | TJP Reads ~ Approx. 2min
I… Just… Want… To… Be… Loved… I’ve spent this summer reading two emotionally-draining novels: American Psycho and Anna Karenina. The first is a disturbing excoriation of 1980s yuppie values that is a paragon of postmodern stream of consciousness storytelling and...
by David Romero, SJ | Jul 22, 2015 | Justice, Pop Culture, Spirituality ~ Approx. 7 mins
So after reading Jason Downer’s great piece about the movie, Inside Out, I had to go see it. Not only am I a huge fan of Pixar, but I admit that I’m also always in the mood for something that will pluck at my heartstrings. You can take the nodding of my...
by Keith Maczkiewicz, SJ | Jul 21, 2015 | Blogs, Spirituality ~ Approx. 3 mins
“But how do you know I’m forgiven?”, he said, blinking away tears, his head hanging, not wholly convinced. Or rather trying to refute my insistence of mercy, not wanting to claim something false or unorthodox. I was a Jesuit, he reminded me, and that, in his mind, was...
by Joe Simmons, SJ | Jul 20, 2015 | In the News, Pop Culture ~ Approx. 9 mins
Those readers with a pulse have noticed much media focus on what it means to be both American and Christian. Is America ‘still’ a Christian nation? Will Christians become a new persecuted minority? There has been much ink spilt on issues of the environment,...