A friend once told me: “Expectations are resentments under construction.”
All posts by Christopher Alt, SJ
Christopher is a Jesuit scholastic from Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He has enjoyed coastal living on either side of the United States, studying theology, philosophy, and music at the University of San Diego and receiving a Master of Divinity from Boston College and a Master of Social Work from Loyola University Chicago. After several years of being a hospital chaplain and theme-park entertainer, he finally surrendered to a 25+ year priesthood “approach-avoidance conflict” by joining the Society of Jesus in 2016. He is grateful for the opportunity to love God and God’s people for the rest of his life as a Jesuit. Christopher is currently a school counselor at Christ the King Jesuit College Prep on Chicago's West Side.
Joined in 2019 20 posts caltsj@thejesuitpost.org
My Vocation Story is a Tale of a 20 Year Approach/Avoidance Conflict
At eighteen, I studied theology and philosophy at the University of San Diego. After graduation I still wasn’t ready to join the seminary. So, I bounced over to Boston and earned a Master of Divinity. It’s there I first met the Society of Jesus. Even so, I was still hesitant to take the dive. So, I skipped back to San Diego and began a two-year stint as a hospital chaplain. And this is just the beginning of my vocation story! Take a moment to read more and maybe uncover – or perhaps rediscover – your own journey of God’s call for you.
A Simple Vote? It’s More Complicated Than That.
As I write this post, my absentee ballot is sitting next to me, still blank. There are Catholics who say the choice is simple. There is only one issue that matters. But the stories I heard suggest it is more complicated.
Sometimes I Wonder, What If the Bread Changes but We Don’t?
It happened when I served as a Eucharistic minister at a large suburban hospital over five years ago. When I walked into his room, he looked like anybody’s grandpa. I can still see him lying there: a 90-some-year-old man with smallish frame nestled into the middle of the recliner bed, a tuft of white hair atop a wrinkled but happy-go-lucky face, the flimsy-knit, standard issue hospital blanket pulled up just under his chin. Read as Christopher Alt, S.J. reflects on the Eucharist and our everyday life.
Creating Together: Jesuits Invite You to an Interactive Art Retreat
Inspired by Pope Francis’ call to conversion, community-building, and creativity, I thought why not create a retreat and make it virtual for those who might also be feeling just as cooped up and restless as me. So, that’s what I and several other Jesuits with whom I live have done. And you can participate in the retreat too!
Drawn into Friendship: An Interactive Art Retreat
Join us for an interactive art retreat, presented by Christopher Alt, SJ.
Easter Doesn’t Offer Sudden and Final Jolts of Perfect Realization
If the spiritual life is learning to wake up, or to see, even, this would imply a gradual process. Confusion, anxiety, disorientation, and grief are not excluded from the Easter experience.
Every Lent I Think of This Native American Parable: Do Not Forget Who You Are!
One of the great images of Lent is Jesus being driven into the desert where he goes toe-to-toe with Satan. As real as Jesus’ temptations are to pleasure, fame, and power, they are but expressions of a more fundamental and deceptively obvious one: the temptation to forget who and whose you are.
To Change You Have to Feel Both the Push of Discomfort and the Pull of Hope
A stately-looking older gentleman walked into the classroom and introduced himself as the professor. After a terse jaunt through the syllabus, he looked up from the podium suddenly and posed the question: Who here believes that a person can change?