Awareness drives Ignatian Spirituality. Breathing is the fire that maintains the engagement of awareness in action. One needs God’s grace to learn how to breathe. In our next installment of “One Moment for One Thing,” Patrick Saint-Jean invites us to say nothing in our prayer except only to breath and listen.
My Jesuit community engaged in COVID-19 protocols after Mass on March 16. No more all-community Masses. No more going to school for class. No more ministry. A world of masks and gloves and handwashing. That evening, a friend and I had a conversation thinking through ways we could try to make the most of the indefinite future that came with pandemic.
Chris Williams, SJ, shares with us a poem for your prayers. In his poem he writes, “I will do anything to have your eyes / Lock in on mine, widen slightly, / And glisten in impulsive, destined wonder…” We invite you take a moment to read, pray, and reflect on his words.
The Pope Francis Center in Detroit–a place where folks on the margins can get meals and other essentials–needed workers. Accustomed to relying on volunteers to help serve meals, stay-at-home orders put the Center in a bind. The pandemic had increased demand just as the staff was reduced to a handful of full-time workers. The head of the Center reached out and I was sent with another Jesuit brother to fill in the gap for a month.
Today, we introduce to you “One Moment for One Thing,” a video series and a tiny space for you in your day to reflect, to pray, to consider where your heart is and how God is working in you. And today, we invite you to reflect on Hope.
As people of privilege, it is easy to escape the reality of the movements we witness. We cannot ignore the messages of anti-racism, no matter where they come from – even if they come from a pet.
My interpretation of #BlackOutTuesday: mute the self-centeredness of social media and heed the words of Psalm 34:15: “The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and his ears toward their cry.” It was a call to learn something, and maybe even do something. What did you learn yesterday? Anything?
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!
A wedding in the midst of a pandemic puts things in perspective.
My abrupt final days as a tutor at McQuaid Jesuit High School coincided with the famed Rochester Lilac Festival when a glorious garden in the middle of the city is filled with flowers and fragrance and visitors coming to soak it all in. A few weeks later I yearned to be back with the students and our jokes and routines and even the boring vocabulary tests.