The velorio, a gathering in the home of the deceased, is a Mexican tradition that allows loved ones to gather to share meals, memories and to mourn. And, even still, life around us is a reminder that not even death can conquer our hope.
Posts in Spirituality
What Do We Do When God Seems Lost to Us? Finding God in All Things, Even God’s Absence
Sometimes God can feel far away, silent, like a package we ordered but somehow got lost en route. Christopher Alt recalls how two empty tummies and a Persian poet reminds him that the gift of God’s presence can also be found in God’s absence.
This Jesuit Walked Across Asia in Disguise for Five Years
In 1602, Jesuit Brother Bento de Goës was sent on a five year excursion by land across Asia to search for a legendary kingdom of Christians supposedly located northeast of India and west of China.
Cancel Culture: Walking the Line Between Mercy and Justice
I’m living in the time of cancel culture. I notice that the news about cancel culture often triggers my temper because of how outrageous it can be. Although anger can be righteous whenever the news about cancel culture triggers my temper, I immediately want to react with everything I have. I want to ostracise the thing that causes harm to me and society. Those things do not deserve to exist, and, by wiping them out, society will be better, at least that’s what I think.
Listening to “Others,” or What I Learned From a Language Exchange
At the beginning of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Andrew Milewski, S.J. reflects on how a language exchange turned into a place of encounter and friendship. In this place of encounter, he wrestles with how to pray and have solidarity with the diverse Asian-American community and his friends who are a part of that group.
Going Back to Normal Can’t Be Going Back to How Things Were
With all that’s happened in the past year, going back to normal can’t be a return to the way things were. That’s because the way things were wasn’t good enough. Everything looks different. Everything is saturated with a familiar unknown, and nothing has its place just yet. I need to be alert, to note how this newness feels, to take advantage of the ensuing energy.
Flores and The Bugatti: On Finding Time for Friends
It took me some time to learn what God was trying to teach me through Sinesio, the man who, for over 25 years, kept the novitiate grounds a paradise, more heaven than Hollywood, with his care and hard work. But, God eventually got through as God has a way of doing. God will offer life lessons where we least expect them, and sometimes, when we least want them.
I Am a Jesuit and I Am an Alcoholic
I stopped drinking during the last semester of my regency, a stage of Jesuit formation where we work in a Jesuit institution. My last binge led me to see how my story with alcohol was going to end. If I kept on drinking, I would have left the Jesuits and continued deteriorating. In this “moment of clarity,” I decided that I needed to stop drinking in order to live. Though I am writing this anonymously, my story is a truth I carry with me. I am a Jesuit, and I am an alcoholic.
Talk 6: Do You Love Me? The Resurrected Christ and Our Response | Live the Questions: A Holy Week Retreat
This talk draws us into the Fourth Week of the Exercises and explores a question Jesus asks of all of us: do you love me?
Talk 5: Surely, it is not I, Lord? The Passion of Jesus | Life the Questions: A Holy Week Retreat
This talk considers Judas’s question to Jesus at the Last Supper: Surely, it is not I, Lord? Given our Holy Week experience, it moves us into the Third Week of the Exercises, and explores the suffering of Jesus on the cross as an essential part of the Paschal mystery of the Christian faith.