Today's feast day, the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is unique.  It does not commemorate a saint but an extraordinary meeting between two pregnant saints: Mary, the mother of Jesus, and her kinswoman Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.  It was Mary who took the initiative for this "visitation," a journey of some distance from Nazareth.

From the angel who had announced her own miraculous conception, Mary had learned that Elizabeth -"she who was called barren" - had also conceived a son "in her old age." The story in the Gospel of Luke suggests that Elizabeth's miraculous conception was a kind of guarantee of the promises made to Mary.

It is a remarkable and subversive vision in which the favor of God to two humble women is seen to presage a thoroughgoing process of social reversal: victory to the poor! defeat to their enemies!  But the joy of that encounter does not give a hint that these births will one day lead to the tragic deaths of these two leaping babies.
Robert Ellsberg, All Saints: Daily Reflections of Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time

Congratulations to the St. John’s Jesuit tennis team for winning the division 1 tennis state championship! Thanks to Evan Bechtel ‘11, Ryan Jorgensen ‘11, Connor Majdalani ‘11, Bobby Adusumilli ‘12, Spencer Crawford ‘12, Madhav Mehta ‘12, and Ryan Brown ‘14 on a job very well done.  We give thanks to the Lord for the gifts and joy of this experience.  This is final exam week for this academic school year; pray for our students as they take these final tests of what they have learned this year – today, science and theology exams.  Lord, we celebrate that your Holy Spirit is deep within us, and at the heart of all life.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Nothing is impossible with God!

The angel said to Mary, "the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called the Son of God. For nothing will be impossible with God."  Then Mary said, "Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be me according to your word."
Luke 1:35-38

Within the crypt church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. is a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Hope.  In 1994, comedian Bob Hope and his wife, Dolores, donated the chapel, in memory of his mother, Avis Townes Hope (both Avis Hope and her son are buried at the Catholic San Fernando Mission Cemetery in California).

The chapel is made of white Italian marble, and features bronze statues of the Blessed Mother and two angels.  Dolores Hope, a Catholic, had attended the dedication of the National Shrine in 1959, and had been a frequent visitor there over the years.  She was born on this day in 1909.
The White Book of Easter, Diocese of Saginaw, Inc.

Today is House Field Day at Saint John's Jesuit.  An important concept in Ignatian spirituality and education is Cura Personalis which means "care and concern for the individual."  Students must grow spiritually, intellectually, socially, etc., but physical growth is as important in their development.  Today is a day of camaraderie, fun, food and sports.  There will be many competitions: hockey, basketball, ultimate Frisbee, and others.  It is a wonderful way to end our academic year.  Pray for the success of this day.  Pray for a safe and blessed weekend for all.   God, in whom nothing can live but as it lives in love; grant us the spirit of love, which does not want to be rewarded, honored, or esteemed, but only to become the blessing and happiness of all who need it.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Stop Living in the Future

“My suffering is unbearable.”

Said the Master, “The present moment is never unbearable.  It is what you think is coming in the next five minutes or the next five days that drives you to despair.  Stop living in the future.”
Father Anthony de Mello, S.J.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.  And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.  (Matthew 10:29-31)

Fear can be one of the most crippling human experiences.  Most people have come across bullies.  A bully is often an insecure person who thinks they can control the world by making others feel as insecure as they do.  It takes a lot of self-confidence to stand up to a bully.  It also takes self-confidence to stand up for yourself in a work or family situation in which you are being manipulated.  Often, difficult circumstances can rob you of the very resource you need to do something about them: self-confidence. Being bullied makes you feel small.  Your forget that the bully is even smaller.

Jesus had a profound understanding of fear.  He talked about it quite often and, of course, experienced it himself.  He helped his followers live in a way in which they were not defined by their fears.  He sent them out without money, without haversack, without spare tunic or sandals.  He asked them to be vulnerable, despite their fears.  He said, "do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul."
Fr. Michael McGirr, S.J.

Our prayers are requested for Denise Taylor, niece of faculty member Susie Beeman, who is in the hospital after suffering  a heart attack. Pray for the peaceful repose of Lawrence Gruetter who passed away May 19th; he was the grandfather of Austin Lazenby-Bunkers '13, James Lazenby '15, Grant Lazenby '15, and Alexander Lazenby '15. Take away from our hearts, Lord, all over-confidence and boasting all high and vain thoughts, all desire to excuse ourselves for our sins, or to compare ourselves proudly with others; and grant us rather take as Master and King you who chose to be crowned with thorns and to die in shame for us all.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Look at All God Has Given Me

We begin to move under Jesus' standard when we join him in the living conviction that everything we have and are is God's gift.   However much or little we have, we say gratefully, "Look at all God has given me." Then the way opens through the smoke of self-satisfaction and approval of others.  "How can I help?" becomes a daily preoccupation.  And through a life of love and service, the Spirit leads us to live as meekly and humbly as the Lord lived - whether we are a famous athlete or an anonymous computer programmer.

The way of the world differs entirely.  The starting point is getting as much wealth as you can.  When the world's way opens before you, you shift your focus, saying, "Look at me with all this stuff."  You become convinced that you are the center of the world.  You may not have sinned yet, but it is a matter of time.
Joseph A. Tetlow, S.J., Making Choices in Christ: The Foundations of Ignatian Spirituality

The Latin word for "blessing" (bene-dictio) means to "speak well" of or upon someone.  A person blesses God by speaking well upon (praising) God.  One blesses another by asking God to do well by them.  Actually, "good-bye" is a blessing, a contracted form of "God be with you." 

Besides the Sign of the Cross (which is  a blessing upon oneself), the blessing most commonly used by Christians is the blessing upon food and upon those gathered to eat it: "Bless us O Lord, and these they gifts..."

Blessings are not magical as though the words themselves carried their own power.  God is the source of every good gift and, ultimately, all blessings come from God.

Sometimes objects are "officially" blessed insofar as they are set aside for sacred use - e.g. an altar, a chalice, a crucifix, a rosary.  At other times, objects  are blessed insofar as one asks God's special care - e.g. a home, a car, a boat.  These objects aren't set aside as sacred, but God is asked to be specially present.
The Little White Book of Easter, Catherine Haven

Pray for the people of Joplin, Missouri who have been devastated by severe weather. Lord, through weariness and hurt, through disaster on the news, through headaches and depression, I am still yours.  I do not understand, but I believe that you are here in the dark places of human life, and that nothing can take us out of your hands.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

"God is not silent, He has been silenced."

"The presence of God is the absence of despair. In the stillness of sensing His presence misery turns to joy, despair turns to prayer.  The true motivation of prayer is not being at home in the universe, rather a sense of not being at home in the universe.  Is there a sensitive heart that could stand indifferent and feel at home in the sight of so much evil and suffering, in the face of countless failures to live up to the will of God?  On the contrary, the experience of not being at home in the world is a motivation for prayer.  That experience gains intensity in the amazing awareness that God himself is not at home in the universe. He is not at home in a universe where His will is defied and where His kingship is denied. To pray means to bring God back into the world, to establish His kingdom in our heart and our lives."
Abraham Heschel (1907-1972): One of the great religious teachers and moral prophets of out time. 

St. John's Jesuit develops Christians leaders. As a Catholic school in the Jesuit tradition, we inspire each student to achieve his greatest potential in a diverse, Christ-centered atmosphere distinguished by academic success and service as a man for others."( St. John's Jesuit Mission Statement)

Yesterday our Saint John's Jesuit seniors, their parents, faculty and staff gathered at Our Lady Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Cathedral for Baccalaureate Mass.  At this Mass we gave thanks to God for the blessings of the last four years.  Commencement Exercises will be this Thursday, but we consider Baccalaureate Mass the most important graduation activity at SJJ.

The presider and homilist Fr. Joaquin Martinez, S.J., President of St. John's Jesuit High School and Academy, told the seniors that no matter what school they will attend from Michigan to Georgetown to Toledo, they are expected to serve the Lord by serving the communities in which they live.  As they continue to move into a crazy world where extreme poverty exists alongside extreme wealth, where war reigns over peace, they are expected to make the world a more peaceful and just place.

Pray for our seniors in their final days as students at Saint John's Jesuit.  Lord, teach me to be generous; to give and not count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not seek for rest; to labor and ask for no reward save knowing I am doing your will.  (St. Ignatius Loyola)  St. Ignatius pray for us.

Speak God's Word Boldly

Let me retain innocence and simplicity in the midst of this complex world.  I realize that I have to be informed, that I have to study the many problems facing the world.  But what really counts is that all this information, knowledge, and insight allows me to speak more clearly and truthfully your word.  Do not allow evil powers to seduce me with the complexities of the world's problems, but give the strength to think clearly, speak freely, and act boldly in your service.
Henri J. Nouwen

There are four Jesuits in the Jesuit community at Saint John’s Jesuit:  Fr. Boom Martinez, S.J. (President of SJJ), Fr. Tom Doyle, S.J. (Vice President of Jesuit Identity), Fr. Tom Radloff, S.J. (Rector of the Jesuit community and spiritual director of the priests of the Toledo Diocese), and Mr. Lucas Laniauskas, S.J. (Jesuit Regent).

Jesuit formation is a long period of time with many stages:

Candidacy
Formation: spiritual preparation for the Jesuit life through experiences of prayer (including the 30 days of The Spiritual Exercises) and experiences of ministry (such as serving the poor and teaching religion); 2 years

First Vows:  poverty, chastity and obedience and a promise to enter the Society

First Studies: study of philosophy and theology; 3 years

Regency: period of ministry with Jesuit and lay colleagues; 2-3 years (Mr. Lucas Lianusakas. S.J. will finish his Regency next year.)

Theologate: study of theology; 3-4 years; ordination (candidates for priesthood)

Ministry: further studies; 3-5 years

Tertianship:  "school of the heart": includes 30 days of The Spiritual Exercises, a refresher course about the Society's history and spirit, an apostolic experience; up to 1 year

Final Vows: poverty, chastity, obedience and availability to serve the greatest needs of the Church as assessed by the Pope( Fr. Martinez took his final vows before the SJJ school community last year; Fr. Radloff and Fr. Doyle have taken their final vows.) 

Pray for former SJJ President Fr. Thomas Pipp, S.J. who is Novice Master at the Jesuit novitiate in St. Paul, Minnesota.  Also, pray for former faculty member Mr. Keith Kozak who is in Jesuit formation at the novitiate at St. Paul.  And, finally, pray for Mr. Lucas Laniauskas, S.J. in his time of Regency in the Society of Jesus.  Lord, I ask that all my intentions, actions, and operations may be directed purely to your service and praise. (The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola)  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The Wisdom of Saint Ignatius Loyola

When the devil wants to attack anyone, he first of all looks to see on what side his defenses are weakest or in worst order; then he moves his attack to make a breach at that spot.

A man who forgets himself and his own welfare for God’s service will have God to look after him.

He who fears men much will never do anything great for God.

All characteristics of Catholicism spring from an underlying attitude of optimism about life, human nature and history. A truly Catholic consciousness looks at the world, which obviously contains both good and bad, and focuses on the good. Catholicism looks at people and emphasizes the goodness in them and their potential for even greater goodness.  Catholicism admits the reality of sin and evil, but it does not start there.  It begins with the goodness of creation.  Sin is an aftereffect of human freedom which has gone astray.

Such optimism is not characteristic of all religious traditions.  Dualistic religions divide reality into matter and spirit, and they assert that only the spiritual world is truly good and the material world is basically evil. The Calvinistic tradition in Protestantism considers human nature to be so corrupt that even the best of people are base sinners.  Eastern religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, regard history as an illusion that hides a revolving time of eternally recurring sameness.
Why Be Catholic: Understanding Our Experience and Tradition, Fr. Richard Rohr

Last night at the Toledo Club longtime SJJ theology teacher Butch Welling and eight other Catholic educators received the prestigious Golden Apple Award for the Diocese of Toledo.  This is the highest award the Diocese gives to honor excellence in teaching.  We pray in thanks for Mr. Welling and all teacher ministers in our Catholic schools.  Lord, teach me to seek you, and reveal yourself to me as I look for you.  For I cannot seek you unless first you teach me, nor find you unless first you reveal yourself to me.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

"If we love one another, God lives in us, and God's love is perfected in us." 1 John 4:12

"The love of our neighbor in all its fullness," Simone Weil wrote, "simply means being able to say, 'What are you going through?'"  There is nothing that melts the heart more quickly than the voice of someone who really cares about what you're dealing with, how it's affecting you, what you need to bear it.  Try it sometime and watch what happens to the way people begin to relate to you too.
Joan Chittister, O.S.B.

Martyr of Poland

Today's honored saint Fr. Andrew Bobola was born in Poland in 1591.  He entered the Society of Jesus in 1611.  In Poland at the time Catholics were threatened by Orthodox Christians.  There arose an increasing animosity toward Catholics as well as Jesuits.  According to the Union of Brest-Livtvosk reached in 1596, the Roman and Russian Churches were to co-exist in peace.  But some of the Orthodox supported by Cossacks who were brigands, were eager to annul the agreement and rid the territories of Catholics and their churches.  Fr. Bobola worked to see that Catholics kept their faith and encouraged them to be steadfast in it even under the pressure from marauding Cossacks.

In May 1657,  Pinsk, Poland was occupied by Cossacks, Catholics fled to the forests.  Fr. Bobola was captured; the Cossacks tried to force him to accept the Orthodox faith threatening him with torture. Unmoved by threats, he was stripped, tied, and whipped until he bled.  They placed a crown of twigs on his head, bound him between two horses, and dragged him two miles.  They then took him to a butcher shop and tore his skin from his body.  After two hours of torture, where he continually prayed for his tormentors, he was put out of his pain by a knife to his heart.  He was canonized in 1938, and is called today the "martyr of Poland." 
Jesuit Saints and Martyrs, Fr. Joseph Tylenda, S.J.

Saturday SJJ Chinese teacher Hong Zhu married Kent Buehrer in a beautiful ceremony at Augsburg Lutheran Church. Pray for a long, happy. and blessed marriage for Kent and Hong.  Pauline Kotecki, the mother of Bev Rideout, whose husband is an SJJ graduate and board member, is ill in the hospital: keep her in your prayers. Regis High School, one of our brother Jesuit schools in New York, suffered a two-alarm fire last week.  There was significant damage to the building but nobody was hurt.  Insurance will take care of the damages.  There will be no classes today, but they should resume tomorrow.  Pray in thanksgiving that no one was hurt and the damages are covered.  Great is thy faithfulness O God my Father, there is no shadow of turning with thee; thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not; as thou hast been, thou forever wilt be.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.  We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. S.J.

“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.”  (Exodus 20:16)

Words have become cheap.  There are too many of them. You can say things without any commitment to what you say. This is obvious on the internet, where you can pretend to be someone and somewhere else.  But the internet was never anything new, at least at that level.  People have always played games with each other.  Words can be used as a costume of make-up, as much to disguise a person as to reveal them. We can project an image of ourselves that is untrue, often because we are insecure about who we really are.  Gossip is part of that.  So is spreading rumors.  Or making clever insinuations about someone.  And so on.  The eighth commandment is about showing respect for other people and not using them as playthings to reassure us in our own insecurity.  It is also an invitation to maturity, to be really present in the things we say.  It is an injunction to treat both ourselves and others as we deserve, to think before we open our mouths.
Michael McGirr, S.J.

Faculty member Jill Lipinski gave birth May 11^th to an 8lbs. 7oz. 21 inch baby girl, Piper Kaylynn Lipinski.  We give thanks for this new life and pray for Jill and Piper. The father of SJJ board member Steve Papadimos is ill in the hospital: keep this in your prayers.  Pray for a safe and blessed weekend for all.  God of our daily lives, we pray for the people of this world working and without work; homeless or well housed; fulfilled or frustrated; confused and cluttered with material goods or scraping a living from others’ leavings; lonely or living in community.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Words of Wisdom

Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy – because we will always want to have something else or something more.  (Br. David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B.  For what am I grateful?

Cura Personalis, which is Latin for care of the whole person (and the theme of the SJJ House System) includes ourselves as well as others.  What steps do I take to care for my “whole person”?

“I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection.  Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God’s business. (Michael J. Fox)  How do I reach for excellence?

“You shall not set your desire on your neighbor’s house or land, his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”  (Deuteronomy 5:21)

It is easy to see people as the sum total of their possessions.  When we are getting to know somebody, we ask about their job.  We might talk about the car they drive or where they went for their holidays or what sort of computer they use.  Sometimes we think we are really getting to know them when they start talking about their mortgage or the clothes they have just bought.  Before long we are tangled up in all kinds of mixed emotions about someone else’s situation in life: their attainments, their good luck and so on.  The boundary between us and another person gets blurred.  We see ourselves in their shoes and start to lose sight of ourselves.  In a way, the tenth commandment encapsulates all the others.  It is an invitation to relate to people as people and to do so with an inner peace and security which comes from being a child of God.  Our only true belonging is with God.
Michael McGirr, S.J.

There will be a showing of the grandfather of SJJ sophomore Brian Gaillardetz today at the Blanchard-Stradler Funeral Home 1163 Sylvania Avenue from 5pm to 7pm.   Continue to pray for Brian and his family at this time.  I will be a witness to you in the world, Lord. I will spread the knowledge of your name among my brothers and sisters. (Psalms 17:50)  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Discovering Jesus

Faith is going out from ourselves. It is going out from our illusions, our limitations, our wishful thinking, our self-loving, and the self in our love.  Faith is something immeasurably more than a sixth sense, more than intuition, more than feeling or knowledge.  It not only enables us to believe in miracles which throng our lives, but it makes our charity a thousand times more sensitive.

With faith we are like blind people learning, through the touch of caressing fingers, the features of the face that we cannot see.  We discover the Face that we seek in every human face; and just because we must seek with a more sensitive medium than sight, we are not put off by the visible things: the mutilation, bruises, sweat, dirt, and tears.  Beyond all this we discern the invisible beauty of the Man abiding in mankind.  It is in faith that we discover Jesus. 
Caryll Houselander (1901-54) an English Catholic laywoman, artist, and visionary. She is known as one of the giants of modern spirituality.

Not long ago, if you asked most Catholics, "What is the Easter season?" they would have been surprised at the question.  "Well, it's not really a season.  It's Easter Sunday, plus the week following Easter.  The re-emphasis on the 50-day Easter season is part of the restoration of the Church's traditions following Vatican II.  This season (the longest of the special seasons in the Church year) begins Easter Sunday evening, and ends on the evening of Pentecost Sunday seven weeks  later. 

Whereas Advent and Lent are seasons of "preparation" (for Christmas and Easter respectively), the Easter season "prolongs" the celebration of Easter.  The whole season is one long extension of Easter Sunday.  Before Vatican II,  the Sundays after  Easter were called...the "Second Sunday after Easter"...the "Third Sunday after  Easter...etc.  Now they are more properly called the "Second Sunday of Easter"...the "Third Sunday of Easter"...etc."
The White Book of Easter, 2007 

Weyman Horadam, the grandfather of sophomore Brian Gaillardetz, passed away peacefully yesterday at 96 years of age.  Pray for his peaceful repose and for Brian and his family. The niece of faculty member Susie Beeman had surgery yesterday to remove part of a cancerous lung; she will be on a ventilator in intensive care for about a week: pray for her and her 13 year-old daughter and husband.  God our Father, Creator of all, today is a day of Easter joy. May the risen Lord breathe on our minds and open our eyes that we may know him in the breaking of the bread, and follow him in his risen life.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Life
     is to live and life
     is to give if you
         Choose.

Do not pray for easy lives.
     Pray to be strong. 

Do not pray for tasks equal
     to your powers.

Pray for powers equal to your
     tasks -   
     then the doing of your work
           shall be no miracle.
     But you shall be a
            Miracle.

Everyday you shall
      wonder at yourself...
             at the richness of life,
             which has come to
             you by the grace of
                     God.

      But everyone needs someone -
             knowing that somewhere someone
             is thinking of you.
The Blessed Solanus Casey

Around Saint John’s Jesuit one can see the initials “IHS” in many places.  As you walk from the “Tech Wing” to the main body of the school it appears in a framed picture of the seal of the Society of Jesus.  It is on the vestments that our Jesuit priests wear during school Masses and on the wall behind the altar in our small chapel.

“The initials IHS are an integral symbol of the Jesuit identity, expressing a complex history and a deep spiritual significance.  The letters, known as the ‘sacred monogram,’ are the first three letters of Jesus’ name in Greek.  When Ignatius and his companions were looking for an insignia for their new religious order, they chose this ‘sacred monogram.’  The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola has a famous prayer experience called a ‘Meditation on Two Standards,’ where ‘standard’ refers to something like a flag.  Under whose flag will you serve, the flag of Christ or that of Lucifer, enemy of all that is good?  Will you give your allegiance to the true Lord and His way, or will you settle for a different way that is ultimately self-destructive? Jesuit institutions bear the insignia of the name of Jesus to show where their loyalties lie.”
Fr.Brian Lehane,S.J. (Director of mission and chair of theology at University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy. He taught at Saint John’s Jesuit some years back.)

Our prayers are requested for Gary Tapich '75 who is in the hospital in critical condition with a serious infection.  Pat Connelly, a great friend of Saint John's Jesuit, is in St. Luke's hospital in serious condition with pneumonia.  His wife is recovering from a serious traffic accident.  Pray for Pat and his wife at this time.  Lord, in these days of mercy, make us quiet and prayerful; in these days of challenge, make us strong in you; in these days of emptiness, take possession of us.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The Promise of New Life in Christ

To be born again: that is exactly what Christ has promised to us; not only once, but just as often as our inner life grows old and jaded and dies.

But newness, flowering spring, shadowless morning, are not born of what is decaying, corrupt and fetid.

They are born of virginity, virginity which is newness, virginity complete as fire and water.  "Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus," the little children say.  And they do not understand what they say. But as they grow older, with the angel's prayer in their hearts, they begin to understand that this "fruit" is the Life of Christ born again in the world - always, everywhere.
Caryll Houselander

Catholicism's breadth of vision naturally leads to a holistic outlook on reality.  Catholic thinkers look at life from many different perspectives and try to see the unity that ties all of them together.  No human being can look at the universe from every possible angle all at once.  Only God's knowledge embraces all of reality in a single cosmic vision.  In the Catholic tradition, however, philosophers and theologians look at things from various perspectives in order to develop a sense of the whole.

The Catholic ideal is to trust in God, believe what Scriptures reveal and accept what the Church teaches, while respecting reason and logic, and promoting inquiry and understanding.  Catholic theologians make use of linguistics and archaeology to understand the Bible; they delve into history and anthropology to understand human nature; they utilize psychology and sociology to understand people's behavior; they accept the ideas of economics and politics to understand the modern world in which the Church finds itself.
Why Be Catholic: Understanding Our Tradition and Experience, Fr. Richard Rohr

Lord Jesus Christ, alive and at large in the world, help me to follow and find you there today, in the places where I work, meet people, spend money, and make plans.  Help me Lord to see through your eyes, and hear the questions you are asking, to welcome all others with your trust and truth.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

We Are One With God

The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if he stood there and they here.  This is not so.  God and I, we are one in knowledge.
Meister Eckhart

Today the Society of Jesus honors St. Joseph Mary Rubio, one of its many members who have reached sainthood. He was born in Dalias in southern Spain in 1864; his parents were farmers, he was one of twelve children, six of whom died at a young age. 

He was ordained a priest on September 24th 1887. He wanted to join the Jesuits but because he was taking care of Fr. Torres, an elderly priest, he was not able to fulfill this desire for 19 years.  After the death of Fr. Torres in 1906, he entered the Society of Jesus.  He was eventually sent to Madrid where he remained for eighteen years.  He exercised two important apostolates in Madrid, one in the confessional and another in the pulpit.  The lines standing outside his confessional were usually long, and among those waiting were aristocrats as well as simple folk.  Masters and servants were equal when they met before Fr. Rubio in the confessional.

Although Spain's best orators came to preach in the capital, the people preferred Fr. Rubio's simple and sincere sermons, which always touched their hearts.  He helped to prove that the simple sermon yields the best fruit.  Fr. Rubio regularly visited the slums and there preached to the abandoned and the miserable.  He died on May 2nd in 1929; he was canonized by the Blessed Pope John Paul II in May of 2003.
Jesuit Saints and Martyrs, Fr. Joseph N. Tylenda, S.J.

The funeral of John McKinney, father of SJJ junior John McKinney, is today.  Pray for his peaceful repose and for John Jr. and his family.  The funeral will be attended by many SJJ juniors and faculty and staff.  Welcome, "Lord, into your calm and peaceful kingdom those who, out of this present life, have departed to be with you; grant them rest and a place with the spirits of the just; and give them the life that knows not age, the reward that passes not away; through Jesus Christ our Lord." (St. Ignatius Loyola)  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Press on Through the Changing Storm

Jesus: My friend, do not trust the way you feel at the moment, for your feelings will soon change.  All your life you are subject to change, even if you do not want to be. Sometimes you are happy, sometimes you are sad; sometimes you are calm, sometimes restless; now full of devotion, now not; now studious, now lazy; now solemn, now lighthearted.

The person who is wise and well instructed in spiritual things is above these changes, not paying attention to his own feelings or to which way the wind blows.  Instead, he directs his full attention toward reaching his desired goal.  By focusing his sight on me as he is buffeted to and fro, his feet remain firmly planted.  And the more intently he focuses his sight on me, the more steadily he presses on through the changing storm.
The Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis (This is one of the best-loved spiritual classics of all time since its first appearance in the early fifteenth century.  It was read by many including St. Ignatius Loyola.)

St. Philip and St. James, whom the church celebrates today, are not the best known of Jesus' apostles.  But Philip is somebody many people can relate to.  He was cautious and logical, a somewhat rational man, the type who liked to gather data.  Whereas Nathanael scoffs at the idea that the Messiah may come from Nazareth, Philip says simply: "come and see".  Philip is always checking things out.  When Jesus asked his disciples to feed five thousand, it was Philip who first put numbers to the problem and said that six months wages could not feed such a crowd (John 6:5-7).  When some Greeks said they wanted to see Jesus (John 12:21-22), Philip seems to observe a kind of protocol and makes a formal approach to Andrew.  At the Last Supper, Philip says he wil be satisfied if he can see the Father (John 14:8).  This is when Jesus finally loses his patience and asks how Philip could have been with him for so long and still not know him.  Facts, figures and protocols do not add up to a relationship.  The only way to get to know Jesus is in relationship.
Michael McGirr, S.J.

Donald Niese, grandfather of Nathan Niese '04 and Justin Niese '11, passed away April 29th.  Pray for his peaceful repose and for Nathan, Justin, and the family. Take away from our hearts, Lord, all over-confidence and boasting, all high and vain thoughts, all desire to excuse ourselves for our sins, or to compare ourselves proudly to others; and grant us rather to take as Master and King you who chose to be crowned with thorns and to die in shame for us all.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Seeking God Within

Faith is believing something because God has told us it is so.  It is not believing something because we feel it is true or because we want it to be true.  Truth would be a very small and petty thing if it would fit into our minds.  If we took the sum-total of all our moods, how seldom, if ever, would we be convinced by them that the Holy Spirit is within us and wishes to be a home in us.

It is quite incredible to think that God is really present in me.  "My God, I believe that you are within me."  This act of faith brings peace: it silences the noise of distraction, the loud business of fear.  It is the stilling waters.  It gathers our thoughts into a circle like a crown of flowers; it crowns us with peace.

As to vanities, anxieties, scruples, and all other distractions, we can let them pass over us like a dark wave passing over a swimmer, and pay no heed to them.  Christ our Lord is within us; there is no room for any other awareness; everything that we see and touch and taste and think must be related to this one fact.
Caryll Houselander (1901-1954) was a lay English artist who became one of the most popular Catholic spiritual writers of modern times.

Over the weekend, one of the most adored popes -- Pope John Paul II --- came one step closer to sainthood. More than a million people were at the Vatican Sunday for his beatification ceremony. Six years after his death, Pope John Paul II brought pilgrims together from around the world. Before the late pontiff can be canonized, there must be a second miracle attributed to him. Hundreds of people have already placed their stories on the Holy See's Beatification website for consideration.

The steps to canonization are the following:

1.    A panel of theologians and the cardinals of the Congregation for Cause of Saints evaluate the candidate's life.

2.   If the panel approves, the pope proclaims that the candidate is venerable, which means that the person is a role model of Catholic virtues.

3.   The next step toward sainthood is beatification, which allows a person to be honored by a particular group or region. In order to beatify a candidate, it must be shown that the person is responsible for a posthumous miracle. Martyrs -- those who died for their religious cause -- can be beatified without evidence of a miracle. On Oct. 20, 2003, Mother Teresa was beatified.

4.   In order for the candidate to be considered a saint, there must be proof of a second posthumous miracle. If there is, the person is canonized.

The last activity of the seniors’ time at SJJ is Senior Project.  Pray for our seniors as they face the next stage in their lives.  The grandmother of Saint John's Jesuit Principal Brad Bonham passed this weekend: pray for her peaceful repose and for Brad and his family.  Lord, you have given me so much; I ask for one more thing - a grateful heart.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The Wisdom of Blessed John Paul II

We must reach out with love - the love of Christ - to those who know the pain of failure in marriage; to those who know the loneliness of bringing up a family on their own; to those whose family life is dominated by tragedy or by illness of mind or body.

Forgiveness is needed for solving the problems of individuals and peoples.  There is no peace without forgiveness.

Young people are threatened... by the evil use of advertising techniques that stimulate the natural inclination to avoid hard work by promising the immediate satisfaction of every desire.

To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others.

Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that God is with you, therefore no harm can befall you; all is very, very well. Do this in complete faith and confidence.

We are in the first week of Easter. Easter eggs are a traditional part of Easter.  The Easter egg comes from a legend or story that doesn’t pretend to be historical, but simply teaches a lesson.  The events surrounding the resurrection of Christ gave rise to this legend.  Early Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus.  Because she expected it to be a long day, she brought with her a basket of eggs for lunch.  But, when she arrived at the tomb, she discovered it was empty, the body of Jesus was gone!  Shocked, she started to set her basket down so that she could better explore the tomb.  But then something caught her eye.  Her white eggs had miraculously turned the colors of the rainbow.  

By the way, the symbol of Easter season is the paschal candle.  This morning the SJJ will celebrate Senior Mass and welcome seniors Graham Wood (He will receive the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Confirmation) and Hank Cole (He will be baptized and receive the other two sacraments.) into the Roman Catholic Church.  The paschal candle will be on the altar during this mass.  

This morning, following the senior mass, Saint John’s Jesuit will break ground for our new track and turf project.  The SJJ community will be there for this ceremony along with many guests.  Pray for the success of this ceremony and for the success of this project.  Senior John McKinney lost his father John McKinney at 6:30 this morning.  He had been unknowingly fighting liver cancer for two years; he found out eight months ago he had this cancer.  Pray for the peaceful repose of his father and for John and his family.  Lord, help us to celebrate the joy of the resurrection of the Lord and to express in our lives the love we celebrate.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Complete Trust in the Lord

I will not mistrust God, though I shall feel myself weakening and on the verge of being overcome with fear.  I trust he shall place his holy hand on me and in the stormy seas hold me up from drowning.
St. Thomas More

If the Holocaust represents the mystery of man's inhumanity to man then the story of Oskar Schindler, born on this day in 1908, may be said to represent the mystery of goodness.  In the mystery of this case it is not simply why he did his good works of rescuing Jews from the Nazis while others did not.  The mystery is also why he did this good work.  For, noble as his deeds undoubtedly were, they appeared oddly out of character with everything else about the man. 

Schindler survived the postwar chaos, though he was totally impoverished by his wartime enterprise.  He never again found a métier for his unusual talents.  But as his story became more widely known he was inducted into the list of Righteous Gentiles in Israel.  When he died in October 1974 he was buried, according to his request, in Jerusalem.
All Saints, Robert Ellsberg

Pray for our seniors as they take final exams this week.  Jesus, if you were not risen, where would we draw the energy for following you right to the end of our existence. Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Rebirth

How can we save the human soul unless we resuscitate the human imagination?  Imagination allows us to rethink everything we ever knew, to start over one more time, to begin again, to dare to be new, to encapsulate the old in brave new ways.  "A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile," Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "the moment a single person contemplates it, bearing within the image of a cathedral."
Joan Chittister

In the early Church adults baptized at Easter emerged from the baptismal waters and changed into new clothes - their baptismal robes.  These were ritual-type robes, but fine clothes expressing their new life.  It was customary to wear their baptismal clothes during the Easter Season - to dress up as proud members of the Lord's disciples.  This custom led to the common practice today of getting new clothes for Easter.

This Friday is Senior Mass at Saint John's Jesuit.  Senior Hank Cole will receive the Sacraments of Baptism, Eucharist, and Confirmation at this Mass.  After the baptism Hank will leave the Church to put on a white shirt; when he returns he will receive the other two sacraments.  Also, senior Graham Wood will be welcomed into the Catholic Church and receive the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Confirmation. 

Pray for Hank and Graham as they take these important steps in their lives.  Senior alumnus Norman Rier died Saturday, April 23rd at his residence in Perrysburg.  He was a 1935 graduate of St. John's Jesuit where he studied German, Greek, and Latin.  Pray for his peaceful repose and for his family.  Lord, without your resurrection our faith would be empty and without hope.  But you are alive, and we rejoice in the mystery of your presence among us.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The Strangest Story of All

We come to the strangest story of all, the story of the Resurrection.  It is necessary to get the story clear.  I heard a man say, "The importance of the Resurrection is that it gives evidence of survival, evidence that the human personality survives death."  On that view what happens to Christ would be what had always happened to all men, the difference being that in Christ's case we were privileged to see it happening.

This is certainly not what the earliest Christian writers thought.  Something perfectly new in the history of the Universe had happened.  Christ had defeated death.  The door which had always been locked had for the first time been forced open. 

The things Jesus said are very different from what any other teacher has said.  Others say, "This is the truth about the Universe, this is the way you ought to go," but Jesus says, "I am the Truth, and the Way, and the Life."  He says, "No person can reach absolute reality, except through me.  Try to retain you own life and you will be inevitably ruined.  Give yourself away and you will be saved.  Come to me everyone who is carrying a heavy load.  I will set you right.  Your sins, all of them, are wiped out.  I can do that. I am rebirth.
C.S. Lewis

After the long season of Lent, we have begun the Church's longest season: the Easter season - the 50-day stretch from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday.  This is not a time for fasting or penance, it is a time to exult in God’s goodness.

Easter is so long because the Resurrection is such a big and important event; without the Resurrection there is no Church.  Because there was already in place a Jewish feast called "Pentecost" which took place 50 days after Passover, when Pentecost became a Christian feast celebrating the descent of the Spirit, Christians turned the time between Passover and Pentecost into the "Easter season."

Classes begin again today after our spring break.  Our seniors come back to exams followed by the three-week Senior Project and, then graduation.  Pray for our seniors as they finish their time as students at Saint John's Jesuit.  Jesus has risen from the dead! Alleluia! By his cross he has defeated the power of evil and through his resurrection we are set free. Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Seven Stanzas at Easter
John Updike

Make no mistake; if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
    reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
     eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that - pierced - died, withered, paused, and then
     regathered out of the enduring Might
new strength to enclose.   

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
     fading credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
     grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
     opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
     embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

This Sunday is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week - the holiest week of the year. On this day Jesus is welcomed into Jerusalem as a king.  Jesus came to establish the reign of God, but he would not be a king in the way the people popularly expected:

As part of their coronation kings were anointed with precious oil.  Just before Jesus was greeted in Jerusalem with palm branches, he was anointed by Mary, Martha's sister, at a banquet.  When Judas objected that it was a waste of expensive oil, Jesus said that it was an anointing in preparation for his imminent burial.

• The only crown Jesus would have on his head would be a crown of thorns.
• Instead of being seated on a throne, Jesus would be nailed to a cross.
• Instead of a crowd shouting "Long live the king!" Jesus would hear the crowd shout, "Crucify him!"

The Little Black Book of Lent, Fr. Kenneth Untener

SJJ junior John McKinney's father is in the hospital battling liver cancer.  It has been a difficult battle for John's father and for the family.  Keep this in your prayers.  Senior alumnus Donald Momenee '31 passed away peacefully April 4; he attended old St. John's High School and St. John's College briefly: pray for his peaceful repose and for his family.  Our St. John’s Jesuit Academy 7th grade class has a class trip this week to Chicago and space camp in Alabama: pray for their safety and a successful trip. Lord, I give you my time, my reputation, my worries, and my desires.  Thank you that you receive whatever I offer and transform it in your love.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

True Listening, True Obedience 

It is clear that we usually are surrounded by so much inner and outer noise that it is hard to hear God when he is speaking to us.   We have often become deaf, unable to know when God calls us.  Thus our lives have become absurd; in this word we find the Latin word surdus, which means "deaf."  A spiritual life requires discipline because we need to learn to listen to God, who constantly speaks but whom we seldom hear.  When, however, we learn to listen, our lives become obedient lives.  The word obedient comes from the Latin word audire, which means "to listen."
Henri Nouwen

Leo was elected pope in 440. His pontificate coincided with a period of crisis.  The once glorious Roman Empire was in a state of collapse. Heretical doctrines of all kinds were circulating freely. Barbarian armies were pressing at the gates.  Under such circumstances the Church might well have disintegrated had it not been for Leo's forceful leadership and bold vision.

At one point Attila the Hun advanced on Rome.  Unarmed, Leo went out to meet the notorious warrior and somehow persuaded him to withdraw his armies.  Rome eventually collapsed under constant barbarian attacks.  Much of Leo's efforts during these years was spent in ministering to the broken victims left behind.  He died in 461.  Thanks to him the Church not only survived the collapse of Rome but was to emerge as one of the strongest institutions of the medieval world.  Thus he earned the title "the Great," one of only three popes (along with Gregory I and Nicholas I) to be so honored.  For many years his feast was celebrated on April 11th; it is now celebrated on November 10.
Robert Ellsberg, All Saints

Today is "Easter on Campus" at Saint John's Jesuit.  139 preschoolers from the Catholic Club and Glendale Fielbach will come to SJJ for an Easter party; they will have an egg hunt, along with other Easter activities.  Faculty members Phil Skeldon, Kim Hall, and Barb Ramos, along with the Christian Service CORE Team, and many students from the junior class have planned and will execute this day: pray for its success.  Lord, you lead us by your ways we do not know, through joy and sorrow, through victory and defeat, beyond our understanding.  Give us faith to see your guiding hand in all things.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Is seeing believing or is believing a way to see?  See God in all things

Jesus comes as Light and gives true sight so as to see who we are and what God is offering us in our lives.  He offers sight so that each of us may see Him in the events of our lives.  We can be blinded by what we see and faith is a way of seeing beyond and within realities.  Is seeing believing or is believing a way to see?  Faith allows us to see God in everything, and everything as rooted in God.  Repenting is coming to our senses about who we are in God’s eyes.
Fr. Larry Gillick, S.J. (Fr. Gillick is director of the spirituality center at Creighton University.  He led the Saint John’s Jesuit faculty/staff retreat last Friday.)

Outside the Principal's Office at Saint John's Jesuit is a large cross draped in purple. This is a Lenten practice to cover the statues and crucifixes with a purple cloth.  Liturgically, purple is a symbol of penance.  It is used during the penitential seasons of Advent, Lent, and on fast days and vigils.

Mark and John note that the cloak the soldiers used to mock Jesus was purple.  As a result, the color purple came to be associated with the Passion of Christ.

Pray for our juniors and seniors who begin their third day of the Kairos Retreat ("Kairos" means "the Lord's time.").  The Kairos Retreat follows the four movements, or days, of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius Loyola.  The theme of the first day was "Know Yourself"; the theme of the second day was "Who is Christ in my life?"  Today's theme is "What is Christ's message for me?"  Lord, we pray for all those people for whom life has no obvious pattern, no routine, no challenge.  We think particularly of the unemployed and those fighting illness.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Lenten Reflections: “Jesus meets us where we need to be found.”

We are creatures wonderfully made, but not always grateful for that dignity.  We have limitations which confuse and dishearten us.  Lent is God’s call to repent, but from what!  Repent is the invitation to examine to what we are listening and to what do we hold on.  Being and accepting that each of us is a creature is not a comfortable excuse for failure, but the beginning of our recovery.

 What does it mean to be saved?  Salvation does not mean that everything in our lives is repaired.  Sin brings darkness into the world instead of light.  Sin flows from the attitude and the actions of not being grateful.  Lazarus is raised from his tomb and given light and life.  Sin is illness and can be cured.  Jesus meets us where we would rather not be, where we do not look so good, but need to be found. 

Fr. Larry Gillick, S.J. (Fr. Gillick has been known as “a blind man who helps others see.”  He joined the Society of Jesus in 1960 knowing he couldn’t become a priest because he had been blinded in a childhood accident.  As a Jesuit Brother he spent his first five years working in a laundry or as a janitor.  However God had different plans for him; when the ban on ordaining men with disabilities was abolished, his superiors urged him to become a priest.  He said “the Jesuits saw more in me than I did in myself.”  Fr. Gillick will lead the SJJ faculty and staff in a day of retreat tomorrow.)

Like many Catholics, during Lent, Dorothy Day tried to give something up.  A heavy smoker, her day began with a cigarette, and it was followed by many others throughout the day.  But during Lent, she tried to give up that habit.  And it was hard - both on her and on the people around her.  Giving up cigarettes made her irritable, and many of her coworkers, secretly prayed she would light up.  One day, Dorothy's confessor suggested that instead of giving up cigarettes that Lent, why not pray each day, "Dear God, help me stop smoking."  Dorothy agreed and continued to pray that prayer each day during Lent, and for several more years, before reaching for her pack of cigarettes.  One morning, she woke up, reached for her cigarette...and didn't want it. She never smoked again.
(Dorothy Day is famous for her work with the homeless and the poor.  In 2000, the late Cardinal John O'Connor of New York requested that the Vatican begin the process of considering whether she should become a canonized saint. That process continues today.)

A group of SJJ juniors and seniors will begin their Kairos Retreat today after school; the retreat will end Friday afternoon.  Pray for the success of this retreat.  Lord, take as your right, and recieve as my gift, all my freedom, my memory, my understanding and my will. Whatever I am and whatever I possess, you have given me; I restore it all to you again, to be at your disposal, according to your will.  Give me only a love for you, and the gift of your grace; then I am rich enough, and ask for nothing more (St. Ignatius Loyola, 1491-1556).  St. Ignatius pray for us.

In spite of pain, there is nothing to be afraid of. (Father William Barry, S.J.)

The maxim of illusory religion runs: "Fear not; trust in God and He will see that none of the things you fear will happen to you"; that of real religion, on the contrary, is: "Fear not; the things that you are afraid of are quite likely to happen to you, but they are nothing to be afraid of."
Scottish philosopher John Macmurray

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an eloquent African-American Baptist minister who led the civil rights movement in the United States from the mid-1950s to the late ‘60s.  Through his dynamic leadership, the movement was remarkably effective in removing racial barriers that had been firmly entrenched for many generations. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964.  The United States Congress voted in 1986 to establish Martin Luther King Day, the third Monday in January, as a national holiday.

He was assassinated on this day in 1968, one day after he gave a speech which included the following: 

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now.  We’ve got some difficult days ahead.  But it doesn’t matter with me now.  Because I’ve been to the mountaintop.  And I don’t mind.  Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place.  But I’m not concerned about that now.  I just want to do God’s will.  And He has allowed me to go to the mountaintop.  And I’ve looked over.  And I’ve seen the promised land.  I may not get there with you.  But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.  And I’m happy tonight.  I’m not worried about anything.  I’m not fearing any man.  Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

Nick Blakely ’12 requests our prayers for his father who has just been diagnosed with a rare cancer – 4 out of 1 million get it.  He is going to Texas next week for surgery.  Joe Boyle is a graduate of SJJ and a teacher at Rogers High School; he was recently named “Teacher of the Year” by our local channel BCSN.  He went to the ER with stomach pains Wednesday night; his cat scan found a presumed malignant tumor on his right kidney.  He will be going to the Cleveland Clinic this week to deal with it. He says “I know I need a mountain of prayer.”  May the light of God surround Joe and Mr. Blakely and all those battling cancer and disease, may the presence of God surround them, and the power of God heal them, today and always.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The Energy of Love

Today, when so many new sources of energy are being discovered, when we stand amazed at all the triumphs of scientific research in atomic physics and in the energy of the atom that may transform the whole universe, we do not sufficiently realize that all human power and natural energy is as nothing when compared with the superatomic energy of the love of Christ, who by giving his life vivifies the world.  We, human beings that we are, can only transform already existing energy.  But there exists an extraterrestrial source of energy which increases the energy of the world, an energy which has its source in the infinite love of Christ.  If we wish to transform this world of ours under its social and religious aspects, of the individual, the family, and society, here we have the only energy that can achieve this transformation.  This is the infinite love of Christ.   
Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J. (A Basque Jesuit, he was superior general of the Society of Jesus from 1965 until 1983.  He was instrumental in promoting a new mission for the Jesuits in terms of “faith that does justice.”)

These weeks of Lent we have left leading to Good Friday can have a special poignancy as we grow older, a regret that Jesus never lived to middle or old age, but he died at the age of thirty-three, at the height of his powers.  We do not know from the Gospels how Jesus would have coped with sickness, accidents, the loss of friends, failure in work, slowing of the mind, lapses of memory, the aching limbs, the sense that life has passed its peak.  All these things happen to him suddenly, in twenty-four hours, from Thursday evening to Friday afternoon.  To us they happen slowly, with more time to accept them well or badly.   They are, more than any individual tragedy, our crucifixion, our share in Jesus' fate.
Sacred Space: The Prayer Book 2011, the Irish Jesuits

Lord, you sometimes ask us to face the death of our own desires and ego in the daily contradictions and rebuffs of our long life-times.  Help us to trust the sacrifice of desires and ego can lead to new beginnings and enables us to bear much fruit.  Pray for a safe and blessed weekend for all.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Dying in Small Ways

"Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains but a single grain; but, if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, but those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." (John 12:24).  Jesus' image of the wheat grain symbolizes not just our mortal life, but the many times we die a little before our death: with every parting, moving from house or job, loss of friend or dear one, with any loss of property.  To cling to what we have lost is to bury our life in the past.  Even the most painful loss can be a new beginning.
Piaras Jackson, S.J.

In the creation hymn of Genesis where God creates the world informs us that God surveyed the cosmos and saw “it was very good: (1:31).  How is it that all creation proceeded from the Creator, and yet it is evaluated as both good and evil?  Shouldn’t everything be good?

Every sane human being claims to want only peace, harmony, love and goodness.  Yet, put two of us in a room for long, or two nations on the same earth, and you soon have misunderstanding, viciousness, hatred and killing.  How do you explain this?

When the world came from God’s creative will it was “good” to its core, all good.  Moral evil, human evil does not come from God, but from us?  The one God loved us enough to want us to respond to that love, and so gave us free will.  We are able to say yes to God, or no.  And all our hurt, moral evil, comes from the fact we, all of us, out of selfishness and pride deep within, occasionally and to some degree, do say no in our hearts and with our lives.
Catholic Q and A, Fr. John J. Dietzen

God, your love has called us here as we, by love, for love were made.  Your living likeness still we bear, though marred, dishonored, disobeyed.  We come, with all our heart and mind, your call to hear, your love to find.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

“Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive.”  C.S.Lewis

Louis Smedes, author of several books on forgiveness, notes that we do not forgive simply because we are supposed to forgive.  We forgive because “we” need to be healed.  Forgiveness is said to have three stages.  I don’t deny what the person did nor do I pretend it wasn’t wrong.  But…

1.  Instead of identifying the person totally with whatever they did to hurt me, I begin to see them as a person like me – imperfect, but still someone God loves.

2.  I give up my “right” to get even.  Vengeful thoughts don’t make the person suffer.  They hurt me.  So, I just plain rinse my mind of those kinds of thoughts.

3.  I stand next to the Lord and together with him look at the other person.  For sure Jesus wants good things to happen to them.  So, with the Lord’s help (and some struggle), I begin to look at the other person the way the Lord does.

Lenten Action: Think of someone you find hard to forgive.  Forgiveness can’t always be accomplished in one sitting, or one day.  We are at the halfway mark between Ash Wednesday and Easter, maybe you can accomplish this by Easter.

We are about halfway through Lent.  In the Church's ancient liturgy, this Wednesday of the third week of Lent was the first "scrutiny" or test of the catechumens preparing for baptism.  The test was on the commandments, so the readings of the liturgy today center on that theme.  Jesus said "Whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven."  Jesus is telling his disciples that they must practice what they preach. 

In this week the catechumens of today, who are preparing for full membership in the Church, are presented with the Apostles Creed, which they are to memorize.

Pray for those catechumens who are preparing to enter the Catholic Church at Easter Vigil Masses all over the Catholic Church.  Pray for our seniors: they have just a few weeks left of classes at SJJ.  Pray for all our students in this last quarter of the academic year.  Lord, take my small offering of self-denial this Lent, as a sign of my great longing for you.  I hunger for your presence in my life, and I thirst for your love.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

“Be grateful for your sins. They are carriers of grace.” (Fr. Anthony de Mello, S.J.)  

God is only too willing to forgive us.  We do not even have to say we are sorry.  We have only to desire to come back to him. Nothing is easier in all the world than attaining forgiveness from God.  He is more eager to give forgiveness than we to receive it.

The problem is not with God but with us.  For one thing, many people refuse to believe that forgiveness is something they can get so easily.  And, worse still, they refuse to forgive themselves. They develop a false sense of unworthiness.  They are totally unworthy of God’s graces.  They must do penance, they must purify themselves; they must atone thoroughly for the past before they can become worthy again of God’s favors.  I know of no greater obstacle to progress in the spiritual life than this false sense of unworthiness.  Even sin is not so great an obstacle.  Sin, far from being an obstacle, is a positive help, if there is repentance.
Fr. Anthony de Mello, S.J.

At a time of much anti-Catholic sentiment in the United States, the Knights of Columbus were a small group of men who wanted to defend their family, country and faith.  On October 2, 1881, a 29-year-old priest named Michael McGivney brought them together in the basement of St. Mary Parish in New Haven, Connecticut.

The group became the Knights of Columbus, named in honor of Christopher Columbus who brought the Catholic faith to the New World and who was a national hero at the time.  Among its charitable endeavors was a life insurance program for widows and orphans of deceased members.  It was on this day in 1882, they were chartered as a Catholic organization for men.
The Little Black Book of Lent, 2007, Catherine Haven

Please pray for the niece of staff member Susie Beeman who has been diagnosed with lung cancer.  Denise Colturi requests prayers for her father, Michael Kristoff, who was admitted to Hospice last week.  He is father-in-law of Tom Colturi ’71 and grandfather of Jason Colturi ’03 and David Colturi ’07.  The grandfather of SJJ junior Brian Gaillardetz, also, recently been admitted to Hospice: keep this in your prayers.  It is well a good, Lord, if all things change, provided we are rooted in you.  If I go everywhere with you, my God, everywhere things will happen for your sake. (St. John of the Cross) Saint Ignatius pray for us.

When we are most discouraged, most fatigued, most alone is precisely the time we must not quit.

Commitment is that quality of life that depends more on the ability to wait for something to come to fulfillment – through good days and through bad – than it does on being able to sustain an extreme emotion for it over a long period of time.

When work ceases to feel good, when praying for peace goes nowhere, when the plans and the hopes worse than fail – they fizzle – that’s when the commitment really starts.  When enthusiasm wanes, and romantic love dies, and moral apathy – a debilitating loss of purpose and energy – sets in, that is the point at which we are asked to turn an adventure into a commitment.  

Commitment is that quality of human nature that tells us not to count days or months or years, but simply to keep on going until “all things are in the fullness of time,” until everything is ready, until hearts are in waiting for the Word of God in this situation to be fulfilled.
Joan Chittister, 40 Stories to Stir the Soul

We are now in the third week of Lent.  It was during the Lent of 1539, a former soldier named Ignatius Loyola was about to embark on a path that would change his life – and change the life of anyone attending a Jesuit high school.  After many years of studying in Paris, Ignatius and several of his fellow students had come to Rome to place themselves at the Pope’s disposal to do God’s will.

Now, they had to make decisions about their future.  After many weeks of prayer and discussion, they decided to form a religious community.  It became known as the Company of Jesus, or Societatis Jesu.  Eventually, they became known as the Jesuits, and began the system of education that exists all over the world today.  Ignatius was canonized on the 12^th of this month in 1622.

Pray for the mission of Society of Jesus, for all Jesuits, and those who work along side them.  A friend of SJJ faculty member Barbara Ramos is battling cancer; the brother-in-law of faculty member Jessica Reinartz  is fighting cancer; my father takes his third chemotherapy treatment this Wednesday.  Our prayers are requested for all those fighting cancer. Jesus our Healer, we place in your gentle hands those who are sick.  Ease their pain, and heal the damage done to them in body, mind and spirit.  Be present to them through their friends and in the care of doctors and nurses and fill them with your love. Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Forget Your Anxieties

The Lord said, “Do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or, ‘What shall we wear?’ For your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.” (Matthew 6/31-32)

Every day you see these illustrations before your very eyes, how God nourishes and feeds everything that lives and grows from the earth, clothes and adorns it so beautifully.  Now let these illustrations persuade you to lay aside your anxiety and your unbelief and to remember that you are children of God.  Your Father is well aware of your need for all of this, of the fact that you have a belly that needs food and drink and body that needs clothing.  So forget your anxieties, since you cannot accomplish anything by them.  It does not depend upon your anxiety and concern but on His love and concern.
Martin Luther (1483-1546) – He was preeminent among the Protestant Reformers; he was wrote extensively and these writings has had a profound impact to this day.

Most Catholics seem to be aware that the forty-day period before the feast of Easter – Lent, which comes from the Anglo-Saxon work “lencten,” meaning “spring” – is a time marked by particular rituals such as the reception of ashes on Ash Wednesday or the decision to give up candy, soft drinks and such. 

In the first three centuries of Christian experience, this preparation time took two or three days.  The first reference of Lent as a period of forty days’ preparation occurs in the year 325AD at the First Council of Nicaea.  By the end of the fourth century, a Lenten period of forty days was established.  

In its early development, Lent was associated with the sacrament of baptism, since Easter was the great baptismal feast.  Those who were to be baptized into the Church participated in this forty-day season of Lent in preparation for the reception of the sacrament of baptism.  Eventually, those who had already been baptized joined the new candidates in their preparation for the new life of Easter.
Lent and Easter: Wisdom from St. Ignatius of Loyola, James L. Connor, S.J.

Former SJJ staff member Brian Pelcin requests our prayers for the father of his wife, Cookie.  He is ill in a hospital in Columbia, South America and his wife flew there to be with him.  Brian is in Campus Ministry at the University of Scranton.  Lord, I know you want your kingdom to begin in my heart, extend to my friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, and eventually the entire world.  Thank you for giving me a taste of the kingdom while I’m here on earth.  It helps me anticipate with joy the glory of heaven. Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

-the bread which is supernatural.  Christ is our bread.  We can only ask to have him now.  Actually he is always there at the door of our souls, wanting to enter in, though he does not force our consent.  If we agree to his entry, he enters; directly we cease to want him, he is gone. 

Bread is a necessity for us.  We are beings who continually draw our energy from outside, for as we receive it we use it up in effort.  If our energy is not daily renewed, we become feeble and incapable of movement. Besides actual food, all incentives are sources of energy.  Money, ambition, celebrity, power, our loved ones, everything that puts into us the capacity for action is like bread.

There is a transcendent energy whose source is in heaven, and this flows into us as soon as we wish for it.  At the moment of asking, and by the very fact that we ask for it, we know that God will give it to us.
Simone Weil

Three hundred years ago, with Penal Laws at their stiffest in Ireland, the bishop of Kerry recorded the scale of rewards for priest-hunters. It was: £ 30 for a simple priest; £ 40 for a Vicar-General; £ 50 for a bishop; and £ 50 for a Jesuit. This inflated price reflected the Protestant ascendancy's exaggerated fear of Jesuits, because of the Society's international network. An Irish Jesuit superior acting through his General could nudge the English into moderating the treatment of Catholics in Ireland, and that was seen as a threat by the minority government in Dublin.

We prayed last week for Dr. Vicki Bertka who had surgery for a possible brain tumor.  The surgery showed an abscess, which is much easier to deal with.  She wanted to relay how grateful she is for all our prayers. Lord, help me to be like you in caring deeply and warmly about people and their goodness, but not needing their appreciation and approval for our own sense of worth.  Grant me unshakable faith in your total and eternal affirmation so that I need live only in your eyes, and not in the eyes of others.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Self-promotion or Self-giving?

Remember the insults which Christ suffered for us.  If we wish absolutely to live in honor and the be held in esteem by our neighbors, we can never be solidly rooted in God our Lord, and it will be impossible for us to remain unscathed when we meet with affronts. (From the letters of Saint Ignatius Loyola, “To Isabel Roser”)

Lenten Action:  When we are not peacefully grounded in God’s love, our reaction to real or imagined insults is either “fight” (pugnacious retaliation) or “flight” (escape or evasion).  Think about where you are in regards to this.

The two-day Jewish feast of Purim ends today.  This feast celebrates an incident that took place some 2,500 years ago.  It is recounted in the Old Testament Book of Esther, and is a story of intrigue at the royal palace in Persia.  Esther was a Jewish woman from the tribe of Benjamin.  Orphaned as a child, she was raised by her cousin Mordecai.  The pagan king, Xerxes, had become angry at his queen, Vashti, when she refused his request to attend a lavish seven-day feast he was hosting.  

Xerxes deposed her and banished her family from his kingdom.  The king sought a new wife and chose Esther to take her place.  Meanwhile, a powerful member of the royal court concocted a plot to have the king in a single day kill all the Jews living in Persia.  The date for this massacre was chosen by casting lots – which is why Purim is sometimes called the “Feast of Lots.”  Esther decided to go to the king and plead for her people. In doing so she risked her life, for to enter the king’s presence uninvited was punishable by death.  She bravely went ahead anyway and succeeded in saving her people.
The Little Black Book of Lent, Catherine Haven

Pray for our students who are in the fourth quarter of this academic year; special prayers for our seniors in the last quarter of their time at SJJ.  Lord, we pray the suffering and the dying of Japan and Libya might be comforted.  Lord, through Lent teach us to find new life through penance.  Keep us from sin, and help us to live by your commandment of love.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

Self-Transformation

Jesus came among us as an equal, a brother.  You will not be able to meet Jesus in your body while your body remains full of doubts and fears.  Jesus came to free you from those bonds and so create in you a space where you can be with him.

Do not despair, thinking that you cannot change yourself after so many years.  Simply enter into the presence of Jesus as you are and ask him to give you a fearless heart where he can be with you.  “You” cannot make yourself different.  “Jesus” came to give you a new heart, a new spirit, a new mind, and a new body.  Let him transform you by his love.

This Lent keep in mind Jewish theologian Martin Buber’s observation that “God dwells wherever humans let him in.”  Take time today to be alone and be aware of the movement of the Holy Spirit within you.
Henri J.M. Nouwen

It seems to me in the light of the Divine Goodness…that ingratitude is the most abominable of sins…for it is forgetting of the graces, benefits, and blessings received.  As such it is the cause, beginning, and origin of all sins and misfortunes.  On the contrary, the grateful acknowledgment of blessings and gifts received is loved and esteemed not only on earth but in heaven.
from the letters of St. Ignatius of Loyola “To Simon Rodriques,”

Vickie Bertka, mother of senior Kevin Bertka, had serious surgery yesterday – doctors were worried that she might have had a brain tumor.  Fortunately, the surgery showed she has a lesion in that area, which is good news.  Pray for Vickie and her recovery.  Mark Swentkofske ‘84 was selected for full Colonel rank in the US Air Force recently; he credits SJJ as a key part of who he is now.  Pray for him in his new position and for all our service men and women.  Lord, please help me to have a grateful heart.  When I feel “entitled,” it always leads me toward selfishness and eventually into sin.  I want to follow you joyfully.  I want to be contagious to those I meet, so that together we may rejoice.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Lenten Action

Be conscious today of finding a reason to say “thank you” to family, friends, coworkers, and others that you meet.  At the end of the day, make up your own Litany of Thanks and say it aloud. 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! St. Patrick lived in the fifth century and came to Ireland from either Scotland or England or perhaps even Gaul.  At the age of 16 he was captured by Irish slave traders and was sold into slavery.  He lived a harsh life as a shepherd slave until he escaped.  In a vision he was told to return to Ireland with the message of Christ.  Under very difficult conditions he was able to accomplish this and, eventually, became Ireland’s best known bishop, a man whose legacy far outweighs the facts which are know about his life.  There was something abut his godly restlessness which has encapsulated the spirit of a people who have found their way all over the world.  But Patrick’s energy did not stop him noticing the world at his feet.  He used nature to explain the Christian message – the best known example of this is his comparison of the Trinity to a shamrock.  His most famous prayer blesses “the light of the sun, the brightness of the moon, the splendor of fire, the flashing of lightning, the swiftness of wind.” 

Lord, we give thanks to the spirit of the Irish people and pray for them on this important day. Whatever will come my way today, whether good or bad, may I accept it calmly, and always give thanks to you God, who has ever shown me how I should believe in You, unfailing and without end. (St. Patrick) Father, without you we can do nothing.  By your spirit help us to know what is right and to be eager in doing you will.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

“St. Patrick’s Breastplate” – a Lorica prayer

Patrick believed that Christ is our daily shield and can be counted upon for protection.  The tradition of the lorica, or breastplate prayer, is closely tied to Saint Patrick. (Lorica is the Latin word used for the breastplate of a Roman soldier’s armor.)  A lorica prayer allows one to call on the presence of Christ, in whom “all things hold together.”  Below is probably the most famous of the lorica prayers; it is the prayer St. Patrick said daily which he felt protected him from the challenges he faced.  You might pray this prayer, as Patrick did, as you take a walk, as you go about your daily work.  If you do this on a regular basis you might perceive Christ’s presence and protection in your daily activities.

Christ beside me, Christ before me;
Christ behind me, Christ within me;
Christ beneath me, Christ above me;
Christ to the right of me, Christ to the left of me;
Christ in my lying, my sitting, my rising;
Christ in the heart of all who know me,
Christ on the tongue of all who meet me,
Christ in the eye of all who see me,
Christ in the ear of all who hear me.

There are three simple – and sensible – things to do for Lent:

Pray - Find that quiet, private space where you can be alone with your thoughts and alone with God.  It could be when you go for a walk, while folding the laundry, when you are working on a hobby, on your bus commute to or from work, or that precious time after the kids are in bed and before you start making lunches for tomorrow.  Taking time for yourself isn’t selfish; it is about making room in your life to nurture your relationship with God.

Fast – Think about what you eat and drink, and why.  Try to make healthy choices and support local producers.  If you are able, take a short pause from consuming your favorite foods.  Take a look and your words and actions.  Consider fasting from criticism, impatience, and inflexibility.  

Give Alms – With a generous spirit, share what you have with those who have less
Susan Eaton, Living with Christ, March 2011

We continue to pray for the people of Japan in their great suffering.  The World as One program which is supervised by Susie Beeman and Stacey Wisnieski has many students from many countries attending SJJ.  We have had three Japanese students: Masa, Yoh Kambayashi, and Akinori Nishimura; pray for them and their families at this time.  We know Masa is okay, but have not heard from the others.  Fr. Bob Dendinger, brother of Jerry Dendinger (Jerry had two sons at SJJ), is battling cancer; pray with the Fr. Bob and the Dendinger family at this time.  Father, look on us, your children.  Through the discipline of Lent help us to grow in our desire for you.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Being Real

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.  But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.
Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

Lent is the season during which winter and spring struggle with each other for dominance.  I think this is an appropriate image because during this time of year darkness and light within each of us can become locked in conflict.  We are called not only to examine the integrity of our own motives but to work courageously for justice in the world around us.

Lent, which means springtime, is traditionally a six-week period of abstinence and repentance in preparation for Easter.  As the buds open on trees and the days lengthen, this is a spiritual season which calls for greater openness to the word of God and a conversion in every area of our lives.  It is a time to face the darkness within and expose it to the light.
Michael Ford, Eternal Seasons: A Spiritual Journey through the Church's Year

Carol Zavac, who taught Latin at Saint Ursula Academy for 29 years, passed away last Wednesday in her home surrounded by her loving family.  She was the mother of four SJJ graduates: Jeff ’72, David ’78, Joseph ’78, and Michael ’81 and grandmother of David Zavac ’06 and Daniel Okoroski ’06.  Pray for her peaceful repose and for her family.  Continue to pray for the people of Japan; my daughter is good friends with someone who is working in Japan: pray for her good friend and all the people of Japan.  God our savior, bring us back to you and fill our minds with your wisdom.  May we be enriched by our observance of Lent.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Suffering Has No Power or Value of Its Own; It Must Be Made Holy

The Christian must not only accept suffering; he [or she] must make it holy.  Nothing so easily becomes unholy as suffering.  Merely accepted, suffering does nothing for our souls except, perhaps, to harden them.  Endurance alone is no consecration.  True asceticism is not a mere cult of fortitude.  We can deny ourselves rigorously for the wrong reason and end up by pleasing ourselves mightily with our self-denial.

Suffering is consecrated to God by faith--not by faith in suffering, but by faith in God.  Some of us believe in the power and value of suffering.  But such a belief is an illusion.  Suffering has no power and no value of its own.

Is it valuable only as a test of faith?  What if our faith fails the test?  Is it good to suffer, then?  What if we enter into suffering with a strong faith in suffering, and then discover that suffering destroys us?

To believe in suffering is pride; but to suffer, believing in God, is humility.  For pride may tell us that we are strong enough to suffer, that suffering is good for us because we are good.  Humility tells us that suffering is an evil which we must always expect to find in our lives because of the evil that is in ourselves.  But faith also knows that the mercy of God is given to those who seek him in suffering, and that by his grace we can overcome evil with good.  Suffering, then, becomes good by accident, by the good that it enables us to receive more abundantly from the mercy of God.  It does not make us good by itself, but it enables us to make ourselves better than we are.  Thus, what we consecrate to God in suffering is not our suffering but our selves.
Thomas Merton   

Today is the first Friday of Lent; meat will not be served in the SJJ Commons because Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays during Lent.  Traditionally, Catholics practiced various types of abstinence from food as a penance for sins, and therefore a kind of cleansing, particularly before holy days, but these customs have changed over the years.  One form of abstinence involved having only one full meal per day.  Another prescribed the avoidance of meat.  This practice was reserved for Fridays, in recognition of Good Friday, when Jesus died on the cross, and explains why Catholics always ate fish on Fridays (When I was growing up we ate crabmeat sandwich dinners on Fridays.). However, it is no longer necessary to abstain from meat on Fridays in the United States (Canadian Catholics still abstain from meat on Fridays).  In the United States, Catholics do not eat meat on Fridays during Lent as well as on Ash Wednesday.

Norbert & Nancy Thiel, the elderly couple killed in yesterday’s terrible head-on crash, are the grandparents ofSJJ grads Gabe Thiel '97 and Matt Thiel '00 and the great grandparents of Tyler Lee '13:  pray for their peaceful repose and for the families involved. . Pray for our students taking final exams today on the last day of the third semester – this semester is always a tough one. Pray for the people of Japan affected by the natural disaster.  Lord Jesus as we enter more deeply into this Lenten season, send your Spirit into our hearts that we might remain faithful to your word and your way.  Saint Ignatius pray for us

Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

Whenever I think within myself and think how hard it is to keep writing about love in these times of tension and strife which may, at any moment, become for us all a time of terror, I think to myself: What else is the world interested in?  What else do we all want, each one of us, except to love and be loved, in our families, in our work, in all our relationships?  God is Love.  Love casts our fear.
Dorothy Day

Lent is a time of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.  There’s nothing tricky about prayer.  It’s simply tuning in to God’s presence – and God is always present.  Not simply alongside us, but within us at the deepest part of who we are.  We never have to get God’s attention.  We have God’s total attention.  Always.  Everywhere.  We never have to make an appointment with God.  We’re “first on the list.”  To draw near to God, we don’t have to travel anywhere God does all the traveling.  We don’t have to figure out the right words to get started.  God is already speaking to us.  All we have to do is turn off the “mute” button.  

The reason we pray is to become more who we are.  We’re made in the image and likeness of God.  When we pray, we become more and more like God.  Try it.  Use words if you wish.  But you can also just sit quietly with God.  It’s a fine way to spend a few minutes.
Fr. Kenneth Untener

Our students are taking third quarter exams today and tomorrow; the “Learning Center” (The place at SJJ where students can go to get help studying is full to the brim these days.).  Pray for our students as they finish this quarter, and for all the tutors in the “Learning Center” who are working very hard helping our students prepare for these exams.  When I cry to the Lord, he hears my voice and saves me from the foes who threaten me.  Unload your burden onto the Lord, and he will support you (Psalm 54).  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

St. Ignatius, a Young Woman and a Tree

A young woman landed a well paid office job.  She thought her dream had come true but soon office politics and demanding clients brought her down to earth.  She had debts to pay and knew she had to keep her job.  Outside her office she noticed a magnificent tree.  It became like a friend to her: there when she arrived, there when she went out for lunch and there when she was finally able to go home at night.  The tree was something beautiful and dignified in her working life.  She said that one tree spoke more to her of God than all the email, meetings, budgets and briefings she had to attend to.  The tree never changed much but she never tired of it.

Most of us are overstimulated.  Our minds run at a million miles and hour.  We are bombarded by so many things.  St. Ignatius suggested that prayer be the opposite, a time to give the head a breather.  The key to this is an ability to rest with a single word or image from scripture, or line of poetry, or lyric from a song, or anything, really, that makes you want to be still for a minute.  Even a tree can do it.  One saint prayed daily the phrase from the Psalm “Oh God, you are my God, for you I long,” a line which, for her, never exhausted its meaning.
Michael McGirr, S.J.

Today the Saint John’s Jesuit community will celebrate Ash Wednesday Mass (Today is also a day of fast and abstinence in the Catholic Church).  In ancient times, many people used ashes for religious, magical and medical purposes.  In the Old Testament, ashes were sprinkled on the head or over the whole body as a sign of mourning and penance.

Receiving ashes on the first day of Lent is a practice that dates back to the fifth century, and by the eleventh century was a universal Christian practice.  During the Reformation, most Protestant Churches eliminated the use of ashes. In recent years, however, many of these Churches have resumed the practice.

By wearing a cross of ashes on our foreheads, Christians ask God’s help to see things as they really are (“Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.), and to set our eyes on what lasts forever.
The Little Black Book of Lent, Fr. Kenneth Untener

Please pray for Dan Gaynor, father of freshman Mitch Gaynor, who was recently diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma (cancer of the plasma cells in the bone marrow).  Continue to pray for my father Paul Richard who begins his second round of chemotherapy today.  Jay Pownell, the grandfather of Robert Pownell ’11, passed away recently: pray for his peaceful repose and for Robert and his family. Lord, protect us in our struggle against evil.  As we begin the discipline of Lent, make this day holy by our self-denial.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Lent: The Time of Reclaiming Our True Identity

Jesus stressed the hidden life.  Whether we give alms, pray, or fast, we are to do it in a hidden way, not to be praised by people but to enter into closer communion with God.  Lent is a time of returning to God.  It is a time to confess how we keep looking for joy, peace, and satisfaction in the many people and things surrounding us, without really finding what we desire.  Only God can give us what we want.  So we must be reconciled with God, as Paul says, and let that reconciliation be the basis of our relationships with others.  Lent is a time of refocusing, of re-entering the place of truth, or reclaiming our true identity.
Fr.Henri Nouwen

Born on November 14, 1907, Pedro Arrupe studied medicine at the University of Madrid but left to join the Jesuits in 1927.  Ordained a priest in 1936, he was sent as a missionary to Japan in 1939, and was living on the edge of Hiroshima when the atomic bomb fell there.  He described this as "a permanent experience outside of history, engraved on my memory."  He used his medical skills in the service of the wounded and dying.  In 1965 he was elected superior general of the Jesuits and served until 1981 when he suffered a debilitating stroke whose effects he patiently endured until his death on this day in 1991.

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, Lent begins.  Today is Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, and Paczki Day.  The French word for Tuesday is mardi, and the French word for "fat, rich”: is gras.  Thus, today is "Mardi Gras" with its feasting and carnivals - a final celebration before the penitential Lenten practices that begin tomorrow. 

Today is also "Paczki Day."  Paczkis came to the United States from Poland around the turn of the 20th century.  Since the Poles were strict about their Lenten observance, they needed to get rid of all the fat and grease in the kitchen.  A resourceful solution was to fry paczkis.  Originally, they were flat and made of raisins.

Prayers are requested for Harrison Mack son of Harry Mack ’95; Harrison is five years old and on life support at the University of Michigan Hospital.  Our prayers are also requested for Carol Zavac who taught at Saint Ursula Academy for many years; she is mother of Joe '78, Matt '81 and Jeff '72, as well as two grandchildren at SJJ.  Carol is in hospice care in her home.  Lord, let me have too deep a sense of humor ever to be proud. Let me know my absurdity before I act absurdly.  Let me realize that when I am humble I am most human. most truthful, and most worthy of your serious consideration.  St. Ignatius pray for us.

Seedlings of Fr. Anthony de Mello, S.J.

If any of the sentences that follow appeals to you, place it in your heart and ponder on its inner meaning.  This will cause its inner truth to germinate and grow.  Do not force it open with your mind.  That would kill the seed.

God loves life                                      
in its failure
as much as                             
in its fruitfulness.                                                                             

                                                Cite
                                                one experience
                                                that alone
                                                would justify
                                                your life.

                                                                                             Nature   
                                                                                             fragile,
                                                                                             insecure,
                                                                                             exposed to death -                                                                                             is so alive!

The written account of today's honored saints Perpetua and Felicity (d.203),"The Passion of Sts. Perpetua and Felicity," was so loved that in their native North Africa, it was said to be read by Christians more than the Gospels.  Perpetua was a prosperous young woman, married and the mother of a newborn son.  She was arrested with her servant Felicity for being Christian.

The story itself had striking power because it was written in Perpetua's voice.  The reader is exposed to painfully intimate details of a woman awaiting death: hunger, fear, the suffering caused by the separation from her infant son, and even the pain of the swollen breasts of a nursing mother. Her aged father tries to convince her to renounce her Christianity; at her trial the proconsul appeals to her sense of duty toward her infant son, who she missed desperately.  To complicate matters even more her servant Felicity was eight months pregnant at their arrest and gave birth in prison. 

At their trial they learned that if they did not renounce Christ they would suffer the worst kind of death - fighting wild beasts in the amphitheater. Christian friends promised to care for their children, and both women considered this a sign that they could accept death knowing their children would be safe.  In the amphitheater they were tossed about on the horns of a savage bull, but they survived; an executioner was then ordered to put them to death by the sword.
Robert Ellsberg, All Saints

Former faculty member Joe Czernicki passed away Sunday morning at Northwest Ohio Hospice Care; pray for his peaceful repose. The SJJ community will miss Joe, who was one of the three laymen who restarted our school in 1965. Please pray for John Higel, the father of my daughter-in-law; he will be having serious back surgery today. Pray for the skill of the doctors.  God, give us the grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference. (Reinhold Niebuhr)  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The Holiness of Our Ordinary Lives

The Jesuit Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751) believed the path to holiness lies in the performance of our everyday tasks and duties.  Every moment of our lives is given to us by God and thus bears God's will for us.  When we "accept what we cannot avoid, and endure with love and resignation things which could cause us weariness and disgust," we are thus following the path to sanctification.

St. John’s Jesuit opened its doors in 1898 and was both a high school and university. The Toledo Blade called it “one of the most colorful chapters in the city’s history.”  It was very successful but with the Depression, St. John’s Jesuit was forced to close in 1936 (In its original charter the school was called St. John’s Jesuit, but in those days the school was referred to as St. Johns.).  The school had made its mark though, of the 661 graduates there were 100 priests, 104 attorneys, 67 doctors and dentist, 141 teachers and 19 social workers.

Those loyal to SJJ never gave up the idea of reopening the school and in September of 1965 it happened. Fr. Gelin, S.J. at the opening ceremony said, “Today, St. John’s begins its second springtime with a planting that we pray will yield a harvest comparable to the first school.”  The old St. John’s was nicknamed “Knights,” but that had been preempted by St. Francis.  After a student vote Titans became the new nickname.  There were only three lay teachers who were with the group of Jesuits who started the school that September.
From the St. John’s Jesuit website

One of those three laymen who began the rebirth of SJJ was Joe Czernicki.  Joe is in hospice care Northwest Ohio Hospice Care on River Road in Perrysburg.  He is not doing well and would appreciate our prayers.  Pray for a safe and blessed weekend for all. In the depths of my being I become quiet and still; I wait for you, my God, source of my salvation.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

God’s Reason

I don’t know how to say it, but somehow it seems to me that maybe we are stationed, where God wants us to be; that little place we’re filling is the reason for our birth, and just to do the work we do, is why we’re here on earth.  If God had wanted otherwise, I claim God would’ve made each one of us quite different of a worse or better grade.  And since God knows and understands all things of land and sea, I fancy God has placed us here, just where we’re meant to be.  Sometimes we get to thinking, as our labors we review, that we should like a higher place with greater things to do.  But we come to the conclusion when the envying is stilled, that the post to which God sent us is the post God wanted filled.  And there isn’t any service that we should choose to scorn, for it may be just the reason God allowed us to be born.
Author Unknown

Today is the feast day of St. Katherine Drexel (1858-1955).  She came from one of the wealthiest families in America.  Her father was an extremely successful banker; she did not know her mother, who died five weeks after her birth.  Her father eventually married Emma Bouvier, who was an eminent Catholic; she exerted a strong influence on Katherine.  When her father died he established a trust for her and her two sisters of $14,000,000.  Inspired by their Catholic faith, they all regarded this fortune as an opportunity to glorify God through the service of others.

This was the great era of Catholic immigration, as American cities stretched to accommodate new arrivals from Europe. The Catholic Church responded with an extraordinary system of schools, hospitals, orphanages, and other charitable institutions.  But Katherine’s concern was for those outside the Catholic community, namely Indians and blacks.  She endowed scores of schools on Indian reservations across the country.  In the 1920s she contributed $750,000 toward the founding of Xavier University in New Orleans, the first Catholic college established for blacks, she went on to establish 50 more schools for black students.  She died on this day in 1955 at the age of ninety-six.
All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time, Robert Ellsberg

Pray for Joe Czernicki who was among the faculty who reestablished St. John’s Jesuit High School in 1965.  Joe is now in hospice care.  When I feel threatened or believe myself to be a failure, give me courage to enter my still center, the place of buried treasure and sunshine and solitude, where you are, Lord, and where it no longer matters who approves of me or how successful I am because you are there.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

“Hardness of Heart”

Sin is what prevents us from seeing how much we have been given.  Sin is what makes us forget about God.  Sin is what keeps the door of our soul closed to Christ, so that we do not hear his knocking.  Sin is unresponsiveness, unawareness, insensitivity – what the scriptures all “hardness of heart.”
Margaret Hebblewaithe, Finding God in All Things

Northwest Ohio was a lush forest teeming with wild life when the first Jesuits ministered in the Black Swamp region, which is the Toledo area.  The colonists had not yet declared independence from England when Fr. De Bonnecambe visited the Wyandot tribe along the Maumee River in 1749.

In 1869, a group of Jesuits established a pastorate at Old St. Mary’s Church on Cherry Street.  Around that time, Otto von Bismarck, the German Prime Minister, expelled German members of the Society of Jesus.  Many of these German Jesuits travelled to the Toledo area, and in September of 1898 established an academy – the term for a high school – and university at the corner of Superior and Walnut in downtown Toledo.  The first year 41 students enrolled in the academy; they studied German, Latin, Greek, mathematics, science, history, sociology, and theology.  After four years they moved on to the university on the same plot of land.  From this beginning became the St. John’s Jesuit High School of today. 
From the St. John’s Jesuit High School and Academy website.

Pray for our students as they finish the third quarter of the year; next week they take third quarter exams.  Special prayers for the seniors as they come to the end of their time at SJJ.  It is the easy way to dwell on what we’d like to do but cannot, to mourn what might have been but is not, to weep for what was nearly done but not quite.  That way is wide but is not Your way; You fulfill Your own desires, You nurture what You love, You treasure those You create.  Be Lord of my life, Almighty God.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

Good and Bad Religion

Someone asked the Master why he seemed so wary of religion.  Wasn’t religion the finest thing humanity possessed?  The Master’s reply was enigmatic: “The best and the worst – that’s what you get from religion.”

“Why the worst?”

“Because people mostly pick up enough religion to hate but not enough to love.”
Fr. Anthony de Mello, S.J.

Yesterday we celebrated our monthly all-school Mass – we have Mass every morning at 7:45 for anyone who wishes to attend.  Saints Paul Miki, S.J. and Peter Canisius, S.J. were honored; Paul Miki is patron saint of Miki House at SJJ (The Dean of Miki House is Mrs. Stacey Wisniewski and Senior Captain is Eric Brown); Peter Canisius is patron saint of Canisius House (Mrs. Staci Clark is Dean and Joe Pipoly is Senior Captain). The celebrant was our President, Fr. Boom Martinez, S.J

Paul Miki was born in Japan in 1562 and joined the Jesuits at age 18.  He was the first Japanese member of any Catholic religious order.  Arrested for preaching the word of God, he and 25 companions were crucified on a hill overlooking the city of Nagasaki.  Peter Canisius was a Dutch Jesuit who worked in Germany at the time of the Reformation in the 1550s until he died in 1597.  He is primarily responsible for the restoration of the Catholic Church in Germany; he was a founder of the very first Jesuit school, which was in Sicily, and he founded many others schools which spread the Catholic faith.

Fr. Martinez reminded our students that as much good that we do at Saint John’s Jesuit through mission collections and Christian service, and such, St. Ignatius and his Jesuit schools always emphasize the magis, the idea of doing more.  What more can I do for God?  What more can I do for my brothers and sisters?  Today’s honored saints are good examples of ordinary people who did extraordinary things.  Graduates of Jesuit high schools are also challenged to do extraordinary things for Christ.
The above was taken from Fr. Martinez’s homily at yesterday’s Mass.

SJJ freshman Levi Cascadden requests our prayers for Emily, his girlfriend, who was a sophomore at Notre Dame Academy.  Emily was battling lung cancer; she passed away yesterday morning.  Pray for her peaceful repose, for her family, Levi, and the NDA community.  Welcome, Lord, into your calm and peaceful kingdom those who, out of this present life, have departed to be with you; grant them rest and a place with the spirits of the just; and give them the life that knows not age, the reward that passes not away; through Jesus Christ our Lord. (St. Ignatius Loyola)  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

What is more real?

The life of faith involves the development of an awareness of reality.  According to our usual perceptions the  body is more real than the soul, electricity is more real than thought, personal power is more real than love, necessity is more real than truth, and all this together – which is the “world” – is more real than God.  How difficult it is to perceive that Christ is real, that Christ is truly more real and powerful than the material things of existence.  When this acknowledgement occurs, then a person can interact with others, join in daily activities, sense the powers of the surroundings and still say that God is more real and that Christ is stronger than everything else.  Who can say this?  The life of faith should create this kind of perception so that we perceive what is truly real.
Fr. Roman Guardini (1885-1968) – Italian-born German priest and theologian, whose efforts to relate the Christians message to a modern audience helped prepare the way for Vatican II.

It is common knowledge now that every cell in a plant or animal carries the special, unique “genetic code” of that individual.  For example, the sets of chromosomes that are in the first cell, when the sperm and ovum unite in human reproduction, divide and are duplicated eventually in the billions of cells in an adult body.  Certain processes guide some cells to become arms, others to become legs, and others to become blood, but all the originated genetic “information” is in each cell.

Not long ago scientists began discovering that it is possible to take a cell from some living organisms and produce a new “beginning” cell that possesses the same genetic makeup as the “parent.” This cell would, in effect, grow into an identical twin of the parent body.

Scientists feel that the day is not too far off when this would be possible with human beings.  The moral question is: Should humankind do something just because it is possible?  If so, under what conditions, and with what safeguards?  Who will make the decisions?  What human, spiritual, psychological, religious values are involved?

These questions are important and need to be answered before we rush into something.  We cannot take the position: “Let’s try it and think of the consequences later.”  By that time, the irreparable damage could be done to the bodies, psyches, and social structure of the human race.  For these reasons, moral theologians of all faiths are wrestling publicity and urgently with such questions (Pope John Paul II has stated that until more is known “human cloning” should not be done.).  
Catholic Q and A: Real Questions by Real People, Fr. John J. Dietzen

Former Saint John’s Jesuit faculty member Joe Czernicki remains very ill in Toledo Hospital; keep Joe in your prayers.  Joe was one of the first teachers that founded the restarting of SJJ in 1965.  This week is “International Week” at SJJ.  Faculty member Susie Beeman and many other faculty, staff, and students will help her raise consciousness on this topic.  Pray for the success of this special week.  God of our daily lives, we pray for the people of the world working and without work; homeless, or well housed; fulfilled or frustrated; confused and cluttered with material goods or scraping a living from other’s leavings.  We pray for our sisters and brothers, mourning or celebrating – may we share in their sufferings and hope.  We pray especially for the people of Libya.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.  

The Good Life

A disciple was prone to fits of prolonged depression.  “My doctor insists I take medication to keep my depression at bay,” he said.

“Well, then, why don’t you?”  said the Master.

“Because it might damage my liver and shorten my life.”

Said the Master, “Would you rather have a healthy liver than a happy mood? One year of life is worth more than twenty years of hibernation.”

Later he said to his disciples, “It is with life as with a tale – what matters is not how long it is but how good.”
Father Anthony de Mello, S.J., Awakening: Conversations with the Masters

      Yesterday a group of SJJ juniors began their “Magis” Retreat at Maria Stein Retreat House. The word magis means “more” or “better.”  This retreat allows juniors the opportunity to reflect on what St. Ignatius of Loyola meant when he said that life should be spent living for the “greater glory of God.”  The Jesuit tradition in education encourages students to ask how they can do more and be more in Christ.   

      During the retreat, students will be asked to consider the question:  How can I live my life in a better way?  They will be given time to talk among themselves about the challenges they face; they will also spend time in silent prayer.  Thus, it is hoped that after the retreat, the students will sense the support of classmates and of the Lord as they think about their future.   

Pray for our juniors on their second day of retreat.  Lord, you show deep love for us in your mercy and forgiveness.  Continue to fill us with your gifts of love.  Help us to hurry remain open to your love that we may feel the joy of your kingdom.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Striving to Find God in a Confusing World

 I have been in Grand Central Station only once, and that was enough.  The volume of noise and the massive, moving crowds threatened to stifle my rustic heart.  However, the experience of Grand Central Station can happen not just in New York but in the quiet of our bedroom or family den.  We try to be alone with God but inside there comes a multitude of thoughts, noises, images.  We find it hard to center, focus on the presence of God who is with us here and now.  

Yet distractions are part of life.  When praying several suggestions come to mind.  First, as we enter into prayer we do well to invoke the first verse of Psalm 70: “O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me.”  As limited creatures reaching out to our infinite God, we realize the impossibility of the task without God’s help.  Handling our distractions by ourselves is probably a lost cause.  

Second, maybe some distractions are not distractions at all.  As we are driving home from work and saying a prayer to ourselves, suddenly we are distracted by the thought of someone who is not doing well.  God may be asking us to pay attention to this distraction.  Maybe there is something we can do for this person that we haven’t thought of.  

Third, distractions remind us that we are a pilgrim people and that all of us struggle.  We straddle time and eternity.  Distractions keep us humble.  They keep us more keenly aware of our solidarity with millions of people who strive to find God in a confusing world.  
Robert F. Morneau, Paths to Prayer

Today is the feast day of St. Polycarp who was one of the most revered of the Apostolic fathers, that generation of bishops who received their faith from the original apostles.  According to tradition he was a disciple of St. John the Gospel writer. 

 When he was arrested in 155, he was eighty-six years old, and had been serving as bishop of Smyrna for decades.  When the Roman proconsul asked him to declare that "Caesar was the Lord" and curse Christ, he refused, saying "Eighty-six years I served him and he never did me any wrong.  How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?"  The Roman proconsul then threatened to have him burned.  But Polycarp replied: "The fire you threaten me with burns but an hour; for you do not know the fire of the coming judgment.  But why do you delay?  Come, do what you will."
Robert Ellsberg, All Saints

Today three novices of the Society of Jesus visit St. John’s Jesuit.  We give God thanks for their vocation and pray for them on their journey to become Jesuit priests.  Dale Harms ’86, uncle of Campus Minister and English teacher Tom Harms, passed away Sunday.  Pray for him and the Harms family.  Jim Konicki ’69 also passed away recently; he was a member of the first graduating class of second start up of SJJ, and a great supporter of his alma mater.  God of all blessings, open our hearts that we may recognize the gifts you have given us.  Open our eyes that we may see you in all things.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Seeing God In All Things

Be content with what you have;
rejoice the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.
Wayne Muller

Today’s feast day is called the Chair of Peter; it celebrates not only the triumph of Christ’s grace in the heart and soul of Peter, but his status as the primary pastor and teacher of the Church.  The chair is the symbol of his teaching authority, as it is of every bishop – at Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome there is a chair reserved only for the Pope, who is the Bishop of Rome.  In every cathedral in every diocese there is a chair reserved for the Bishop of that diocese.  

Peter (d. ca. 64) was Jesus’ chief apostle, whom later Catholic tradition regards as the first pope; he was the first disciple who Jesus called; he served as the spokesman for the others, and was the first apostle to whom Jesus first appeared.  

Peter was not a particularly saintly saint, as the gospel writers and religious scholars do not hesitate to tell us.  He is also described as uneducated; yet once Peter came to believe in Jesus, he spent the remainder of his years preaching, advancing the cause of Christianity, and establishing the new Church.

“Saint Peter at the pearly gates” is an expression used in many jokes.  It might be that Peter is at the pearly gates of heaven because he was the first pope, but more likely, it is because he reminds us of our often difficult struggle in life – and its ultimate reward.
Lives of the Saints, Richard P. McBrien

Staff member and SJJ graduate Greg Rufty is requesting prayers for Andrew McNeill, the husband of a very good friend, who had a snowmobile accident recently, which led to hospital tests.  Doctors found a brain tumor; it is an aggressive lymphoma and he will begin chemotherapy soon.  Keep this in your prayers.  May the light of God surround us, the presence of God enfold us, and the power of God heal us, today and always.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit.  Do not lose your inward peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.  Commend all to God, and then lie still in his bosom.
St. Francis de Sales

The Catholic Church keeps a close watch on scientific discoveries through its committee on Science and Human Values.  The role of the committee is to identify where ethical discussion is necessary to advance the common good.  The committee enters into dialogue with scientists to understand new developments and isolate ethical issues and has issued public statements about topics such as global population, genetic testing, genetic testing, genetic screening, death and dying, cloning, and stem cell research.

For instance, the Vatican has spoken out against human cloning and euthanasia.  It says the use of stem cells from aborted fetuses and human embryos is clearly wrong, but it endorses the use of stem cells from adults for medical advances.  It urges caution in xenotransplantation - the use of animal organs to prolong human life.  In regard to genetic engineering and modification, the Church warns against concentrating the patents for the gene pools of plants and animals in the hands of a few rich nations. 
The Everything Catholicism Book, Helen Keeler and Susan Grimbly

’06 graduate Matt Nickel lost everything he has in an apartment fire in Perrysburg recently.  He was not hurt but he welcomes our prayers.  Please pray for Joe Czernicki who is one of St. John’s Jesuit last founding fathers.  He was teaching at St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland when he was asked to be a part of the restarting of SJJ in 1965.  Joe still comes to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Joe is very sick on a ventilator at Toledo Hospital.  Doctors don’t know the nature of his illness. 

God, here I am.  You alone fully know why, may I rest on that knowledge, and let it bear me where you will. Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Downward Mobility

Jesus leaves little doubt that the way he lived is the way he offers to his followers.  With great persistence he points out the downward way:  “Anyone who wants to be great among you must be your servant, just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve.” (Matt. 20:26-28)  The downward way is the way of the cross: “Anyone who does not take his cross and follow in my footsteps is not worthy of me.  Anyone who finds his life will lose it; anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matt 10:3-9)

Somewhere deep in our hearts we already know that success, fame, influence, power, and money do not give us the inner joy and peace we crave.  Somewhere we can even sense a certain envy of those who have shed all false ambitions and found deeper fulfillment in their relationship with God.  Yes, somewhere we can even get a taste of that mysterious joy in the smile of those who have nothing to lose.

It is not a problem to have the desire for development and progress as an individual or a community, but in making upward mobility itself into a religion.  In this religion we believe that success means God is with us while failure means that we have sinned.
Fr.Henri Nouwen

Do we have to sit back and just take what comes, or should we pray for miracles?  Miracles, wondrous events that mysteriously preclude all natural explanation, are always possible.  And we can pray for them.  It is, after all, God's world.  There are countless examples of events that contradict all medical and scientific explanation of what "ought" to happen.  Withered arms and legs become healthy and whole overnight.  Cancers that should be fatal disappear.  These are without question God's doing.  To seek such blessings in prayer is a sign of Christian faith and hope.

It remains, however, that miracles or instant interventions into the workings of the world are not God's usual ways.  As the Genesis creation story tells us, God looked at what he had made and declared it good, very good.  He was wonderfully satisfied.  As far as we can tell, the world he created is allowed to live and breath and act according to the "laws" he placed there in the first place.

Voluntary evil human actions, when humans do inhuman things, are another question.  As with the rest of creation, when we act against what human nature was created to be, bad things happen not because God decrees a punishment, but simply because sin, evil, is destructive.
Catholic Q and A: Real Questions by Real People, Fr. John J. Dietzen

Our prayers are requested for Pam Laws, cousin to staff member Laurie Powell; she has second degree burns to her body due to an accident at home; this was followed by a stroke. Pray for my father Paul Richard as he begins chemotherapy treatments today.  In the depths of my being I become quiet and still; I wait for you, my God, source of my salvation.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The Invisible Protection of God

We must have no illusions.  We must not be naive.  If we listen to the voice of God, we make our choice, get out of ourselves and fight nonviolently for a better world.  We must not expect to find it easy; we shall not walk on roses, people will not throng to hear us and applaud, and we shall always be aware of God's protection.

We must not trust in our own strength, we must not give way to bitterness; we must stay humble knowing that we are in the hands of God.  We must want only to share in the making of a better world.  Then we shall feel the invisible protection of God our Father.
Dom Helder Camara (1909-1999), the courageous and prophetic archbishop of Recife, Brazil, was one of the great apostles of the 20th century.

Today the Society of Jesus honors St. Claude La Colombiere (1641-1682).  Born into the French nobility, the gentle Frenchman entered the Society at seventeen.  After an outstanding academic career which won him respect in high places, he was assigned to the obscure town Paray-le-Monial.

In its Visitation Convent, Sister (later Saint) Margaret Mary Alacoque had received visions of Jesus Christ where he showed her His heart and asked her to establish a devotion to His heart - which is today a common Friday devotion called the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Jesus loved all mankind with his human heart, which leads to this veneration. When she was misunderstood and criticized, she had heard Christ say, “I will send you my faithful servant and perfect friend to help. “ It was Claude; he was instrumental in helping her establish this devotion.

His next assignment, as preacher for the Catholic Duchess of York in anti-Catholic England, involved walking a political tightrope.  A Frenchman, whom he had befriended and aided, forgot the kindness shown him and falsely denounced the priest to the government in order to gain the 100 pounds which was promised to anyone who would hand over a Catholic priest.   He was imprisoned in a damp, cold dungeon; his health deteriorated and he contracted tuberculosis in prison.  When released, he continued to spread devotion to devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in France before dying on this day in 1682.
“Ours” Jesuit Portraits, M.C. Durkin 

One of our alumnus Lt. Col. Grant Gabriel, ’77 passed away February 2 after a courageous battle with kidney cancer.  Pray for his peaceful repose and for his family.  Continue to pray for the grandmother of faculty member Melissa Ingraham, who remains very ill.  Lord Jesus Christ, you were born in poverty, when we might have anticipated riches; you are King of all the earth, yet you were content to visit one nation.  From the beginning to end you upturned our human values and held us in suspense.  Do not let us take you for granted.  Continue to surprise us so that, kept alert, we may always be ready to receive you and do your will.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Prayer for Light and Help

Jesus, I feel within me
a great desire to please you
but, at the same time,
I feel totally incapable of doing this
without your special light and help,
which I can expect only from you. 

Accomplish your will within me –
even in spite of me.
St. Claude La Colombiere, S.J.

“Great love hath no man than that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

The association of St. Valentine (d. 269) with pink hearts, boxes of chocolates, and the exchange of romantic fancies has no intrinsic source in the character or life of the saint.  The origin of “St. Valentine’s Day” – a day beloved of greeting card companies – is not entirely clear, but it seems to have taken root in England, a cold country where the signs of spring are eagerly anticipated.  As far back as Chaucer it was commonly observed that birds began to pair and mate around the feast of St. Valentine, that is, from the middle of February.

In any case, the Valentine whose name is commemorated was apparently a Christian priest in Rome who assisted martyrs during the persecution of Christians under Emperor Claudius II.  He was eventually arrested and sent before the prefect of Rome.  When he refused to renounce his faith he was beaten and beheaded.

Thus, by offering his heart, he proved himself a true devotee of the God of Love. 

God of love, we ask you to give us love; love in our thinking, love in our speaking, love in our doing.  And love in the hidden places of our souls; love of those with whom we find it hard to bear, and love of those who find it hard to bear with us; love of those with whom we work, and love to those with whom we take our ease.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.
Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

The Catholic Church believes that miracles of healing are not only possible, but are much more frequent than many of us suspect.  The rite for the sacrament of the anointing of the sick, for example, clearly states the church's prayer and expectations for healings of various kinds as a result of the petitions made by the people of God.

The Church is concerned, however, because true miracles (healing, or otherwise) are not haphazard, frivolous intrusions by God into nature.  Miracles are above all signs - signs of God's presence in our midst.  Experience teaches us that many events can appear to be miraculous when they are not.  "Mysterious"  cures have non-miraculous physical or psychological explanations.  Religious con-men sometimes fake "miracles."  The Church therefore exercises caution in this area, but the Church believes strongly in the power of prayer which can bring about wonderful signs of His powerful presence.
Catholic Q & A:Real Questions by Real People, Father John J. Dietzen

SJJ faculty member Melissa Ingraham would like prayers for her grandmother,  Marilyn Pressnell: The tip of her spine is deteriorating due to arthritis and inflammation is pushing on her spinal cord.  Just moving her neck is making the inflammation worse, and it will paralyze her slowly if she doesn't have the surgery.  However, the doctors are not sure if they want to operate because it is a risky surgery.  Pray for the two groups of seniors who are on the last day of their Kairos Retreat.  The theme today centers around how to live out what they have learned.  Jesus our Healer, we place in your gentle hands those who are sick.  Ease their pain, and heal the damage done to them in body, mind or spirit.  Be present to them through the support of friends and in the care of doctors and nurses, and fill them with your warm love.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

"I know more than you do."

I experience Jesus close to me in tough times or when I have real problems.  I just sit there by myself and invite Jesus to sit next to me.  I imagine him just like someone you have a cup of coffee with. Sometimes I put something to him and he gives me a bit of a smile as much as to say, "I know more than you do."  When things work out down the track I say "so that's what you were smiling about.  I didn't know it would end like this."
Peter Smith, prominent Aboriginal Catholic

Today is the feast day of St. Scholastica (d. 543) who was a twin of the founder of Western monasticism St. Benedict. Little is known of her but her faith was legendary. She and her twin brother had a custom of meeting once a year in a house somewhere between their respective monasteries.  There they would spend the whole day “praising God and talking of spiritual matters.”  One year they met as usual.  But when, as dusk began to fall, Benedict made preparations to leave, his sister begged him to spend the night that they might “talk until morning about the joys of life in heaven.”  Benedict refused, citing the rules of his monastery from which it was “impossible” to deviate.  To this answer Scholastica responded by simply lowering her head in prayer.  Immediately the heavens erupted in thunder and released such a flood of rain that travel was obviously impossible.  “May almighty God spare you, sister,” Benedict cried in alarm.  “What have you done?”  Scholastica answered simply, “I asked you, but you were unwilling to listen to me.  I asked the Lord and He listened to me.”

Pray for our seniors as they begin the third day of their Kairos Retreat: the theme today is “What is Christ’s message for me?”  Pray for my father Paul Richard: he is battling a serious cancer.  In darkness and in light, in trouble and joy, help us, Lord, to trust your love, to serve your purpose and to praise your name, through Christ our Lord.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The Door to God’s Dwelling Place

Maybe in your case God asks for a final surrender of your heart, and your heart longs for God.  For without God it can never be content but remains unsatisfied.  Examine yourself from this point of view.  Perhaps you will find here the door to God’s dwelling place.
Theophan the recluse

February 5^th marked the 20^th anniversary of the death of Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J. (1907-1991).  On May 22, 1965, he was elected superior general of the Society of Jesus, the first Basque to occupy this position since the founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola.  In the eighteen years of his service as superior general Arrupe oversaw a renewal of the Jesuits so profound that he is revered by many in the Society as the "second founder."  He was instrumental in defining the modern mission of the Jesuits in terms of "faith that does justice."  He stated: "Today our prime educational objective must be to form men-for-others; men who live not for themselves but for God and his Christ."

In commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the death of Fr. Arrupe, Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, S.J, the superior general of the Society of Jesus, sent a letter to all Jesuits.  In the spirit of Fr. Arrupe he asked the whole Society "to reflect on how we can better serve the more universal needs of the Church and the Society.  Our vocation requires full acceptance of the fact that our mission, that is, the mission of the Church, is far greater than any single Jesuit can dream or do...That is why we need a spirit of TOTAL COOPERATION with others be they lay persons, diocesan clergy, other religious or even people from other faith traditions."
The quotes above are from Fr. Nicholas’ recent letter to all members of the Society of Jesus

Pray for the success of the two senior Kairos retreats which begin day two today.  Yesterday’s theme was “Who am I?”  The theme for today is “Who is Christ in My Life?” I request prayers for my father Paul Richard who is ill; doctors are trying to find the nature of the illness.  Lord, when I feel tired and strained, help me not take it out on other people. Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The Wisdom of Saint Ignatius Loyola

When, as is human, errors are committed by others, you should see in them, as in a mirror, some deformity that needs removing in yourself.

We do not learn so much from conversation or argument as from the humble recourse to God. 

It is stupid to neglect an immediate opportunity of serving God in the hope of doing something far greater in the future: for it may well be that you will lose the one without gaining the other.

Last Sunday, February 6^th, was the feast day of St. Paul Miki,S.J. (d.1597) who was among the first martyrs of Japan, and the first Japanese Jesuit.  Fr. Miki, S.J. is patron saint of Miki House at St. John's Jesuit.  The Dean of Miki House is Mrs. Stacey Wisnieski; the senior leader is Eric Brown.  

Christianity arrived in Japan in 1549 with the landing of St. Francis Xavier, one of the original band of Jesuit missionaries; by the end of the century there were 300,000 Christians. 

Yet this was short-lived.  Due to the jealousy of local Japanese rulers, who saw the Christian missionaries as a threat to their power, all foreign missionaries were expelled from Japan in 1597; but Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries were allowed to continue because of their discreet way of spreading God's word.  However, due to their success, the Japanese ruler Hideyoshi ordered the execution of 26 Christian missionaries; among this group was Fr. Paul Miki, S.J. who was the best known of the Japanese born Jesuits.  On February 5th they were publically crucified. 

Over the next several years waves of brutal persecutions broke out.  Suspected Christians, sometimes whole villages, were presented with the image of Christ or the Blessed Virgin Mary.  They were required to stamp on the image, or they would be killed - many times with their whole family.

Through this experience Japanese Christians acquired a distinctive spirituality.  Refined in  the forge of human suffering, the Church in Japan developed a fervent devotion to the crucified Savior and the cross as a symbol of endurance and hope in final victory.
Robert Ellsberg, All Saints

This week the first-year Jesuit novices of our Province finished their 30-day retreat at the Jesuit Retreat House in Gloucester, Massachusetts.  The Novice Master, and leader of this retreat, was Fr. Thomas Pipp, S.J., former teacher, Vice President, and President at Saint John's Jesuit.  Pray for the Jesuit novices as they continue on their path to priesthood.   At the end of this school day two groups of seniors will begin their three-and-a-half day Kairos Retreat.  Pray for the success of these retreats.  Pray for all the students, faculty, and staff of Miki House.   God is in his holy dwelling; he will give a home to the lonely, he gives power and strength to his people. (Psalm 67:6/7,36) Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The City of God

Far off, like a perfect pearl, one can see the city of God.  It is so wonderful that it seems as if a child could reach it in a summer’s day.  And so a child could.  But with me and such as I am it is different.  One can realize a thing in a single moment, but one loses it in the long hours which follow with leaden feet.  It is so difficult to keep “heights that the soul is competent to gain.”  We think in Eternity, but we move slowly through time.
Oscar Wilde, de Profundis

Question: The city where I live has many "panhandlers."  The New Testament says we should give to anyone who asks.  I would rather give my money to worthy charities and the missions, rather than those who may use the money on liquor.  What do I do?

We need to consider some Christian basic truths.  We give to those in need because the Lord asks us to.  The poor and the hungry are Christ, what we do for them, we do for him. 

Any graces God gives us to be used, not saved up for a more ideal situation that better fits our views.  When grace-filled invitations present themselves, it is not wise to tell God this is not exactly what we had in mind.  We need to do the best we can and not wait for something better.  Even charitable organizations cannot guarantee everything will be perfect, that only deserving people will benefit from our gifts.  Jesus does not ask us to sit in judgment of the lives of those who come to us. 

In any case, while we should use some common sense, appropriate use of what we give is not ours to judge; it is between the recipient and God.  Our task is to respond generously to the graced opportunity when it stands in front of us.
Catholic Q and A: All You Want to Know About Catholicism, Father John J. Dietzen

Make us worthy, Lord, to serve our fellow human beings throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger.  Give them through our hands this day their daily bread, and, by our understanding love, give peace and joy.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The Irresistible Force

To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, but a living one, who with irresistible force urges us toward more loving.
Vincent Van Gogh

"I await death and I await it with impatience.  It has always been the object of my prayers. It forms today the most precious reward of my labors and my sufferings.”  These were the words of St. John de Britto, S.J., the saint who the Society of Jesus honors today.  From his earliest childhood John’s imagination was fired by tales of the great Jesuit missionary Francis Xavier and the early Jesuit missionaries.  He was admitted into the Society of Jesus at the age of fifteen.

After his ordination he was sent to Goa, a Portuguese colony in southern India.  He conformed as much as possible to the appearance of an Indian holy man, dressing appropriately, abstaining from meat, and translating the gospel message into terms comprehensible to a high-caste Hindu audience. 

He encountered violent persecution on several occasions.  In 1686 he and a group of Indian catechists were seized and subjected to excruciating tortures over a period of days.  Upon his release his superiors tried to convince him to go back to Europe, but he insisted on returning to his mission in India.  Three years later he was arrested by a local prince and sentenced to death.  He was beheaded on this date in 1693.
Joseph N. Tylenda, S.J. Jesuit Saints and Martyrs

Pray for the people of Egypt.  Pray for a safe and blessed weekend for all.  Lord God, you sent your martyr, Saint John de Britto, to preach the gospel by word and example.  Grant a rich harvest of grace to those who are fearless in proclaiming your word of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Arm Yourself with Faith

Whoever is armed with faith need fear nothing; this is the only armor necessary to repel and confound our enemy.  Our Creed says, “I believe” in God, who is our Father Almighty: in saying these words we show that we do not trust in our own strength, and that it is only in the strength of God that we hope for victory.
St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

Today the Society of Jesus honors one of its members: Blessed John Nelson.  From an early age he was noted for his devotion to his Catholic faith; however the government of England was unfavorable towards Catholics.  He wished to become a priest -even though it was a capital offense - and witness to the faith in his native England.  He entered the seminary in Flanders at 38 years of age.  As soon as he was ordained he returned to England, even though his life would be at risk.

He secretly exercised his priestly duties, but not much is known what he did.  He was arrested by priest-hunters in 1577 as he sat in his residence reading his breviary. He refused to honor Queen Elizabeth I's supremacy over the Church. When asked who was the head of the Church, he unequivocally answered that it was the pope. 

During his last two days of life he was kept in a dark, damp, verminfested dungeon, where he spent his time fasting, praying, and preparing for his death.  At his trial he continued to reject the Queen's supremacy.  He was hanged in public; and, before he died, he was taken down and drawn and quartered.  Parts of his body were displayed all over London.  During his imprisonment he had asked permission to join the Society of Jesus.  The Jesuits were happy to accept someone in the Order who was about to be martyred for Christ.
Joseph N. Tylenda, S.J. Jesuit Saints, and Martyrs

My father Paul Richard has been in the hospital for the last two days; the doctors are trying to determine the nature of his sickness: keep this in your prayers. In the silence I receive once more this gift of my life from you.  Hold me in your stillness, simplify me, and take possession of me, my God.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

If Jesus Christ came today, people would not even crucify him.  They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) was a great Scottish writer.

The movie “The Rite” is in theaters now; it is doing well I understand.  Like the movie “The Exorcism,” this movie is about demonic possession and the Catholic Church’s rite of exorcism.  Belief in angels and demons (“fallen angels”) is consistent in Christianity since the time of Christ, and existed before that in the Old Testament.  Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy.  Scripture and the Church’s Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called “Satan” or the “devil.”  The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: “The devil and other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing.

Partly because of the need for more theological study about good and bad angels, many questions remain unanswered about diabolic possession, the physical control of a human being’s body by a devil or demon.  One thing is true: With the advance of knowledge about psychological and nervous disorders, many strange happenings once attributed to the devil are known to have other possible, natural explanations.  

The rite of exorcism is a series of prayers, blessings and commands used by a priest or bishop to expel evil spirits in a case of possession.  This official ceremony is rarely used today, and may be performed only with the permission of the bishop.  An effective exorcism is considered by some theologians as perhaps the only sure proof of true diabolic possession.
The above information was taken from The Catechism of the Catholic Church and Catholic Q and A, by Fr. John J. Dietzen

Father, you call your children to walk in the light of Christ.  Free us from darkness and keep us in the light of your truth.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

True Holiness 

Holiness consists not in extraordinary actions, but in performing your duties toward God, yourself, and others well.
St. Maximillian Kolbe

A young teacher was standing over a photocopier.  The recent graduate was very conscientious and perhaps a little nervous. He had prepared seven handouts for one class.  A senior teacher came along and asked what he was doing and laughed when he saw so many handouts.  “Just remember one thing,” said the senior teacher, “you are paid to talk to kids.”

Jesus was a highly original teacher.  If you read the gospels there is only one reference to Jesus ever writing anything, and that was when he drew in the sand in the presence of the woman caught in the act of adultery.  But there are countless references to Jesus speaking with people.  The things he taught touched their lives.  That was why they have never been forgotten.
Fr. Michael McGirr, S.J.

Today is the funeral of Robert Bobo, husband of longtime staff member Barbara Bobo, and father of SJJ graduates Matt and Michael Bobo. This past weekend Robert Huebner, the father of SJJ senior Jake Huebner was buried. Pray for their peaceful repose and for the families involved.  God who brought us to birth, and in whose arms we die: in our grief and shock contain and comfort us; embrace us with your love, give us hope in our confusion, and grace to let go into new life. Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Jesus’ words call us to a new kind of life.

As a wisdom teacher, Jesus used aphorisms and parables to invite his hearers to see in a radically new way.  The appeal is to the imagination, to that place within us in which reside our images of reality and our images of life itself; the invitation is to a different way of seeing, to different images for shaping our understanding of life.
Marcus Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time

One of the most influential figures in the history of Christian thought was the Dominican, St. Thomas Aquinas, who lived from 1224 to 1274.  His approach to theology is known as Scholasticism, a word similar to “school” which implies that Christian truths can be taught and learned in an orderly manner.  Aquinas’ life-long efforts to organize the study of theology resulted in his Summa Theologica, meaning “summary of theology.”  For Aquinas, faith and reason were not in conflict with each other.  On the contrary, he believed that our minds were a gift of God to be used at the service of faith.   He is well known for proposing five “proofs” for the existence of God.  One of the best known of these is his argument for “first cause.”  It goes life this: Everything has a cause.  That cause itself has a cause.  If you keep following this chain, you will eventually reach a cause which has no cause.  That first cause is God.  But Aquinas also admitted that his “proofs” were merely aids to faith which showed that faith was not irrational.  Belief in God still required a leap into the unknown.

He never finished his Summa Theologica; during Mass in December of 1273 he had a mystical experience which caused him to stop writing.  When asked why he said “I cannot go on…All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what God has revealed to me.”
Michael McGirr, S.J.

Pray for our sophomores on the second day of their “Manresa Retreat.”  Special prayers for longtime SJJ staff member Barbara Bobo and her family: Barbara’s husband Robert passed away early this week.  Also, special prayers for senior Jake Huebner: his father will be Saturday.  Pray for a safe and blessed weekend for all.  God our Father, you made Thomas Aquinas known for his holiness and learning. Help us grow in wisdom by his teaching and in holiness by imitating his faith.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The Great Love of God

God is the most lovable of all things, and meditation on God’s nature is the strongest incentive there is to love and devotion; but because our minds are not strong in themselves, we need to be led by knowledge, and so to love God by way of the world we sense, and above all by thinking of Christ the man, so that by seeing God with our eyes we can be lifted up to love what we cannot see.
St. Thomas Aquinas

At the end of school today two groups of sophomores will travel to St. Paul of the Cross Retreat Center and DeSales Retreat Center to begin their “Sophomore Manresa Retreat.”  All students, faculty, and staff are required to do a retreat each school year.  This retreat has been named the “Sophomore Manresa Retreat” because the city of Manresa in Spain was a very important place in the life of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus.  In the years 1523-1524, Ignatius stayed in Manresa, where God blessed him with deep and consoling spiritual experiences, particularly on the banks of the river Cardoner.  Ignatius’s visions heightened his awareness of God and creation.  It is hoped that sophomores, on the Manresa Retreat, will come to know better the vision of Ignatius and to appreciate the Lord as he did. 

Pray for the success of the two sophomores retreats: that each sophomore will see the presence of the Lord in his life. God of wisdom and love, source of all good, send your Spirit to teach us your truth and guide our actions in your way of peace.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Steer the ship of my life, good Lord, to your quiet harbor where I can be safe from the storms of sin and conflict.  Show me the course I should take.  Renew in me the gift of discernment, so that I can always see the right direction in which I should go.  And give me the strength and the courage to choose the right course, even when the sea is rough and the waves are high, knowing that through enduring hardship and danger we shall find comfort and peace.
St. Basil of Caesarea

At St. John’s Jesuit High School we celebrate a daily Mass at 7:45 AM; it is open to the school community and anyone outside the school who would like to attend.  We also have monthly Masses that the entire school community attends, and Masses on all our student and faculty/staff retreats; Fr. Martinez, S.J., Fr. Doyle, S.J., and Father Radloff, S.J. “preside” over these Masses.  Many times we will invite priests from outside SJJ to preside – we a have a few SJJ graduates in the area who are priests, and they are often asked.

Many times we say the priest is the “celebrant” at Mass; this is true but, in fact, everyone present should be part of “celebrating” their faith.  While the priest is doing the speaking, he is acting and speaking for everyone present.  The priest is appropriately described as the “presider” because he occupies the place of leader and directs the proceedings. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) defines this as exactly what the priest was ordained to do.  “At the Eucharist, the priest should, then, serve God and the people with dignity and humility; by his bearing and by the way he recites the worlds of the liturgy he should communicate to the faithful a sense of the living presence of Christ.” (GIRM 92)Father John J. Dietzen, Catholic Q & A: Real Questions by Real People

Lord, through the weariness and hurt, through disaster on the news, through headaches and depression, I am still yours.  I do not understand, but I believe that you are here in the dark places of human life, and that nothing can take us out of your hands.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

St. Ignatius’ Three Ways of Being Humble

Humility is the gift of readiness to hand over power to God.  It is a difficult virtue to practice, especially in a society that extols the rugged individual.  But it is necessary if we are to allow God’s power to manifest itself in our lives. 

St. Ignatius asks us to consider three ways of being humble.  First is the most basic: it involves choosing always to obey God’s will, even if it means giving up the power to rule the world.  Second, is more perfect. I choose to obey God always, and, moreover, I am indifferent to the ways that God is calling me to live.  I don’t care about being rich or poor, healthy or sick, popular or obscure.  I just want to do whatever God asks me to do, whenever.  The third way is a radical call to humility, seldom practiced.  It involves wanting to imitate Christ and thus deliberately choosing poverty and humiliation out of love of God, to avoid any hint of pride that might distract me.  It is important to recognize this third way of humility is not common because it seems counterintuitive, especially in our culture of inflated self-love.
The Ignatian Workout: Daily Spiritual Exercises for a Healthy Faith, Tim Muldoon

Today the Christian community recalls one of the key events in its early history, namely the conversion of St. Paul.  The change in Paul’s life was so significant that his name was changed: as Saul he was involved in the death of the first Christian martyr, St. Stephen.  As Paul, he became a powerful witness to the life of the risen Jesus.  Paul had a remarkable ability to articulate the message of Jesus and great deal of our theology rests on his letters, which were actually written before the gospels.  Yet he was also aware of his own limitations.  Paul never denied the past, and it says a lot about the freedom of the early Christians that he was accepted among them.  On the road to Damascus, Paul’s life was turned around. None of us can say when we might be travelling a similar road ourselves. 
Michael McGirr, S.J.

God, you taught the gospel to all the world through the preaching of Paul your apostle.  May we celebrate his conversion to the faith follow him in bearing witness to your truth.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Faith is that “pasture of God” wherein we abide with a God who is in us, above and below us, for us and always with us!

In his autobiography, Alec Guinness speaks of coming to faith:

“The winter hills nourish my faith.  There had been no emotional upheaval, no great insight, certainly no proper grasp of theological issues; just a sense of history and the fittingness of things. Something impossible to explain.  Pere Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. says, ‘The incommunicable part of us is the pasture of God.’ I must leave it at that.”

Today is the feast day of St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622).  The Protestant Reformation evoked a variety of responses on the part of Catholic apologists.  Some reacted defensively.  Not content with affirming the truth, they felt the church must aggressively denounce error and cause its suppression by any means necessary.  But others responded differently.  They perceived in the signs of the times a general summons to conversion and to a more intense aspiration for holiness. St. Francis de Sales was among the great saints of this time; he expounded a message of love and moderation that had enormous effect in reestablishing the vitality and credibility of the Catholic Church.

For years he trudged through some of the most dangerous Calvinist areas on foot, many times barely escaping assassination.  He lived in poverty, relying on alms, suffering through several harsh winters.  Rather than simply denouncing Calvinism, he chose instead to proclaim the positive message of the Gospel in a way that overcame the prevailing negative stereotypes of the Catholic faith.

Charles Miller, the father of former SJJ Director of Media Relations Gail Christie, passed January 20^th.  Pray for his peaceful repose and for Gail and her family.  Randy Badourous, the uncle of Jim Papadimos ’13, is battling serious cancer.  Jim asks for prayers. Pray for the students, faculty, and staff of St. Francis de Sales High School on this day of their patron saint. We prayed last week for the father of SJJ staff member and graduate Greg Rufty, who had serious surgery.  His surgery was a success; keep him in your prayers as he recovers. Lord, you gave Francis de Sales the spirit of compassion to befriend all men on the way to salvation.  By his example, lead us to show your gentle love in the service of our fellow men.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself.  I mean, do not be disturbed because of your imperfections, and always rise up bravely after a fall.
St. Francis de Sales

Today is the feast day of St. Agnes (d. 304?). It is said Agnes was born to a rich and noble family of Rome and that at a young age her beauty attracted the interest of many prosperous suitors.  She rebuffed them all, insisting that she had consecrated her virginity to her true spouse, Jesus Christ.  Her suitors denounced her as a Christian, and she was brought before a magistrate.  He in turn tried various forms of persuasion, ranging from mild entreaty to the display of instruments of torture.  But nothing would compel her to offer incense to the gods.  When she remained adamant, the governor had her condemned to a house of prostitution, where every man might have free use of her.  It was found, however, that she exuded such a powerful aura of purity that no one could lay a finger on her.  Infuriated by this young woman’s defiance, the judge then ordered her to be beheaded.  Agnes greeted the sentence joyfully and went to her death cheerfully.  She was thirteen years old.  

In this story of Agnes the opposition is not between sex and virginity.  The conflict is between a young woman’s power in Christ to define her own identity versus a patriarchal culture’s claim to identify her in terms of her sexuality.
All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time, Robert Ellsberg

Pray for a safe and blessed weekend for all.  Lord, you choose what the world considers weak to put the worldly powers to shame.  May we who celebrate the birth of St. Agnes into eternal life be loyal to the faith she professed.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

One Minute Wisdom

A despondent disciple complained that, because of his handicaps, he was being cheated by life.

“Cheated?” cried the Master.  “Cheated? Look around you man! With every moment of consciousness, you are being grossly overpaid!”
Fr. Anthony de Mello, S.J.

On this day Fr. Alessandro Valignano, S.J. (1539-1606) died in Macao, Goa.  The early Jesuit mission to Japan and China represented a remarkably prophetic chapter in the history of the church.  While elsewhere at the time, especially in the Americas, the spread of Christianity accompanied a policy of colonial conquest, in Japan and China the Jesuits insisted on a different approach. This involved distinguishing Christianity from any hint of colonial interest and even from European culture.  Instead the Jesuits sought as far as possible to root the gospel in the culture and mentality of their hosts.  Fr. Valignano was the architect of this form of bringing Christ to Asia.

He believed that the conquest model of evangelization would be fruitless in penetrating the ancient civilizations of Japan and China.  He entirely rejected the idea of Christendom – the assumption that there was an essential identity between Christianity and European society.  Rather than insisting that Asian Christians should adopt European culture, he believed it was essential that the church assimilate itself to Japanese and Chinese culture. 

He spent a good deal of time in Japan, but most of his Asian career was spent in India.  He never realized his dream to penetrate the interior of China.  This happened with his most famous protégé, Fr. Matteo Ricci, S.J.
All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time, Robert Ellsberg 

Kathleen Stockwell, sister of John Stockwell ’82 passed away January 15^th.  Also, Baxter Bell, father of Eric Bell ’82 died January 11^th – Mr. Bell was a great friend and contributor to SJJ.  Pray for their peaceful reposes and for their families.  William Rufty, the father of SJJ staff member Greg Rufty, had serious surgery yesterday: keep this in your prayers.  We pray, Lord, for the Church which is one in the greatness of your love, but divided by the littleness of our own.  May we be less occupied with the things that divide us, and more with those we hold in common, and the love that enfolds us all.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

What I liked most about my Catholicism was knowing I could be wrong, knowing I could behave badly, awfully in fact, and that I would still be loved.  That all I needed to do was own up and I’d be forgiven…with this God and father you could fail without feeling that it was the end of all hope.  And that was such a relief.
Gabrielle Carey, In My Father’s House

Today is the feast day honoring Blessed James Sales, S.J. (1556-1593) and Blessed William Saultemouche, S.J. (1557-1593) two members of the Society of Jesus (“Blessed” is the title of a person who is a step away from Canonization); both were martyred for their defense of Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist.

In 1590 Fr. Sales was appointed the chair of “controversial” theology at Touron, France.  It was his task to draw up a program of studies specifically designed to treat the religious controversies of the day; that is, to show the truth of Catholic teaching and answer the Protestants’ objections.  When the provincial of the Society learned of the quality of his teaching, he suggested that others could benefit.  Fr. Sales was then sent to Aubenas, France.  

In 1587, the Catholic people of Aubenas had overthrown the Huguenots (French Protestants), who had controlled the city for several years.  He was the perfect person to refute the Calvinist ministers of the city, whose boldness was increasing every day.  As his companion to this mission, he was given Br. William Saultemouche, S.J.  Fr. Sales preached on Catholic teaching with great courage; but the tension between the Catholics and Huguenots was increasing.  

In February of 1593, Fr. Sales and Fr. Saultemouche were arrested by Huguenot soldiers and were forced to defend Catholic teaching against some Calvinist ministers.  They defended Catholic doctrine at length with an emphasis on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  After a long period of debate, not being fed, and spending the night in a damp cell, both were asked to reject the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  When Fr. Sale refused to do this he was shot in the back; Fr. Saultemouche was stabbed to death with a sword.  The Calvinists had their bodies dragged through the streets like dead animals; their bodies were not buried.
Jesuit Saints and Martyrs, Joseph N. Tylenda, S.J.

Longtime faculty member Butch Welling’s shoulder surgery went well, but there will be a long, challenging rehabilitation. Keep this in your prayers.  Father, you see us sometimes like strangers on the earth, taken aback by the violence, by the harshness of oppositions.  And you come to send out a gentle breeze on the dry ground of our doubts, and so prepare us to be bearers of peace and reconciliation.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

The Nature of Faith

Faith rises and falls like the tides of an invisible sea…You realize, I think, that it is more valuable, more mysterious, altogether more immense than anything you can learn or decide upon in college.
Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being

This week two groups of sophomores go on retreat; all our students, faculty, and staff make a yearly retreat.  Our retreats are based on “Ignatian spirituality.” Everything we do at SJJ is based on this spirituality, but what is Ignatian spirituality?  

All “spiritualities” are “bridges” to God.  The way of Ignatius (his spirituality or “way of proceeding” to use one of his favorite expressions) is about finding freedom: the freedom to become the person you’re meant to be, to love and to accept love, to make good decisions, and to experience the beauty of creation and the mystery of God’s love.  It’s based on an approach found in his own writings as well as in the traditions, practices, and spiritual know-how passed down by Jesuit priests and brothers from generation to generation.  His spirituality can be found primarily within his retreat called “The Spiritual Exercises.”  At SJJ many faculty and staff have done this retreat, all our student retreats are based on it. 

Ignatius wanted his methods to be available to everyone, not just Jesuits.  From the first days of his Order, Ignatius encouraged Jesuits to share these insights not only with other priests, brothers, and sisters, but also with lay men and women.  “Ignatian spirituality” was intended for the widest possible audience of believers and seekers.
Some of the ideas above have been taken from James Martin, S.J.’s excellent book The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything.

Richard Krill, the father-in-law of SJJ Academy science teacher David Nichols, passed away Saturday; he had been suffering from a progressively debilitating disease for years.  Mr. Krill taught Latin at SJJ; he had written many articles and books in his field.  The showing will be Sunday at Walker Funeral Home from 2pm to 8pm; the funeral is Monday at 11am at Gesu Church.  Pray for his peaceful repose; keep David and his family in your prayers.  Robert Huebner, the father of senior Jake Huebner, died of a heart attack while on business in Seattle, Washington.   Pray for Jake, his mother and family at this difficult time.  Also, the grandfather of faculty member Sophia Braden died Saturday morning.  Sophia was very close to him: pray for his peaceful repose, and for Sophia and her family.  Faculty member Butch Welling is having surgery this morning; pray for the skill of the doctors and for the success of the surgery.  Lord, be my rock of safety, the stronghold that saves me.  For the honor of your name, lead me and guide me. (Psalm 30:3-4)  St. Ignatius pray for us.

Dear God, be good to me, The sea is so large and our boat is so small.
Old fisherman’s prayer

Contemporary culture has sometimes been described as a desert. This seems strange when there is so much of it: so many movies, so many restaurants, so many cars, so much music.  Surely a desert is supposed to be a place where there is very little, a vast emptiness.  In fact, there is a great deal in a desert.  The problem is that, from a human point of view, little of it nurtures life and so, surrounded by thousands of stones, people die for want of a little water.

Today is the feast of St. Anthony of Egypt, who lived in the third century.  His parents died as he was reaching adulthood and, taking literally the words of Jesus to give away all he owned and follow him, he relinquished his inheritance and moved in to the desert to live as one of the first Christian hermits.  At first, Anthony spent twenty years living in an abandoned fort near the Nile River.  At the end of that time, his friends forced their way into the fort to check on him.  They found, to their surprise, that he was not only healthy, but happy and sane.  Yet during his solitude, Anthony suffered terrible hallucinations.  His sanity came from learning to distinguish between what was real and what, although it seemed real, actually had no substance.  Few of us will go and live in the desert.  But the desert will come to us and in it our survival will depend on our ability to tell what is fake from what is real.
Fr. Michael McGirr, S.J.

Father, you called St. Anthony to renounce the world and serve you in the solitude of the desert.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

If there is any path at all on which I can approach You, it must lead through the very middle of my ordinary daily life.  If You have given me no single place to which I can flee and be sure of finding You, then I must be able to find You in every place in each and every thing I do.  In Your love all the diffusion of the day’s chores comes home again to the evening of Your unity, which is eternal life.
Father Karl Rahner, S.J.

Although the founding date of St. John’s Jesuit is listed as 1965, it was once a part of St. John’s University, which was founded in 1898 by German Jesuits who had been expelled from their homeland as part of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf.  Until World War I, St. John’s students were required to study German.  The high school was forced to close during the Great Depression, but alumni kept their Jesuit heritage and tradition alive through reunions and a play dealing with Jesuit life, “The First Legion,” whose ticket sales benefited Jesuit education.  In the 1965 the Jesuits reopened St. John’s on an estate near Toledo.  It was the first school in northwest Ohio to have central heat and air-conditioning. 
They Made All the Difference:Life-Changing Stories from Jesuit High Schools, Eileen Wirth

Donald Loeffler, the grandfather of Robert Mack ’13, died peacefully January 11^th: pray for his peaceful repose and for Robert and his family.  Pray for a safe and blessed weekend for all.  Father, watch over your family and keep us safe in your care, for all our hope is in you.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

Investigate the Noise

Later the Master said, “Investigate the noise that people make.  Then see through the noise that you yourself are making, and you will find nothing, emptiness – and silence.
Fr. Anthony de Mello, S.J., Awakening: Conversations with the Masters

Every U.S. Jesuit school but one must charge tuition, because Jesuit schools receive no subsidies from diocesan, federal or state sources.  Unfortunately, tuition never covers all the costs, which is why Jesuit schools must rely heavily upon fundraising.  Regis High School in New York City is the only Jesuit school in this country that can afford not to charge tuition, and this is exclusively because it has been fully endowed by generous, private benefactors.  St. John’s Jesuit is blessed with a very strong Board of Directors that give their time and resources freely to make-up the gap between tuition and the total cost of operating our school.  

Former SJJ staff member Mary Foote will be having cataract surgery tomorrow: pray for the success of this surgery.  Recently a graduate asked if we could pray for surgery he will be having soon.  Lord, help us to love you with all our hearts and to love all people as you love them.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

Rely on God’s Promises

People getting married promise each other their love and fidelity.  In signing contracts, employers and employees commit themselves to mutual obligations.  A mother drops off the kids for a movie and promises to be back in two hours.  Promise-making and promise-keeping hold families and society together.  Once trust has been broken, once promises are not kept, things fall apart.

Our God is a promise-maker and prayer puts us in contact with what God has vowed to do.  And what are some of God’s promises?  One is that God will be with us always.  It is a promise of presence and abiding concern.

Another is God’s promise to give us a new heart.  Perhaps we do not feel a need for a new heart and a new spirit but, honestly, there is a hardness and a meanness within each of our lives that needs a new spirit.  What is called for is not bypass surgery but a heart transplant.

A third promise is the gift of divine life.  God’s presence is powerful, a new heart and spirit is transformative, but God’s gift is a promise of infinite Love. 
Bishop Robert Morneau, Paths to Prayer

Our spiritual life and our growth in it is a many-faceted reality.  It includes knowledge and trust in God, our increasing realization of the presence of God in the events of our daily lives, especially in ourselves and in those around us, and a spirit of hope and faith in the power of God’s deep love for us.

The best step is some thoughtful reflection and consultation with someone in whom you have confidence, possibly a priest or religious, or a lay person, you can talk to about your ideals and concerns.  They will assist you in evaluating where you are, and the expectations you have of yourself, and what expectations others around you may have.  Much depends on whether or not you are married, have children, and their ages.  Your own age and experience of life are important factors.
Catholic Questions and Answers: Real Questions by Real People, Fr. John Dietzen

P.S. There are many people at SJJ that are trained in the area of spiritual guidance and would love to help: Tom Harms, Barb Bauer, Lucas Laniauskas, Tom Doyle, and I.

Faculty member Stacie Clark requests our prayers for her 96-year-old grandmother, Bobbie Clark, who is hospitalized with congestive heart failure.  She is in critical condition; Stacie would like us to pray for a peaceful death.  Faculty member Monni Telfer’s good friend Sheri Fink died recently from a fall on ice; the fall freed a blot clot which led to a stroke.  Pray for her peaceful repose and for her family.  The grandfather of faculty member Sophia Braden is on a ventilator; his condition is critical – he probably has a day or two - keep him and his wife in your prayers.  Lord, direct your love within us, that our efforts in the name of your Son may bring mankind to unity and peace.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The depths in us are not pools of stagnant bitterness but the waters of infinity springing up into eternal life.  It is easy to stir up slime; but it needs faith to see behind and through all these dark forces a much more powerful force – the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Fr. Karl Rahner, S.J. (1904-1984) He is considered by many to be the greatest modern theologian.  His constant theme was to find God in the ordinary experiences of our lives.

Some of the most difficult questions that confront the person of faith have to do with the nature of suffering, especially suffering in which there is no person to blame.  Why are children born with disabilities?  Why do people die in floods, fires and earthquakes?  Why does a young mother suddenly contract breast cancer?

These are impossible questions.  Christianity does not think of them as intellectual riddles which can ever be figured out to get the right answer.  Instead of an answer, Christianity offers a relationship.  The center of our faith is the lonely figure of Jesus on the cross, heartbroken and exhausted, enduring physical and emotional pain.  Jesus does not explain our suffering, nor take it away.  He shares it with us.  In the human suffering of Jesus, God has become part of the sometimes painful mystery of being human.
Michael McGirr, S.J. 

We pray for the thirteen wounded and six dead from the shootings at the Tucson, Arizona supermarket last Saturday.  Lord, the savagery that has taken place has wounded us as well.  We are reeling under the blow, unable to think clearly and aware of the cruel ways life can end.  In all the anger and perplexity of this time, help us to cling to you as the calm at the center of the storm; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

Keep the Faith

If then you remain constant in faith in the face of trial, the Lord will give you peace and rest for a time in this world, and for ever in the next.
St. Jerome Emiliani

Over the centuries the Catholic Church has developed a unique method for annually re-presenting in a vital way the entire life of Jesus Christ.  Known as the Church year, it celebrates various events related to the Savior on certain specified Sundays and other days of the year.  The central feast is Easter Sunday.  The Church relives on this day Jesus’ Resurrection, his victory over the powers of evil, darkness and death.  

As the Church developed, additional aspects of Christ’s life came to be singled out and celebrated with special feasts or seasons.  At Christmas we relive his birth and entrance into the world.  During Lent we walk with him through his forty days of prayer and fasting.   

The Christmas Season ended yesterday with the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.  Today begins Ordinary Time.  The Latin “Tempus Per Annum (“time throughout of the year”) is rendered in English as “Ordinary Time.”  This is the time outside the distinctive liturgical seasons (Advent, Christmas/Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost).  It runs for 33 or 34 weeks depending on the year.  Lent is the next liturgical season; Ordinary Time will continue until Lent begins on Ash Wednesday.  By the way, the priests in the Catholic Church wear the color green at masses during this time of the Church year.

Longtime faculty member Phil Skeldon would like our prayers for a nephew of his whose four month old daughter recently died in her sleep.  Last week we prayed for Colleen a close friend of staff member Greg Rufty who had serious surgery: the surgery was a success and she is recovering; keep Colleen in your prayer.  Lord, hear our prayers.  Help us to know your will and to do it with courage and faith.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

A Prayer in Times of Difficulty 

Lord of life
why do I anticipate the worst
when time and time again
the worst never happens?
Even when it does, life goes on
and every day comes to an end.
Lord help me to overcome my fears
in this brief moment of reflection.
calm my mind
help me to relax
let your comforting Spirit
enter into me
and fill me with peace.
Fred Topping

There will be an all-school mass today at SJJ.  The patron saints of Hurtado House and Mayer House will be honored.  The students in each of these Houses will be given special, up-front seating.  Fr. Rupert Mayer, S.J. (1876-1945) as a military chaplain during World War I volunteered to serve the young men on the “front lines” who were facing death as German soldiers.  His example of fearlessness won him the Iron Cross.  After the war Mayer challenged Nazi policies.  He preached all over Germany, often two or three times a day, even out of doors when the churches could not accommodate the crowds.  He was arrested by the Nazis and was confined to prison until the war ended.  His prison experience was grueling, his health deteriorated and he died shortly after his release.

Fr. Albert Hurtado, S.J. (1901-1952) and his family had been homeless.  As a Jesuit, he initiated ministries for Chile’s homeless people.  Throughout Chile and South America his name is associated with “El Hogar de Cristo” (Home of Christ), the Catholic charity that provides the homeless with a place to live. 

Faculty member Barbara Ramos traveled to New Jersey yesterday; her 90-year-old father needs emergency colon surgery.  This is serious surgery and Barbara requests prayers for the surgery and his rehabilitation - pray for Barbara’s mother, also.    Ferris Elgee, the grandfather of faculty member Sophia Braden is taking treatment for advanced brain cancer; the cancer was a surprise to everyone. Keep Ferris, Sophia, and her family in your prayers.  Special prayers for the students, faculty, and staff of Hurtado and Mayer House.  Pray for a safe and blessed weekend for all.  The Lord is our light and our salvation; whom shall we fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of our lives; of whom shall we be afraid? (Psalm 27)  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

Prayer for Courage 

When I feel threatened
or believe myself to be a failure,
give me courage to enter my still center,
the place of buried treasure
and sunshine
and solitude,
where you are, Lord,
and where it no longer matters
who approves of me
or how successful I am
because you are there,
and, in your presence,
I rediscover the confidence
to be me.
(prayer from Alcoholics Anonymous)

In most parts of the world, today is the traditional date for Epiphany, a feast which celebrates the visit of the Magi.  It is not known how many Magi there were.  The three gifts gave rise to the number that has been commonly used.  Some medieval Eastern lists have as many as 12.  The names assigned to them go back to the sixth century.  Melchior, an old man with white hair and a long beard; Caspar, young and beardless and ruddy complexioned; and Balthazar, black-skinned and heavily bearded.
The Little Blue Book of Advent and Christmas, Bishop Kenneth Untener

Staff member Amy Newblom will be having shoulder surgery today at noon; please pray for a successful surgery and recovery.  God, help us to love and care for those we find hard to like.  Teach us to understand and befriend all who have been hurt by life that they can only express themselves in hurtful ways.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Why God often permits good people, who are genuinely good, to be often hindered in their good works?

Our faithful God often permits his friends to weaken so that any support on which they might depend or rely should be taken from them.  For to a person who loves God it would be a great joy to perform many great deeds.  To be able to do this is a great joy and gives hope, and it lends people support and help and confidence in their undertakings.  But our Lord’s will is to take this away from them, because he wants to be their only support and confidence.  And his only reason for doing this is simply his goodness and mercy.  God is not moved to perform any deed by anything other than his own goodness.  Our deeds do not move him to give us anything or to do anything for us.  Our Lord wants his friends to forget such false notions, and this is why he takes this support away from them: so that he may be their only support. 
Meister Eckhart (1260-1328)… Eckhart was a Dominican philosopher and spiritual master; his teachings are among the most daring and profound in the history of Western mysticism. 

Yesterday’s saint was the first American-born saint; today’s feast day honors the first male American saint, St. John Neumann (1811-1860).  He was born in Bohemia; he wanted to be a priest but was told that Bohemia had enough clerics at the time.  Deep down he had an interest in becoming a missionary in the United States, and so he sailed to New York, arriving literally with his last dollar.  Ordained there, he was sent to Buffalo.  He covered a sizeable geographic area outside that city, because he was younger and stronger than the other priests.  He walked constantly to baptize, officiate at weddings, give the Eucharist, and comfort the dying.

He was sent to the sprawling city of Philadelphia at age 45 – an assignment he did not want.  He, eventually, was consecrated bishop and oversaw that city’s rapid development, fueled by the growing number of immigrants.  He built churches and schools – more schools than any other bishop in the country – and produced a German/English catechism.  Ironically, early on his superior reported to Rome that he was “a little inferior for the importance of such a distinguished city as Philadelphia, not in learning nor in zeal nor in piety, but because of the littleness of his person (John was five foot two) and his neglect of fashion.  

On January 5, 1860, he collapsed on Vine Street in Philadelphia and died at the age of 48.
Lives of the Saints, Fr. Richard P. McBrien

Second semester began yesterday: pray for our students and faculty in this new semester.  Special prayers for seniors who begin their last semester at SJJ.  God, you called John Neumann to a life of service, zeal and compassion for the guidance of your people in the new world.  By his prayers help us to build up the community of your people through the education of youth and through the witness of our brotherly love.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

Love Your Enemy

Loving only friends to the exclusion of enemies goes unrewarded by God.
St. Thomas Aquinas (St. Thomas is considered one of the greatest theologians of the Church.)

Today’s feast day honors St. Elizabeth Ann Seton the first American-born saint.  She was a woman who lived through almost all that can be experienced in a lifetime: religious conversion, travel, marriage, motherhood, financial problems, discrimination, widowhood, betrayal, losing a child, founding a religious order, and taking vows.   

Her mother died when she was three.  She married William Magee Seton at the age of nineteen; they had five children.  William Seton was a prosperous merchant; Elizabeth involved herself in charity work.  After six years of marriage her husband’s business failed, and by 1870 it was in bankruptcy.  William contracted tuberculosis which was exacerbated by his worry over his business.  They sold all they owned to sail to Europe hoping the trip would halt the progress of the disease.  This desperate strategy did not work: William died soon after they landed in Europe. 

Because of bad winter weather she was forced to stay in Italy after her husband’s death – her grief was overwhelming.  But it was at this time she found the Catholic religion – she converted to Catholicism and was baptized in 1805 and, eventually, became a vowed religious.  She founded the Sisters of Charity, the first community of active women religious begun in the U.S.  She laid the foundation of the American parochial school system; she wrote spiritual reflections, visited the sick and the poor, and established several orphanages.  She died of tuberculosis in 1821.
The Everything Saint Book, Ruth Rejnis

Staff member and SJJ graduate Greg Rufty requests our prayers for Colleen Fisher, the godmother of his children: she underwent triple-by-pass surgery yesterday.  She has a husband and one daughter. Pray for Colleen’s recovery and for her family.  Lord, you blessed Elizabeth Seton with gifts of grace as wife and mother, educator and foundress, so that she might spend her life in service of your people.  Through her example and prayers may we learn to express our love for you in love for others.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

Trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May today there be peace within.
     May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
     May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been
          given to you.
May you be content knowing you are a child of God.  Let this presence settle into
          your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.
Saint Theresa Lisieux

Yesterday was The Epiphany of the Lord.  In commemoration of the visit of the Magi to the home of the Holy Family, there arose the custom of blessing homes during the week of Epiphany.  The blessing includes marking the first initials of the legendary names of the Magi (Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar) at the top of the main door frame, along with the year, plus crosses in between the numbers and the letters.  This year it would look like this: 20 + C + M + B + 11.  

Today is the feast day called The Most Holy Name of Jesus.  In the biblical world the name stands for the person, and honoring the name is honoring the person.  May we always speak the name of Jesus reverently and recognize his powerful presence when we call his name (“Living With Christ”, January, 2011).

The Christmas Season ends this Sunday with the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.  After this the Church moves into a brief stretch of “Ordinary Time” for 58 days, until Lent starts. 

On December 15^th one of our young alumnus Krathik Hegde ’90 passed away, he was the uncle of Samir Rai ’13: pray for his peaceful repose and for Samir and his family.  Pray for our students, they begin the second semester of this academic year tomorrow.  Today they will receive first semester exam grades and final semester grades.  Father, hear our prayers.  Help us to know you will and to do it with courage and faith.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Look: I’ll define you a Christian people by the opposite.  The opposite of a Christian people is a people grown sad and old.
George Bernanos, The Diary of a Country Priest

Throughout this month we will gather with family and friends. Our focus will tend to be on the meals, gifts, and customs of the season.  But the people with whom we gather will bring with them their own issues, and many of them will be difficult.

Sickness, hurt, economic hardship, or grief may well be gathered in our homes.  God is calling us to be attentive to such burdens.  Jesus’ birth came within some unusual circumstances: Mary’s inexplicable pregnancy, and Joseph’s struggle to deal with it.  Mary and Joseph must travel to Jerusalem for a census, while she is her ninth month of pregnancy; and, of course, the birth which happens in a barn.  

When we face disruptions in life, we yearn for “things to get back to normal.”  We want to return to the way things were.  We endure the medical treatment, survive the divorce, outlive the rejection.  But as we seek to return to the place we were forced to leave, we discover that time has passed.  People are missing.  We have changed.  Things may in time return to a set routine, but not to the routine we once knew.  

Like Joseph we must trust that God will be found in strange and uncomfortable places.  Even when circumstances are new and difficult, we must trust they are part of God’s plan.  But God can be found in new places.  When God is with us, we can always find a home.
Fr. George Smiga, STD, “Finding God in the Margins of Life”, Living With Chris 

Pray for our students who will be taking their final exams of the first semester today.  Pray especially for our seniors who will soon begin their last semester at SJJ.  JD Bobo, the grandfather of Caleb Wallace ’12 passed away December 13^th: pray for his peaceful repose and for Caleb and the family.  Father, creator and redeemer of mankind, you decreed, and your Word became man, born of the Virgin Mary.  May we come to share the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share our human nature.  May we look for him in whatever place we find ourselves this Christmas.  Saint Ignatius pray for us

Letting God Define Our Life

I have found it very important in my own life to let go of my wishes and start hoping.  It was only when I was willing to let go of wishes that something really new, something beyond my own expectations, could happen to me.  Just imagine what Mary was actually saying in the words, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let what you have said be done to me” (Luke 1:38).  She was saying, “I don’t know what this all means, but I trust that good things will happen.”  She trusted so deeply that her waiting was open to all possibilities.  And she did not want to control them.  She believed that when she listened carefully, she could trust what was going to happen.

To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life.  It is trusting that something will happen to us that is far beyond our own imaginings.  It is giving control over our future and letting God define our life.
Henri Nouwen, The Path of Waiting

All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue.  It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.  With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, who have been made in God’s likeness.  Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing.  My brothers and sisters, this should not be.  Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?  My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs?  Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
The Epistles of St. James 3:7-12

 Pray for our students today who will be taking their math and modern language exams today.  Jim Thomas ’01 requests prayers for his father Jim Thomas who had a heart attack this morning.  Father, creator of all, you made visible your power and glory in the design of the world, culminating in the gift of your Son.  We give thanks for the great love you share with us.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

Words Can Hurt

A mother once listened to another tirade from her son who, now twenty-three, kept threatening to move out of the home but never did.  Instead of taking responsibility for his own life, he took all his frustrations out verbally on his mother and younger brother.  “You want to be careful” she said to him once.  “You’ll cut yourself on that tongue of yours one day.”  There are some things that have been said to us which we will never forget.  Words can hurt people deeply.  They can also give life.  They have a mysterious power which is, ironically, beyond words to describe.  It doesn’t hurt to remind ourselves of the power of our own words.  One of the images which scripture uses over and over to convey the experience of God is that of God’s word.  God’s word is never clichéd.  It is always original and always creative.
Michael McGirr, S.J.

Last Sunday was the third Sunday of this Advent and is called Gaudete Sunday (“Gaudete” means “rejoice.”  The opening prayer of the third Sunday of Advent in the old Latin Mass begins “Rejoice in the Lord.”) when the rose candle, the symbol of joy, is lit on the Advent wreath.  But what is there to rejoice about?  In the gospel reading at the beginning of Advent John the Baptist is freely proclaiming the coming of the Messiah, but he, obviously, sees the Messiah as one who will chop down the unworthy and burn the “chaff.”  But in last Sunday’s gospel John is in prison because of his preaching; he will soon be beheaded.

John thought that Jesus would conquer all evil; instead, Jesus was healing the lame and cleansing the leper.  He was not the kind of Messiah anyone envisioned.

What about our own expectations?  If we are honest with ourselves, there may be times when Jesus doesn’t fit into the nice, neat mold we have for him.  Times, perhaps, when a prayer isn’t answered the way we would like, or our idea about what is right and fair doesn’t fit with Jesus’ gospel.  Then what do we do? 

Advent invites us to start over, to leave behind the familiar and venture into the unknown.  Part of that can be letting go of pre-conceived notions about who Jesus is and how he should work in our lives, and opening ourselves up to new possibilities.  Let us begin to discover anew the Jesus born into our world at Christmas.
Adapted from an article written by Teresa Whalen Lux, “Living With Christ”

Pray for our students taking English and History exams today. Robert Cavalear, the grandfather of Will Gallup ’11, died December 4^th: pray for his peaceful repose and for Will and the families.  Father, may the coming celebration of the birth of your Son bring us your saving help and prepare us for eternal life.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

The Conditions of True Joy

How can man live so that his happiness begins to grow in his heart, giving his eyes and face a brilliant shine and his hands a satisfying ability and success? Joy in human life has to do with God…And that…is conditional upon our personal relationship to the Lord God.

The conditions for true joy have nothing to do with conditions of our exterior life, but consist of man’s interior frame of mind and competence, which make it possible now and again for him to sense, even in adverse external circumstances, what life is basically about.
(Father Alfred Delp, S.J. wrote the above meditation on Gaudete Sunday from a Nazi prison in Berlin, December 1944. Accused of conspiring against the Nazi government, he was tortured, imprisoned, and executed February 2, 1945.)

Today is the feast day of St. John of the Cross (1542-1591).  Few people can say that they have contributed a phrase to everyday speech.  But the Carmelite poet, St. John of the Cross wrote a significant work called Dark Night of the Soul from which we get the expression “dark night of the soul.”  This expression gets trivialized: a football player who was injured and had to take many weeks off from the game once described those three months as his “dark night of the soul.”  John’s dark night was a far more intense experience than a career blip.  It was a bleak experience of the absence of God in which God is somehow painfully present.  It was an experience of having nothing, not even any grasp of God, and finding that only in complete nothingness is any true experience of God possible.  John’s spirituality was surely for adults only!  John’s God was an impossible lover.  The intensity of his visions landed him in jail by the Spanish Inquisition where he was tortured and treated horribly.  Yet it was here that he wrote some of his best known poetry, work which has led to him being described as “the greatest poet of the love of God the church has produced.” 
Michael McGirr, S.J.

Pray for our students who begin semester exams tomorrow.  Longtime faculty member Barbara Wright requests our prayers at the death of her father-in-law Doyle Wright; he is the son of Jim Wright who subs here at SJJ.  Luann Dusseau, grandmother of Anthony Veller ’13 passed away at the age of 55 on November 20^th.  Pray for her peaceful repose and for Anthony and the families involved.  Father, you endowed John of the Cross with a spirit of self-denial and a love of the cross.  By following his example, may we come to the eternal vision of your glory. Saint Ignatius pray for us.

From the Wisdom of St. John of the Cross 

“Where there is no love, put love, and you will draw love out.” 

“Do not allow yourselves to be overly saddened by the unfortunate accidents of this world. You are not aware of the benefits that they bring and by what secret judgment of God they are arranged for our eternal joy.”

Her name comes from the Latin word “lux” which means “light,” and celebrations of her feast often include young girls wearing a crown of lights.  She is also patroness of the eyes. 

Little is known about St. Lucy, whose feast is today, except that she was martyred at the beginning of the fourth century, and quickly became a popular saint.  Tradition has it that during the persecution of the Emperor Diocletian, Lucy distributed her dowry to the poor and was suspected of being a Christian.  For this kind of deed, Lucy was reported to the authorities by the young man to whom she was betrothed. 

During the night on December 12 and 13, one can see meteors that come from the constellation Gemini.  These are known as “Lucy’s Lights.”
The Little Blue Book of Advent and Christmas, Fr. Kenneth Untener and Catherine Haven

Saint Anthony Crawford ’92 passed away recently from complications from an operation.  He was the assistant athletic director at Akron University and has coached basketball at St. John’s Jesuit; he was much beloved by many at SJJ.  The Society of Jesus requests prayers for Nicolas Eklou Komla a scholastic from the Central African Province of the Society of Jesus who was shot, execution-style, by a hooded individual wearing a military uniform on the way back from a celebration.  Pray for all the scholastics from this province.  A student from the home school district of faculty member Craig Batke committed suicide Thursday night: pray for this student, the families involved, and for Otsego.  Lord, give us courage through the prayers of St. Lucy.  As we celebrate her entrance into eternal glory, we ask to share her happiness in the life to come.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

Time to Wake Up 

Advent is a time of being deeply shaken, so that man will wake up to himself.  The prerequisite for a fulfilled Advent is a renunciation of the arrogant gestures and tempting dreams with which man is always deceiving himself.  Thus he compels reality to use violence to bring him around, violence and much distress and suffering.

Being shaken awake is entirely appropriate to thoughts and experiences of Advent.  But at the same time there is much more to Advent than this.  The shaking is what sets up the secret blessedness of this season and enkindles the inner light in our hearts, so Advent will be blessed with the promises of the Lord.  The shaking, the awakening: with these, life merely begins to become capable of Advent. It is precisely in the severity of this awakening, in the helplessness of coming to consciousness in the wretchedness of experiencing our limitations that the golden threads running between Heaven and earth during this season reaches us; the threads that give the world a hint of the abundance to which it is called, the abundance of which it is called, the abundance of which it is capable.
Alfred Delp S.J.

“I said if we’re going to do a Christmas show, we have to use the passage from St. Luke (about the birth of Christ).”
Charles Schulz, creator of the Peanuts comic strip

On this day in 1965, the classic “A Charlie Brown Christmas” premiered on TV.  It was based on the Infancy Narrative of St. Luke.  In the plot, Charlie Brown tries to find the true meaning of Christmas.  Linus recounts the story of the birth of Jesus.  The program won an Emmy and a Peabody Award, and led to more than 30 additional Peanuts shows.

In January 2000, Charles Schulz decided to retire his cartoon strip.  Just hours before the final “Peanuts” cartoon appeared in Sunday papers, he died in his sleep on February 12, 2000.

John Blakely ’83 passed away December 7^th.  He had four brothers and three nephews attend SJJ.  Nicholas Blakely ’12 is a junior at SJJ.  Pray for his peaceful repose and for the families.  Pray for a blessed and safe weekend for all.  All-powerful God, help us to look forward in hope to the coming of the Savior.  May we live as he has taught, ready to welcome him with burning love and faith.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Take Heart, the World Is More Than Its Burden

Once again, let us kneel down and pray for keen eyes capable of seeing God’s messengers of annunciation, for vigilant hearts wise enough to perceive the words of the promise.  The world is more than its burden, and life is more than the sum of its gray days.  The golden threads of the genuine reality are already shining through everywhere.  Let us know this, and let us, ourselves, be comforting messengers.  Hope grows through the one who is himself a person of the hope and the promise.

One more time, we want to kneel and pray for faith in life’s motherly consecration, in the figure of the blessed woman from Nazareth.  Already, today and for always, life is torn away from the cruel and merciless powers.  Let us be patient and wait, with an Advent waiting for the hour in which it pleases the Lord to appear anew, even in this night, as fruit and mystery of this time.
Alfred Delp, S.J., “Figures of Advent”

Today is the feast day of St. Juan Diego, a Christian Aztec Indian. On the morning of December 9, 1531, he was on his way to Mass.  As he passed a hill, not far from present-day Mexico City, he heard a voice calling him by name.  It came from a young Indian woman (the Blessed Virgin Mary) who instructed him to go to the bishop and tell him to construct a church on this hill, which was the site of ancient Aztec shrine to the mother goddess.  Juan faithfully carried out the assignment, but the bishop paid him no attention.  But the maiden was persistent, she instructed Juan Diego to gather a bouquet of roses which were growing, unseasonably, at her feet.  Juan gathered the roses in his cape.  Having gained another audience with the bishop, who demanded a sign, Juan opened his cape to present to him the roses.  To his astonishment, he discovered a full-color image of the Lady mysteriously imprinted on the rough fabric (This image hangs in a few places at SJJ).

So was born the cult of Our Lady of Guadalupe (as the Indian name of the Lady was rendered in Spanish).  But in a deeper sense this was the birth of the Mexican people – a fusion between the Spanish and indigenous races and cultures.  The fact Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared only ten years after the conquest of Mexico, a time when native Indians were languishing under the impact of oppression by their conquerors, was significant.  She spoke to Juan Diego in the Aztec dialect – not in Spanish – she looked Aztec and presented herself in terms of compassion and solidarity with the poor.  This was significant for the Aztec people.  God cared about them.  The bishop was convinced and a rich basilica was build that stands today.  After the appearance nine million Aztecs were baptized.
Robert Ellsberg, All Saint 

Eugene Davis the 94-year-old father of our tennis coach Jim Davis ’70 and Fr. Mark Davis ’78 was taken to MCO ER yesterday morning very ill – he could not get out of bed.  Please keep this in your prayers.  Almighty Father, give us the joy of your love to prepare the way for Christ our Lord.  Help us to serve you and one another.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

“Do you hear what I hear?” (From “The Little Drummer Boy”) 

We are no longer able to hear God – there are too many frequencies filling our ears.
Pope Benedict XVI

“Immaculate Conception” refers to the conception of Mary, not Jesus.  It expresses the belief that from the first moment of her existence, Mary was free from what Catholics call original sin.  This was celebrated as a feast day in England as far back as the 12^th century.  The feast was extended to the whole church by Pope Clement XI in 1708.

Why was December 8^th chosen for this feast?  In the sixth century, a new church in Jerusalem (named in honor of Mary) was dedicated on September 8.  They decided to celebrate this as the feast of Mary’s birth.  When, centuries later, a feast developed honoring her “conception,” it was a simple matter to place this nine months before the feast of her birth.  Thus, December 8.

Mary, under this title “Immaculate Conception,” is patron saint of the United States.   Today is a “holy day of obligation” in the Catholic Church: Catholics are required to attend mass on this day.  There will be an all-school mass today in the SJJ chapel.

Special prayers for our United States on this special day of our patron saint.  Longtime faculty member Barbara Wright requests prayers for Doyle Wright, the father of her husband Jim Wright – Jim does a great job subbing at SJJ when needed.  Doyle is in his 90’s and had a bad fall yesterday. Father, you prepared the Virgin Mary to be the worthy mother of your Son.  You let her share beforehand in the salvation Christ would bring by his death, and kept her sinless from the first moment of her conception.  Help us by her prayers to live in your presence without sin.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

A Special Woman

God we thank you
that you made yourself known
to someone without power, wealth or status;
and we praise you
for the courage of Mary,
this young woman from Galilee,
whose Yes to the shame and shock
of bearing your Son
let loose the unstoppable power of love
which changed the world.
A.A.

Last Sunday the Church lit the second of the four candles on the Advent wreath – we have three Advent wreaths at SJJ.  It is thought that the origins of the Advent wreath lie in pagan customs of people in the far northern countries of Scandinavia – customs that originated long before the birth of Christ.

Because they couldn’t do farm work outdoors in the winter, people brought into this homes the wheels of their wagons, decorated them with greens, put candles on them, and hung them from the ceiling on a wire.  Then they would twirl them to become a glowing prayer to the god of light in this time of winter darkness.  

Christians later adapted this to celebrate the coming birth of the Light of the World.
The Little Blue Book of Advent and Christmas, Catherine Haven

Pray for all our students and faculty as they prepare for semester exams next week.  God of all hope and joy, open our hearts in welcome, that your Son Jesus Christ at his coming may find in us a dwelling prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, on God now and forever.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

He that is humble ever shall

Have God to be his guide.
John Bunyon, The Pilgrim’s Progress

As I have said before this day is an important one in my house.  Our children knew that they would wake up with their Christmas stockings full of candy and a small gift or two.  They are children no more, but they still count on their St. Nicholas gifts; this day now includes their children.

“It is hard to reconcile the extraordinary influence and appeal of St. Nicholas (d.c 350) with the paucity of established facts about his life.  He is patron of Russia and Greece, as well as of many classes of people, including children, sailors, pawnbrokers, and prostitutes.  But as for his biography, it may be summarized in the simple statement that he served as bishop of Myra, a provincial capital in Asia Minor, sometime in the fourth century. “

“In one story about Nicolas, he rescued three girls whose father, for want of a dowry, was about to sell them into prostitution.  Nicholas tossed three bags of gold through an open window, enough to pay the dowry of each of the sisters.”  He was famous for his pastoral care, with many more stories of his charitable deeds.  He is the basis for the figure of Santa Claus.  In Holland it is still St. Nicholas who delivers presents to children on his feast day.
The quote above came from Robert Ellsberg’s All Saints book.

Pray for our freshmen who will take their first high school exams next week.  Lord, free us from our sins and make us whole.  Hear our prayer, and prepare us to celebrate the incarnation of your Son.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

Advent: the time of patient waiting.
A waiting person is a patient person.  The word “patience” means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.  Impatient people are always expecting the real thing to happen somewhere else and therefore want to go elsewhere.  The moment is empty.  But patient people dare to stay where they are.  Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there.  Waiting, then, is not passive.  It involves nurturing the moment, as a mother nurtures the child that is growing in her womb.
Father Henri Nouwen, The Path of Waiting

Great friend of St. Ignatius Loyola and patron saint of missionaries.

If you visit Malacca, now a part of Malaysia, you can see the tiny ship on which St. Francis Xavier SJ (1506-1552) travelled from his university background in Europe to the unknown regions of Asia.  The ship is not much more than the size of a bus and Xavier was notorious for suffering sea-sickness.  That ship says something about the stubborn side of Xavier’s character.  His fellow student, St. Ignatius, worked long and hard on Xavier while they were both at university in Paris to get Xavier to focus his considerable energy.  Xavier had an insatiable appetite for life.  Ignatius kept asking him what it mattered if he won the whole world but lost his soul.  Eventually, Xavier gave in.  When Ignatius sent Xavier to Asia, his determination worked to his advantage.  Not only did Xavier cover extraordinary distances (even today his journeys would be demanding) but he stood up to colonizers who were only interested in economic gain from new territories.  The gospel Xavier preached was one of justice.  His appetite for life never left him: he died off the coast of Canton, within view of China, another place unknown to him which he longed to visit. 
Fr. Michael McGirr, S.J.

Today is Christmas on Campus at SJJ which is put on by our Christian Service Department led by Mr. Phil Skeldon, Mrs. Kim Hall, and their student CORE Team.  At 10am 95 kindergarteners and first graders from Queen of Peace School and Rosary Cathedral School will arrive to meet their senior guide.  There will be a Santa Station, Cookie Station, Games Station, and a Movie Station.  This is all followed by gifts from Santa in our Main Gym.  Pray for the success of this day.  Father, by the preaching of Francis Xavier you brought many nations to yourself.  Give zeal for the faith to all who believe in you, that your people may rejoice in continued growth throughout the world. Saint Ignatius pray for us.

What good is it to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul?  Or what can you give in exchange for your soul?

(Mark 8:34-35)

If only, while they studied people would also study the account that God will demand for the talent he has given them, many might feel the need to engage in spiritual exercises, so as to discover God’s will in their hearts and to embrace it rather than their own inclinations, saying: “Lord, here I am.  What would you have me do?  Send me where you will.”
St. Francis Xavier, letter to St. Ignatius

Thirty years ago, on this date in 1980, four women from the United States were killed by government death squads in El Salvador.  They were Ursuline Sister Dorothy Kazel, Maryknoll Sisters Ita Ford and Maura Clarke, and lay worker Jean Donovan.  Salvadoran soldiers stopped them on a rural road, raped them, and then shot them to death.  They had been working for justice with the poor of the country.  

Five soldiers were sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment for the rape and murders.

Special prayers for Ursula Academy and the Ursuline Sisters on this day.  Pray for our students who are finishing the last full week of classes before semester exams.  Father, we need help.  Free us from sin and bring us to life.  Support us by your power.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

I hope you come to find that which gives life a deep meaning for you.  Something worth living for – maybe even worth dying for, something that energizes you, enables you to keep moving ahead.

I can’t tell you what it might be – that’s for you to find, to choose, to love. 

I can just encourage you to start looking and support you in the search.
The above was written by Sister Ita Ford to her 16-year-old niece and godchild. Three months later, on this day, Sister Ita and her three companions were killed in El Salvador.

St. Edmund Campion, S.J. (1540-1581) is among a number of martyrs of reformation England, including the poet St. Robert Southwell,S.J.(1561-1595), whom the church remembers today.  It was clear from an early age that Campion was an articulate man: he was a great wit and an orator, making his mark at Oxford at the age of fifteen.  We have all met people who look good socially.  Sometimes they seem carried away by their own rhetoric.  But the fact that there was real substance to Campion is shown by his willingness to step out of the limelight and to live in disguise as a Jesuit priest, hunted from place to place.  When he was finally betrayed, he was expected to debate theology with his captors between sessions on the rack.   He was hanged, drawn and quartered, a brutal and prolonged from of execution conducted partly for public entertainment. 

Fr. Southwell was captured in 1591.  He wrote the only literature available to English Catholics.  Remaining gracious during terrible tortures and a long, harsh imprisonment, Southwell betrayed no companions.  He was hanged, drawn and quartered. 
Michael McGirr, S.J. 

Our drama department at SJJ is called Campion Hall; it is led by Mrs. Barb Trimble and Mr. Frank Carnicom (faculty member Tim Malone led this group for years).  Pray for all who are a part of Campion Hall; they have given us so much entertainment over the years.  SJJ staff member Bev Hartwig requests our prayers for her mother, Kathleen Wirth: she is in the hospital after a bad fall.  Lord our God, grant that we may be ready to receive Christ when he comes in glory and to share in the banquet of heaven, where he lives and reigns.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

The True Source of “Peace on Earth”

The meaning of Advent and Christmas is the coming down of God’s love.  This love alone revolutionizes our lives.  Only God’s love, not the elevation of human souls, can effect a transformation of the world.  Those who mourn the futility of their own efforts receive the comfort of the love of God.  Those who are meekly obedient to his will are filled by the love of God, not as a prize to be won after death, but as redeemed life for this earth. 

Human love lifts up the Good Man.  It is just this that Christ reveals as missing the point, when he himself, speaking as a man, says, “Why do you call me good?  There is no one good but God.”  All our human goodness is relative; there is nothing in us immune from evil.  Besides, Christ came not for the righteous but for sinners, for all who can say, “Be it unto me according to your word.”  The peace on earth the angels proclaimed is reconciliation with God.  It is brought about by the coming of Christ into our poverty.  In John’s words, “Herein is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us.”
Philip Britts

Everyday at St. John’s Jesuit we stop at the end of period seven to pray the prayer that St. Ignatius Loyola called the Examen; everything stops – including offices and people walking in the hall.  The prayer is designed to enable believers to find God in their lives.  It also asks them to reflect on sin in their lives.  This may sound unhealthy – too much emphasis on Catholic guilt.  But today guilt may be undervalued.  The voice of our conscience, which tells us we did something wrong and moves us to make amends, is a voice that can lead us to become more loving and, ultimately, happier. 

Jesus typically does not condemn weak people who are trying to do better, that is, public sinners struggling to make amends.  Time and again Jesus reaches out to people who are ready to change and invites them to conversion.  More often, Jesus condemns the “strong” who could help if they wanted, but don’t bother to do so.  This insight can help you see where you failed to respond to God’s invitation in your day?  Where did you fail to bother? Where could you have been more loving? Perhaps you neglected to help a friend who needed just a few minutes of your time, or a sick relative hoping for a friendly phone call.  You could have, but you didn’t – you failed to bother.

Taken in part from James Martin, SJ’s bestselling book The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: Spirituality for Real Life

Former faculty member Michael Warner requests our prayer for St. Charles High School in Columbus (Where he teaches theology.).  Dominic Gregory, a sophomore, died suddenly from intestinal complications last Wednesday.  Michael gives his best wishes and his prayers to the SJJ community.  Lord, increase in us the will to listen to you and trust in your love.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

The Present Moment

The present moment holds infinite riches beyond your wildest dreams but you will only enjoy them to the extent of your faith and love.  The more a soul loves, the more it longs, the more it hopes, the more it finds.

Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J. (1675-1751) The Sacrament of the Present Moment

Whenever I mention a saint of the Society of Jesus I always put an S.J. after their name.  I also do this for the Jesuits who are part of our Saint John’s Jesuit community – Fr. Martinez, S.J., Fr. Doyle, S.J., Mr. Laniauskas, S.J., and Fr. Radloff, S.J.  One person told me that they thought it was an abbreviation of St. John’s Jesuit.

After every Jesuit’s name come the letters S.J.  Abbreviations like this are traditional ways of identifying members of a religious order.  Benedictines use O.S.B for the Order of St. Benedict.  Franciscans, O.F.M for the Order of Friars Minor.  Jesuits use S.J. for the Society of Jesus. 

Fr. James Martin, S.J., in his New York Times Bestseller book The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything - Spirituality for Real Life, wrote: “One alternative designation came from a woman who wrote an angry letter to America magazine complaining about something I had written.  “In your case,” she wrote, “S.J. obviously stands for Stupid Jerk!”

Dorothy Bailey, the mother-in-law of SJJ Board Chairman Geoffrey Lyden, passed away October 18^th.  Pray for her peaceful repose and for Geoff, his wife, and the families.  Pray for our students who will be finishing first quarter exams; today they take Science and Theology exams.  Pray for a safe and blessed weekend for all.  God of power and mercy, protect us from all harm.  Give us freedom of spirit and health in mind and body to do your work on earth.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

“How about some @#$% help God!”

Being honest with God means sharing everything with God, not just the things that you think are appropriate for prayer, and simply your gratitude and praise.  Honesty means sharing things you might consider inappropriate for conversation with God.

Anger is a perfect example.  It’s natural to be angry with God over suffering in our lives.  Disappointment springs from all of us.  Anger is a sign that we’re alive.

God can handle your anger no matter how hot it burns.  God has been handling anger as long as humans have been praying.  A few years ago, I told my spiritual director I was so frustrated that God didn’t seem to be doing anything to help me and that I used an obscenity in my prayer.  One night I was so angry that I clenched my fists and shouted aloud, “How about some @#$% help, God!”  He said to me “That’s a good prayer.  It is honest; God want your honesty, Jim.” 

James Martin, S.J., The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything (Our faculty/staff spiritual book group is reading this wonderful book; the group is led by longtime faculty member and Campus Minister Barbara Bauer.)

By far the most well known gesture of Catholic devotion is the sign of the cross.  At SJJ we start our community morning prayer with the sign of the cross.  The personal sign of respect and devotion began in the Middle Ages.  To make the sign of the cross, you begin by touching your forehead, moving our hand down to the breast, and then across to the left and then the right shoulder.  While making the sign of the cross, you recite the names of the persons of the Trinity. 

Catholics begin prayer with the sign of the cross; priests who officiate at Mass make the sign of the cross before and during the ceremony.  Bishops and priests make the sign of the cross in the air when they make blessings.  The bread and wine of the Eucharist are blessed by the sign of the cross.  The sign of the cross is used during baptism of children.  The priest makes a cross with his thumb on the child’s forehead, then the mouth, and then the breast.

The Everything Catholicism Book, Helen Keeler and Susan Grimbly

Joyce Gianino, grandmother of Zachary Kroggel ’12, passed away October 13^th: pray for her peaceful repose and for Zachary and his family.   Also, Thomas Fought, grandfather of Matthew Fought ’13, passed away October 4^th; keep this in your prayers.  Almighty and loving God, strengthen our faith, hope, and love.  May we do with loving hearts what you ask of us and share the life you have promised us.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The Energy of Life Itself

We tend to think that if we desire something, it is probably something we ought not to want or to have.  But think about it: without desire we would never get up in the morning.  We would never have ventured beyond the front door.  We would never have read a book or learned something new.  No desire means no life, no growth, no change.  Desire is what makes two people create a third person.  Desire is what makes crocuses push up through the late-winter soil.  Desire is energy, the energy of creativity, the energy of life itself.  So let’s not be too hard on desire.  (Ignatius Loyola felt that getting in touch with your deepest desires is to find your greatest happiness.)

Margaret Silf, Wise Choices

Today the Church honors two martyrs of the Society of Jesus: John de Brebeuf (1593-1649) and Isaac Jogues (1597-1646).  John de Brebeuf was missioned to bring Christ to the Huron Indians.  Studying the language, composing a grammar and dictionary, he and his companions devoted themselves to catechesis and care for the sick. Blame was heaped on them when drought or disease afflicted the village where they lived.  They held themselves ready to die “in the service of our good Master Jesus Christ.”  When the Iroquois attacked the Huron villages where he ministered, he was captured.  He ran a fierce gauntlet and endured excruciating tortures and mutilations in silence.

Isaac Jogues joined the Canadian mission in 1634.  He was captured by Mohawks, an Iroquois people, in 1642.  He was enslaved and tortured for thirteen months.  This included gruesome mutilation of his hands.  While in captivity, he continued to minister to his Huron fellow-captives.  He escaped to France, where he was honored as a living saint, only to return “so faith could be implanted in the souls of these people.”  He was captured again; he was stripped and beaten, his flesh cut out and eaten. 

M.C. Durkin, “Ours” Jesuit Portraits

Fr. Isaac Jogues, S.J. is the patron saint of Jogues House at SJJ; the Dean of Jogues House is Mike Schoen and the senior captain is Asher Rieck: special prayers are requested for the students, faculty, and staff of Jogues House.  Our students are taking English and Social Studies exams today; keep them in your prayers.  Father, you consecrated the first beginnings of the faith in North America by the preaching and martyrdom of Saints John Brebeuf, Isaac Jogues, and their companions.  By the help of their prayers may the Christian faith continue to grow throughout our world.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Bear sufferings with patience. 

“My hope is in God, who has only us with whom to fulfill his plans.  It if for us to be faithful and not to spoil his work by our cowardice.”  St. Isaac Jogues

“True peace is born of doing the will of God, and bearing with patience the sufferings of this life, and does not come from following one’s own whim or selfish desire, for this always brings, not peace and serenity, but disorder and discontent.

Pope John XXIII

Today is the feast day of the Gospel Luke. There are many occasions in his Gospel where you find Jesus eating meals with people others would avoid.  Perhaps Zacchaeus is the best known example (Zacchaeus was a tax collector – tax collectors were Jews who were hated because they colluded with the Roman occupiers.) but there are a number of times when Jesus is criticized for sharing his table with sinners.  This is evidence of the theme of compassion which is central to his gospel.  It is Luke who tells some of the most memorable stories of God’s compassion: the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son are all examples.  Luke includes stories of the Good Samaritan and the ten lepers.  Where Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount says “be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect,” Luke says “be compassionate as your father is compassionate.”  In Luke, Jesus shows compassion even during his sufferings: he looks lovingly at Peter at the moment of his denial, prays for forgiveness for those responsible for his death and promises paradise to the good thief.

Michael McGirr, S.J.

Pray for our students who will be taking exams and finishing the first quarter of this academic year.  Father, you chose Luke to reveal the mystery of your love for the poor.  Let all nations come to see your compassion as the only way to happiness.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

“Those who have been forgiven little love little.”  Jesus

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon Peter, “Do you see this woman?  I came into your house.  You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.  You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet.  You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet.  I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven – for she loves much.  But the one who has been forgiven little love little.”

Luke 7:44-47

Today the Church honors St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) who is one of the most engaging and attractive writers in the history of Christian mysticism.  She lived in a period of great upheaval in Christianity, being born two years before Luther drew up his famous ninety-five theses attacking the corruption of institutional Catholicism.  Teresa saw Christianity under threat and brought new life to it in a time of argument, debate and conflict.  She did so by describing another path to God than one which relies on argument and debate.  Her “Way of Perfection” emphasizes quiet, contemplation and teaching based on a personal relationship with God: “I shall speak of nothing of which I have no experience, or which the Lord has not taught me in prayer.”  God will gradually be revealed to those who love God, those who are God’s friends.  Friendship with God is the great theme of Teresa’s writing, but she was aware that friendship is not always easy.  Teresa had a homely sense of humor: she wrote the “Way of Perfection” knowing that none of us is perfect.  We can only be the best friends of God we can.

At St. John’s Jesuit we celebrate daily mass in our chapel at 7:45; all are invited to this mass, even those outside the school community.  Once a month we celebrate mass as a community.  Today is a mass day at SJJ: the Blessed Miguel Agustin Pro, S.J. (1891-1927) and Saint Isaac Jogues (1597-1646) will be honored – along with St. Teresa of Avila.  Pray for the students, faculty, and staff in Pro House and Jogues House on this day – they will have special seating at today’s mass. Pray for all our students who will be taking first quarter exams next week.  Pray for a blessed and safe weekend for all.   Lord, your love raised up St. Teresa to show us the way to you.  May her inspiring teaching awaken in us a longing for greater and greater friendship with you.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Fear not the road ahead.

They who really love you, my Good God, walk safely on a broad and royal road.  They are far from the precipice.  Hardly have they begun to stumble when you, Lord, give them your hand.  One fall is not sufficient for a person to be lost, nor are many, if they love you and not the things of the world.  They journey in the valley of humility.  I cannot understand what makes people afraid of setting out on the road to perfection.  May the Lord, because of who he is, give us understanding of how wretched is the security that lies in such manifest dangers as following the crowd and how true security lies in striving to make progress on the road to God. 

Saint Teresa of Avila

Today the Society of Jesus honors St. John Ogilvie, S.J. (1579-1615).  After an absence of twenty-two years, Fr. Ogilvie returned to his native Scotland in 1613 to begin a missionary career that lasted only eleven months and ended in martyrdom.  Catholicism was not permitted in Scotland at the time: to be a priest administering the sacraments was a capital offense. 

John was brought up a Calvinist, which was the established religion of Scotland.  When he reached his seventeenth birthday he determined to become a Catholic and went to Louvain, Belgium, where he reconciled to the Catholic Church.  He entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1599; he took final vows in 1610. 

Fr. Ogilvie was quite eager to return to Scotland and work among the Catholics who secretly wished to continue their faith.  He did get permission from the Society of Jesus and entered Scotland disguised as a horse dealer.  Secretly he administered the sacraments and was a great success.  In Glasgow, he was betrayed by an acquaintance and was arrested and taken before the Protestant archbishop.  He was imprisoned and beaten then thrown into a dark, stench-filled cell where his feet were weighed down to add to his discomfort and he was tortured.  Through it all he refused to renounce his Catholic faith and swear allegiance to the King of England.  Clutching a rosary, he was hanged; he did not die immediately the hangman had to grasp his legs and sharply tug to make his death less painful.

Jesuit Saints and Martyrs, Joseph Tylenda, S.J.

Former faculty member Joe Czernicki (Joe and former faculty member and football coach Fred Beier were at SJJ from the first day of its opening) is in assisted living; he is not doing well.  Keep him in your prayers.  Francis Sidle passed away surrounded by his loving family on October 10^th.  He was the Father-in-Law of faculty member and football coach Doug Pearson and grandfather of Nate Pearson ’12.  Pray for his peaceful repose and for Doug, Nate, and the Pearson’s and the Sidle’s.  Lord, our friend and guide, make your love the center of our lives.  May we turn to you in all we do and trust in your deep love for us.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Everything we do has meaning. 

How do I happen to believe in God?  I will give one more answer which can be stated briefly.  Writing novels, I got into the habit of looking for plots.  After awhile, I began to suspect that my own life had a plot.  And after awhile more, I began to suspect that life itself has a plot.

Frederick Buecher, The Alphabet of Grace

Doesn’t God know what is best for us, and won’t he do that if he really loves us regardless of what we ask for – or for that that matter, whether we pray at all?  

Did it ever occur to you that what is best may be different if we are praying desperately for something than if we are not?  We are individuals, all different, even in our deepest relationship with God and the world.  Our humility before God, our trust in him, our conviction in faith and love that something will be good for us – all this goes in to determine what is really best for us in God’s eyes here and now.

This surely does not mean that we ought always to receive exactly what we want, as we want it.  But prayer, and that means above all a habitual prayerful attitude before God, affects us deeply so that we are not the same persons we would be if we did not pray.  Therefore, what is best for us will be different, too, in God’s eyes as well as our own.

Fr. John J. Dietzen (An award-winning popular author who offers candid information and advice on moral questions.)

Pray for Max Shiple ’09 who is ill and may need a liver transplant. Kenneth Weislak, uncle of sophomore Devin Wozniak, passed away recently: keep Devin and his family in your prayers.  Also, David Kunkel, uncle of junior Dominic Scarlett and freshman Gabriel Scarlett died under hospice care October 4^th.  Keep this in your prayers.  Father, your love for us surpasses all our hopes and desires.  Forgive our failings, keep us in your peace and lead us in the way of our happiness.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Be careless of the worlds’ delights.

With all due reverence for God’s gifts, it is my opinion that we should be quite careless of all delights and consolations of sense or spirit, regardless of how pleasurable or sublime they may be.  If they come, welcome them but do not rest in them; believe me, you will expend a good deal of energy if you remain long in sweet feelings and tears.  Possibly too, you may begin to love God on their account and not for himself.  You will know whether or not this is happening if you become upset and irritable when you do not experience them.  Should you find this to be the case, then your love is not yet perfect.  When love is perfect, it may allow the sense to be nourished and strengthened by sweet emotions and tears, but is never troubled if God permits them to disappear. 

The Cloud of Unknowing (This spiritual masterpiece was written in Middle English by an unknown mystic of the fourteenth century. 

Last week I mentioned the network of Jesuit schools in the United States.  Almost since the foundation of the Society of Jesus in 1540 Jesuits have been engaged in the work of education.  At first Jesuit schools were directed toward the training of new members of the Society.  Then, in 1548, at the request of the citizens of Messina, Italy, Jesuits opened their first school for lay students.  The schools of the Society of Jesus were the first to teach many students, separating them in grade levels with a systematic course of studies – as schools are structured today.  Before this education was in small groups, or one-on-one tutoring for the wealthy. 

Today there are 3,370 Jesuit educational institutions throughout the world, caring for just over 2.5 million students.  A little over 4,500 Jesuits and 125,000 lay partners work together in the educational apostolates of the Society of Jesus.

www.jesuits.org

We pray for the miners in Chile who are near rescue. Pray for our students who will take first semester exams this week.  Pray, also, for our seniors who are working  to find the right college for next year.  Lord, as you guide all of creation according to your law and love, may we love on another and come to know the happiness you have prepared for us.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Medieval Dragons and Fears

If we are not willing to be led through fears and anxieties, we will never see or grow.  We must always move from one level to a level we don’t completely understand yet.  Every step up the ladder is taken in semi-darkness, by the light of faith.  The greatest barrier to the next level of conscience or consciousness is our comfort and control at the one we are at now.

Our first response to anyone calling us to the truth, greatness, goodness, or morality at a higher level will be increased anxiety.  We recoil in terror and say, “I don’t know if I want to go there.”  At the edge of medieval maps was frequently penciled the warning: “Here be dragons.”  We confront dragons when we approach the edge of our comfort level.  That’s our usual first response when we’re to a higher level. 

Everything Belongs, Richard Rohr

The Society of Jesus was founded in 1540; the Society of Jesus built its first school in Messina, Italy in 1547.  St. John’s Jesuit is part of a network of 59 Jesuit high schools in the United States (There are many more worldwide.); these schools educate approximately 40,000 young men and women yearly.  Well over 95% of their graduates continue education at the college level.  Almost all of the schools are in major metropolitan areas and nearly a third are located within the inner city. 

Fifteen of the 59 schools are coeducational.  Approximately 18% of all Jesuit high school students are minorities.  Jesuit schools employ over 3,000 full and part-time faculty, including nearly 300 Jesuits.  Three-quarters of the schools have lay persons or members of other religious communities as their principals.  Five schools have lay presidents at the helm. 

From the Jesuit Conference homepage (www.jesuits.org)

Michael Breininger ’01 and his wife Danielle recently announced the birth of 6lb., 7oz. baby boy Dylan Michael Breininger.  Pray for Dylan, Michael and Danielle.  Pray for our seniors on their last day of Kairos: the theme of the day is “living the message of Christ.”  How is love and service in deeds, not merely words, demonstrated in their lives?  Pray for a safe and blessed weekend for all.  Lord, may we serve you with all our heart and know your forgiveness in our lives.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Fall In Love

Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.  What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.

It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evening, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.

Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J. (He was the superior general of the Society of Jesus from 1965 to 1983.

Today’s feast, Our Lady of the Rosary, began in the late fifteenth century.  Because of its intrinsic worth as a form of vocal and contemplative prayer, the rosary has been a favorite devotion of Catholics for centuries.

October is the month of the rosary.  Many of the world’s religions us a type of prayer known as a mantra.  This involves the repetition of a word or phrase.  The idea is to still the mind so that the heart can focus.  It allows prayer to move from an intellectual exercise to an expression of love.

The rosary is a bit like that.  Each decade of the rosary involves saying an Our Father, followed by ten Hail Marys and finally a Glory Be.  Each decade focuses on the life of Jesus or of his mother, Mary.  The constant repetition of simple and familiar prayers allows a particular mystery to take hold of a person more deeply. 

Pray for our seniors as they begin their third day of Kairos.  The theme for today is “What is Christ’s message for me?” Retreatants will have time to reflect on the obstacles which stand between themselves and God.  Father, through your Holy Spirit, Mary the Jewish girl conceived your Son; may his beauty, his humanity, his all-transforming grace be born in us, and may we never despise the strange and stirring gentleness of your almighty power.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

Mary, My Advocate

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

I choose you this day

to be my queen, my patroness, and my advocate,

and I firmly resolve never to leave you,

and never to say or do anything against your honor.

Receive me, then, I beg of you, for your servant forever.

Help me in my every action,

and abandon me not at the hour of my death.

Amen.  

St. John Berchmans, S.J. (1599-1621)

He entered the Society of Jesus at the age of 17.  During his brief life he quickly gained a reputation for being observant and faithful to his religious duties and his studies.  He is the patron saint of Saint Johns Jesuit High School – I believe there is only one other school in the Society of Jesus that has John as patron.

St. Ignatius is the patron saint of retreats and, because of this, all Jesuit schools have very good retreat programs for students, faculty, and staff.  At St. John’s Jesuit, all students, faculty and staff are required to do one retreat each school year.  The freshmen, sophomore, and junior retreats span two to three days.  The senior retreat is called the Kairos Retreat (Kairos means “the Lord’s time.”); it goes for four days.  Our first Kairos retreat was during the 1988-89 school year.  Since then it has grown in popularity; our retreats for underclassmen purposely build to this senior spiritual experience.

The purpose of Kairos is to create an atmosphere in which retreatants can know about and experience Christ more deeply in a setting of Christian community.  The living spirit of Christ hopefully becomes visible in all those present.  I have done 28 Kairos retreats and I have not seen a retreat that did not experience this Christian community.

Yesterday 73 seniors began their Kairos retreat: 35 went to Maria Stein Retreat House in the Dayton area and 38 to Colombiere Center, a Jesuit complex in Clarkston, Michigan.  The theme for the yesterday was “Who am I?”  All were led to view their lives as they really are.  Today’s theme will be “Who is Christ in my life?”  “How does God show his love for me in my life?”  Pray for the success of these retreats.   Special prayers for the retreat team.  Lord, you renew us and make us your children in Christ.  Look upon us, give us freedom and bring us the happiness you promised.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

Wisdom

It always pleased the master to hear people recognize their ignorance.

“Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one’s awareness of one’s ignorance, “he claimed.

When asked for an explanation, he said, “When you come to see you are not as wise today as you thought you were yesterday, you are wiser today.”

Fr.Anthony de Mello, S.J.

It is true that every sin is first and primarily in our will, not in what we do.  The essence of any sin is that it is a deliberate, freely chosen, action against the law of God.  This means before any external action takes place, our will, which is meant to be directed toward love and toward God, says: “In this I will not obey; in this I will do what I want, not what God wants.”  When this happens, as Jesus himself tells us, we have already sinned.   Actions are important, but it is the sinfulness of our hearts, the sinful leanings in our will that lead to those deeds, that must be dealt with above all if we are to renew our lives.

A Jesuit once told me that Jesus wants all of us, not just part of us; Jesus’ love for us is without limit, our response to him in love frees us to totally trust him.  But God understands our human weakness; he forgives and can help us reform our heart. 

Taken from Catholic Q & A, Fr. John J. Dietzen

Two groups of our seniors will begin their Kairos Retreat today after school.  Kairos means “the Lord’s time.”  We have been doing Kairos retreats since 1986 - close to 60 of these powerful retreats.  Pray for our seniors as they begin the last retreat of their time at SJJ.  Lord, every good thing comes from you.  Fill our hearts with love for you, increase our faith, and by your constant care protect the good you have given us.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

I have discovered nothing.  I have simply opened my eyes to what I knew.  I have come to the recognition of that Power that not only gave me life but now too gives me life.  I have been set free.  I have found the Master.

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“We have no right to glory in ourselves of any extraordinary gifts, since these do not belong to us but to God.  But we may glory in crosses, afflictions and tribulations, because these are our own.”

The above words are those of St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) whose feast day is today. Born in Assisi, Italy the son of a wealthy silk merchant, he was a privileged boy, attracted to adventure, frivolity and tales of romance.  At the age of twenty he donned a knight’s armor and joyously headed off to battle with personal glory in mind.  He was immediately taken prisoner and spent a difficult year in jail.  Upon his release and return he succumbed to a serious illness.   These experiences led to a spiritual crisis.

Francis had always been a fastidious person with abhorrence for paupers and the sick.  One day, while riding, he saw a loathsome leper.  Dismounting he shared his cloak with him and then, moved by some divine impulse, kissed the poor man’s ravaged face.  From this experience Francis’ life began to take shape around an utterly new agenda contrary to the world and his own, former, values.

He, eventually, formed a new order called the Friars Minor.  He encouraged his brothers to welcome ridicule and persecution as a means of conforming the folly of the cross.  They lead lives of poverty, simplicity, and humble service, while delighting in creation and consumed with the love of Christ.  He also demanded they live nonviolent lives.  He died October 3, 1226.

All Saints, Robert Ellsberg

Father, you helped St. Francis to reflect the image of Christ through a life of poverty and humility.  May we follow in Francis’s footsteps by imitating his joyful love.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Francis, the wolf, and the language of anger.

There’s the story about St. Francis of Assisi and a ravenous wolf.  The townsfolk were terrified by a wolf which had taken their livestock and killed some citizens.  They sent for Francis who had a few quiet words with “brother wolf.”  Francis told the wolf that he deserved to be hacked to death.  Strangely, these words had a calming effect on the wolf who gave Francis his paw in a promise to do no further damage.  Francis, then, made the townsfolk feed the wolf for the rest of its life.  What the citizens saw as a miracle was in fact a restoration of justice.  It’s likely that the expanding economy of the town had caused its agricultural industries to encroach on the habitat of the wolf.  The wolf had attacked because it was hungry.  Francis had set the townsfolk free by calling them back to their responsibilities.  Francis understood the alienating language of anger in which the wolf was responding to the degradation of its environment.  Francis is honored as a prophet of peace; he understood anger.

We have this story from a medieval biographer.

The above are the words of St. Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897), whose feast day is today.  Born in Lisieux, a small town in Normandy, her mother died when she was four.  She received permission to join the Carmelite convent of Lisieux at the young age of fifteen and spent the rest of her short life within the cloister of this obscure convent. 

We only know her great piety through her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, in which she described her path to holiness she called “the Little Way.”  Simply put, this meant performing her everyday actions and sufferings, each petty insult or injury in the presence and love of God.  Therese had no visions, no ecstasies like other saints.  She did not hear Jesus speak to her.  She was, you might say, like one of us. 

She died of tuberculosis on September 30, 1897 at the age of twenty four.  The last years of her life were of protracted period of agonizing pain as well as spiritual desolation.  Before the end her sufferings would constitute a virtual crucifixion. 

The Everything Saint Book, Ruth Rejnis

The funeral of Mark Rasmus is today; he was a great supporter of St. John’s Jesuit.  His son Marcus Rasmus is our Director of Annual Giving and an SJJ graduate.  Pray for his peaceful repose and for his family.  This is Homecoming Weekend at SJJ: pray for a spirited, safe, and successful weekend.  Pray for a safe and blessed weekend for all.  Lord, you have promised your kingdom to those who are willing to become like little children.  Help us to follow the way of St. Therese with confidence so that by her prayers we may come to know your great love for us.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The Little Way

“You know that our Lord does not look at the greatness or the difficulty of an action but at the love with which you do it.”

“You sent me off to fetch one of father’s big glasses and had me put my little thimble alongside it; then you filled them both up with water and asked me which I thought was fuller.  I had to admit that one was just as full as the other because neither of them would hold any more.  That was the way you helped me to grasp how it was that in heaven the least have no cause to envy the greatest.”

Therese of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul

Today is the feast day of St. Jerome (331-420); learning was the passion of his life.  In his youth he cared far more for classical poetry than he did for the vulgar Greek of the Gospels.  One night in a dream the Great Judge asked him where he stood.  When he answered “A Christian,” the Judge responded: “You lie.  You are a Ciceronian, not a Christian.  Where your treasure is, there is your heart.”  On waking he resolved to make a break with the world, to retire to the life of a desert hermit; he devoted himself strictly to the study of God’s books.

He made use of his solitude by studying Hebrew and ancient Greek so he could read the Bible in the original languages.  At this time Latin was the common language, and, because of this, most did not have direct access to the Bible.  Because of his skill in Hebrew and Greek, Pope Damasus in 382 gave him the task of translating the whole Bible into Latin – his Latin Vulgate Bible became the official text of the church for over fifteen hundred years. He died on this day in 420.

All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time, Robert Ellsberg

St. Paul, Minnesota is facing a possible flood; pray for this community, and for Novice Master Fr. Thomas Pipp, S.J. and the Jesuit novices – which includes our own Keith Kozak who is a first year novice – whose novitiate is in St. Paul. Father, you gave St. Jerome delight in his study of Holy Scripture.  May your people find in your word the food of salvation and the fountain of life.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The Turning Point

During what seemed like months of rain I was carrying a tray load of food to a wormy litter of pups down at the kennels when I slipped and fell on my back, dog dishes shooting in all directions.  I lay where I had fallen, half-blinded by rain under a pale sky, cursing through watery lips a God in whom I did not believe.  I began laughing, finally, at my own helplessness and hopelessness, in the mud and the stench from my filthy old oilskin.  It was the turning point.  My disbelief appeared as farcical as my fall.  At that moment I was truly humbled.

Patrick White,Flaws in the Glass (This book is an autobiography by the only Australian born writer to have won the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature.  His works struggled constantly with the issue of belief in God.  He died on this day in 1990.)

Today the Church recognizes the archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.  These three angels are also venerated in the Jewish tradition.  While this date was once dedicated solely to Michael (It was called Michaelmas Day), it now commemorates all three who represent the primary roles of angels.  Michael (“Who is like the Lord”) is a warrior and special protector against evil.  Gabriel (“God is mighty”) is a messenger who announces the Messiah’s coming and the births of John the Baptist and Jesus.  Raphael (“God heals”) serves as a guardian angel.  We are all called to be warriors against evil, announcers of God’s love, and guardians of those who need help. 

Living With Christ, September 2010

We give thanks to the Lord for all those people in our lives who have passed on and who protect and guard us from heaven. Lord, in a wonderful way you guide the works of angels and men.  May all who constantly serve you in heaven keep our lives safe from all harm on earth.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Companions for the Journey

If you read the book of Tobit in the Old Testament you will discover the story of a good man and a good woman, Tobit and Sarah.  Tobit was blinded by bird droppings and Sarah is troubled by a demon which caused each of her seven husbands to die on their wedding night.  Both of them pray to God for death.  Instead, the archangel Raphael intervenes to free them.  He does this by becoming the travelling companion of Tobit’s son, Tobias, who marries Sarah. 

The story is a fable.  It makes the simple point that God sends the companions we need at the right moments of our lives.  Before leaving, the angel asks Tobit to write his experiences down for others.  We could ask ourselves if there are angelic experiences of our own we could relate to others. 

Michael McGirr, S.J.

Catholics do not interpret the Bible as the full message of God but as a component – the written message that must be interpreted together with the oral traditions passed down to us by the apostles.  Through the example of their lives and work, their preaching after Jesus’ death, and the institutions they established, the apostles continued to pass on the Gospel.  Today’s Church leaders are direct successors to the apostles, passing down through the ages the wisdom learned in earlier times. 

The Catholic Church does not insist on the literal meaning of the Bible, but it looks behind the words for the intent of the Great Author.  Church tradition and acquired belief is just as important as words written in the Bible. 

The Everything Catholicism Book, Keeler and Grimbly

Lord, strengthen our faith, hope, and love.  May we do with loving hearts what you ask of us and come to share the life you promise.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Pray From the Heart

We must pray in everyday life.  Again and again, weariness and indifference must be overcome.  We must endeavor to make our prayer a matter of our heart.  We must make our daily prayer a deliberate attempt to turn our minds from busy concern with our mundane affairs, that we may be able to commune in a vital manner with God in the silence of our hearts.  This cannot be done as long as we simply cling to a few set formulas which we have probably learnt as children.

Fr. Karl Rahner, S.J. (He has been called the greatest Catholic theologian of our time.  He is the rare theologian whose writings were equally scholarly and accessible in his more popular works.)

Today is the feast day of St. Vincent De Paul (15j81-1660).  Born of a French peasant farmer, he attended university and was ordained to the priesthood (1600).  He devoted his life to acts of charity, organizing groups to provide food and clothing for all who were poor: orphans, prostitutes, the sick, the disabled, and the homeless.  The St. Vincent de Paul Society was founded in 1833. Its work includes drop-in centers, summer camps, and work with the homeless and the aged, and other outreach programs. 

Today the Society of Jesus celebrates its founding 470 years ago.  Pope Paul III established the Jesuits on September 27, 1540.  As with St. Vincent, the Society of Jesus dedicates itself to serving the poor of the world.  All Jesuit high schools have strong service programs.  St. Ignatius and his companions always found time to serve in hospitals and the poor wherever they lived.  The founding Jesuit document states, a Jesuit “should show himself ready to reconcile the estranged, compassionately assist and serve those who are in prisons and hospitals, and indeed perform any other works of charity…” for the greater glory of God.

Mark Rasmus, the father of our Director of Annual Giving Marcus Rasmus, passed away Saturday morning.  Pray for his peaceful repose and for Marcus and his family.  Pray for all Jesuits on this birthday of the Society of Jesus. Pray for those who suffer hardship in any way.  Pray for all who work with the poor and suffering.  The Spirit of God is upon me; he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, and to heal the broken-hearted. (Luke 4:18)  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Words of Wisdom from St. Ignatius Loyola

He who loves perfection must be filled with humility like a lamp of oil: for lamps are full within and give light without, and their influence makes itself felt in whatever direction they are turned.

If you seek peace and tranquility, you will certainly not find them so long as you have a cause of disturbance and turmoil within yourself.

Self-love does a great deal; frequently it deludes our mind’s eye so as to make us think things impossible that, if we saw them clearly, would evidently appear easy and even necessary.

Today’s feast day honors St.Padre Pio (1887-1968) a Capuchin Friar and mystic.   He was forced to carry a double cross.  On the one hand he bore the painful, bleeding wounds that marked his body with the passion of Christ.  And the same time he endured the burden that came from being popularly acclaimed as a living saint.  It is hard to say which was the heavier burden.

Like St. Francis of Assisi, Padre Pio was a stigmatic; he bore on his hands, feet, and side the wounds of Christ’s sufferings.  These mysterious open wounds, for which no natural explanation could be determined, appeared on his body in 1910.  They remained until some months before his death over fifty years later, continuously bleeding, and causing great suffering.  He was credited with literally thousands of miracles, including such feats as restoring sight to a man born with no pupils.

He died on this day in 1968.

Saints, David Ellsberg

The father of Marcus Rasmus, our Director of Annual Giving, is battling cancer; he was moved to Hospice care yesterday.   Pray for former staff member Keith Kozak who entered the Jesuit novitiate at St. Paul, Minnesota recently.   Also, pray for the Novice Master at the St. Paul novitiate, former teacher, Vice President of Jesuit Identity, and President of St. John’s Jesuit, Fr. Tom Pipp, S.J.  Lord, hear the prayers of Saint Pio.  Increase your gifts within us and give us peace in our days.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Forgive Everyone

If you have anything against anyone, forgive it.  You come here to receive the forgiveness of sins, and you, too, must forgive one who has sinned against you.  Or how will you say to the Lord, “forgive me my many sins,” if you have not yourself forgiven your fellow human beings sins.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem

This morning in the SJJ chapel there will be an all-school mass.  At every mass this year we will honor two patron saints of our eight Houses - each House has a Jesuit patron saint.  Saint Peter Claver, S.J. (1533-1617) and Saint Stanislaus Kostka, S.J. (1550-1568) are the saints honored today – the students in each of these Houses will be given special seating. 

When Peter Claver discovered the plight of Africans enslaved and transported to far off places, he knew he had to do something.  Whenever a slave ship would come into the port city of Columbia, he would rush to the ship and offer comfort, food, and care to the terrified captives.  He cared for a little over 300,000 slaves.  He was known by the slaves as “Our best friend.” 

Stanislaus Kostka is the patron saint of Jesuit novices (A novice is the three-year period a man goes through when he first enters the Society of Jesus.).  He died at the age of 18; he made such an impact by the life he led, Jesuits, young and old, came to his bedside for days before he died.

Saints are spiritual leaders and role models, who set a shining example for others.  In the Catholic Church devotion to saints can be a powerful aid to living a Christian life in a troubled world.

Our prayers have been requested by longtime faculty member and former Principal Tim Malone (Tim was in the first graduating class at SJJ) for his youngest son Garrett, who will be married this Friday evening.  Pray for a long and happy marriage.  Pray for the students, faculty, and staff of Kostka House and Claver House.  Lord, you guard us under the shadow of your wings and search into the depths of our hearts.  Remove the blindness that cannot know you and relieve the fear that would turn us from you.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

There is no “chance.”

Things were in God’s plan which I had not planned at all.  I am coming to the living faith and conviction that – from God’s point of view – there is no chance and that the whole of my life, down to every detail, has been mapped out in the God’s divine providence and makes complete and perfect sense in God’s all-seeing eyes.

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

“As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax office; and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he rose and followed him.”  - Matthew 9:9

Today’s feast day honors the Gospel writer Matthew.  The above quote is the extent of our knowledge of Matthew.  It is assumed he was a tax collector and we know that tax collectors were despised by his fellow Jews as a collaborator with the Roman occupation.  It was for consorting with such public sinners, that Jesus himself earned a certain opprobrium.  Jesus asked Matthew – and he asks us all – are you willing to leave the past behind and come follow me.  Matthew recognized that if he were to follow Jesus he would have to do this. 

All Saints, Robert Ellsberg

The father of our Director of Annual Giving Marcus Rasmus is very ill, battling cancer; he went into the hospital recently.  He is in need of our prayers.  Counselor and SJJ Dean of Claver House Jill Lipinski is expecting and will give birth in about eight months.  Mornings are a little difficult for her; keep her in your prayers.  Pray for the community of Saint Ignatius High School in Cleveland, one of their seniors was killed last weekend in a car accident. Father, your love for us surpasses all our hopes and desires.  Forgive our failings, keep us in your peace and lead us in the way of salvation.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

Come down off the high horse.

Man can reach a point where he is able to compel God.  If I were up here, and I said to someone: “Come up here,” that would be difficult.  But if I were to say: “I will come down to you,” that would be better.  God acts like that.  When a person humbles himself, God cannot withhold his own goodness but must come down and flow into the humbled person, and to him who is least of all he give himself the most of all, and he gives himself completely.  What God gives is his being, and his being is his goodness, and his goodness is his love.  

Meister Eckhart – 1260-1328 (The teachings of this German-born Dominican philosopher and spiritual master are among the most daring and profound in the history of Western thought. A teacher mentor once told me that, if I was having trouble with a student, I should go to the student on a regular basis, asking how he is doing. This is how Meister Eckhart describes God’s love.)

I have often used the words of Fr. Henri Nouwen in this space; he was one of the most popular and influential spiritual writers of his time.  If you check the “spirituality” section of most bookstores you will still find many of his books.  He passed away from a heart attack on this day in 1996.  At the time of his death, he was traveling to Russia to work on a film about his favorite painting, Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son.

He was a unique person: through dozens of books he invited countless persons to enter more deeply into the spiritual life – intimacy with Jesus and solidarity with the wounded of the world.  Much of his impact came from his frank willingness to confide his own woundedness.  This confessional honesty was a central feature of his message.  The spiritual life, he insisted, was not simply intended for saints or “perfect people.”  Instead, the call of Jesus was addressed to the lame and halt, ordinary people, all of us in our brokenness and humanity: “We have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditonal love of God.” 

Pray for the wounded of the world, those who struggle economically, socially, in addictions, and spiritually in these times.  Jesus, I am not an eagle.  All I have are the eyes and the heart of one.  In spite of my littleness, I dare to gaze at the sun of love, and I long to fly towards it (St. Therese of Lisieux). Saint Ignatius pray for us.

All in Need of Care

A rather superficial view of life promotes the idea that there are the bright and the dull, the swift and the slow, the makers and the shakers and the also-rans, the fortunate and the unfortunate.  Such neat categorizations, however, don’t fit life’s complexity.  They also don’t fit our everyday experience of life.  For the powerful can experience depowerment, the strong can experience weakness, and the less fortunate have particular strengths and qualities.

Therefore we need to be careful about the way in which we categorize others and view ourselves.  It is much closer to reality to see ourselves with gifts to bring and things to learn, and strengths as well as weaknesses.  We are all children, parents, students and teachers, healers and in need of care.  Thus, while we may have so much to give, we all have so much that we need to receive.

Henri Nouwen

Yesterday’s feast day recalled Jesus’ suffering and triumph on the cross.  Today’s feast day recalls Mary’s sorrows as she watched her son suffer.  It is called Our Lady of Sorrows (formerly known as the Seven Sorrows of Mary:  the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, the flight into Egypt, Jesus’ being lost in Jerusalem, the encounter with Jesus on the way to Calvary, the Crucifixion, the taking of the body down from the cross, and Jesus’ burial).  In the mid-thirteenth century seven prominent citizens of Florence left civic life and founded a religious association to venerate Jesus’ mother under the title “Our Lady of Sorrows.”  By the time this association was officially approved by Pope Benedict XI in 1304, it had grown into the Order of the Servites, devoted to honoring Mary’s seven sorrows.  Today, in several Canadian and American cities (Winnipeg and Chicago, for example) Servite churches maintain perpetual novenas to the Sorrowful Mother.

As the Mother of the Church and of each baptized person in particular, she is one to whom we turn for protection, for help in time of need, and for consolation in time of trouble and distress.

Pray for all mothers who care for their children and quietly endure their suffering. Today is House Carnival Day at SJJ.  It will be a time of competition, fun, and food.  There will be classes in the morning followed by the Carnival.  Pray for the success of this day.  Father, as your Son was raised on the cross, his mother Mary stood by him, sharing his sufferings.  May we be united with Christ in his suffering and death and so come to share in his rising to a new life. Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Stabat Mater (Sorrowful Mother)

At the cross her station keeping

stood the mournful mother weeping,

Close to Jesus to the last.

Through her heart his sorrow sharing,

all his bitter anguish bearing,

Lo! the piercing sword had passed.

For his people’s sins rejected,

saw her Jesus unprotected,

saw with thorns, with scourges rent.

Saw her son from judgment taken,

her beloved in death forsaken,

till his spirit forth he sent.

Jesus, may your cross defend me,

and your mother’s prayers befriend me.

Let me die in your embrace.

When to dust my dust returns,

grant a soul which for you yearns,

in your paradise a place. 

Amen

(The Church recommends verses from this prayer be read on this day.)

Today’s feast celebrates the finding of the True Cross of Christ under a Roman landfill by the Emperor Constantine’s mother, Helen, ca. 320, and the subsequent dedication of a basilica built by Constantine on the site of the Holy Sepulcher and Calvary on September 14, 335.  It is also known as “Holy Cross Day.” 

In the Catholic Church a crucifix is a cross with the body of Christ.  It is one of the universal symbols of Catholicism and venerates Jesus’ suffering on the cross.  Every classroom at Saint John’s Jesuit has a crucifix on the wall.  The plain cross did not appear until the fourth century.  The crucifix did not appear until the fifth century; the cross is a symbol of hope and power. At the end of our Kairos Retreat the senior retreatants receive a plain cross; many of them wear it daily. 

Jack Mermer, the father of Matt Mermer ‘88 and father-in-law of our Athletic Director Brian Miller, is very ill and may be close to death.  Keep this in your prayers.  God our Father, in obedience to you your only Son accepted death on the cross for the salvation of mankind.  We acknowledge the mystery of the cross on earth for the good of all people.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Gentle Reminders

We are seldom satisfied.  When things are going smoothly, we easily become bored.  When life becomes difficult, we are quick to complain.  This ambivalence seems to be central to the way we operate.  Yet this should not be seen only in negative terms.  That fact that we long for the opposite of what we have can give life a new impetus.

It is much activity that reminds us of the need for rest and solitude.  It is quiet reflection that can bring us to the place of social action.  It is loneliness that can push us to search for friendship.  And it is in coming to terms with our creatureliness that we seek to understand God’s involvement in our lives and our world.  Thus, in whatever state we find ourselves, there are gentle reminders that nudge us in opposite and counter-balancing directions.

Henri Nouwen

Today is the feast day which honors St. John Chrysostom, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (347h-407).  He was trained as an orator; he joined a community of hermits (374).  The severe lifestyle did not agree with his health and he was forced to leave.  He was ordained in 386 and appointed preacher for a bishop. He became famous for his eloquent sermons and was given the name Chrysostom (Greek, “golden mouth”) for this reason.  He was named Archbishop of Constantinople (398), he began a program of reform.  Uncompromising in political and ecclesiastical affairs, he made enemies who eventually contrived to have him exiled.  To avoid an uprising, due to his popularity, he was taken away in secret, but died on the journey. 
Lives of the Saints, Fr.Richard McBrien

Former SJJ theology teacher Michael Warner wrote me last week; he is teaching theology at St. Charles High School in Columbus and wishes everyone here well.  Michael is requesting our prayers for the mother of Andrew Pawuk ’96. His mother has breast cancer; she had a double mastectomy.  Pray for her recovery.  Andrew is the Program Director for International Samaritan a service organization led by our former President Fr. Donald Vettese, S.J.  Pray, also, for Michael and Andrew and their important work.  Lord, you give strength to all who trust in you, you made John Chrysostom renowned for his eloquence and heroic suffering.  May we learn from his example and gain courage from his patient endurance.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The Kindly Light; One Step Enough For Me
Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
     Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home -
     Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene – one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
     Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and to see my path; but now,
     Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath blessed me, sure it still
 
    Will lead me on,
O'er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
     The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.
John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890)

Today is the last day of the Junior “Magis” Retreat which began Wednesday night.  We have 40 juniors doing their retreat at Maria Stein Retreat House in the Dayton area and 42 juniors at Colombiere Retreat House, a Jesuit facility in Clarkston, Michigan.  The retreat at Maria Stein is led by a team of 10 faculty, staff, and students; a team of 9 lead the retreat at Colombiere. 

 “Magis” is a Jesuit term which means “more” and refers to the question “What more is Christ asking of me?”  To be a “disciple” means literally to be a good listener.  If we listen, we can know where Christ is leading us.  “Magis” does not necessarily mean we are to do more, it can mean we must do less.  What we do is not our decision alone, but, as a disciple, comes from Christ.  The juniors on retreat will be asked to reflect on where Christ has been in their lives, where he is, and what more Christ is asking. 

 Pray for the 82 juniors on retreat and for the retreat teams (led by Mr. Brian Tittl and Mrs. Barb Trimble).  Pray for a safe and blessed weekend for all.  Pray for our sports teams that will be competing this weekend.  Lord, may we serve you with all our heart and know your forgiveness in our lives.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

 The Power of Faith

 “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’ Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, ‘Why does this fellow talk like that?  He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk?’ But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…’ He said, ‘I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.’ He got up and went home.” 
(Mark 2:5-12)

Faith rises and falls like the tides of an invisible sea.  You realize, I think, that it is more valuable, more mysterious, altogether ore immense than anything you can learn or decide upon in school.
Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being

Today’s feast day originated in the Eastern Church and was commemorated in the West as early as the fifth century.  Although no one is certain where Mary was born, one ancient tradition cites Nazareth and another, Jerusalem.  An occasion for praise and thanksgiving, the feast celebrates Mary’s personal sanctity and vocation as the mother of Jesus.  As St. Alphonsus Liguori said, “If we wish to recover lost grace, let us seek Mary, by whom this grace has been found.  She never lost the divine grace; she always possessed it.” 
Living With Christ, September 2010

The mother of our Band Director, Xavier Smith, had a stroke yesterday morning.  She is now home and recovering.  Keep this in your prayers.  Richard Heintschel, the brother of faculty member Ed Heintschel, passed away Friday, August 27^th after a stay in Hospice of Northwest Ohio.  Pray his peaceful repose and for Ed and his family.  Father, give your people help and strength from heaven.  The birth of Mary’s Son was the dawn of our salvation.  May this celebration of her birthday bring us closer to lasting peace.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

The Song of Mary (Known as the Magnificat, this prayer is written from Mary’s point of view.)

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
     my spirit rejoices in God my savior.
     for he has looked upon his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
    the Almighty has done great things for me,
     and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
     and has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones
     and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
     and the rich he has sent away empty.
Luke 1:46-55

Fathers Melchior Grodecz and Stephen Pongracz met during the first stage of their Jesuit training but neither foresaw that they would be martyred together for God and his Church.

In the early part of the 17^th century Kosice, Hungary was a stronghold of Hungarian Calvinists, and the few Catholics who lived in the city and its outlying districts had been without a priest for some time.  The king’s deputy in the city requested two Jesuits to care for the needs of these neglected Catholics.  They were joined by another priest Mark Korosi, who was then administrator of an Abby in the area.  When the Calvinists took the city September 5, 1619, he sent a guard to arrest the three.  They were detained without food or water.  On September 7^th the quiet of their room was shattered by rough soldiers, who tried to force them to renounce the Catholic Church.  When they would not, they were all brutally tortured.  By the evening of September 8^th they all were martyred.  The leaders of the city forbade even the burial of their bodies.
Jesuit Saints and Martyrs, Joseph N. Tylenda, S.J.

Lord, in you justice and mercy meet.  With deep love you have saved us from death and drawn us into the circle of your life.  Open our eyes to the wonders this life sets before us, that we may be free from fear and see you as Father.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

God is Awake

Have courage for the great sorrows in life, and patience for the small ones.  And when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.  God is awake.
Victor Hugo

At times I get requests for prayers that are urgent; I have two such requests.

Please pray for a member of Ann Aberl’s family who is having serious surgery this afternoon.  Ann is a part of our Saint John’s Jesuit staff.

Also, a sister of two of our students has been diagnosed with a malignant cancer; she will be treated for this early next week, keep this in your prayers.  Remember, we don’t need specific names for our prayers to be effective. 

1.  Be inspired if you would inspire others.
2.  Be willing to give; teaching humbles.
3.  Develop your intellect.
4.  Supply the real needs of your students.
5.  Share with your fellow teachers.
6.  Be fair to those you dislike as well as those you like.
7.  Discern when to follow the book and when to throw the book away.
8.  Work harder than you ask others to work.
9.  Plan for people, not for charts.
10. Enjoy your work; God loves a cheerful giver.

I think the above commandments apply to everyone.  Fr. Henry Birkenhauer, S.J. (1914-2003) is a familiar, beloved Jesuit to those at SJJ who have been around since the 1980’s. From 1984 to 1990 he was the rector of the Jesuit Community at St. John’s High School (“Jesuit” was added to our title later.). All of us who worked with him have never forgotten his kindness and wisdom.  A native Toledoan, he graduated from the old St. John’s College, Toledo in 1933.He did many things in the Society of Jesus, such as serving president at John Carroll University from 1970 to 1980.  He operated a seismic station in Antarctica in 1957/58.  

Faculty member Barbara Wright requests our prayers for safe travel for members of her family who will be attending the funeral service for Barbara’s husband’s mother.  The funeral is Friday.  August 24^th was Fr. Thomas Doyle’s, S.J.  25^th anniversary in the Society of Jesus.  Fr. Doyle is our Vice President for Jesuit Identity; he also teaches an academy class and is the Director to our 20/20 program.  Keep Fr. Doyle in your prayers.  Counselor Jill Lipinski travels to Maine today for the wedding of her brother.  Pray for safe travel and for her brother and his bride.  Lord, help us to seek the values that will give us lasting joy in this changing world.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

All By the Grace of God
Life
     Is to live and life
     Is to give if you
         Choose.
Do not pray for easy lives.
     Pray to be strong.
Do not pray for tasks equal
     To your powers.
Pray for powers equal to your
          Tasks –
      Then the doing of your work
           Shall be no miracle.
      But you shall be a
           Miracle.
Everyday you shall
       Wonder at yourself…
             At the richness of life,
              Which has come to
             You by the grace of
                    God.
Blessed Solanus Casey

This last weekend St. John’s Jesuit hosted the Jesuit Cup Soccer Tournament which was attended by the Jesuit schools in our region: St. Xavier (Cincinnati), Walsh Jesuit (Cuyahoga Falls), and St. Ignatius (Cleveland).  Saturday night the teams and parents gathered for mass in our chapel.  President Fr. Boom Martinez, S.J. during his homily noted that, though we are competing, we all belong to the same network of schools – Jesuit schools – the largest network in the world, with over 3,700 educational institutions educating 2.5 million people.  And we all do it for the same reason – to form men and women for others. 

He went on to say, “One of the great gifts of Jesuit education, is that no matter whether you are in Cleveland or Cincinnati or Cuyahoga Falls or here in  Toledo, whether you are in a one-room school in the highlands of Peru or a large, urban university like Georgetown, whether you are in an old school like Stonyhurst in England, which was founded in 1593 or a new one like Cristo Rey Jesuit in Houston, which opened its doors last fall, one of the great gifts of Jesuit education is that we all have a common mission to form our students in Christ’s image.”

Please pray for my daughter Sarah Zibbel, her husband Rick Zibbel is a ’94 SJJ graduate; she is traveling on business in Europe. Today’s morning mass at SJJ will be for transportation director Kathy Firsdon who passed away last weekend.  She will be missed by all of us.  Lord, we pray for those who seek meaningful work with a living wage.  May the goodness of the Lord be upon us and give success to the work of our hands.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The Way We Live Our Lives Is Important

St. Ignatius Loyola knew that God cannot help but love us, because that is God’s very nature.  And in order for God to express this abundance of love, God created us.  Once we recognize that God loves us first, then we have to make a choice as to how we are going to respond.  God loves me.  God created me. So what am I going to do about it? For Ignatius, the only possible response that we can have is one of gratitude.

Because of all this, we must live our lives in a way that praises and serves God.  In other words, we must live our lives as men and women for others.  That’s the basic Ignatian understanding of the world. 

Fr. Boom Martinez, S.J. (President of Saint John’s Jesuit High School)

Simply because a thing is true about someone else, does not mean we are free to say whatever we like about it, whenever we like, and to whomever we like.  One commits a sin when he, or she, makes known the faults of another without a very good reason for doing so.  It can be even more serious if it does great harm to another’s reputation by having faults spread about when they otherwise would not be.

Occasionally there may be a good reasons to tell another’s faults, to a child’s parents, for example.  It is wrong, though, to imagine that just because a story about another is true, one is at liberty to spread it around.  A person’s good name is among his most precious possessions.  St. Paul recognized the poisonous effect of gossip.  He found himself forced to warn against it frequently.  His advice to Titus is still valid: “Tell them not to speak evil of anyone.”  This means in blunt language: “If you can’t say something good about someone, keep quiet.”

Fr. John Dietzen, Catholic Q and A: Real Questions by Real People (Fr. Dietzen is a parish priest who has answered questions from across the country for decades, drawing on his own expertise and the knowledge of authorities around the world.)

Kathy Firsdon, our school transportation director, passed away this weekend.  Our SJJ faculty and staff community will meet in prayer this morning.  Please pray for Kathy’s peaceful repose and for her family.  Lord, help us to repay your acts of kindness to us by loving you and others with our whole heart, our whole soul, and our whole strength.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

To Know What Love Is

The first act of love is to see this person, this reality as it truly is.  And this involves the enormous discipline of dropping your desires, your prejudices, your memories, your projections, your selective way of looking, a discipline so great that most people would rather plunge headlong into good actions and service than submit to the burning fire of this kind of discipline.  When you set out to serve someone whom you have not taken the trouble to see, are you meeting that person’s needs or your own?  So the first ingredient of love is to really see the other. 

The second ingredient is equally important: to see yourself, to ruthlessly flash the light of awareness on your motives, your emotions, your needs, your dishonesty, your self-seeking, your tendency to control and manipulate.  This means calling things by their names, no matter how painful the discovery and the consequences.  If you achieve this kind of awareness of the other and yourself, you will know what love is.

Fr. Anthony de Mello, S.J.

St. Monica (331-387) is the saint honored today. She was the mother of St. Augustine, one of the greatest saints of the Catholic Church.  Augustine did as much to shape the Christian world as almost anyone else; Monica did as much as anyone to shape Augustine.  Augustine led a colorful youth: he lived with a concubine for 15 years and fathered a child.  He travelled widely and did not become Christian until the age of 32.  Monica’s fidelity and quiet love had a major bearing on the change that happened in her son’s life: he moved from being a closed person who thought he knew all the answers to an open one for whom there were things which God alone could understand.  In his famous book, Confessions, Augustine writes: “For in her prayers to you she wept for me as though I were dead, but she also knew that you would recall me to life.  In her heart, she offered me to you as though I were laid out on a bier, waiting for you to say to the widow’s son, ‘Young Man, I say to you, stand up’.” 

Pray for our mothers; they have shaped our world.  Staff member Kathy Firsdon’s husband is battling cancer; she has taken a leave of absence to be with him.  They would appreciate our prays.  The nephew of faculty member Chris Expinoza had a heart attack this week: pray for his recovery.  Pray for a safe and blessed weekend for all. Lord, help us to see how we can grow in wisdom today. Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

God Is Always Waiting Within

Late have I loved Thee, Beauty, at once so ancient and so new! Late have I loved Thee!  You were within me, and I was in the world outside myself…You were with me, but I was not with Thee.

St. Augustine (354-430)

God asks us to forgive those who offend us, even those who do grave injustice against us.  We forgive others by letting go of resentment and the desire to take revenge, to inflict harm in return on those who have violated us.  Memory of what happened may remain.  It is normal and healthy to be angry when someone does violence to us or to someone we love, and that anger may reappear when the memory of injuries recurs.

Anger, just as the other normal human passions, is necessary and proper.  It’s how we respond to anger that is important.  When we cease to harbor the desire for vengeance, when we give up our need to get even, to punish the other person for what he or she said, we are well on the road to forgiveness.

There are two actions that can help.  First, we can pray for the other person.  When we do this, even though we don’t realize it, we are praying for our own healing.  Second, we can be willing to treat the person with civility and charity.  We don’t need to be friends, or to seek him out, but we can treat him with simple Christian dignity.

Father John J. Dietzen, All You Want to Know About Catholicism

This weekend former SJJ staff member Keith Kozak will enter the Society of Jesus novitiate in St. Paul, Minnesota along with ten other young men.  He will be welcomed by Novice Master Fr. Thomas Pipp, S.J. and his staff.  There are already ten novices at St. Paul; next week the 21 young men will begin the process of becoming a Jesuit.  Keep them all in your prayers.  God, come to our help.  Lord, quickly give us assistance.  You are the one who helps us and sets us free.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Words of Wisdom from St. Jeanne Jugan (1792-1879)

Little, very little, be very little before God.  Remain little, hidden by humility in all God wants from you, as being only an instrument of his work.  If you keep the spirit of humility and simplicity, never seeking the world’s esteem, then God will be glorified and you will obtain happiness.

Jesus is waiting for you in prayer.  Go to him when your strength and patience are giving out, when you feel lonely and helpless.  Say to him: “You know well what is happening, I have only you.  Come to my aid.”  Then go your way.

Those of the Islamic faith are currently in their most sacred of seasons, Ramadan.  Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, a time for Muslims to focus on purifying their soul through prayer and self-sacrifice. .  During Ramadan, more than a billion Muslims around the world observe one of the key duties of Islam, which is “fasting.”

Our Vice President for Jesuit Identity, Fr. Thomas Doyle, S.J. sent a letter to all of us at SJJ yesterday concerning our Muslim students. They are fasting from sunup to sundown.  Currently, faithful Muslims are getting out of bed at about 4:30 a.m. in order to eat breakfast and prepare for their first prayers.  They do not eat or drink again until about 9:00 p.m.  Father Doyle warned the teachers that these students are currently sleep deprived and very hungry by the end of the day.

Please pray for our Muslim students during these sacred days.  Longtime faculty member Barbara Bauer is in Washington, D.C. with her daughter, who is giving birth.  Pray for Barb, her daughter, and the baby.  Lord God, your kingdom is already growing in me.  I meet you as you spread out in me, and shape the landscape of my life after your will.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Dare to Stay Where You Are!

A waiting person is a patient person.  The word” patience” implies the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.  Patient living means to live actively in the present and wait there.  Impatient people expect the real thing to happen somewhere else, and therefore they want to get away from the present situation and go elsewhere.  For them the moment is empty.  But patient people dare to stay where they are.  Waiting then is not passive.  It involves nurturing the growth of something growing within.

When the angel Gabriel told Mary she was to carry Jesus, just imagine what she was actually saying when she said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let what you have said be done in me” (Lk 1:38).  She was saying, “I don’t know what this all means, but I trust God and I trust you and I believe that good things will happen.”

Fr. Henri J.M. Nouwen, Finding My Way Home

A prime characteristic of the ideal of Jesuit education is the personalized care extended to every student, what the early Jesuits first referred to as “cura personalis” (“care of the entire person”).  The primary purpose of the St. John’s Jesuit House System - and in all we do - is to further our mission by providing “cura personalis” to our students.  Originally descriptive of the relationship between the superior and an individual Jesuit, the phrase has come to describe aptly the ideal relationship between the Jesuit educator and his or her student.

Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., the 29^th-Superior General of the Jesuits, highlights the importance of “cura personalis” in Jesuit education:

“The educators and teachers in Jesuit schools must grasp that the example of their personal lives brings more to the formation of the students than do their words. They are to love these students, knowing them personally – “cura personalis” – living a respectful familiarity with them.  This personal knowledge ought to allow the adaptation of study time, of programs and methods, to the needs of each student.”

“Let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God..” 1 John 4:7  God of love, we ask you to give us love; love in our thinking, love in our speaking, love in our doing.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Lord Jesus,

fill us, we pray, with your light

that we may reflect your wondrous glory.

So fill us with your love

that we may count nothing too small to do for you,

nothing too much to give,

and nothing too hard to bear.

St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)

St. John’s Jesuit said goodbye to staff member Keith Kosak last Friday. Keith was one of our “tech” support specialists; he wore many “hats” at SJJ.  I know Campus Ministry will miss him, as he was very involved in retreats and school masses.  Keith begins the journey to join the Society of Jesus; he was accepted into the Jesuit novitiate at St. Paul, Minnesota – Keith’s novice master will be Fr. Tom Pipp, S.J., who held the positions of President, theology teacher, Director of Campus Ministry, and others at various times at SJJ.  Keith will be beginning about 10 years of study and training to become a priest and a full member of the Society of Jesus.

Pray for Keith as he begins this journey. Pray for our students who begin their first full week of classes today; pray, also, for last year’s graduates who are going off to the next part of their lives.   Lord, be merciful with us and fill us with your gifts and make us always eager to serve you in faith, hope, and love.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

 “See God in All Things” (A key saying of the Society of Jesus)

But now he had learnt to see the great, the eternal, the infinite in everything; and therefore – to see it and revel in its contemplation – he naturally threw away the telescope through which he had hitherto been gazing over the heads of people and joyfully feasted his eyes on the ever-changing, eternally great, unfathomable and infinite life around him.  And the closer he looked, the more tranquil and happier he was.  The awful question which had shattered all his mental edifices in the past – the question Why? – no longer existed for him.  To that question Why? he now had always ready in his soul the simple answer: Because God is.

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

St. Ignatius Loyola (the founder of the Society of Jesus) called himself “a pilgrim,” describing his spirituality as a kind of “journey towards God.”  For these reasons, then, Ignatian spirituality can be described as a pilgrimage towards God.  This spirituality founded St. John’s Jesuit.  It is a spirituality that sees the educational experience as one, important stage in a lifetime journey towards God.  This spirituality forms our students, faculty, and staff on their journey.

Today the SJJ community will celebrate the Mass of the Holy Spirit; all Jesuit schools begin the academic year by calling on the Holy Spirit to be with us on our pilgrimage.  In a special way, our freshmen class will be welcomed into our community at this mass as they begin their time at SJJ.

Pray for our students as they begin the hard work of classes, study, and homework.  Pray for a blessed and safe weekend for all.  Lord, open our eyes to our true destiny and make us understand that seeking to glorify you on earth is our first duty and the surest means of reaching our true greatness in eternity.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

The Small Gestures

In any loving relationship, there are hundreds of small signs of love which might be invisible to anyone but the people involved.  A husband OR wife might do the dishes after dinner because they know their partner is tired or has had a tough day.  The small gesture can count for us much as a dozen roses.

The same applies to a relationship with God.  The expression that is most often used for the way we relate to God is prayer.  Of course, prayer involves words.  But it might involve all sorts of other gestures as well.  Jesus had rich sense of the little ways in which closeness to God can be nurtured.  It was not about fancy clothes or important positions.  Being intimate with God meant reaching out to others for their sake rather than our own.  It means stretching ourselves a little.

Father Michael McGirr, S.J.

St. John’s Jesuit is a Catholic school in the tradition of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits).  The word Catholic comes from the Greek katholikos, meaning “general” or “universal,” which appeared in Greek writings before the rise of Christianity.

Writing in A.D. 110, St. Ignatius of Antioch was one of the first to use the phrase katholike ekklesia (literally, “catholic church”), but the force behind the phrase’s meaning came from St. Cyril of Jerusalem in 386: “The Church is called Catholic because it extends through all the world and because it teaches universally and without omission all the doctrines which ought to come to human knowledge.” 

Since then, Catholicism has spread to nearly one billion people, across state lines and over cultural boundaries. What’s more, these various cultures have adapted Catholic rites and created variations that the Church fully accepts today.

The Everything Catholic Book, Helen Keller and Susan Grimbly 

Your prayers are requested for longtime faculty member Barbara Wright and her family: Barbara’s mother-in-law passed away Tuesday after a battle with cancer.  Pray for her mother-in-law’s peaceful repose, and for Barbara and her family.  Pray especially for our freshmen who begin their time at St. John’s Jesuit.  Dan Butler ’84 passed away over the summer; keep this in your prayers.  God our Father, your light of truth guides everyone to the love of Christ.  May all who follow him reject what is contrary to this love.  Saint Ignatius pray for us. 

Our work is to sow.

What we do is little, but it is like the little boy with a few loaves and fishes.  Christ took that little and increased it.  He will do the rest.  What we do is so little we may seem to be constantly failing.  But so did He fail.  He met with apparent failure on the Cross.  But unless the seed fall into the earth and die, there is no harvest.  And why must we see results? Our work is to sow.  Another generation will be reaping the harvest.

Dorothy Day (A great American thinker and activist, she founded the Catholic Worker, an inexpensive paper covering the plight of the poor during the Depression, while she simultaneously operated a soup kitchen to help the thousands of unemployed.)

Today is the feast day of St. Albert Hurtado, S.J. (1901-1952).  Throughout Chile and South America his name is associated with El Hogar de Cristo (meaning “Home of Christ”), a Catholic charity that provides the homeless with a place to live.  He joined the Society of Jesus in 1924.  He opened several hospices for youth, women, and children in Santiago, Chile.

He is the patron saint of Hurtado House at St. John’s Jesuit.  The Dean of Hurtado House is Brian Tittl and the Senior Captain is Sean McManus.  The primary purpose of the House System at SJJ is to further the mission of our school by providing cura personalis, greater care to all students, while strengthening our sense of community.  There are 8 Houses composed of approximately 100, 9^th-12^th grade students.

Pray for the students, faculty, and staff of St. John’s Jesuit as we begin a new school year today.  Over the summer a number of our alumni passed away: William Maier ’38, Fred Sprenger ’27, Richard Szczepaniak ’69, Ted Kranz ’82, Bradley Staebell ’96, Paul Szymanski ’82, and Ralph Sindyla ’34.  Pray for their peaceful repose and for their families.   Our Director of Annual Giving Marcus Rasmus ’96 would appreciate prayers for his father who is battling cancer.  The sister of faculty member Cris Espinoza is being treated for cancer; keep this in your prayers.  Lord, Your word is living and effective, able to discern reflections and thoughts of our hearts. Help us to trust You always.  Saint Ignatius pray for us.

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

Helen Keller