Feast of St. Ignatius

Today, on the anniversary of his death in 1556, the Catholic Church remembers Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus. It's the biggest celebration of the year for Jesuits, and an occasion to celebrate our callings and our communities, our ministries and missions.

Jesuit Community
College of the Holy Cross, Worcester MA

Ignatius' life story is difficult to condense, and his many stations in life elude easy categorization. A soldier and a saint, a pilgrim and a planner, a seeker and a guide, among his many contributions (a global religious order with a 460-year history, a framework of spiritual discernment, an extensive corpus of hand-written letters, innovative insights into the human condition) is the example of striving to recognize God at work in individual lives and the world as a whole, and approaching the most profound relationships and the most mundane decisions in light of that deeply held belief.

DuBourg Hall
Saint Louis University, St. Louis MO

Having recently completed my annual eight-day silent retreat, I feel that I've been renewed in my sense of who Ignatius was and how his life and experience can inform mine. His course of "formation" in the years from his conversion to his establishment of the Society took him all over Spain and through several major European cities; he studied and worked, begged and offered counsel, suffered rejection and found friends. In the past year, I've transitioned from a middle school teaching position to a higher education administrative position, and found new gifts in a line of work (grant writing) at which I was completely new last June. I've been fortunate to visit friends up and down the East Coast as well as in the Midwest, and blessed by the opportunity to maintain contact with those further afield, much as Ignatius did when some of his beloved friends and fellow Jesuits were sent to the Far East and South America.

Personal correspondence
(The writer of this particular letter may recognize the handwriting!)

Perhaps most crucially of all, I've seen how deeply all of my progress and growth this year is rooted in the gradual work of God's grace, the support and guidance of my local community and extended family in the Society of Jesus, and the eagerness of many good friends to share their life stories and listen to mine as we work out the details of our respective callings and strive to live them faithfully. In one of his many letters– thousands survive– Ignatius put this far more eloquently, so I'll conclude with his words:

However for our part, to find that way through the medium of [God's] grace we will be greatly helped if we search about and make many kinds of experiments, so that we can follow the route that He most clearly shows to one, the happiest and most blessed route in this life, completely governed and directed toward that other life, which is without end, embracing and united to these most holy gifts... then it is not just the soul that will be healthy; we will have a sound mind in a sound body, and thus everything will be healthier and better fitted for the divine service.

– Letter to Francis Borgia,  September 1548 

Shifting Gears, Part II

The physical shifts now emerging in my summer training aren't the only changes afoot. Here at Holy Cross, the summer's populations and programming are undergoing a transition. More than one hundred summer research students just completed their work, in fields ranging from the hard sciences to the humanities, and have vacated the dorm, labs, and libraries where they've been toiling with their professors since just after Memorial Day weekend. Members of the incoming class have been stopping in for some additional orientation and enrichment activities before arriving for good at the end of August. This morning, I discovered a small flock of office chairs scattered throughout the hallway leading to my office; it's the week for major cleaning, repainting, and moving in the departments inhabiting this particular floor. Construction and renovation projects, always a popular news item on our website, are largely finished. The campus won't be characterized by relative emptiness and planned disarray for too much longer.

Hogan Oval, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester MA
Quiet for now...

With August arriving tomorrow, and grant proposals for the new academic year already rolling in, I'm in a summer endgame mentality, planning for initiatives and projects to undertake and/or adjust in the coming semester, and concluding the summer tasks that have been helping to pass the time during these lighter weeks in the rhythm of the College's workings. With the likelihood of, God willing, moving on to theology studies in fall 2013, I'm looking to the next nine months or so as an opportunity to contribute to some restructuring and strengthening of the Grants Office, as well as to renew or develop ties with other individuals and sectors within the Holy Cross community.

Within a few weeks, the campus should be humming with students preparing to welcome the Class of 2016 through their service as orientation leaders, RAs, and brothers and sisters in the Holy Cross family. Professors will arrive for departmental meetings, administrators will shift their focus as necessary, and campus ministers will help us all to call down God's blessings on a new year. For now, though, we're still making the shift... conscious of what's on the horizon, eager for what is to come, and wrapping up our various accomplishments from the summer months. As I walk the corridors of my building, and see signs of these processes, as well as long-quiet offices being inhabited again, I'm gladdened by these changes, and grateful for the potential that they promise.

Shifting Gears, Part I

At first, I thought the feeling was only fleeting... but it persisted. It comes every year around this time, yet always catches me by surprise. When it arrives, it heralds an imminent departure, a certain transition, and a realm of clear yet mysterious potential. What might this feeling be?

I'll explain it by means of my first memory of it. Just over six years ago, I completed my first marathon, thanks in large part to the support of a running club in Portland, Maine with whom I trained while working at the Jesuit high school there for a semester in early 2006. At the end of that summer, I professed my first vows as a Jesuit; the sixth anniversary of that event is coming up in two weeks. Through the intervening months, I noticed the immense physical toll and mental effort that I devoted to my first marathon as both body and mind slowly restored themselves after being thoroughly spent during my passage along a lovely 26.2-mile course in the mountains of western Maine. On the morning that I took my first vows, during a routine morning run that I set aside for some of my prayer, I suddenly felt, unmistakably, the return of the same level of fitness that I carried to the starting line several months earlier. The verve of anticipating vows and devoting my life to God through the Society of Jesus and its life and mission, though significant, was not the only responsible factor– I could tell that my recovery was at an end, and a new training cycle could now begin.

Tower Hill Botanic Garden
Boylston MA

All this being said, could I run my next marathon tomorrow? Absolutely not. I haven't run more than eight miles at a stretch since the Providence Marathon back on May 6. But I can feel the gears shifting into a rhythm in which I'm ready, even eager, to begin training for my next race... hopefully a 10K, 10-miler, or half marathon in October of November. Knowing how this cycle works, based on six years of experience with summer recovery from a spring marathon, as that momentum gathers, it will start some complementary shifts in other areas of my life. I'll detail those soon, now that I know for sure that change is underway once again.

Questioning the Medium

I've been away from blogging for the past few weeks, owing to a combination of circumstance and circumspection. Extensive travel during the month of June for a variety of events– a Jesuit gathering and priestly ordinations in New York, a management workshop in New Orleans, an Ignatian spirituality conference in Baltimore– brought a rich array of experiences to savor, information to absorb and interpret, and conversations and company to share with Jesuits and laypeople alike. These weeks blessed me with an abundance of material for my prayer, my reflection, my journaling, and some letters that I've not yet written. They also occupied my time with pursuits far more fulfilling, delightful, and stress-free than the shorter intervals that I occasionally snagged for the purpose of keeping up with work e-mails, most of which have dealt with a conference that my office is hosting next week.

Jackson Square and Cathedral of St. Louis
New Orleans LA

While in New Orleans three weeks ago, I took an evening stroll through Jackson Square, one of many picturesque locales in this fine city that blends a sense of history, a contemporary funkiness, and a vibrant cultural flair that escapes description while being undeniably tangible. Nightfall brings an odd paradox to this popular space: fortune-tellers setting up shop directly in front of the Catholic cathedral. While I neither engaged them in conversation nor consulted their services, I took their presence as a reminder that people seek meaning (and advice that they can consider trustworthy) from a variety of sources. The same can be said for the interpretation of signs and events; some read the news, some read palms, some read the Bible, and so on. Under a quiet sky of patchy clouds eerily lit by the Crescent City's urban glow, in the slightly uneasy embrace of the Gulf Coast's humid warmth, I not only sought the continuation of my life's dialogue with God's presence and will, but also mused anew upon the manners in which I communicate my thoughts, discern my choices, pursue my ideas, and convey the gifts and graces that I've been given to give in turn.

Audubon Park
New Orleans LA

Consequently, I've been debating the merits of this particular blog as one of many methods I use to carry out the practices I've listed above. Moreover, especially in the context of rich fraternal, intellectual, and spiritual relationships renewed or kindled through personal interactions and face-to-face conversations during my June travels, I've been questioning the ability of this blog to provide an adequate approximation thereof. A good friend of mine– from whom I received a four-page, handwritten letter earlier this week– recently announced her blog's finale after a few years of wonderful, thought-provoking, richly rendered posts. Such a decision is by no means imminent with respect to this blog of mine, though I am considering that possibility (among other options with respect to adapting and/or altering my pattern of posting and range of content) with some seriousness.

Garden District shops
New Orleans LA

I doubt that the fortune-tellers in Jackson Square would have had much to say about such deliberation. There are certainly far weightier matters to address in my prayer. Yet discerning the unfolding steps along my path, and ensuring that I appropriately and fruitfully share the experiences and gifts lived and shared along the way, remains an important concern. In lieu of easy answers, I only ask good company and wise insight to guide my questioning, and to share in my expression of whatever conclusions I reach.

A Prayer on the Fourth

The new translation of the Roman Missal includes special prayers for use at Mass in the United States on the Fourth Of July. One in particular, to be used before the reading of the day, resonates with me as I'm moving through my observance of the holiday this year:

"Father of all nations and ages,
we recall the day when our country
claimed its place among the family of nations;
for what has been achieved we give you thanks,
for the work that still remains we ask your help,
and as you have called us from many peoples to be one nation,
grant that, under your providence,
our country may share your blessings
with all the peoples of the earth.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever."

May you all have a delightful Fourth of July, and may our country and its people be blessed.

P.S.: More soon about the adventures during, and some of the rationale behind, my absence from the blogosphere over the past few weeks.