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Looking ahead . . . During the coming year, I plan to develop two at-home retreat options, with suggestions and guidance for prayer, daily schedule, Scripture resources, and opportunities for spiritual direction. The first of these will be ready by the beginning of Lent 2013, and the other will be a little later. Once these are set up, they will remain available throughout the year.
With more people making use of broadband Internet connections, it has also become feasible to offer teachings and meditations in audio and video format. Software like Skype allows for free, real-time video-conferencing, and there are web sites like gotomeeting.com and ustream.com that make it easy to provide video teaching with interactivity. Keeping all this in mind, it would be possible for us to share our SpiritLife program with off-site participants, and some of our on-site retreats as well. We shall see . . .
I have never been short on ideas; bringing them to fruition is another matter, as you all know. Your support and encouragement can help to make it happen. Peace, Phil -
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It is impossible for two people to live together without being a
source of mutual suffering, and as we cause others to suffer, it is
but just that we should bear with their failings also, and such a
burden is light since Jesus Christ helps us to carry it.
Do not therefore be so lacking in sense, so unreasonable and so
unchristian as to pretend that you should not have to suffer anything from your Brothers and Sisters. This would be truly asking a most unheard of and extraordinary miracle. Do not expect to see such a thing during the whole of your life.
- St. John Baptist de La Salle -
(And do not forget that you most likely cause as much sufferings to
others as they to you. Pray for the grace of an understanding and compassionate heart.)
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2 Jn 4-9; Ps 119:1, 2, 10, 11, 17, 18; Lk 17:26-37 R. (1b) Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord! Blessed are they whose way is blameless,
who walk in the law of the LORD. Blessed are they who observe his decrees,
who seek him with all their heart. With all my heart I seek you;
let me not stray from your commands. Within my heart I treasure your promise,
that I may not sin against you. Be good to your servant, that I may live
and keep your words. Open my eyes, that I may consider
the wonders of your law.
USCCB Lectionary
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Today is an important anniversary in Ignatian circles. It is the 23rd anniversary of the UCA martyrs. The six Jesuit Community members and two companions killed at the Universidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas"
in 1989 on this date did more than live their lives with a heightened state of awareness. They were grounded in their Catholic faith, a faith that cannot conceive of a life that is not lived on behalf of the poor and marginalized. This faith demands not only service, but the changing of social structures for the full flourishing of all life. The UCA martyrs knew that living the Gospel in their time and place meant being with the poor and persecuted in El Salvador. They sent their students out to the countryside to take the pulse of the communities surviving during the civil war. As a University, they saw their role to tell the world of the horrors of a brutal war. In spite of the risk made evident by death threats, they continued their work, published reports and spoke out. Their privilege did not make them immune to the anguish the Salvadorans faced, instead they offered their skills, resources and voice to a suffering people.
The military battalion that killed the UCA martyrs sought to end their work, to silence their prophetic nature. Instead it has brought vocations to the Jesuits, called us all to a deeper living out of this same call. Today thousands of Jesuit university and high school students, parish members and Jesuit Volunteers gather in Washington D.C. as part of the Ignatian Family Teach-in for Justice to work to spread the message of these martyrs, to network with each other and to work for the common good. Let us pray for them and for ourselves that we may to have the courage to follow in the example of Ignacio Ellacuría, Ignacio Martín Baró, Segundo Montes, Joaquín López y López, Amando López, Juan Ramón Moreno, Elba and Celina Ramos.
- by Kelly Tadeo Orbik
Creighton Online Ministries
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On Cleaving to God, by St. Albert the Great
This (contemplative) attitude will lead to the forgiveness of our sins, the deliverance from bitterness, the enjoyment of joy and security, the outpouring of grace and mercy, introduction and establishment into a close relationship with God, abundant enjoyment of his presence, and firm cleaving and union with him. But let us not copy those who from hypocrisy and Pharisaism want to appear better and different from what they are, and to make a better impression and appearance before men of being something special, than they know in truth inside to be so. For it is absolute madness to seek, hunger for and aspire to human praise or renown, from oneself or others, when one is in spite of it all inwardly full of cravings and serious faults. And certainly the good things we have talked about above will flee him who chases such vanities, and he will merely bring disgrace on himself.
- Chapter 14. That we should seek the verdict of our conscience in every decision.
Paperback (Kindle edition available)
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