Archive for the ‘Spirituality’ Category

On August 29, 2005, New Orleans experienced one of the worse natural disasters in U.S. history. While the city escaped a direct hit from Hurricane Katrina, the rising waters breached the levees that surround the city, leaving 80 percent of New Orleans under water. Five years later, New Orleans is a city rebuilding.

There has been a strong Jesuit presence in New Orleans from the days of the city’s founding over 300 years ago. The Jesuits have been in New Orleans in times of crisis like typhoid and yellow fever outbreaks at the turn of the 19th century and when the city flooded previously in the 1920s. Jesuit works like Good Shepherd Nativity School, which provides educational opportunities to disadvantaged children in the city, and Café Reconcile, a youth training program that provides on the job training in its restaurant, continue to help the city look toward a vibrant future. Schools like Loyola University and Jesuit High School continue to provide top notch education opportunities, while the Harry Thompson Center, a day shelter for the city’s homeless, reach out to the city’s most vulnerable. Today, the Jesuits continue to serve the spiritual needs of people of New Orleans and will continue be there for the city as it rebuilds and recovers.

National Jesuit News highlights the outreach and the dedication of the New Orleans Jesuits in the video piece below and provides a comprehensive overview of the Jesuit works in New Orleans five years after Katrina in the article following the video below.

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Jesuit Father Tom Neitzke, recently ordained in June, spent a summer two years ago in China working at a leprosarium. The journey to the remote Chinese village to stay among those suffering with leprosy and to understand their subsequent shunning by their community, Fr. Neitzke understood that there is much to learn from those among us who have the least. His reflections on the experience of being in China are below.

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Jesuit Father Rick Curry runs the Academy for Veterans at Georgetown University for those retuning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The program aims to assist veterans who have been disabled in combat in rebuilding their lives and responding to their needs. The program also includes emotional rehabilitation through performing arts.

Fr. Curry recently spoke to Vatican Radio about the unique experience of working with the disabled veterans. You can listen to Curry’s interview here

Where does a Jesuit come from?

Why does he join the Society of Jesus?

How does he know his calling?

The Jesuit Conference of the United States has launched a new video series interviewing Jesuits from across the country discussing their vocations, their various paths to becoming a Jesuit and what it has meant to them to answer God’s call. National Jesuit News will feature a new video interview each week. You can watch additional videos by going to the Jesuits Revealed channel on YouTube.

Today’s video features Jesuit Father J.K. Adams of the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus discussing his particular calling which includes a unique path to the priesthood and his thoughts on his “beautiful life” teaching theology at Jesuit High School in Portland, Ore. You can watch an additional video with Adams here at the Jesuits Revealed channel on YouTube.

On July 31, Jesuits will celebrate the feast of their founder,  St. Ignatius of Loyola, who, with his early companions, founded the Society of Jesus in 1540.

St. Ignatius Loyola was born in 1491 to a family of minor nobility in northern Spain. As a young man, Ignatius Loyola was a soldier and dreamed of doing great deeds. But in 1521 Ignatius was gravely wounded in a battle with the French. While recuperating, he experienced a conversion while reading of the lives of Jesus and the saints.

St. Ignatius’ collection of insights, prayers and suggestions in his book the Spiritual Exercises is considered one of the most influential books on the spiritual life ever written. When Ignatius conceived the Jesuits, he wanted them to become  “contemplatives in action.” This is also an ideal for those  who are guided by Ignatian spirituality and who continually strive to follow St. Ignatius’ motivation to “find God in all things”.

Interested in finding out more about St. Ignatius of Loyola? Loyola Press has a collection of biographical materials, works of St. Ignatius, videos and reflections on their website.

Marquette University has also created this short video piece on the story behind the founder of the Jesuit order as told by  Stephanie Russell, executive director of Marquette University’s Office of Mission and Identity.