Posts Tagged ‘Boston College’

How can networking help the Society of Jesus accomplish its mission? A new initiative, International Jesuit Networking, hopes to promote reflection on this topic and foster international networking in the Society.

In April 2012, encouraged by the call made by the Society’s 35th General Congregation to promote international networking, a group of 26 Jesuits and 7 lay partners from 10 countries gathered at Boston College to discuss the issue.

“I think of all of these graduates of schools, of parishioners, of lay people working in Jesuit institutions and of all the students, and if those folks felt they were part of a broader network, it seems to me that there’s a really incredible opportunity to get a lot done,” says conference participant Chris Lowney from Jesuit Commons, one of the most promising new examples of Jesuit collaborative efforts at a global stage.

As a result of the conference, a final document has been released and is available on a newly launched website, www.jesuitnetworking.org. The initiative has also opened channels for a global conversation on the topic through social media, including Facebook and Twitter. All Jesuits and collaborators are invited to join those platforms to explore future emerging collaborative networks.

“It’s very important that we collaborate and integrate our common mission and work together,” says Jesuit Father Xavier Jeyaraj, who serves in the Jesuit Curia in Rome and attended the conference.

Watch the video below to learn more about the networking initiative and hear from conference participants.

Jesuit Artist-in-Residence Father Robert VerEecke performing (above center). Photo by Boston College Magazine.

Jesuit Father Robert VerEecke, the longtime pastor of St. Ignatius Parish at Boston College, is also a dancer, a choreographer and the Jesuit Artist-in-Residence at Boston College, earning him the nickname “the dancing priest.”

Fr. VerEecke also founded the Boston Liturgical Dance Ensemble in 1980 to perform in church venues, and each Christmas the troupe produces a show. For 28 years, that show was “A Dancer’s Christmas,” a holiday tradition in Boston until 2008. For the past four years Fr. VerEecke’s ensemble has been performing “Christmas Reflections,” which includes an almost 80-member cast of professional dancers, Boston College students, alumni and others. The story reflects on the meaning of the season through Luke’s Gospel.

Fr. VerEecke was recently interviewed by the Boston Globe about his calling to the priesthood and to dance. The interview is below, along with a video of Fr. VerEecke discussing “Christmas Reflections” that shows the dancers in action.

Q. Are you a priest who happens to be a choreographer, or are the two inextricably combined?

A. They’re inextricably combined. When I think of Catholic ritual, there’s so much movement and choreography. What makes ritual work for people is a sense of flow and movement integrity. I work with young Jesuits and try to help them understand that sense of the larger picture. It’s such a passion, for me there is no separation between religious expression and movement expression. It always comes together quite spontaneously. It’s when I’m most alive.

Q. What happened when you were called to the priesthood at age 18?

A. I entered the Jesuits thinking I’d never have a chance to do anything artistically. Then in 1970, the Jesuits organized an artist institute and they had a track to study ballet, and I took that. When I started taking class, it was an epiphany. It gave me the vocabulary for choreographing, but the advantage of not having early training was that I was never set in a particular language of moving, so my choreography tends to be more from within. I feel free to use whatever comes.

Q. I know with all the “Nutcracker”s this time of year there was intense competition to get performers for “A Dancer’s Christmas.” Was that part of why you stopped the production after 2008?

A. The challenge was always mounting such a big production and trying to replace people every year without a huge budget, particularly male dancers. But the real issue is that I was very aesthetically pleased with the work that had evolved, so I said this is the last year. It had become absolutely perfect for me. It had reached its apex.

Q. But the very next year you were back with “Christmas Reflections” How did that come about?

A. There were all these children who were heartbroken that “A Dancer’s Christmas” was ending, and it got to me. We were all crying — one of my nicknames is Sobby Bobby. I just couldn’t say this is the end, so I said I’d try to think of what else we do, not on the same scale. “Christmas Reflections” is like “A Dancer’s Christmas” in miniature, like one of those little [snow] globes, very delicate and charming.

Q. “A Dancer’s Christmas” used pageantry, modern dance, ballet, and folk dance to tell the Christmas story from three historical periods. How different is the new show?

A. The pieces are shorter. It uses a lot of familiar Christmas music. The three-act format is still very similar. This first is scriptural, the second has the playfulness, the third has some of the repertory of the third act of “A Dancer’s Christmas.” One of the new pieces we added, which is a lot of fun, is “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” with the dancers representing all the characters. A local championship Irish dancer, Helen O’Dwyer, a BC alum, was a dancer for a number of years in “A Dancer’s Christmas.” I asked her if she thought her school might want to participate, and now there are 30 to 40 Irish dancers. We have a guest artist, Jamaican contemporary dancer Steven Cornwall, portraying Joseph, and he’s a spectacular dancer. He brings a beauty and strength that is very powerful to watch.

Q. You’ve always maintained that “A Dancer’s Christmas” created a unique sense of family and community among the performers. Have you been able to re-create that?

A. It’s what’s kind of magical about it, because people put a lot into it, and the story draws people in. A lot of people listen or sing these songs, especially more traditional carols, but they never had a chance to dance to them, and it can be powerful for them. “Silent Night” is the final number, with children joining adults in the end, and there’s something quite moving about seeing it all unfold.

Q. At the core, what do these shows mean to you and perhaps to the others who come to them year after year? What is the takeaway message?

A. It’s about the profound sense of joy that is available to all of us in the Christmas season, no matter how we celebrate it. From a religious point of view, it’s about God loving us so much that he wants to dance with us. These days there’s so much negative about God and salvation. My image is that God is enmeshed in the flesh of Jesus. He wants to have arms and legs so he can dance with us.

From left: Jesuit Fathers William Neenan, Joseph Appleyard and James Woods. Photo by Gary Wayne Gilbert.

Despite their youthful outlook and demeanor, the three Jesuit priests pictured here have a staggering 120 years of combined service at Boston College.

Jesuit Father James Woods, ’54, M.A.T.’61, S.T.B.’62 (right) joined the university in 1968 as dean of the Evening College, which at his urging became the College of Advancing Studies in 1996. In May 2002, the school was renamed the Woods College of Advancing Studies. After 44 years, Fr. Woods stepped down as dean in May 2012.

Jesuit Father Joseph Appleyard, ’53, S.T.M.’58, H’12 (center) started his career at Boston College in 1967 as a member of the English faculty. Beginning in 1987, he served for 10 years as director of the Arts and Sciences Honors Program before being appointed founding vice president of the Office of Mission and Ministry, a post he held until 2010, when he was asked to take a senior administrative position with the New England Province Jesuits.

Jesuit Father William Neenan (left), an urban economist, arrived from the University of Michigan in 1979 as the university’s first Thomas I. Gasson, SJ, Professor. From 1980 to 1987 he served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, before becoming academic vice president and dean of faculties. Since 1998 he has been vice president and special assistant to the president. He has presided at 225 Boston College-related marriages.

The three were photographed this past summer in front of the statue of St. Ignatius on Boston College’s campus.

—Boston College Magazine

Jesuit Father Terrence Devino, special assistant to the president and director of Manresa House at Boston College, has been appointed vice president and university secretary by the Boston College Board of Trustees, effective December 31, 2012.

Fr. Devino, who this year marked his 25th year as a priest, brings experience as a veteran administrator who has developed programs in the areas of campus ministry, student formation and vocational discernment.

“Fr. Devino knows Boston College well and brings substantial experience from his work here and from his previous assignments at Fairfield University and the University of Scranton,” said University President Jesuit Father William P. Leahy. “He will be an engaging presence among our students, faculty and alumni.” [Boston College]

Jesuit Father Gregory Kalscheur, an associate professor at Boston College Law School, has been named senior associate dean for strategic planning and faculty development in the College of Arts and Sciences.

In his new post, which he will assume in August, Fr. Kalscheur will assist in reviewing academic programs and in the school’s faculty hiring process.

Fr. Kalscheur, who will continue to teach a course in civil procedure at BC Law, said his job as A&S senior associate dean represents a “natural evolution” in his vocation and academic career.

“Undergraduate liberal arts is at the heart of the Jesuit educational mission,” Fr. Kalscheur said. “I see this appointment in A&S as connecting with my background as both a student and a teacher in the Jesuit tradition.” [Boston College]

Jesuit priest, geologist and author James W. Skehan, a Boston College professor emeritus who served as the longtime director of the University’s geophysical research observatory, has been honored with the unveiling of a bronze bust in his likeness at an event celebrating his 89^thbirthday.

The sculpture was created in clay by local artist Janie Belive, who works at Campion Center in Weston, Mass., where Fr. Skehan is in residence. Vincent J. Murphy, James Lewkowicz and Robert O. Varnerin—longtime friends of Fr. Skehan—commissioned the bronzing of the sculpture. The bust’s base, from the Le Masurier Family Quarry in North Chelmsford, Mass., is made from Chelmsford Granite, one of Fr. Skehan’s favorite rocks. The bust is on display in BC’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, which was founded (as the Department of Geology) by Fr. Skehan in 1958.

Many colleagues and friends joined Fr. Skehan at the Apr. 25 event. John Ebel, Boston College Earth and Environmental Sciences professor and Weston Observatory director, gave an address that served as a retrospective on Fr. Skehan’s career. A reception with birthday cake followed, hosted by BC’s Jesuit Community and the Earth and Environmental Sciences Department.

Fr. Skehan is a renowned geologist whose research has focused on the history of the Avalon terrane, the geological micro-continent stretching from Long Island to Belgium upon which Boston lies. From 1973 to 1993, he directed BC’s Weston Observatory, which monitors seismic activity around the globe.

He is the author of Roadside Geology of Massachusetts, a 400-page illustrated guide to the geological history and makeup of the Commonwealth. He followed that with Roadside Geology of Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Fr. Skehan has been honored in special ways during his storied career. In 2003, Mount Holyoke College paleontologist Mark A. S. McMenamin named a new genus of trilobite in Fr. Skehan’s honor. Skehanos is a marine arthropod that lived more than 500 million years ago and whose fossil was discovered in Massachusetts.

Author Sarah Andrews created a fictional Fr. Jim Skehan character for In Cold Pursuit, her mystery novel set in Antarctica. Fr. Skehan is also the recipient of the American Institute of Professional Geologists’ Ben H. Parker Memorial Medal, honoring individuals with long records of distinguished and outstanding service in the field of geology, among other honors.

A man of science, Fr. Skehan is also a man of deep faith. Growing up, his family said the rosary regularly after dinner. He entered the Jesuit order in 1940 and was ordained in 1954.

A noted retreat and spiritual leader, he is the author of Place Me With Your Son: Ignatian Spirituality in Everyday Life and of Praying with Teilhard de Chardin, on the life and thought of French Jesuit paleontologist and philosopher de Chardin. The convergence of geologist and priest was profoundly on display when Fr. Skehan said the first Mass on the volcanic island Surtsey soon after it rose off the coast of Iceland.

Fr. Skehan sees no conflict in his devotion to both science and faith, telling the Boston College Chronicle:

“If you look at a beautiful sunset, or how mountains are formed, or observe how continents move, you can view it either as science or as God speaking to you, or both. I do both. What I do as a scientist is no different from what I do listening to the cosmic word of God. It’s nice to have both [science and faith] – in fact, it makes everything so exhilarating. What could be more marvelous?”

[Boston College]