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My new "action pose" with my accordion. This is the picture that will be used in an upcoming newspaper story about my Jesuit vocation.  Posted by Picasa

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Let me be passive-aggressive for a moment

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I have read with much interest the dismay expressed by several bloggers over the election of our new general. I must admit: I don't understand it because, by all accounts, he is a wonderful man of prayer and service and will be an excellent leader for the Society. One of my Jesuit heros - a man who offers the model of the type of Jesuit I aspire to become - has said that this is the best possible choice for General. For those who worry about the Society's concern for justice: Christian belief is not merely concerned, as one might at first suspect from all the talk of belief or faith, with the eternal, which as the "entirely Other" would remain completely outside the human world and time; on the contrary, it is much more concerned with God in history, with God as man. By thus seeming to bridge the gulf between eternal and temporal, between visible and invisible, by making us meet God as a man, the eternal as the temporal, as one of us, it understands itself as revela...
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Ignatian Meditation for Dummies

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Well, I'm back from the abyss! After a week's preparation and a weekend's frenetic activity, the "Associates' Weekend" has come to a close. I was privileged to plan and prepare dinner, dessert, and brunch for 18 guests this weekend in addition to having to cook this week's Sunday dinner. I had to do an extra load of laundry as my clothes had begun to smell of pancakes, grilled steak, and bacon! On a more edifying note, it was my honor to have been asked to present a little presentation on "Ignatian Meditation" to the Associates (guys discerning a vocation with the Society of Jesus). I've decided to offer to you what I gave to them. Two prefatory notes: 1. This is meant as an Introduction. It'll probably not be helpful to those with a great deal of experience. 2. Ignatian meditation is counter-intuitive to many of us. Mommies and Daddies should actually have the easiest time, I reckon, with this sort of prayer. Why? Because they have watch...
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