The Musical Priest

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...

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...

The New Superior General of the Society of Jesus: Father Adolfo Nicolás, SJ Spanish-Born head of the Jesuit Conference of East Asia and Oceania

As many readers know, I often write about my own struggles with weight and how, when I was in high school, I attended Weight Watchers. I've never posted a "Before" picture so here is one taken just a month before I started attending meetings:

Right outside my window, workers are hammering and digging and sawing and pounding. They have been doing so since a little after 6:00 am. I'm glad that I get up at 5:30 am each day, but this racket is terribly distracting. The dust kicked up by their construction is putting a strain on my Sharper Image Air Filter and I'm having to clean it every other day.  For newcomers, let me offer a little salvo about studies. My present mission as a Jesuit is to study philosophy and theology here at Fordham University. My mission includes as well ministerial or apostolic engagements: I take students to various Masses throughout the metropolitan area and I teach the tin whistle. The past two semesters I was an instructor in the Irish Studies department where I taught Introduction to the Irish Tin Whistle . At heart, however, I am a student and I am again with a full set of courses this semester. So what am I taking? Classical Modern Philosophy. We focus on Descartes, Hume, Locke, Spinoza, ...

Right outside my window, a back-hoe has been running since 5:30 this morning. Actually, they were out there at 5:30 and they started this enormously loud machine at 6:30. So I've been up since 5:30. Don't they have sound ordinances that protect normal people who like to sleep until, oh, say 7:00 am? ANYWAY, we're now back from our Vow Renewal Retreat held at Inisfada. I feel refreshed and renewed and excited for the new semester. I have a bit of work to do before classes begin on Monday, but I reckon things will get sorted soon enough.

I would ask that you keep the Society of Jesus in your prayers as they begin the 35th General Congregation. This is an important event in the life of the Church: a new leader of the nearly 20,000 member Society of Jesus will be elected. You can follow the proceedings on a page maintained at Creighton University . Morning Offering with Prayer for GC 35 G od, our Father, I wish to respond to your love in all I will do today. I offer you my prayers, thoughts, words, actions, and sufferings in union with your Son Jesus Christ, who continues to offer himself in the Eucharist for the salvation of the world. I pray for the Society of Jesus preparing to celebrate its 35th General Congregation, bringing together Jesuits from all over the world. M ay the Holy Spirit, who guided Jesus, guide them to your Son’s Heart so that they...