Novitiate Notes

Coming and going . . . and my new blog.

2006-08-21T12:30:00.000-05:00

As longtime readers of this blog may have noticed, frequent moves are a hallmark of the Jesuit novitiate experience. After two years in which I've been frequently on the go, in the next stage of Jesuit formation I expect to be relatively stationary. This week I start First Studies in philosophy and theology at Fordham University, which will be my base for the next three years. Though First Studies does include occasional travel - particularly during the summer, which scholastics typically spend brushing up on languages or doing some kind of apostolic work - for the most part I expect to stay put in New York. I've enjoyed the diverse experiences of the novitiate, but I'm also looking forward to being in one place for a while.

Over the past week, I've been completing one final burst of travel before the start of orientation at Fordham. The day after vows, I headed east from Detroit in a rental truck packed with most of my earthly goods as well as those of the other Chicago and Detroit vovendi who'll be studying in the Bronx. I stayed over Monday night at McQuaid Jesuit High School in Rochester, New York, where I was hosted by the Chicago Province's own Father Bernie McAniff. A Rochester native, Bernie provided a fine tour of his hometown. Though I'm rather partial to my own Rochester, I was also very impressed with Bernie's - after all, it's one of the few cities I've visited that has a waterfall downtown. On Tuesday afternoon, I made it to Bronx and dropped off my cargo at Ciszek Hall, the Jesuit scholastic house at Fordham. After a night at Ciszek, I was on the move again on Wednesday as I caught a train to Providence, Rhode Island en route to my family home in Massachusetts. At the end of the week, I spent a couple days at Portsmouth Abbey, where I made a short retreat before entering the Jesuits. Returning to Portsmouth seemed a nice way to bookend my novitiate experience, and I appreciated the opportunity to spend some time in prayerful reflection and to renew my acquaintance with the Benedictine monks who make their home at the abbey. I spent this past weekend at home with the folks. As this home visit winds up, I find myself wishing I had more time here, as always. At the same time, however, I'm grateful for the time I've had.

I'm also grateful for the ways in which this blog has enhanced my experience of the novitiate. Originally intended as a means of keeping my family and friend posted on my current activities and whereabouts, Novitiate Notes has also become something of an apostolate for me. Blogging has been rewarding for me on an apostolic as well as a personal level, and I hope to keep it up. As I transition into life as a vowed Jesuit scholastic and as a student of philosophy, I'm starting a new blog, dubbed The City and the World. (Please note that the blog's name and its URL are different - as much as I like the name I chose for my new blog, I thought something shorter and snappier - something like "Jesuit Joe" - would make the URL easier to remember.) While I intend to keep Novitiate Notes online, I won't be posting any updates after today. If you want to know what I'm up to now, check out The City and the World. Thank you for being (virtual) companions on my journey through the novitiate, and please know of my prayers and good wishes. AMDG.

First Vows.

2006-08-13T07:30:00.000-05:00

Almighty and eternal God, I, Joseph Andrew Maximilian Kolbe Isaac Jogues Koczera, understand how unworthy I am in your divine sight. Yet I am strengthened by your infinite compassion and mercy, and I am moved by the desire to serve you. I vow to your divine Majesty, before the most holy Virgin Mary and the entire heavenly court, perpetual chastity, poverty, and obedience in the Society of Jesus. I promise that I will enter this same Society to spend my life in it forever. I understand all these things according to the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. Therefore, by your boundless goodness and mercy, and through the blood of Jesus Christ, I humbly ask that you judge this total commitment of myself acceptable. And as you have freely given me the desire to make this offering, so also may you give me the abundant grace to fulfill it.

At Detroit, Gesu Church, on the 13th day of August, in the year 2006.

AMDG.

My final weekend at Loyola House.

2006-08-11T17:30:00.000-05:00

Returning to Berkley today after a couple weeks away in Chicago, Omena and Clarkston, I received an unwelcome surprise: a summons for jury duty. Don't get my wrong - I regard jury duty as a high civic obligation, and under other circumstances I'd be happy to receive the notice. In this case, however, the Oakland County Jury Clerk asked me to report for duty on the last day of August - at which point I'll be a few days into my first semester of philosophy studies at Fordham. A call to the county courthouse revealed that I would be relieved of my obligation so long as I could provide documentary evidence of my imminent move to New York. Though I had little difficulty gathering the necessary documents, the task took up most of an afternoon that I had hoped would be devoted to packing for next week's move. As a result, I anticipate a busy night of packing and an even busier day tomorrow as my Bronx-bound companions and I begin the task of loading the U-Haul truck that will take our meager temporal goods to New York. Your prayers for this endeavor are earnestly appreciated.

Omena was fun. The Traverse City Film Festival is in its second year, and though many of the films I wanted to see were sold out I made it to three showings - I saw A Clockwork Orange and Dr. Strangelove, both offered as part of a Stanley Kubrick retrospective, as well as the acclaimed and controversial Palestinian drama Paradise Now. This past Sunday I and a couple other Jesuits attended Mass at the Carmelite Monastery of the Infant Jesus of Prague in Traverse City, which seems a bit stricter than the two or three other Discalced Carmelite communities I've encountered in the past. Though I expected the cloistered nuns at the monastery to remain in their private oratory during the Mass, I also presumed they'd be visible through the grille at some point during the liturgy - during communion, for example. This was not to be the case; in Traverse City, the Carmelites are heard but apparently never seen. The nuns sang throughout the Mass, but they did so from within an oratory with a window small enough that they could see out but no one else could see in. This presented an interesting contrast with my experiences at Santa Clara - where I was able to enjoy a friendly chat with a couple of the sisters in the sacristy after Mass - and in Cusco, where I briefly glimpsed a Carmelite in full habit opening and closing the monastery door. For what it's worth, I'm glad I had a chance to see something of the Carmelite presence in Northern Michigan, even if I didn't actually see any Carmelites.

(Addendum, 10/24/06: I've noticed that a lot of visitors have come to this page through Google searches for Mass times at the Carmelite Monastery in Traverse City. Therefore, as a public service I'm posting those times, with the caution that I am not responsible for any changes in schedule that may have been adopted since my visit. As of August 2006, the Carmelite Monastery in Traverse City had Mass on Sundays at 7.30 am and weekdays at 6.50 am. To be on the safe side, readers thinking of going to Mass with the Carmelites should call the monastery at (231) 946-4960 to confirm these times.)

My retreat at Colombiere was pretty low-key. The focus of the three days was to prepare spiritually for the experience of making first vows this coming Sunday. I suppose I'm as ready as I'm going to be to take vows, though I don't know exactly how I'll feel until I'm actually kneeling on the floor of Gesu Church reading the vow formula that I carefully wrote out by hand last night. As the hours before the ceremony become fewer, I feel a sense of increasing excitement regarding the commitment I'm about to make and the challenges that lie ahead. At the same time, I also feel a bit apprehensive about all the tasks I need to complete over the next few days. Professing perpetual vows of chastity, poverty and obedience is, to put it simply, a big deal. In ways banal and concrete, preparing to move from Detroit to New York is also a big deal, as is the prospect of being a full-time student again after two years out of school. My prayer for the next few days is that God will give me and my brother novices the strength to do all that we must do. More than ever, your prayerful support is needed and appreciated. AMDG.

A very brief update.

2006-07-28T15:57:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. Since we got back from Peru, the second-year novices have been very busy packing and planning for our move to First Studies following Vows. (We don't have any more planning to do for the Vow Mass itself - click here to learn more about the arrangements.) Tomorrow we head to Chicago for the priestly ordination of our brother Jesuit Pat McGrath, who will receive the sacrament of Holy Orders from Bishop Carlos Sevilla at an evening liturgy at Old St Patrick's Church in the Loop. On Sunday, we head up to Omena for summer villa ("vacation" for you externs). A few days before Vows, the secundi report to Colombiere for a triduum retreat. I'll post an update when I'm able and as the spirit moves me. Until then, I hope all is well. AMDG.

The Navel of the World.

2006-07-24T19:18:00.000-05:00

That´s what the Incas called Cusco, the erstwhile imperial capital where I spent most of the past week. I haven't researched the reasons behind the 'navel' designation, but I wonder whether it has something to do with the city's geography. An Andean metropolis that is home to nearly half a million people, Cusco sprawls across a bowl-like valley surrounded by mountains. I suppose that the valley containing Cusco could be seen as a navel in the midst of a very mountainous stomach. Given the important role that Cusco played in the political, religious and social life of the Incas, it may also be surmised that the city was the navel at which everyone in the empire gazed. I hope that any scholars with knowledge of the real meaning of the 'navel' title will forgive my fanciful musings.

Cusco is a profoundly Catholic city, filled with Spanish colonial churches, convents and religious monuments. Cusco is a place where one can see nuns in habit walking down the street and boys removing their hats and making the sign of the cross as they pass churches. It's also a place where many restaurants and shops routinely close on Sunday, opting to observe the Sabbath rather than stay open to serve the hordes of tourists who maintain a year-round presence in the city. Cusco's Plaza de Armas (pictured above) bears vivid witness to the Church's cultural dominion over the city, as prominent churches front on two sides of the square - the Cathedral (left) and the Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus (right). Considered one of the most architecturally significant Spanish churches in Peru, La Compania is also a fine example of the style of "Jesuit baroque" characteristic of many of the churches established by the pre-Suppression Society. For my part, I have to admit that La Compania is one of the most beautiful churches I've seen in Peru - which is saying a lot, as this country has a lot of lovely old churches.

Though La Compania exercises physical dominance over Cusco's central square, other factors suggest that Cusco is much more of a Dominican town than a Jesuit one. The Dominican presence in Cusco began with Friar Vicente de Valverde, who arrived in the city with Francisco Pizarro in 1533 and later became Peru's first Catholic bishop. Following the Spanish conquest, the Dominicans established a church in Cusco on the site of the city's most important Inca temple, Koricancha. This church, Santo Domingo, still exists - in fact, I attended a bilingual Spanish/Quechua Mass there yesterday morning. Much more sensitive to native culture than their 16th-century predecessors, the friars who staff Santo Domingo today not only offer services in the language of the Incas but also operate an excellent museum preserving some of the ruins of Koricancha as well as a fine selection of 17th and 18th-century religious paintings and other artifacts. (For some good pictures of Koricancha and Santo Domingo, click here.) Not to be outdone by the friars, Dominican women also have a notable presence in Cusco. A block away from Cusco's Plaza de Armas one can find the convent of Santa Catalina, a colonial foundation where a group of cloistered Dominican nuns follow a strict routine of common and individual prayer (and bake cookies, which are offered for sale at the entrance to the convent). Around the corner from Santo Domingo, two separate congregations of Dominican sisters (one named for Santa Rosa de Lima, the other for the Immaculate Conception) operate girls' schools - right next door to one another. On the grounds of one of these schools - the Colegio Santa Rosa de Lima - the Dominicans run a hostel, which is where the novices of Loyola House stayed during our time in Cusco. For all the old jokes about animosity between Dominicans and Jesuits, the sisters were very gracious hosts and treated our group very well. In fact, I'd be very happy to stay with them again, and I'd recommend their hostel to others seeking lodging in Cusco.

During our time in Cusco, we also made visits to Machu Picchu and various other Inca historical sites in the area known as the Sacred Valley. There's a lot more I could say about this, as well as about my stay in Cusco (for example, there's a great German restaurant there that I visited a couple times). However, I had better stop here as we're leaving for the airport in a few minutes. Once I've gotten back to the States and had an opportunity to get reacclimated, hopefully I'll have a chance to share more about my time in Peru. If I don't have that chance, I hope my readers will be content with the assurance that I had a great month in the country and look forward to spending more time there. AMDG.

A French Carmelite restaurant in Lima.

2006-07-16T21:15:00.000-05:00

Yesterday evening I had dinner with fellow novices Jake Martin, Jim Shea and Chris Staab at L´Eau Vive, a French restaurant in downtown Lima run by Carmelite religious women. I first learned of L´Eau Vive from a travel guide description that I read as I was preparing to leave for Lima. All that The Rough Guide to Peru had to say about L´Eau Vive was that it was a French restaurant operated by nuns who sang the Ave Maria during dinner; I was sufficiently intrigued by this information that I resolved to visit L´Eau Vive during my time in Lima. Now that I´ve been to this unique and delightful restaurant, I´d like to eat there again.

L´Eau Vive is an apostolate of the Famille Missionaire Donum Dei, a community of Catholic religious women founded in 1950 by Marcel Roussel, a French diocesan priest deeply influenced by Carmelite spirituality. From the start, Father Roussel´s community focused strongly on evangelization and missionary work. In the early 1960´s, the Donum Dei community began establishing French restaurants named L´Eau Vive in various cities around the world. Father Roussel described the L´Eau Vive restaurants as Carmels ouverts, ¨open Carmels¨ where sisters of the Famille Missionaire Donum Dei would serve the Church´s mission of evangelization through the witness of their lives of prayer and service and through gracious hospitality. At the same time, every meal eaten at L´Eau Vive would help feed the poor; all the proceeds from the restaurants go to support Donum Dei´s mission work. As far as I´m aware, L´Eau Vive is the only international restaurant chain run by a religious community as a charitable venture and as a means of evangelization. Though Donum Dei works on five continents, they are not present in the United States. Certain that I wouldn´t soon have another opportunity to dine at a L´Eau Vive restaurant, I knew I´d have to check the place out before I left Lima.

As I expected, dining at L´Eau Vive-Lima was a unique and fascinating experience. Located in an old mansion on a street lined with colonial buildings, L´Eau Vive stands out from its neighbors solely by virtue of a small sign on the door, painted by hand in elegant and unmistakably French cursive. To enter the restaurant, my companions and I had to ring a bell and announce ourselves via intercom. Our charming and gracious hostess, a Donum Dei sister from France, offered us a trilingual greeting (Spanish, French, English) and escorted us to our table in the high-ceilinged but simply-furnished dining room. Our hostess chatted amiably with us in both Spanish and French; pleased to learn that we were members of the Society of Jesus, she spoke of Jesuits she knew in Lima and in Rome and assured us of her prayers for us. Just as we were finishing our meal - the food was excellent, by the way - the eight or so Donum Dei sisters in the Lima community gathered in the dining room to sing a Marian hymn in both French and Spanish. I was touched by the sisters´ singing, which bore witness to their identity as religious and offered a prayerful and reflective end to a fine meal. A unique, enjoyable and ultimately grace-filled experience, my dinner at L´Eau Vive was one of the highlights of the time I´ve spent in Lima.

Rounding out this post, I must make note of two significant events that occur on July 16th. One is the Memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the patronal feast of the Carmelite Order. This year, the Memorial isn´t on the Church´s liturgical calendar because it happens to fall on a Sunday. Nonetheless, it strikes me as rather appropriate that my brother novices and I observed what would otherwise have been the Vigil of the Memorial by having dinner at a restaurant run by Carmelite sisters. Another event that takes place every year on July 16th, Sunday or weekday, is my mother´s birthday. Mom, I´m sorry I´m not there to celebrate your birthday with you, and I hope you´re enjoying the day. Happy birthday!

As some readers may have already learned from Richard´s blog, Tomorrow morning my fellow novices and I fly to Cusco, once the capital of the Inca Empire and now a major tourist destination. I doubt I´ll have much access to the Internet while I´m in Cusco, so the next update to this blog will likely come next Sunday when I return to Lima. Until then, I wish all my readers the very best. AMDG.

From LarcoMar to Avenida Venezuela.

2006-07-09T20:43:00.001-05:00

Over the past three weeks, I've heard a number of North American Jesuits who've spent substantial time in Peru comment on how living here has changed the way they look at life in the United States. Though I've only been here a short time, I've sensed subtle changes in my own perceptions as well. Though the differences between life here and at home are more immediately striking, the unexpected similarities are significant as well. In some ways - too few, I'm sure - I feel that being here has given me a little better sense of the problems that Peru and the United States share as well as the unique dilemmas that countries like Peru face in an increasingly interconnected world.

This weekend, I made a couple trips in the company of other novices to Miraflores, a posh Lima district about half an hour away by bus from scruffy but decidedly middle-class Breña, the area where we live. A couple of the novices have dubbed Miraflores "the Birmingham of Lima," noting that the Peruvian municipality and the Detroit suburb offer a similar combination of well-tended parks, walkable streets and high-end retail. Of course, the differences between Miraflores and Birmingham are very many - one of the most striking being that Miraflores is perched on a series of bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean (which is a lovely sight to behold in spite of the winter fog). Built into one of these bluffs is LarcoMar, an outdoor mall which is billed as "the best center of tourism and entertainment in Peru," which I suppose is true if your idea of tourism is ordering American fast food in Spanish and if your idea of entertainment is watching Cuando un Extraño Llama at a multiplex. I don't mean to sound harsh in my judgment of LarcoMar, as I've enjoyed my two visits to the place. The presence of American icons like Burger King, Dunkin' Donuts, Pizza Hut and Starbucks and the architectural feel of a suburban shopping mall make LarcoMar a soothing remedy to the feelings of culture shock and homesickness that gringos in Lima sometimes face.

Though comforting in certain respects, going to LarcoMar can also be somewhat disorienting for an American Jesuit who has had the opportunity to get used to the rhythms of life in a place like Breña. After dinner on weeknights, I often join a group of my fellow novices for a walk down the Avenida de la Republica de Venezuela, a busy commercial street right around the corner from the juniorate. Avenida Venezuela is lined with small stores selling everything from staple food items to paper products to pets. In addition, sidewalk vendors offer a plethora of goods that range from bootleg DVDs to fried chicken to underwear - there's even a man with an old bathroom scale on which passersby can weigh themselves for a small fee. In terms of atmosphere, shopping on Venezuela seems to be almost as far from LarcoMar as one can get while remaining within the realm of commerce. There are things one can buy at LarcoMar that one cannot buy on Venezuela and vice versa. In a nearly absolute sense, the goods for sale on Venezuela are a lot cheaper than those found at LarcoMar (to offer but one example, a single-scoop ice cream cone costs fifty centimos on Venezuela and four soles at LarcoMar, the former being about seventeen cents in U.S. currency and the latter being roughly $1.33). Though the low prices on Venezuela are a bargain by American standards, they can still be a pinch in the pocket for Limeños, even putatively middle-class ones.

Experiencing both LarcoMar and Avenida Venezuela in the same day leaves me with a profound sense of ambivalence. On the one hand, I wish that the poor who make up a majority of Lima's population had greater access to the goods and services available to a select few in enclaves like Miraflores. I wish the same were true in metropolitan Detroit, which has more in common with Lima in terms of economic and social inequality than many Michiganders would probably care to admit. At the same time, contrasting my experiences at LarcoMar and on Venezuela also makes me pause to wonder about the negative consequences that greater access to the riches of American commerce and culture could have for people in places like Breña. I fear that a stronger national focus on global economic integration and development of the kind that might improve the material well-being of many Peruvians could come at the loss of particularly distinctive cultural and national identities. Do economic gains outweigh cultural losses? This is a question I often ask myself, a question I've yet to answer. If you think you have an answer, feel free to share it in the comment box. As far as I know, your guess is as good as mine. AMDG.

Chicago Province Jesuits in Peru.

2006-06-28T21:18:00.000-05:00

First off, my apologies to readers who may be disappointed with the paucity of posts on my Peruvian experience. One reason I haven´t posted in the past week is that daily language classes and the challenges of being in a new country, culture and Jesuit community have left me little time for blogging. A second reason I haven´t been able to post is that the juniores I´m living with are in the midst of studying for their semester exams and writing final papers, giving them the most compelling claim on the machines in the juniorado´s computer room. Posting will probably continue to be infrequent while I´m in Peru, but I´ll do my best to keep readers informed of particularly interesting or significant developments that occur during my time here.

One significant aspect of my experience so far has been having the opportunity to meet several Chicago Province Jesuits who have been living and working in Peru for decades. The Jesuits of Chicago and Peru have had a special relationship since 1958, when the Chicago Province began sending men and money to support what was then the Vice-Province of Peru. Since then around 45 Jesuits of the Chicago Province have been missioned to Peru, some staying in the country for a few short years and others remaining for a lifetime. For a short history of the Chicago-Peru connection, check out this article from the Chicago Province magazine Partners.

Over the past few days, the novices have had a chance to interact with several men from the Chicago Province who came to Peru in the 1960´s and have been here ever since. Father Bob Beckman was one of the very first Chicago Province Jesuits in Peru, arriving in 1960. Bob´s ministry in Peru has included long periods as an administrator at the Colegio San Jose in Arequipa, as director of the Centro de Espiritualidad Ignaciana in Lima, and most recently as parochial vicar at the parish of Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados, right across the street from the juniorado. Called back to province in the 1980´s to serve as rector of the Jesuit community at Xavier University, Bob left his heart in Peru and went back for good as soon as he completed his rectorate. A couple other Chicago Province Jesuits who arrived in Peru in the early 1960´s and have remained here are Jeff Klaiber and Matt Garr, who both came immediately after taking First Vows and spent most of their formation in Peru. Jeff has gone on to become a professor of history at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru and is regarded by many as the foremost church historian in Peru. Matt was trained as an anthropologist and is now executive secretary of CEAS, the wing of the Peruvian Bishops´Conference that deals with social justice issues. The preceding Jesuits all came to Peru before or during the time of the Second Vatican Council and thus experienced the changes ushured in by the Council in a somewhat different context than their confreres in the United States. The Chicago-Peru relationship continued through the dramatic changes experienced by the Catholic Church and the Society of Jesus in the mid-1960´s. Chicago Jesuits who came to Peru in the period immediately following Vatican II include Frank Chamberlain and Kevin Gallagher, who both met with the novices during the past week to share their experiences. Frank has spent many years working in Virgen de Nazaret parish in El Agustino, a massive pueblo joven (shantytown) established on the outskirts of Lima in the 1960´s. Kevin spent two decades working with Peru´s large network of Fe y Alegria schools and now resides with the Peruvian novices in Arequipa, holding the position of padre edificante held at Loyola House by our own Walt Farrell.

Speaking with the above men about their experiences was fulfilling on a number of levels. Each offered intriguing perspectives on the history, present and future of the Church and the Society in Peru. More importantly, in ways both overt and subtle, each conveyed something of the deep spirituality that has sustained them through their Jesuit lives. The good example and witness offered by each of these outstanding Jesuits has been very edifying to this novice, and for that I´ll be eternally grateful. AMDG.

Live from Lima.

2006-06-21T20:45:00.000-05:00

Today the Church remembers St. Aloysius Gonzaga, the 16th century Jesuit scholastic who gave up his life caring for plague victims in Rome and who became in death the patron saint of Catholic youth, Jesuit scholastics and the social apostolate of the Society of Jesus. In the southern hemisphere, today is also the first day of winter. Compared with the northeastern and midwestern regions of the United States, Lima enjoys fairly mild winters - temperatures in the fifties or even lower sixties are typical, though it´s still cool enough here that I wear a sweater in the house and a wool jacket outside.

For the next month, my fellow novices and I will be staying at the Juniorado San Juan Berchmans in Lima. The juniorado (known in English as the ¨juniorate¨) is a residence for newly-vowed Jesuit scholastics (juniores) engaged in academic studies in humanities. The formation that Peruvian (and, on occasion, Bolivian and Ecuadorian) Jesuits receive here at the juniorado program is roughly similar to that experienced by American Jesuits in the period of formation we know as First Studies, notwithstanding a few differences in content and structure. The juniores have been unfailingly charitable and generous in welcoming the novices of Loyola House into their home, patiently enduring the many disruptions that we inevitably bring to their common life. Our new companions have also done a great job helping us get back and forth between the juniorado and the Universidad Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, where many of the juniores take classes and where we novices will be studying Spanish for the next month. My first two days of intermediate-level Spanish classes at the UARM have provided me with a thicket of new verb tenses to conjugate, while every conversation I´ve had with my brothers in community has reminded me that I have a rather feeble grasp on the nuances of Castillian grammar.

Though the novices of Loyola House have only been in Peru a few days, we´ve already found an invaluable resource in Father Kevin Flaherty, a Chicago Province Jesuit who has been in Peru on and off for nearly thirty years. Kevin directs a post-graduate program in clinical psychology, teaches classes in the same discipline at the university level and to groups of women religious, and also serves as spiritual director to the young Jesuits at the juniorado. In addition, Kevin also finds time to assist with vocation promotion and does pastoral work in the Lima barrio known as El Agustino, where he previously spent many years as a parish priest. Kevin has done a lot to help us adjust to life as gringos in Peru, and he´s also been an excellent tour guide, showing us some of the sights in downtown Lima and introducing us to a few of the Society´s apostolates in the city. Kevin and the other Jesuits here have been a great blessing to us, and I hope to learn much and grow in unexpected ways over the coming weeks. AMDG.

Live from Los Angeles.

2006-06-17T07:58:00.000-05:00

I'm writing this post from a computer in the student center at Loyola Marymount University, where I've been spent the past week attending the United States Jesuit Conference 2006 Summer Formation Gathering. During the week, I had a chance to catch up with friends in formation from other Jesuit provinces whom I don't often get to see. With some of these friends I took the opportunity to explore greater Los Angeles on a free afternoon in the middle of the week. Making good use of a fairly decent Metro system (the Day Pass proved a real bargain), we visited such places as the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Little Tokyo, Grauman's Chinese Theatre and Marina del Rey. I'd offer commentary on each of these sights, but I'm at a stand-up Internet terminal and there are people behind me waiting to check their e-mail. Next time I update this blog, I'll be in Peru. 'Til then, greetings from sunny, hazy Southern California, and a very happy Father's Day to my Dad and all the other fathers out there. AMDG.

Briefly in Berkley.

2006-06-11T21:11:00.000-05:00

In my experience, novitiate life has only two speeds: very slow and very fast. We novices enjoy weeks or even months of relative stability, remaining in one place and living according to a stable routine of work, study and prayer. At other times, however, we find ourselves almost constantly on the move, making several long or short trips back to back with little time to rest or regroup in between. Right now, the novitiate is definitely on 'fast' speed: today the novices of Loyola House returned to Berkley from Bi-Province Days in Cincinnati - where we had a lot of fun - in order to start readying ourselves for further travel to Los Angeles, California and Lima, Peru. Tomorrow morning we leave for Los Angeles, where we'll spend a week at the first-ever national conference of Jesuits in initial formation, a group of over two hundred men that includes everyone from first-year novices to newly-ordained priests. On Father's Day, we head from Los Angeles to Lima, where we'll spend the next six weeks or so studying Spanish and getting to know some of our Jesuit brethren in the Province of Peru. I don't know how often I'll be able to post over the next several weeks, but I'll do my best to keep you informed of my activities. AMDG.

Bi-Province Days in Cincinnati.

2006-06-08T21:41:00.000-05:00

Early tomorrow morning, my fellow novices and I will be driving to Cincinnati for "Province Days," an annual event where all (or at least most) of the Jesuits belonging to a particular province get together for a weekend to catch up with one another and to reflect on their common identity. Typically, Province Days include a special Mass honoring Jesuits celebrating significant anniversaries of entrance or ordination, a speech by the provincial on the state of the province, a few dinners and receptions, and sometimes a priestly ordination or two. Normally, each province has its own Province Days - last year, for example, the Loyola House community split up for Province Days, with novices from the Chicago Province going to Province Days in Chicago while Detroit Province novices took part in a similar weekend in Cleveland. This year is exceptional in that members of the Chicago and Detroit Provinces are celebrating Province Days together at Xavier University in Cincinnati. In coming together, the two provinces have an opportunity to reflect on our shared future in the light of the ongoing process of Assistancy Strategic Discernment. These Bi-Province Days also give Chicago and Detroit Province Jesuits a chance to socialize with one another at a time when we would ordinarily be apart. I'm looking forward to an enjoyable weekend with my brother Jesuits in Cincinnati, and I'll be sure to post a report on the experience when I return to Loyola House on Sunday. AMDG.

Happy Birthday, Walt!

2006-06-07T20:50:00.000-05:00

Today the Loyola House community celebrated the ninetieth birthday of our most accomplished yet humblest member, Father Walter L. Farrell, S.J. Now in his seventy-second year as a Jesuit, Walt has served the Society and the people of God as a teacher, writer, administrator and spiritual guide. Following a distinguished career that has included stints as rector of a Jesuit theologate, provincial superior of the Detroit Province and president of the United States Jesuit Conference, Walt currently works as treasurer of the Detroit Province (a job that has earned him the nickname "Walt the Vault") and resides here at Loyola House. Living with Walt has been a real highlight of my time in the novitiate. Through his prayerful celebration of the Eucharist and his eloquent homilies, through his thoughtful conversation and perceptive commentary, and through the example of his great generosity and simplicity of life, Walt is a great blessing to me and my fellow novices. I'll miss him dearly when I leave Loyola House, and I pray that novices to come will gain as much from his presence as I and my companions have these past couple years. I hope that we have blessed Walt as much as he has blessed us. Tonight at dinner we all wished Walt a happy birthday and thanked him for his presence among the novices. Though we'll never be able to repay him for all he has given us, for the rest of our lives we'll carry a sense of deep gratitude for his companionship. Happy birthday, Walt! AMDG.

Notes on the Memorial of St. Norbert of Xanthen.

2006-06-06T08:39:00.000-05:00

Today the Church remembers St. Norbert of Xanthen, a 12th century Rhenish nobleman who forsook a life of privilege and comfort to found a religious order called the Canons Regular of Premontre, also known as the Premonstratensians or the Norbertines. As my brother novice Jake Martin noted in a reflection at this morning's community Mass, there are some interesting parallels in the lives of Norbert of Xanthen and Ignatius of Loyola. Though the two men lived four centuries apart, the experiences they shared are significant. Norbert and Ignatius could both claim the title of 'reckless youth,' living somewhat profligate lives as courtiers. Following profound conversion experiences, both men adopted the mantle of the pilgrim penitent and chose to lead lives of intense prayer and rigorous penance. Living in times when the Catholic Church stood in need of renewal, Norbert and Ignatius responded by founding new religious orders to inspire the faithful and bring new life to the Church. Though the similiarities between Norbert of Xanthen and Ignatius of Loyola must not be overstated - the two men were also very different - the things they had in common are nonetheless worthy of our attention. Though the Norbertine and Jesuit Orders are also very different, they share an interesting distinction: in the 1970's, priests of both orders - Robert F. Drinan, S.J. and Robert J. Cornell, O.Praem. - served in the United States House of Representatives, representing Massachusetts and Wisconsin respectively. I'm sure there are other Norbertine/Jesuit parallels to be noted, but my unfortunate lack of experience with the Norbertines prevents me from doing justice to the topic. Though I must admit to a certain fascination with the Norbertines, I've never met any - not even Abbot Astrik Gabriel, a Norbertine medievalist and longtime professor at Notre Dame, who lived in retirement in South Bend during my time as a student. Hopefully at some point in my Jesuit life I'll actually encounter some Norbertines and gain a more experiential sense of their life and ministry. When that happens, perhaps I'll be better qualified to comment on the similarities and differences between two great orders, the Canons Regular of Premontre and the Society of Jesus. AMDG.

Busy, busy, busy....

2006-06-04T22:25:00.000-05:00

My apologies to regular readers who have loyally checked this blog each day only to find that I haven't posted anything new since May 31st. I generally try to post updates on this blog as regularly as possible, which usually means once each day or sometimes every other day depending how much time I'm able to make for blogging. However, due to a conspiracy of circumstances I've found myself too busy to post anything over the last few days. Maxima mea culpa. Friday was a novitiate 'work day,' meaning a day on which novices attend to various tasks in the realm of building maintenance that are not covered by routine house jobs on Saturday morning. My task for Friday's work day was to help reorganize the garage, which took me and my companions most of the morning and afternoon. On Friday night, I and a few of my fellow novices went to Comerica Park to see the Red Sox defeat the Detroit Tigers 3-2 on the strength of an incredible two-run homer by Kevin Youkilis in the ninth inning. I returned to Comerica Park on Saturday with my dad and my sister Elizabeth, who came to town (along with a lot of other Sox fans) to attend the second game of the Red Sox-Tigers series. Though Saturday's game started nearly an hour late on account of early evening rain, fast pitching and few runs meant that the park emptied out no later than it had the night before. Though the Tigers beat the Red Sox 6-2 on Saturday, I was cheered by the Sox' 8-3 win over the Tigers this afternoon in the final game of the series. While we didn't have tickets to today's game, Dad, Elizabeth and I made good use of the day with a visit to Greenfield Village. In some sense, this stop marked a continuation of last weekend's visit to the Henry Ford Museum, which shares a campus with Greenfield Village and operates under the same auspices. A sprawling collection of historic buildings relocated from their original locations, restored to period appearance and filled with enthusiastic interpreters and reenactors, Greenfield Village has a few things in common with places like Colonial Williamsburg, Old Sturbridge Village and Plimoth Plantation. Unlike previous history attractions I've visited with my family, Greenfield Village has a relatively limited focus, emphasizing the development of industry and invention over the span of American history rather than seeking to provide a comprehensive and scrupulously faithful reproduction of a single place and period in time. In some respects, Greenfield Village also takes a 'greatest hits' approach to history, giving particular prominence to buildings associated with famous people like Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln and Noah Webster. Though Greenfield Village's resonances with other attractions can give the visitor on occasional sense of deja vu, it is still a great place to spend a Sunday afternoon. Dad, Elizabeth and I all had a great time there, and perhaps you would too. AMDG.

Approved!

2006-05-31T18:24:00.000-05:00

Given that today is the Feast of the Visitation, it seems appropriate that the provincials of the Chicago and Detroit provinces were here today for their yearly visitation of the novitiate. During the visitation, each provincial meets individually with the novices from his province and both speak to the assembled community about the state of the Society. In a meeting yesterday afternoon, Father Provincial told me that he had decided to approve my application for First Vows. Needless to say, I was elated with the news - I'd been told ahead of time by the director of novices that I was likely to be approved, but it's still another thing altogether to hear the provincial actually approve me for vows. I suppose I'll feel even more "official" when I receive the provincial's letter formally notifying me of his decision - it's great knowing I've been approved, but seeing the news in print will be even better. Then again, I'll feel better still when I pronounce First Vows on August 13th. Right now, however, all that is in the future. For now, I'm content to pray in thanksgiving for having been approved. AMDG.

WWI soldier, at 110, among last survivors of an era.

2006-05-30T12:42:00.000-05:00

Today's Boston Globe has a story on Antonio Pierro, a Swampscott, Massachusetts resident who fought in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in the closing months of World War I. Still spry at 110, Pierro has vivid memories of combat experiences that took place nearly ninety years ago. As the Globe reports, Pierro is part of a small and rapidly vanishing brotherhood:

A U.S. Army private in the 320th Field Artillery Regiment of the 82nd Division in France in 1918, Pierro is one of about two dozen still living of the 4.8 million who served in the U.S. military during World War I, and one of a handful of living U.S. veterans who survived the battlefields of the Western Front.

Two other World War I veterans living in New England, Russell Buchanan of Watertown and Samuel Goldberg of Greenville, R.I., both 106 years old, served in the United States during the war. Buchanan also is a veteran of World War II.

"They're the last of a breed, and of an era," said Chris Scheer of the Veterans Affairs Administration in Washington, who tracks U.S. veterans of World War I.

Scheer's list of 18 includes Pierro, Buchanan, and Goldberg.

He said it is impossible to know how many are still alive.

"Last year we were pretty sure we had at least 50, and this year we're guessing that we're down to about 25," said Scheer, who adds that seven receive compensation pension benefits.

Longtime readers of this blog may have noticed that I have a great interest in people like Antonio Pierro. One reason for this is that I enjoy stories and love storytellers, especially those who excel in recreating lost worlds. Another reason for my interest is my belief that that events remain current as long as individuals who experienced them firsthand remain alive. In a sense, long-ago events become part of history only when the last person who took part in them passes away. If our consciousness of the past is not to be lost, we must take the time to listen to people like Antonio Pierro and record their stories. Though I'm still very young, I can recall a time when World War I veterans were still numerous enough that some would march (or more often ride) in local Independence Day parades, and I have vivid memories of a speech that a ninety year-old veteran of the Great War gave at a Memorial Day assembly at my junior high school. Experiences like these have given me an appreciation of the reality of World War I, an appreciation that young people born as little as ten years after me won't possess in quite the same way. As the First World War quickly recedes from the consciousness of the living, I hope we take the steps to preserve the recollections of that war's survivors. Historians will be telling and retelling stories about the past until the end of time, but even they have but one opportunity to record the data that provides the raw material of historiography. I hope that we are all up to the task. AMDG.

Memorial Day.

2006-05-29T21:33:00.000-05:00

Because my birthday usually falls on or close to Memorial Day weekend, today's holiday is one I always look forward to. Like many other American households, Loyola House traditionally celebrates Memorial Day with an afternoon cookout. The tradition continued this year, with the novices and staff (as well as numerous invited guests) gathering in the backyard to enjoy barbecued pork ribs, bratwurst, linguica (my contribution) and assorted side dishes. Despite sweltering heat and oppressive humidity, a good time was had by all.

A good time was also had by me and my parents during their three-day visit to the Motor City. Over the weekend I took Mom and Dad to a couple area attractions that neither they nor I had never seen, the Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills and the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. The small but attractive Chrysler Museum is home to a fine collection of Chrysler vehicles dating from the early 20th century to the present. The much more expansive Henry Ford Museum (part of a even larger complex that also includes Greenfield Village, the Automotive Hall of Fame, an IMAX theater and a public charter high school) contains an eclectic, exhaustive and very well-curated collection of historical objects. The Henry Ford has an appropriately large collection of machines - not just cars and trucks but trains and airplanes - and many items associated with the development of American culture and society. The breadth of the Henry Ford collection is remarkable - the museum has the chair President Abraham Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot and the limousine President John F. Kennedy was riding in when he was shot, the city bus that carried Rosa Parks into history and the plane that Richard Byrd flew to the North Pole, as well as a cornucopia of other artifacts both famous and obscure. Currently, the Henry Ford is also hosting the exhibit Baseball As America, a look at the cultural and social significance of America's national pastime. All in all, I found the Henry Ford Museum an enjoyable place to spend a Sunday afternoon. More importantly, however, I enjoyed the opportunity to spend time with Mom and Dad. AMDG.

Notes on the Memorial of St. Augustine of Canterbury.

2006-05-27T11:44:00.000-05:00

Today the Church remembers Augustine of Canterbury, the Italian monk sent by Pope Gregory the Great in the late sixth century to evangelize the people of England. A reluctant missionary, Augustine so feared the daunting task ahead of him that during the long journey from Rome to Canterbury he turned around, went back to the Pope and asked to be relieved of his mission. To Augustine's chagrin, Pope Gregory refused his request. Ordered to persevere in his mission, Augustine ultimately enjoyed such great success that he became known as the "Apostle of England." Augustine's episcopal career was relatively short - he spent only about eight years as a bishop - but in the brief time given him he baptized thousands and established several new dioceses. Augustine faced the extremely challenging task of establishing unity between Anglo-Saxon converts and Britons who had been Christians since Roman times. Given the feelings of self-doubt that Augustine wrestled with on his way to England, I can't help but wonder whether he struggled with similar qualms as he dealt with the challenges of being a bishop. A saint who accomplished great things in spite of personal doubts about his own abilities, Augustine of Canterbury deserves our attention and admiration.

I'm sure I could write a lot more about Augustine of Canterbury - I find his story intriguing on a number of levels - but I'm not going to. Why not? Partly because today happens to be my birthday and I have celebrating to do. Another reason I'm going to hold off is that my parents are in town for the weekend and I want to spend time with them. In the absence of posting further reflections on the person of Augustine of Canterbury - if you want to read more, see what English Dominican novice Lawrence Lew has to say on his blog - I'm simply going to say a prayer for his protection as I mark the 26th anniversary of my birth. AMDG.

Notes on the Memorial of Our Lady of the Way.

2006-05-24T19:14:00.000-05:00

Today's memorial offers Jesuits an opportunity to remember one of the Society's earliest corporate apostolates, the Church of Santa Maria della Strada in Rome. Even before the Society of Jesus won the approbation of the Holy See in 1540, Ignatius and his companions were admired for their apostolic zeal and performance of good works. One locus of the early Jesuits' ministry was a small church dedicated to Our Lady of the Way (Madonna della Strada), where Ignatius and several of his fellows would often preach and celebrate Mass. One of Jesuits' admirers was a secular priest named Pietro Codacio, who in 1539 became the first Italian to enter the Society of Jesus. Father Codacio became the pastor of Santa Maria della Strada the following year, and at his request the church was formally placed under the Society's care in 1542. As the church's patroness, Our Lady of the Way attracted the devotion of the early Jesuits as well as many of the faithful. When the Church of Santa Maria della Strada was razed to make way for the monumental mother church of the Society, the Church of the Gesù, the image of Madonna della Strada enshrined in the old church was preserved in a chapel adjacent to the sanctuary. As the Society of Jesus spread throughout the world, the image and name of Madonna della Strada spread as well. Many Jesuit chapels have been named Madonna della Strada, helping to further strengthen the Society's bonds of devotion to Our Lady of the Way. Today's memorial helps remind Jesuits that we are pilgrims, inspired by a founder who chose to be called "the Pilgrim" and following a savior who had no place to lay his head. Our Lady of the Way, pray for us. AMDG.

Technical difficulties.

2006-05-22T20:20:00.000-05:00

This post will primarily be of interest to those readers who customarily contact me via my Jesuits.net e-mail address. If you're not in this category, feel free to disregard this e-mail - or, if you prefer, regard it as an opportunity for bemused head-scratching. (Most readers of this blog probably don't have my Jesuits.net address, since it isn't one I make publicly available.) For the past forty-eight hours, I've been unable to access my Jesuits.net account. I don't know the nature of the problem, but Richard suspects that the Jesuits.net server is down. Given that my Jesuits.net address is the one I check most often and use for most of my correspondence, I hope service will be restored soon. In the meantime, if you normally contact me via Jesuits.net I urge you to use the Yahoo address on my Blogger profile as a substitute. If you wouldn't use my Jesuits.net address in any event, just do what you would normally do. We now return to our regularly scheduled program. AMDG.

Goodbye, tertians. Welcome back, primi. Welcome, Lukas.

2006-05-20T19:30:00.000-05:00

This morning, Loyola House bade a fond farewell to the six Chicago Province tertians who have been based here since January. After five months of prayer, classes and apostolic work in the Detroit area, these six Jesuit priests - Pat Fairbanks, Bob Finn, Bob Flack, Tim Howe, Rick Millbourn and Dave Meconi - are now heading in different directions, some returning to previous commitments, some starting new assignments and some awaiting new assignments from the provincial. Almost as soon as the tertians departed, the novitiate began to welcome first-year novices returning from their Short Experiment. Richard Beebe arrived from Washington this morning, followed in the afternoon by Chris Staab, returning from El Paso. When Tim McCabe arrives from San Francisco later this evening, all the novices will be back together again. On days like today, I'm reminded of the fluidity of novitiate life. The Loyola House community seems to expand and contract with extreme regularity. The first- and second-year novices classes seem to spend as much time apart as we do together, and the addition of the tertians for a large part of this year represented another shift in the shape of the novitiate community. In spite of the instability that comes with the frequent changes in the population of the house, this ever-shifting mix of people helps make Loyola House an interesting place to live. Adding to the mix in recent days has been Lukas Laniauskas, a second-year novice from the Province of Lithuania and Latvia. A Cleveland native, Lukas will living at Loyola House for the next several weeks and will continue his formation in the Detroit Province after First Vows. To those who left Loyola House today, I bid a fond farewell. To those who are rejoining the community or coming here for the first time, I hope you find a warm welcome. AMDG.

A. O. Scott on "The Da Vinci Code."

2006-05-19T10:35:00.000-05:00

Ron Howard's film adaptation of The Da Vinci Code opens worldwide today. The controversy surrounding the film and the Dan Brown novel on which it is based almost guarantee that the film will be a blockbuster, and in common with many blockbusters The Da Vinci Code has already been panned by critics. Like many other Catholics, I've been chagrined by the credulous response that The Da Vinci Code's risible speculations have received in the media and on the part of many readers, but I'm content to leave the task of refutation to the pros. I confess that I haven't read Dan Brown's book - I generally don't go for pulp potboilers - and up to now I haven't had much interest in seeing the movie either. However, if reviews like the one A. O. Scott penned for yesterday's New York Times are any indication, The Da Vinci Code may be one of the most unintentionally humorous films of the year - provided, of course, that you accept that its premise is bunk.

At the start of his review, Scott admits he "lack[s] the learning" to discuss The Da Vinci Code's theology, which gives him the freedom to devote the rest of his review to the many quirks of "one of the few screen versions of a book that may take longer to watch than to read." Though Scott is no theologian, he knows enough to inform us that the albino monk (sic) Silas (played by Paul Bettany) "may be the first character in the history of motion pictures to speak Latin into a cellphone." The ubiquitous Jean Reno offers a "very grouchy" characterization of French policeman Bezu Fache - perhaps because Reno is sick of being typecast as a cop. Here's what Scott has to say about the performances given by the two leads, Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou:

Through [the film] Mr. Hanks and Ms. Tautou stand around looking puzzled, leaving their reservoirs of charm scrupulously untapped. Mr. Hanks twists his mouth in what appears to be an expression of professorial skepticism and otherwise coasts on his easy, subdued geniality. Ms. Tautou, determined to ensure that her name will never again come up in an Internet search for the word "gamine," affects a look of worried fatigue.

While I can't judge Ms. Tautou's performance without having seen it, I wonder whether there's a smile hidden behind that "look of worried fatigue." An actress who has proven her versatility by playing both an enigmatic French gamine (Amélie) and a weary Turkish refugee (Dirty Pretty Things), Tautou is generally selective about the roles she accepts but once admitted, "I wouldn't mind being in an American film for a laugh, but I certainly don't want to be in 'Thingy Blah Blah 3,' if you know what I mean." If Tautou chose to appear in The Da Vinci Code to get a few laughs, she'd be in good company - Scott suggests that the august veteran Ian McKellen may have chosen to appear in the movie simply to amuse himself at everyone else's expense. Scott's comments on McKellen's turn as "wealthy and eccentric British scholar" Leigh Teabing are worth quoting at length:

Hobbling around on two canes, growling at his manservant . . . Teabing is twinkly and avuncular one moment, barking mad the next. Sir Ian, rattling on about Italian paintings and medieval statues, seems to be having the time of his life, and his high spirits serve as something of a rebuke to the filmmakers, who should be having and providing a lot more fun.

Teabing, who strolls out of English detective fiction by way of a Tintin comic, is a marvelously absurd creature, and Sir Ian, in the best tradition of British actors slumming and hamming through American movies, gives a performance in which high conviction is indistinguishable from high camp. A little more of this - a more acute sense of its own ridiculousness - would have given "The Da Vinci Code" some of the lightness of an old-fashioned, jet-setting Euro-thriller.

Scott concludes that he "can't support any calls for boycotting or protesting this busy, trivial, inoffensive film. Which is not to say I'm recommending you go see it." On principle I can't agree with Scott on the "inoffensive" part of his evaluation, but if The Da Vinci Code is as bad as he says I wonder how any fair-minded viewer could take it seriously. Then again, not all viewers are fair-minded, nor are most likely to have the time or interest to read the many books and articles that have been published to refute The Da Vinci Code's far-fetched contentions. However, when one considers the many challenges that the Church has overcome in the past, the hoopla over The Da Vinci Code seems pretty insignificant. A generation from now, will anyone remember Dan Brown's book or the film on which it is based? My guess is that no one will, outside of a small circle of trivia buffs. Sic transit gloria mundi. AMDG.

Jaroslav Pelikan, 1923-2006.

2006-05-18T20:11:00.000-05:00

Returning from my retreat at Colombiere, I was saddened to learn that Jaroslav Pelikan died on Saturday. The Ohio-born son of a Slovak Lutheran pastor, Pelikan earned a doctorate from the University of Chicago at the age of 23 and spent the better part of his sixty year career in academia as Sterling Professor of History at Yale, turning out scores of erudite tomes on diverse topics in the history of Christianity. A brilliant synthesist, Pelikan is perhaps best known for sweeping survey works like The Christian Tradition, his five-volume history of the development of doctrine, and the much more concise but no less learned Jesus Through the Centuries and its sequel Mary Through the Centuries. At the same time, Pelikan also produced masterful studies on specific topics as diverse as the theological underpinings of J. S. Bach's music, the ongoing relevance of John Henry Newman's The Idea of a University, and the life of Ukrainian Catholic prelate Josyf Slipyj. The editor of many volumes in the collected works of Martin Luther and a Lutheran pastor himself, Pelikan raised a few eyebrows when he was received into the Orthodox Church at the age of 74. Pelikan's decision to become Orthodox followed decades of reflection and writing on the works of the Greek Fathers; though the learned professor never publicly revealed the exact reasons for his conversion, he reputedly joked that in making the move he went from being "the Lutheran with the greatest knowledge of the Orthodox Church" to "the Orthodox with the greatest knowledge of Luther." Pelikan continued writing and publishing into his eighties, and his death leaves a void that won't soon be filled. I regret that I've read only a handful of his books, but in the coming years I hope to read more. Though his pen has been stilled, Jaroslav Pelikan's works have earned him a place in the pantheon of intellectual immortals whose influence lingers long after their death. In blessed repose, grant, O Lord, eternal rest to the soul of your servant Jaroslav, and remember him forever. AMDG.

Refugee MP loses citizenship, resigns seat.

2006-05-17T12:14:00.000-05:00

A Somali refugee who was elected to the Dutch parliament and attracted global notice as a critic of Islamic fundamentalism, Ayaan Hirsi Ali has resigned her parliamentary seat following revelations that she lied about her past when she applied for asylum in the Netherlands in 1992. Hirsi Ali, who initially claimed that she had fled directly to the Netherlands from Somalia to escape an arranged marriage, now admits that she left Somalia as a child and lived in Kenya for several years and spent time in Germany before her arrival in the Netherlands. Hirsi Ali also acknowledges that she falsified her name and birthdate on her asylum application in an effort to obscure her identity and prevent her family from discovering her whereabouts. Dutch Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk moved to revoke Hirsi Ali's Dutch citizenship following the revelations, leading her parliamentary colleagues to file two motions urging Verdonk to reconsider the move.

While Minister Verdonk's decision has been met with protest, no one denies that Hirsi Ali broke the law when she lied on her asylum application. As controversy continues to swirl, I hope the reasons why she lied are not ignored. Working with refugees in San Jose and Windsor, I got a vivid sense of the pressures that can compel some refugee claimants to embroider their personal stories in an effort to strengthen their applications for asylum. No one really chooses to become a refugee, for a refugee is a person who has been deprived of a meaningful sense of choice - a refugee is a person who, for reasons beyond his or her control, has permanently lost the ability to live securely in their own country and culture. To become a refugee is to lose one's natural sense of identity and to be forced to reconstruct one's life in an alien environment. On the basis of my experience, I believe that very few refugees lie in their claims. Nonetheless, in an effort to persuade government examiners and judges that their fears of persecution are well-founded, refugees may change some facts without altering the substance of their claims. They do so because they genuinely - and, typically, quite credibly - believe that terrible things may happen to them if they return home.

To protect their own lives - and often the lives of their loved ones - some refugees will lie if they believe that doing so will improve their chances of being granted asylum. As the Hirsi Ali case shows, getting caught in the lie can have devastating consequences. Therefore, those who help guide refugee claimants through the asylum process have to be very forthright with their clients about the need for honest and accurate reporting. At the same time, it's important to recognize the sense of fear and desperation that can cause the temptation to lie. In my work with refugee claimants, at times I felt tempted to harshly judge clients whose truthfulness seemed suspect. I came to realize, however, that it wasn't my place to judge - the government board hearing refugee claims could do that well enough on its own. Unable to rule on the fate of the needy human beings before me, all I could do was try to help them navigate the system and show them the mercy and compassion that had been denied to them in the countries they had come from. As I read news reports on the controversy surrounding Ayaan Hirsi Ali's asylum application and citizenship status, I can't help but be reminded of this valuable lesson. AMDG.

An Octave (?) at Colombiere.

2006-05-16T15:29:00.000-05:00

At several points over the course of the novitiate, Jesuit novices make a three-day retreat known, appropriately enough, as a 'triduum.' After making the 30-day Spiritual Exercises as a novice, every Jesuit is expected to make an annual eight-day retreat, which is what my fellow secundi and I spent the last week doing at Colombiere. This begs the question: if a three-day retreat is a triduum, what should one call an eight-day retreat? Until I find the answer, I'm going to provisionally refer to this experience as an 'octave.'

As far as I'm concerned, the octave went well. Under the able direction of Father David Meconi, I repeated many of the key meditations of the Spiritual Exercises. In the process, I acquired a deeper understanding of the ways in which I've grown over the past year and a half. In some instances, I found that I approached the material of the Exercises in pretty much the same way I did when I made the Long Retreat at Gloucester in January of last year. In many other instances, however, I could see how my experiences in the novitiate have deepened my spirituality. That's not to say that I'm perfect or that I 'get it' in an exceptionally profound or unique way, but this octave gave me an opportunity to reflect upon and appreciate the graces and challenges of Jesuit life so far. I'm grateful for the experience, and I look forward to my next octave. What graces will my next eight-day retreat uncover? God only knows. AMDG.

Novitiate interlude.

2006-05-08T11:04:00.000-05:00

Being back in the novitiate after more than four months away can be very disorienting, a bit like traveling from sea level to an elevation of over ten thousand feet in one day (and I'll find out what that's like in Peru). After a couple days getting somewhat reacclimated to Loyola House, getting reacquainted with one another and getting to know the tertians, my fellow secundi and I leave this afternoon for an eight-day silent retreat at the Colombiere Center. Your prayers for us and our directors are greatly appreciated. Hopefully, I'll have a report when I get back - and hopefully I'll be a bit less disoriented. AMDG.

Last Titanic survivor to remember sinking dies.

2006-05-08T10:54:00.000-05:00

I always feel a tinge of melancholy when I learn that the last survivor of a long-ago event has passed away. As I wrote in November when the last soldier to participate in the World War I "Christmas truce" died, stories of great significance can be lost when the last person to witness or take part in an important phase of history passes from the scene. Such a passing occurred yesterday when 99-year-old Lillian Gertrud Asplund died at her home in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. As a five year-old girl in April 1912, Miss Asplund joined her parents and four brothers on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. Asplund, her mother and her younger brother Felix all survived the Titanic's disastrous sinking, but her father, her twin and two older brothers did not. Lillian Asplund was the last living Titanic survivor with memories of the sinking; two other Titanic passengers remain alive, but both were only a few months old at the time of the sinking and neither remembers the event. A reticent but good-natured woman who lived alone and never married, Miss Asplund seldom discussed her experiences on the Titanic and refused to give interviews. Many details of her story died with her, as seems to have been her wish. Requiescat in Pace. AMDG.

Time takes its cost, I'm still the same.

2006-05-05T15:20:00.000-05:00

Today was the last day of my Long Experiment at St. Ignatius College Prep. Tomorrow, my fellow secundi and I return to the novitiate (Pat Fairbanks and his fellow tertians will be on hand to welcome us). Leaving SICP, I feel somewhat as I did when I finished previous experiments at Catholic Charities in San Jose and at the Windsor Refugee Office. I always find it hard to say goodbye to people and places I've come to care deeply about, but it's especially hard when I realize that I'm seeing some of the people I've gotten to know for the last time. Many times over the last few days, I've heard variations of the same question I always get at the end of experiments: "When will you be back?" Trying to be optimistic, I usually respond "as soon as I can," even though it may be more accurate to say "I don't know." Parting under ambiguous circumstances is one of the peculiar realities of religious life. When I take my leave at the end of an experiment, I often don't know whether "goodbye" will mean "farewell" or just "see you later." Tonight, as I prepare to say goodbye to the Jesuits I've lived with for the past four months and pack for the journey back to Berkley, I'll be praying for the grace to be at peace with the ambiguity of Jesuit goodbyes. AMDG.

Field trips.

2006-05-03T20:24:00.000-05:00

I always enjoyed going on field trips when I was in high school, and I've enjoyed chaperoning them just as much during my time at St. Ignatius College Prep. In March I joined a group of first-year Latin students on a visit to the Field Museum to see the justly-acclaimed exhibit Pompeii: Stories from an Eruption. Today I accompanied a group of freshman world history students to the Art Institute of Chicago. In preparation for the trip, each student researched a particular work in the Art Institute's collection and prepared a short oral presentation explaining the work's artistic and historical significance. Upon locating his or her work of art in the museum, each student delivered his or her presentation in front of the class and other museum visitors. The Art Institute of Chicago never fails to impress me - each time I go to the museum, I've had the experience of stumbling upon a famous painting or sculpture and thinking to myself, "I didn't know that was in Chicago." Today I was equally impressed by the students' excellent presentations, which reflected careful research and keen insight. After finishing up at the museum we went to Millennium Park, where the kids took advantage of a fine spring day to eat their bag lunches near the Crown Fountain and where some had even more fun by throwing a frisbee around. There is much I will miss about St. Ignatius, but I suspect I'll miss experiences like this the most - experiences that manage to combine academic excellence, the advantages of being in downtown Chicago and simple fun. AMDG.

Notes on the Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker.

2006-05-01T20:58:00.000-05:00

One of the advantages of sharing a name with Jesus' stepfather is celebrating your name day twice a year - first on March 19, the date traditionally known as St. Joseph's Day, and then again on May 1, the date designated as the Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker by Pope Pius XII in 1955. This second annual commemoration of St. Joseph owes its existence to Catholic anti-communism and Cold War politics. Irked by the popularity of socialist-inspired May Day celebrations in many predominantly Catholic countries, Pius XII established a new feast honoring St. Joseph as a model for laborers. Considered in the context of Catholic social teaching, today's memorial offers us an opportunity to reflect on the dignity of work and its necessary place in human life.

In Chicago's Little Italy, where I presently live, May 1 is also noteworthy as the date on which a legendary Taylor Street institution opens for the season. Regardless of what the calendar or the weather forecasters say, many believe that spring begins today when Mario's Italian Lemonade starts serving its celebrated Italian ices to an eager public. I made my maiden visit to Mario's tonight, minutes after watching the Red Sox beat the Yankees 7-3 in a game that marked turncoat Johnny Damon's first appearance at Fenway in pinstripes. (If you want to know how I feel about that, this article from my hometown paper should give you some idea.) For all of a dollar, I got a generous serving of cherry slush that offered a tasty treat as well as an opportunity to participate in a venerable local tradition. If my opening night experience was representative, Mario's deserves its reputation as a simple no-frills neighborhood joint that does one thing and does it very well. Though I return to Loyola House at the end of this week, I'll be sure to return to Mario's a few more times before I leave Taylor Street. AMDG.

The General at prayer.

2006-04-27T18:49:00.000-05:00

As I noted in this November post, Jesuit superior general Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach is a priest of the Armenian Catholic Church, one of the Eastern Christian churches in communion with the See of Rome. For your edification, here's a photo of Father General celebrating the Armenian Divine Liturgy in a chapel at the Jesuit Curia in Rome. This picture is part of a 1988 photo essay by Father Don Doll, a Jesuit photographer based at Creighton University. Father Doll's photos of the General offer a rare inside glimpse of life at the Society's Roman headquarters, and I'm happy to commend them to your attention. AMDG.

World's oldest priest confesses secrets of longevity.

2006-04-27T18:43:00.000-05:00

Ah, the wonders of Google. The other day I was curious to discover the identity of the world's oldest Catholic priest, and after a few clicks I had discovered the answer: Father Nicholas Kao Se Tseien, a 109-year-old Trappist monk who resides at the Abbey of Our Lady of Joy on Lantao Island near Hong Kong. Father Kao explains the reasons for his longevity in an October 2005 profile from The Standard, an English-language Hong Kong newspaper:

Kao's gospel for a long life combines common sense and religious devotion. Eschew tobacco, intoxication, gluttony, anger and rudeness in favor of exercise, humility, charity, goodness, prayer, patience and piety.

"My life has been marked by two words: patience and death," he said through a translator. "Patience in the struggle for excellence of conduct, in learning from Jesus' patience on the cross. Death in learning to die without fear and to die in innocence."

Born into a Buddhist family, Father Kao converted to Catholicism as a teenager during the reign of the last Pope Benedict (Benedict XV, who reigned from 1914 to 1922). In common with the present Pope Benedict, Kao has a great fondness for cats - an affinity he credits with lengthening his life. The Standard quotes the centenarian monk as saying: "Cats are my favorite animal. We have eight here and caring for them gives me determination to carry on. Some people play mahjong. Cats are like my mahjong."

I haven't found any news items on Father Kao written since last October, so I can only presume that he remains alive and well on Lantao Island. Some have posited that the disciplined rhythms of religious life and the sense of tranquility fostered by a healthy prayer life help account for the longevity of many priests. Kao's comments - which resonate with the views and experience of elderly religious I've known - suggest that there's something to these theories. I've often noticed that having a sense of purpose helps older people stay active and alert - many priests do this by continuing to work as long as they can, and Father Kao does it by taking care of his beloved cats. Though the factors determining a person's longevity are many and complex, following Father Kao's straightforward advice can't help but improve one's chances of living a long and healthy life. May Father Kao enjoy many happy years to come, and may we draw benefit from his example. AMDG.

Belated notes on "God or the Girl."

2006-04-25T14:24:00.000-05:00

Over the past couple weeks, various sectors of the media and the blogosphere have buzzed with discussion of the A&E reality show God or the Girl, a five-part series following four men through the process of discerning vocations to the Roman Catholic priesthood. As a Jesuit novice, I watched God or the Girl with more-than-average interest (it helped, I suppose, that one of the men profiled on the show was a novice at Loyola House when I was a candidate for the Society). I liked the series overall, but I hope that serious viewers take its portrayal of vocational discernment with a grain of salt.

The flaws of God and the Girl begin with the series' unfortunate title, which was apparently pushed not by the producers but by A&E's marketing department. Presenting the premise of the series in simplistic black-and-white, either/or terms, the title "God or the Girl" does a disservice to the serious task of discernment facing the program's subjects. The title misrepresents the facts, as only one of the series' four potential priests faces a serious choice between pursuing a religious vocation or a particular romantic relationship - and he opts for the latter option halfway through the series, narrowing the field to three men for whom "the Girl" is a largely abstract possibility. More generally, the title "God or the Girl" falsely implies that married life and service in the Church are mutually exclusive options. All of the men profiled by the series are revealed as dedicated individuals ministering to others in important ways, but the program's title sends the deceptive message that one can either serve the Church as a celibate priest or not at all.

The other major flaw I identified in watching God or the Girl comes in the way the program presents vocational discernment. The show endows each man's choice with a false sense of finality, giving viewers the impression that men considering the priesthood are under the gun to make a quick and unalterable decision. Many who rule out priesthood at one point in life find themselves considering the possibility again in later years, and many who seem firm in their determination to become priests later waver. Hemmed in by the conventions of its genre, God or the Girl generally treats the decisions announced on the show as permanent and binding, which they may not be. God or the Girl also fails to give viewers a sense of the 'nuts and bolts' elements of discernment. Though at least three of the four men on the program are shown with priest-mentors, it isn't made clear whether any of them are in regular spiritual direction - something I found to be an essential element of my vocational discernment. Though we see each of the men engaging in activities that could plausibly assist them in their discernment, we don't see them checking out the seminaries or novitiates they may attend if they choose to pursue a priestly vocation. Again, I can only compare the experience of the men on the show with my own. One of most valuable pieces of advice I received during my discernment came early in the process. coming from one of my Jesuit mentors at Georgetown - "look before you leap." Service experiences like those depicted in God or the Girl are important, but it's also important to see the places you'll live as a seminarian and get as good an idea you can of who you'll be living with. On a related note, I wish that God or the Girl had been a bit more explicit about what specific options the men on the show were considering - I got the impression they were all thinking of becoming diocesan priests, but this wasn't made very clear. It would have been helpful, I think, had the show given viewers some sense of the differences between the diocesan priesthood and life in religious orders. This is a fairly important question - I get it all the time - and one that could have been answered very easily had the show's producers and writers taken the time to do so.

In spite of its limitations, I was pleased with God or the Girl. To the extent that it raises awareness and puts a human face on the discernment issue, I would consider the program a success. Though some have argued that God or the Girl trivializes discernment, the series carries endorsements from the USCCB's communications director and from a number of diocesan vocation directors (two of whom were actually appeared on the program). There's a welcome element of pragmatism in these endorsements, for it isn't often that the secular media casts such an approving or positive glance at men thinking of becoming priests in trying times. Though it can be tempting to look a gift horse in the mouth, we should appreciate God or the Girl for what it is: a gift. AMDG.

Six random facts about me.

2006-04-22T14:25:00.000-05:00

While I was in Washington this past week, both Karen and Lisa tagged me for the "six random facts" meme. After five wonderful days at Georgetown, I'm back in Chicago and am ready to post my reply to the meme. Hopefully Karen, Lisa and other interested readers will find the following facts worth their wait:

1. I'm left-handed.

2. I can recite from memory the first twenty lines of the Prologue of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English.

3. Like the characters in Chaucer's Tales, I have made a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral.

4. I have also made a pilgrimage to the Santuario de la Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre in Cuba.

5. I once shook hands with the Dalai Lama.

6. I've seen The Cardigans live.

Hopefully readers will find the above list sufficiently random. If you want more, bring on another meme. AMDG.

Ad ripas Potomaci in Marylandia.

2006-04-17T06:45:00.000-05:00

SICP is on spring break this week. Risking the ire of some readers who may feel that I travel too much, I'm going to spend the next few days at Georgetown. This will be my first time back on the Hilltop since I entered the novitiate, and I'm looking forward to catching up with old friends - both former classmates and Jesuit mentors who played a pivotal role in the birth of my vocation. I'll be back in Chicago on Friday; regular posting should resume shortly thereafter. Hoya Saxa, AMDG.

By death He trampled Death.

2006-04-16T18:20:00.000-05:00

Christ is risen from the dead!
By death He trampled Death,
And to those in the tombs
He granted life.

In our celebration of Christ's Resurrection, we are invited to find joy in paradox. Rising from the dead, the Prince of Peace becomes the Pantocrator. The saving victim becomes a triumphant victor. The One who urged his followers to turn the other cheek becomes the One who, in the words of the Byzantine Troparion of the Resurrection, "trampled Death." Of course, to say that Christ "trampled Death" is simply another way of saying that he "overcame Death" or "conquered Death." Attending Matins and Divine Liturgy this morning at Annunciation Byzantine Catholic Church near Chicago, I heard and sang this refrain innumerable times in the "conquered Death" version, which I suspect is the most common. Nonetheless, to my ears there's still something uniquely euphonious about the phrase "by death He trampled death." If nothing else, "trampled" stirs up more vivid and specific images than "conquered." That ought to count for something, especially in the realm of faith and theological mystery.

Very different but equally vivid images of trampling occur in the pages of Shusaku Endo's Silence, which I finished reading this afternoon. In Silence, Christ does not trample upon Death but is instead trampled upon by persecuted Japanese Christians forced to choose between apostasy and death. In the case of Sebastian Rodrigues, a Portuguese Jesuit betrayed to the Japanese authorities by an apostate Christian, the choice is even more poignant. Rodrigues' captors tell him that they will spare the lives of imprisoned Japanese Christians if the priest agrees to trample on an image of Jesus. Already struggling to understand God's apparent silence in the face of human suffering, Rodrigues must grapple in an even greater way with the meaning of Jesus' life and example. Silence is a good book to read during Holy Week, though its message is not a very comforting one to receive on Easter.

On a more joyful note, on Saturday night I celebrated the Paschal Vigil at the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood. As I've mentioned before, I have a certain fascination with the phenomenon of urban monasticism, and these Benedictines monks who provide a contemplative presence in the heart of a major metropolis offer an excellent example. From the blessing of the new fire and the Exultet to the final blessing and the recessional, the monks at the Monastery of the Holy Cross executed the lengthy and complex Vigil liturgy in a spirit of prayerful dignity and reverence. After the Mass, the monks entertained guests at a reception in the church hall. I enjoyed the monks' warm hospitality and conversation as much as I did the beautiful liturgy they celebrated.

Defying a serious thunderstorm, I drove up to the North Shore this afternoon to enjoy Easter dinner with my brother novice Jim Shea and his family. Thanks are due once again to the Sheas for their generous and gracious company. Being far from my own home, I'm thankful that the Sheas welcomed me into theirs. I wish them and all my readers a blessed and happy Easter season. Christos Voskrese! AMDG.

Notes on Holy Thursday and Good Friday.

2006-04-14T20:52:00.000-05:00

Before I write anything else, I'd like to thank my parents for the Easter care package I received today - I'm especially thankful for a loaf of Mom's homemade banana bread, which made it safely through the mail and now sits on the cutting board in the kitchen here. Even on days of fasting and abstinence, there's always time for banana bread.

For a long time, I assumed I would take in this year's Triduum at the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii a few blocks from the Jesuit community in which I live. Our Lady of Pompeii has many virtues - a small but friendly community, good liturgy and preaching, and a general aura of neighborliness and familiarity. However, as Holy Thursday rolled around I felt a growing desire to do something new and different - to go to a church I hadn't been to before, perhaps one run by a religious community of which I had little or no experience. Accordingly, I attended the Mass of the Lord's Supper at St. Michael's, a Redemptorist parish in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood. The Redemptorists are traditionally considered exemplary preachers, and the homily I heard last night suggests that they deserve this reputation. There are two elements of the Holy Thursday liturgy that I particularly look forward to - the washing of the feet and the singing of Pange Lingua as the Blessed Sacrament is borne in procession throughout the church - and to my satisfaction both were present at St. Michael's. After Mass, I did something I've never done before, taking part in the ancient tradition of visiting seven churches on the night of Holy Thursday. St. Michael's was the first of these, and from there I headed to several parishes in the Lakeview and Lincoln Park neighborhoods of Chicago: St. Clement, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Josaphat and St. Alphonsus. I had checked ahead of time to make sure that each would be open, and in most cases I found numerous parishioners inside the darkened church praying before the reserved Sacrament. The sixth and seventh churches I visited, Our Lady of Mercy and St. Gertrude, were a bit further afield and were chosen for their connections to two of my brother novices: Our Lady of Mercy was once Jake Martin's home parish, and Jim Shea was an active parishioner at St. Gertrude's before entering the novitiate. Visiting and praying at the preceding seven churches was deeping moving for me, and I hope to keep up the custom of the Holy Thursday pilgrimage in coming years.

In keeping with the spirit of trying new things and encountering different religious orders, this evening I attended the Liturgy of the Passion at Immaculate Conception Church on the Northwest Side of Chicago. Immaculate Conception is staffed by the Passionist Fathers, who make daily meditation on Jesus' passion and death the center of their spiritual lives. The motto of the order says it all: "May the Passion of Jesus Christ be ever in our hearts." Supposing that the Passionists would have a particularly deep appreciation of Good Friday, I made the long trek to the Northwest Side to experience today's liturgy at Immaculate Conception. The front pews of the church were dense with Passionists from their residence next door, many wearing the distinctive logo of their order (pictured above) on the breast of their black cassocks or on red stoles. Following the traditional reading of the Joannine account of the Passion, the presiding priest gave a pretty decent homily focusing on the words "I thirst" in the context of Jesus' life and in our own. In general, the Passion as commemorated by the Passionists at Immaculate Conception was a strikingly sober affair, which was fine by me. Having attended a few overblown Good Friday services in the past, I was pleased to encounter a quietly dignified Passion liturgy at Immaculate Conception. I suppose it's natural that Good Friday would be a pretty understated affair for people who reflect on the Passion every day. That being said, I wonder how the Passionists celebrate Christ's Resurrection. I could easily find out tomorrow by returning to Immaculate Conception for the Easter Vigil, but I think I might just as well leave that experience for another year. AMDG.

Notes on Spy Wednesday.

2006-04-12T20:18:00.000-05:00

Today the Church celebrates Holy Wednesday, sometimes called "Spy Wednesday" because this is believed to be the day on which Judas Iscariot made arrangements to betray Jesus in exchange for thirty pieces of silver. Spy Wednesday is also the last day in Lent; the Paschal Triduum begins tomorrow with the Church's commemoration of Holy Thursday. In anticipation of Christ's Passion, Spy Wednesday is often marked by the evening Office of Tenebrae, a musical setting of selections from the Psalms and the Book of Lamentations. Tenebrae means "darkness" in Latin, and over the course of the service the church grows darker and darker as all lights are gradually extinguished. At the climax of the service, a single candle - representing the light of Christ - remains lit. When this candle is carried out of the church, the nave is shaken by the strepitus - a loud noise, sometimes produced by banging on pews, that is meant to symbolize the earthquake that shook Jerusalem at the time of Jesus' death on the cross. After a few moments, the strepitus ends as the light of Christ returns to the church. The service of Tenebrae presents the Paschal Triduum in miniature, proceeding through the Passion on the way to Christ's Resurrection.

I had my first experience of Tenebrae as a college student, and this distinctive Holy Week service has grown on me over time. Few Catholic parishes incorporate Tenebrae into their Holy Week schedule, and I'd never even heard of the service before I encountered it at Georgetown. After attending Notre Dame's excellent Tenebrae services during each of my three years in law school, I came to regard the experience as an integral part of Holy Week. This year I participated in the Office of Tenebrae at St. Mary of Perpetual Help, a beautiful old Polish church in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood. St. Mary of Perpetual Help has a reputation for good liturgy, and tonight's service was all I had hoped for. It's too soon to tell where I'll attend Tenebrae services next year in the Bronx, but I look forward to continuing the tradition. AMDG.

Notes on Palm Sunday and Holy Week.

2006-04-10T18:29:00.000-05:00

This past weekend saw a Loyola House mini-reunion as Drew Marquard, Mike Singhurse and Eric Styles were visiting from Detroit. The weekend gave us an opportunity to catch up and to compare notes on our Long Experiments; Drew and Mike are both teaching at U of D Jesuit High School and Eric is at Loyola High School in Detroit. Yesterday Mike, Eric and I celebrated Palm Sunday at St. Benedict the African (East) Church in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood. A parishioner and employee of St. Benedict the African before he entered the novitiate, Eric was invited to preach at the Palm Sunday Mass and gave an excellent homily that integrated strong exegesis as well as elements of his own experience in the novitiate and the experiences of the parish community and the local church. After a lively morning liturgy in Englewood, I concluded my observance of Palm Sunday in the evening with fairly subdued Vespers at the Monastery of the Holy Cross, a small Benedictine priory in Bridgeport. At the moment, I'm still a little on the fence about where I'll celebrate the Paschal Triduum this year. I'll probably go to the old Italian parish around the corner from St. Ignatius, Our Lady of Pompeii, a church that combines a intimate and neighborly atmosphere with good liturgy and excellent preaching. However, there's still an outside chance I'll pass part of the Triduum with the Benedictines at the Monastery of the Holy Cross, with my brother Jesuits at St. Procopius in Pilsen or with any number of other communities. For spiritual reading during Holy Week, I have two books by Japanese Catholic novelist Shusaku Endo: A Life of Jesus and Silence, the latter about Portuguese Jesuits and persecuted underground Christians in 17th-century Japan. I've never read anything by Endo before, but a number of fellow Jesuits recommended him highly. I'll post some thoughts on the two books when I've finished them. AMDG.

My home on the web.

2006-04-08T08:41:00.000-05:00

At long last, my hometown of Rochester, Massachusetts has an official town website. The new Town of Rochester site has a wealth of resources for town residents, including lists of appointed and elected officials, contact information for town departments, downloadable forms and documents like this year's town warrant. The site also offers plenty of helpful material for casual visitors, including a concise but thorough introduction to the town, a page on our proud history (first settled in 1638, Rochester was incorporated in 1686), a map page that graphically answers the oft-asked question "where the heck is Rochester?" and a photo gallery that provides some sense of the bucolic and pleasant character that has drawn many to the town. Not included in the gallery but present elsewhere on the town website is the evocative photo with which I started this post. The picture above offers an early morning glimpse of what old guidebooks describe as Rochester's "small but authentic New England town common," a common that includes the First Congregational Church (slightly right of center in the photo), the church vestry (left) and the Joseph H. Plumb Memorial Library (at right, behind the church). If you want to get a better idea of the milieu from which I sprang, take a look at the Rochester town website.

For my own part, I'm pleased to report that Rochester was a fine place to grow up and remains a great place to return to when I'm able to go back to visit my family. Living away from home for a number of years has given me a greater appreciation for my New England roots. There's a lot to be said for the experience of growing up in a long-settled, close-knit community; in the modern United States, fewer and fewer people can claim such an experience as their own. I can, and for that I'm grateful. AMDG.

Pray-as-you-go.

2006-04-05T14:49:00.000-05:00

Building on the success of the Irish Jesuits' Sacred Space and Creighton University's Online Ministries, the British Province of the Society of Jesus recently launched a website called Pray-as-you-go featuring free downloadable daily reflections in MP3 format. Pray-as-you-go uses music, scripture and reflection questions to help busy people find time to deepen their prayer lives in the midst of their daily routine - on their way to work or school, at the gym, out for a run or wherever else they might use an MP3 player. Pray-as-you-go also offers a version of the Ignatian Examen of Consciousness in the form of an eight-minute 'Review of the Day' that provides an opportunity for structured reflection on one's daily activities. The Society of Jesus has always been on the cutting-edge of evangelization, and I'm proud to see Jesuits making creative use of new media to spread the Gospel and help people grow closer to God. I heartily encourage readers with MP3 players to give Pray-as-you-go a try. If you do, please let me know how it goes - and if it goes well, please share it with your friends. AMDG.

Hoosiers greet historic time change.

2006-04-02T18:20:00.000-05:00

Indiana East Time officially bit the dust today as the state that bills itself as the "Crossroads of America" joined its neighbors in observing Daylight Savings Time. Today's South Bend Tribune carries an AP story reporting on Hoosiers' diverse reactions to the time zone change. The Indianapolis Star has an interesting article discussing the impact the change will have on people of faith. Catholics face not only the challenge of getting up a little earlier for Sunday Mass today but also face a later Easter Vigil. Observant Jews will have to wait longer for the end of the Sabbath. Muslims seeking to fit Friday prayer services into their work schedules also face new difficulties. Anticipating the difficulties that many Hoosiers will have in adjusting to DST, the Star has another article (given the awful title "It's time to change hour ways") with tips on how to deal with disruption in sleep patterns and new time management issues. As one who grew up with DST, I find it a little hard to believe that people would be as thrown off by it as the Star would have us believe. Then again and even though I've lived in Indiana, I can't speak to the experience of people who've never known anything but Indiana East Time.

In previous posts, I've offered extensive commentary on the Indiana time zone debate. I bemoaned the looming demise of IET, discussed the national press coverage given to the controversy and noted the local impact of the debate on South Bend. I'm not going to repeat anything I've already written on the topic, but I will add an anecdote. When I was in South Bend last weekend, I had occasion to hear one pastor's unscripted comments on the looming time zone change at the close of the Sunday liturgy. The priest reminded his parishioners that they would have to turn back their clocks the coming Saturday if they didn't want to miss the bulk of the liturgy. He acknowledged that this might be hard to remember since many in the congregation hadn't had to deal with Daylight Savings in a long time, and he admitted his own weakness in the face of the change - given that he'd be preaching on one less hour's sleep, he warned, next week's homily might not be up to snuff. Whether this worst-case scenario played out, I can't say. However, in the long term I'm sure priest and people will be just fine. AMDG.

Notes on the Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt.

2006-04-02T17:15:00.000-05:00

In the Byzantine tradition, the Fifth Sunday of Great Lent, celebrated today by most Byzantine Catholics and next Sunday by the Orthodox churches, is also known as the Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt. A fifth-century ascetic and hermit, Mary of Egypt is commended to the faithful on this Lenten Sunday as a model of penitence and spiritual conversion. Mary's story is recounted in great detail in a classic account by St. Sophronius of Jerusalem and has often been retold elsewhere, including in Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend, a widely-read compilation of saints' lives that deeply influenced St. Ignatius of Loyola, among many others. The numerous retellings of Mary's life vary in some details, but all share the same basic outline. At twelve, Mary ran away from home for a dissolute life on the streets of Alexandria. After a number of years, Mary began to feel stirrings of repentance and resolved to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Lacking sufficient funds for the trip to Jerusalem, Mary paid her way through prostitution. At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Mary was so strengthened in her desire to repent for the sins of her past life that she vowed to spend her remaining years as a hermit in the Palestinian desert. For the next half-century, Mary lived in complete solitude and extreme privation, spending most of her time in prayer and contemplation. Discovered one day by Zosimas, a monk from a desert monastery, Mary recounted her life story and asked her visitor to bring her Holy Communion. Zosimas did so on Holy Thursday, giving rise to a scene often reproduced on icons like the one above. Returning to visit Mary the next year, Zosimas found that she had died. Zosimas told his fellow monks about Mary, and in time the story was written down and spread throughout the Christian world.

I'm not quite sure where I first learned about Mary of Egypt. I believe her story was referenced in a work of classical literature I read in high school, but I forget exactly the book was that mentioned her. Later, I discovered her anew in the pages of the Golden Legend. Many of the details of Mary's story may strike modern believers as merely fanciful, and some will likely question whether she existed at all. Though I'll admit that I was initially attracted to Mary of Egypt by the exotic elements of her story, over time I've developed a sincere devotion to the saint. Mary's life reminds us that conversion is a lifelong process. Mary's resolve to repent for her sins didn't change her life overnight. As the disreputable means by which she paid for her pilgrimage show, Mary continued to sin even after she had begun her conversion. At the Holy Sepulchre, Mary made a firm commitment to live in a radically new way - and yet, in the solitude of the desert, she struggled with spiritual demons as great as any physical temptations she had faced before. Few of us will ever undergo as radical a process of conversion as Mary did, but in the struggles of this great ascetic all Christians can find inspiration to persevere in our efforts to live in the light of the Gospel. St. Mary of Egypt, pray for us. AMDG.

Gubernatorial candidate goes to the dogs.

2006-04-01T15:49:00.000-05:00

Just in time for April Fool's Day, we have proof that Massachusetts' once-vibrant political culture hasn't completely lost its traditional sense of mirth. Mercurial millionaire and Republican-turned-Independent gubernatorial candidate Christy Mihos has chosen family pet Reagan Mihos, a Yorkshire Terrier (pictured at right), as his campaign's Canine Coordinator. As far as I know, this move is without precedent in Bay State politics, but then again Mihos has a well-deserved reputation as a political maverick. A longtime GOP activist, Mihos was fired from an appointed slot on the Mass Pike board in 2001 by then-Acting Gov. Jane Swift for failing to toe the party line and then successfully sued to get his job back. Mihos decision to enter this year's race for the Corner Office as an Independent ruffled even more Republican feathers, with GOP leaders fearing the self-financing candidate with a flair for publicity as a potential spoiler. Time will tell whether Mihos' efforts to reach out to dog-lovers will boost his poll numbers, which media reports currently place in the 15-20% range. It will be interesting, too, to see how close Mihos gets to reaching his stated goal of signing up "351 good dogs [i.e., one from every town and city in the Commonwealth] to represent their pals in the best state in the U.S. - Massachusetts." The Koczera family pet, a Yorkie named Kiwi, had no comment at posting time on whether she would foresake her traditional Democratic allegiance to back Mihos. AMDG.

Historic New York Jesuit parish slated for closing.

2006-03-30T15:47:00.000-05:00

Today's New York Times has an article on the expected closing of one of Manhattan's oldest parishes, Jesuit-run Nativity Church, as part of a sweeping parish reorganization plan announced earlier this week by the Archdiocese of New York. Founded in 1842 and staffed by Jesuit priests for nearly a century, Nativity has served successive waves of immigrants living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan - first the Irish, then the Italians, and most recently Hispanics from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Mexico. After weathering many decades of social and demographic change, Nativity has finally met a challenge it can't overcome: gentrification. As the NYT reports, Nativity's passing is part of a much larger phenomenon:

Manhattan, the archdiocese's historic heart, is among the hardest hit in the recommendations [for parish closings]. It has a quarter of all the churches in the archdiocese, which stretches to the Catskills in the north from Staten Island in the south, but only 17 percent of the average head count at weekend Masses.
Parishes that were created a century ago to serve booming immigrant neighborhoods now sit largely empty, while many, especially in the northern suburbs of the archdiocese, are overflowing.

Nativity is a clear example what has happened. According to the archdiocese's numbers, the church attracts fewer than 350 people for weekend Mass. The average crowd at a weekday Mass is five people, who worship in a tiny room that doubles as a chapel so the church does not have to heat the sanctuary. A staff of four has dwindled to one.

. . .

Nativity's demise has long been on the horizon, with rising rents and gentrification inexorably leaving its imprint.

"It used to be full, basically," said Roberto Rodriguez, 31, whose family moved to the neighborhood from the Dominican Republic nearly two decades ago. "Little by little the neighborhood kept changing and changing and the people kept disappearing."
. . .
Over the last decade, it has become increasingly clear . . . that the area was changing and that did not necessarily bode well for the church.
"Young people were moving in with good salaries," [Jesuit Father George Anderson] said. "Landlords began raising rents. We lost a lot of parishioners who were low income."

The circumstances that put Nativity on the closing list are hardly exceptional, but the parish can still claim a unique history. As the Times notes, Dorothy Day was a longtime parishioner at Nativity. Many generations of Jesuits have been nourished in their sense of vocation through experiences living and working at Nativity; for one example, read these reflections by the aforementioned Father Anderson, an associate editor at America who has been part of the Nativity community for the past decade. Perhaps the most enduring legacy of Nativity Parish is Nativity Mission Center, a Jesuit-sponsored middle school serving disadvantaged youth on the Lower East Side since 1971. The success of this school has led to the establishment of other Nativity Model schools throughout the United States. The Nativity Network currently includes 44 schools in 28 cities - there's even one in New Bedford. Paradoxically, the legacy of Nativity Church continues to spread even as the parish itself disappears. Sad as they must be, I hope that Nativity's parishioners can take pride in knowing that their church's name will live on. AMDG.

Adios, Padre Thul.

2006-03-29T21:34:00.000-05:00

The St. Ignatius Jesuit community lost one of its most distinguished members yesterday when Father Bob Thul moved out to begin a new assignment working in Hispanic Ministry in Lexington, Kentucky. After teaching mathematics for fifty years - just over half of them spent at Ignatius - Bob retired from the classroom last year and has since kept busy doing pastoral ministry at a West Side Chicago parish and continuing his work on Math for a Change, a high school math curriculum that integrates a focus on social justice issues into lesson plans on algebra, statistics and so on. Loved and admired by Ignatius students and faculty alike, Bob has remained a visible presence in the school since his retirement by continuing to offer daily Mass there and attending Wolfpack basketball games and other athletic events. Bob easily could have remained here as long as he wished, but he quickly volunteered to go to Kentucky when he saw that his services were more urgently needed there. A fluent speaker of Spanish who spent several years teaching in Peru, Bob is following in the footsteps of a number of other Chicago Province Jesuits who have served Lexington's fast-growing Hispanic community in recent years. I'll miss Bob's presence at SICP and in the community here, but I admire his willingness to forego a quiet retirement for a new mission. I hope my readers will join me in praying for Father Bob Thul and wishing him well in his new ministry. AMDG.

Seen afar, in strange fulfillment.

2006-03-27T22:46:00.000-05:00

My weekend away at Notre Dame was unexpectedly - but very happily - much busier than I anticipated. At the invitation of my Jesuit hosts, on Friday night I attended the Notre Dame Glee Club's Spring Concert at ND's spiffy new DeBartolo Performing Arts Center. (This is, I believe, at least the third post in which I've raved about the new Performing Arts Center, which goes to show how eye-poppingly impressive the place is.) The eclectic program included selections from Mozart and Rachmaninoff, a few traditional African tunes, the obligatory Notre Dame, Our Mother and Notre Dame Victory March and surprises like Somewhere Over the Rainbow (offered partly as an oblique commentary on recent campus controversies). The Glee Club showed great mastery and impressive range in performing the various pieces, making for a highly enjoyable evening.

Like Friday, Saturday turned out much differently and in a sense much better than I expected. Attending Mass at Alumni Hall in the morning, I ran into a friend (and reader of this blog) I had not seen since graduation. We caught up over lunch and afterward wandered over to Hesburgh Library, which runs a kind of perpetual book sale that I always enjoy checking out when I'm on campus. The book sale at Hesburgh is no more than a table of assorted books - mainly academic and special interest titles, some old and quite rare - which may be purchased for the uniform price of one dollar each. The book sale is run on the honor system, with a lock box placed on the table in which patrons can make payment for any books they choose to take away (exact change only, please). Perusing the day's selection of books, I came across a copy of the Manual for Courts-Martial of the United States printed in 1951. As one who loves old books, I take great pleasure in perusing the yellowed pages of ancient tomes, trying to decode annotations scribbed in the margins by previous owners and examining the note cards and stray slips of paper which the same owners often leave in their books. The owner of this Manual for Courts-Martial had taken particular care in marking important pages with hand-made plastic tabs bearing carefully typed labels. Flipping back to the first page of the manual, I found that the original owner had written his name: Conrad Kellenberg. The owner of the book, it turned out, was someone I knew. A former legal officer in the United States Air Force, Conrad Kellenberg joined the law faculty at Notre Dame in 1955 and was still teaching when I arrived on campus in 2001. After completing his fiftieth year of teaching, Professor Kellenberg retired - and, apparently, he donated some or perhaps much of his personal library to the university. Always smiling and upbeat, Professor Kellenberg had the good habit of greeting every person he passed in the hallway. At opportune moments, he would also take care to ask students - even some who, like myself, never took one of his classes - how they were doing. I don't have a pressing need to know the procedures governing courts martial in the 1950's, but I nonetheless decided to purchase Professor Kellenberg's book as a souvenir of one of Notre Dame Law School's most beloved figures.

Taking my discovery of Professor Kellenberg's Manual for Courts-Martial as a plausible omen, on Saturday night I dropped plans to see the latest (and last) Merchant Ivory film The White Countess at the Vickers Theatre in order to attend an on-campus production of A Few Good Men put on by the St. Edward's Hall Players, one of Notre Dame's innumerable student theater groups. The production was favorably reviewed in Friday's Observer, though as a student theater afficionado I didn't need much convincing. Faced with the challenge of offering a fresh interpretation of a play known to most only through Rob Reiner's 1992 film adaptation, the cast rose to the occasion with convincingly original and generally excellent performances. The play itself is perhaps more timely today than when it was written nearly two decades ago. A defiant Cold Warrior, Colonel Nathan "You Can't Handle the Truth" Jessep articulates views one can easily imagine hearing spoken by some warriors engaged in the War on Terror. "We live in a world that has walls," Jessep says, "and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns... deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall... I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said thank you and went on your way."

I had a unique worship experience Sunday morning, attending the Divine Liturgy at St. John of Damascus Melkite Greek Catholic Church in South Bend. Somewhat in the manner of early Christian worshipping communities, St. John of Damascus is quite literally a house-church. The parish meets for liturgy and fellowship in a small green house on a corner lot, a house that still has the external appearance of the single-family dwelling it once was. Entering inside, one discovers that this is truly a church after all - the front door opens into a small, icon-filled chapel with seating for perhaps thirty people. About twenty were present for yesterday's liturgy, representing a vivid cross-section of Eastern Catholic Christianity: some were lifelong Melkites, some were members of other Eastern churches and some belonged to the Roman Rite. Surprisingly, I wasn't the only novice - a couple guys from the Conventual Franciscan novitiate in nearby Mishawaka were there as well. After the liturgy, I had a chance to chat with longtime pastor Father Bob Kerby, who is a delightful raconteur as well as a fine homilist. Beyond that, few priests - East or West, Catholic or Orthodox - can match Father Kerby for breadth of life experience. A graduate of Fordham Prep and Notre Dame, Kerby flew cargo planes for the U.S. Air Force and earned a doctorate in American history at Columbia before being ordained a Melkite Catholic priest in 1970. Like many Melkite priests in the church's Middle Eastern heartland but unlike most in the United States, Father Kerby is married. When Kerby moved to South Bend to join the faculty at his alma mater, he also became pastor at St. John of Damascus. Now retired from teaching, Kerby continues to run his parish with the help of his wife Mary - a true 'mom and pop' operation, one might say. I enjoyed speaking with Father Kerby and some of his parishioners on Sunday, and I hope to return next time I'm in South Bend. AMDG.

In South Bend.

2006-03-24T15:10:00.000-05:00

As soon as I post this, I'll be heading out for a weekend visit to South Bend. I've deliberately kept a light schedule for the trip, which I'm looking at more as a semi-retreat than as an opportunity for reunion with old friends. That said, I will be staying at the Jesuit community in Granger and thus will have an opportunity to catch up with friends in the Society whom I may not see again before I finish my experiment in Chicago. Other than that, the weekend will probably consist of a lot of reading, relaxation and visits to old haunts like the Vickers Theatre. I'll be back in Chicago on Sunday afternoon, and I'll post an update early next week. AMDG.

Pope no longer "Patriarch of the West."

2006-03-23T20:20:00.000-05:00

In a move rumored for the past month, Pope Benedict XVI has decided to renounce the title "Patriarch of the West." In a communiqué issued yesterday, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity explains that the Pontiff's decision was motivated by concerns about the ambiguity of the patriarchial title as well as hopes that dropping it from the list of papal titles will improve relations between the Holy See and the Orthodox churches.

At least so far, the change seems not to have opened new doors to ecumenical dialogue. Speaking on behalf of the Patriarch of Moscow, Russian Orthodox Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev stated that the move would not improve Catholic-Orthodox relations. In essence, Bishop Hilarion argued that dropping the 'Patriarch of the West' title doesn't get to the heart of Orthodox concerns about the papacy and may in fact introduce new barriers to dialogue. This statement is about par for the course considering the recent state of relations between Rome and Moscow. Given that the Vatican enjoys relatively cordial relations with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, I'd be curious to see what, if anything, Patriarch Bartholomew or his representatives have to say about Benedict's decision.

Personally, prior to reading the Vatican statement I never realized there was anything ambiguous about the Pope's patriarchal title. As I've understood it, describing the Bishop of Rome as Patriarch of the West simply reflects the fact that he is not simply the Universal Pontiff but also the head of a particular church within the Catholic communion, namely the Latin or Roman Church. Thinking in these terms helps one understand that the Roman Catholic Church is one among many churches of equal dignity that are in communion with the See of Rome and with one another. Given that several of the Eastern Catholic churches are led by bishops who hold the title of patriarch, identifying the Pope as a patriarch emphasizes that the Latin Church is one among many churches in the Catholic communion. Even so, as the Vatican communiqué point out, the historical pedigree of the title 'Patriarch of the West' isn't quite as strong as those of other patriarchal sees. Vesting the head of the Latin Church with the patriarchial title may also create a problem inasmuch as there are other Roman Catholic bishops with the title of patriarch, though their titles are purely honorary - the best known is the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, though there are also Latin Patriarchs of Lisbon, Venice and the East Indies (this last title belongs to the Archbishop of Goa and Daman in India). Though Pope Benedict XVI may have had good reasons for dropping the 'Patriarch of the West' title, I can't help but feel that something rich and resonant has been lost in the process. The Pope's decision changes nothing about the Church's self-understanding, so I hope new ways can be found to symbolically express the same concepts that were conveyed by the now-extinct title 'Patriarch of the West.' AMDG.

18th century empire builder's pet tortoise dies in India zoo.

2006-03-23T20:18:00.000-05:00

Adwaitya, believed to the world's oldest tortoise and a mute witness to the dawn as well as the twilight of the British Empire, died yesterday at the reputed age of 255 at a zoo in Calcutta. Adwaitya was born in the Seychelles Islands and brought to India in 1775 with three other tortoises as a gift to Robert Clive, the British statesman who laid the foundations of British dominion over India. Clive (the subject of an excellent paper my sister wrote in high school) actually died in 1774 and thus never saw the tortoise, but since news traveled fairly slowly in the 18th century it seems likely that the British sailors who brought him to India had no idea that the intended recipient of their gift was deceased. Though his four companions died soon after their arrival in India, Adwaitya (whose name means "The Only One" in Bengali) resided at the Clive estate for a full century before moving to Calcutta's Alipore Zoo in 1875. Adwaitya was 125 at the time of the move and was thought to be in the twilight of his years. Instead, the taciturn tortoise survived for well over a century, living to see an independent India and winning the hearts of generations of zoo visitors.

Learning of Adwaitya's death, I instantly recalled the story of Charlie, a parrot alleged to have been the wartime pet of Winston Churchill and reported in January 2004 to be alive and well at the age of 104. Churchill daughter Mary Soames quickly denied that Charlie had belonged to her father, but as far as I know the bird's age has never been questioned. Officials at the Alipore Zoo claim they have documentation that establishes Adwaitya's age, so I suppose the old gent had a much firmer claim to fame than poor Charlie did. With Adwaitya's death, an important if unusual link to a vanished world has been lost. Adwaitya's devoted caretakers and his many fans will miss him. Even though I never heard of Adwaitya before I learned of his death, as one who loves animals and ancient things I'll miss him too. AMDG.

One Year Later.

2006-03-21T22:42:00.000-05:00

Given that the post marking the beginning of my Short Experiment a year ago yesterday borrowed its title from a New Amsterdams song, perhaps it's appropriate that the title of this post is early Get Up Kids, though I wouldn't read too much into this. Sometimes, I go to great lengths for the sake of symmetry - or simply for the sake of a title. Anyhow, it's hard to believe it's been a year since I started my Short Experiment. Newer readers or those with short memories may appreciate an explanation of what I did on Short Experiment. In short, I spent two months in the spring of 2005 working for the Refugee Resettlement Program at Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County while living with the Jesuit community at Santa Clara University. Looking back, the time I spent at Santa Clara wasn't simply a highpoint of my novitiate but one of the greatest experiences of my life. I could say much more about this, but I might do better to simply point readers to the posts of March to May of last year in which I described my experiences in California as I lived them. My prayers for the next few days will be for the friends I made on Short Experiment and for the refugees I served in my ministry. As I pray for them, I'll also be praying in gratitude for the time I shared with them. AMDG.

A tale of two feasts, St. Joseph's and St. Patrick's.

2006-03-19T16:30:00.000-05:00

March 19th is one of two days on which the Roman Catholic Church typically remembers St. Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary and foster father of Jesus (the other day honoring Joseph, the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, falls on May 1st). I say "typically" because this year St. Joseph's Day is being transferred to Monday in deference to today's celebration of the Third Sunday in Lent. Though I accept the principle of Lenten Sundays taking precedence over popular feast days, I'm a little confused that the same principle is not extended to feasts that fall on Lenten Fridays, as St. Patrick's Day often seems to do - it seems a bit strange to me that so many bishops freely dispense the faithful of their dioceses from the Lenten obligation to abstain from meat when St. Patrick's Day falls on a Friday during Lent. I'll explain my objections to this pastoral practice a bit later.

Given that today is my name day (as well as the name day of my father and of my late grandfather - Joseph is a common name in my family), I felt I should do something special to celebrate St. Joseph's Day. Knowing that La Festa di San Giuseppe is a major event for many Italian parishes, I attended Mass this morning at the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii around the corner from St. Ignatius in the confidence that this church wouldn't let the technicality of a transferred observance get in the way of a beloved feast day. I had this confidence in part because I attend Mass regularly at Our Lady of Pompeii and had seen several weeks' worth of bulletin announcements noting that today's feast would be celebrated with a traditional "St. Joseph's Table" banquet of Italian dishes prepared by parishioners. Though the readings and proper parts of the liturgy were from the Third Sunday of Lent, none could deny that today's Mass was in celebration of St. Joseph's Day - the church was unusually crowded (packed to the gills, in fact), the liturgy was celebrated in both English and Italian, and the homily wove together themes from both the Lenten readings and the feast day. The season and the feast were even better woven together at the banquet: longstanding tradition dictates that none of dishes served at St. Joseph's Table contain meat. This banquet in honor of St. Joseph is meatless in deference to the practice of Lenten abstinence, regardless of whether St. Joseph's Day falls on a Friday and even when the feast falls on a Sunday - normally the day of the week on which Lenten discipline is deliberately relaxed.

Considering the way in which Italian Catholics manage to balance their celebration of St. Joseph's Day with the spirit of a penitential season, the widespread practice of the St. Patrick's Day dispensation from Lenten abstinence for the sake of being able to eat corned beef strikes me as rather strange. Personally, it's hard for me to imagine that anyone would actually want to eat corned beef so badly as to seek a dispensation to do so. To go to such lengths just to licitly consume such bland fare strikes me as a tad excessive, especially when one considers the shallow roots of the tradition in question. Far from being an ancient Irish custom, the tradition of eating corned beef on St. Patrick's Day originated in late-19th century New York. However, even if corned beef were authentic Irish fare I don't see how it could be rated more important than the venerable tradition of Lenten abstinence. There's a dualistic sensibility about corned beef dispensationalism that I just can't abide. Granting a dispensation from the obligation of Lenten abstinence so the faithful can eat corned beef on St. Patrick's Day seems to send a negative message about Lent, suggesting that the penitential character of the season is so onerous that Catholics can't have any fun at all without a temporary relaxation of Lenten discipline. The tradition of St. Joseph's Table sends a different and much more positive message, suggesting that it is possible to have a joyful celebration of faith, family and tradition while still remaining mindful of our Lenten obligations. At least that's my read on things - readers who disagree are welcome to express their views in the comment box. My prayers and best wishes go out to you, whether you celebrate St. Joseph's Day, St. Patrick's Day, or both. AMDG.

There is no joy in Rockford . . .

2006-03-19T12:40:00.000-05:00

. . . for Auburn High finished third at the state Scholastic Bowl championship yesterday in Peoria. The kids from Rockford went to the state championship with high hopes, boosted by a glowing profile in Friday's Chicago Tribune. However, in the end the top spot went to Palatine's Fremd High School. Though winning isn't everything ( it's the only thing, Vince Lombardi would've said) the Auburn High Scholastic Bowl team can still take great consolation in an eminently respectable third-place finish at a statewide competition. I won't be around to see it, but I would be thrilled to see the St. Ignatius Scholastic Bowl team do as well in their next season. I also hope that Auburn takes heart and makes a go for first in 2007. Wait 'til next year. AMDG.

Bound for the Bronx.

2006-03-17T15:15:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I received formal notification from the Chicago Province formation director that - pending my petition and approval for vows - I will be headed to the Bronx this fall to enter the Jesuit First Studies Program at Fordham University. I got informal word that I would probably be assigned to Fordham over a week ago, but I waited for the official decision from the provincial before posting the news here. For a number of reasons, I'm very happy to be going to Fordham. Considering my different options for First Studies, I was very impressed by the academic strengths of the Fordham program and by the opportunity to take courses at Union Theological Seminary, NYU and other area institutions. The unparalleled range of apostolic and extracurricular opportunities available in New York also attracted me to Fordham. Family geography was also a very important factor: being in New York, I'll be relatively close to home - four hours by car - and will be able to see my family more often than I can in Chicago. All in all, I'm excited about First Studies and I'm looking forward to the fall. Please pray for me and my classmates as we prepare to apply for vows and to take an important new step in our Jesuit lives. AMDG.

Scholastic Bowl in the news.

2006-03-17T15:13:00.000-05:00

No, it's not the St. Ignatius team - our squad was mustered out in the regionals - but the Scholastic Bowl team from Auburn High School in Rockford is on its way to tomorrow's state championship in Peoria. Today's Chicago Tribune has a front page story profiling the team and looking at the combination of individual talent and teamwork that account for Auburn's success. For the uninitiated, the basic mechanics of Scholastic Bowl are explained as follows:

Scholastic Bowl is like "Jeopardy" on steroids.

Unlike other popular high school academic competitions, such as the Science Olympiad or the Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering challenge, which focus on specific subjects, the Scholastic Bowl forces students to master many topics.

Contestants face questions in calculus, astronomy, home economics, European history, classical music, agriculture and even driver's ed.

In some cases, competitors must know recondite information. (Give the more common name of Bach's Six Concerti Grossi, BMV 1046-51, 1717-1721. Answer: Brandenburg Concertos.) But most questions focus on material that well-studied honors students should know.

During a recent competition, students were quizzed on linear functions and the theory of relativity. And they had to know the differences between fascism and mercantilism, and between Hinduism and Buddhism.

Scholastic Bowl is reminiscent of "College Bowl," the popular 1960s TV program. Teams of five students sit at facing tables. A moderator asks a "tossup" question and any student can ring in. If the student answers correctly, her--or more likely--his team (boys significantly outnumber girls) earns 10 points.

That team gets first crack at the "bonus question," a multi- part question worth 20 points. Teams have 30 seconds to huddle and come up with the "bonus" answers. If they do not, the other team gets a shot. The top-scoring school wins.

Given that Ignatius is long out of the running, I wish the Rockford Auburn kids well in Peoria. I also commend the Tribune for giving a group of smart and studious high school students the recognition they deserve and don't always get. Bravo! AMDG.

Vocation Tour 2006.

2006-03-16T17:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, St. Ignatius College Prep was honored with a visit by first-year novices Richard Beebe, Tim McCabe and Chris Staab, who gave eight periods' worth of vocation talks as part of their tour of Chicagoland's three Jesuit high schools. As Rich anticipated in this pre-vocation tour post, the three primi found the experience physically exhausting. However, I'm pleased to report that my brother novices showed impressive stamina in making it through the day and did a fine job telling their stories. After giving the primi a chance to rest for a bit, the St. Ignatius Jesuit community hosted the newest members of the Chicago and Detroit provinces for Mass and dinner before bidding them Godspeed as they headed up to Loyola Academy in Wilmette for their next round of talks. Though I didn't get to spend as much time with Chris, Rich and Tim as I would have liked, I appreciated the opportunity to catch up with them briefly and to introduce them to SICP. Please pray for the first-year men as they begin their Short Experiments: Chris will be working with Mexican migrants and living with the Jesuits at Sacred Heart Church in El Paso, Texas; Rich will be working at a Jesuit-sponsored think-tank called the Center of Concern and will be living with the Jesuit community at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C.; Tim will be working with people with AIDS and living with the Jesuits at St. Agnes Church in San Francisco, California. I'm sure each of the primi will render great service to the people of God they encounter on their experiments, and I look forward to hearing about their experiences when we're reunited in May. AMDG.

Portuguese pilgrims carry on Lenten tradition.

2006-03-13T16:22:00.000-05:00

Yesterday’s New Bedford Standard-Times has a couple articles reporting on the Romaria, a Lenten pilgrimage undertaken annually since the 16th century by men on the island of São Miguel in the Azores. One article reports on a group of romeiros (pilgrims) making the pilgrimage this year and relates some of the history of the Romaria, a tradition that is also carried out in an adapted form in some Portuguese communities in the United States (see this 1999 Standard-Times article for more information). As they work to keep the tradition of the Romaria alive in the United States, some Portuguese-Americans also return to São Miguel to experience the real thing. Making the week-long Romaria on São Miguel is much more bit more demanding than completing the one-day American version, as the Standard-Times reports:

In Massachusetts, the pilgrims stop to eat in churches; on the island, they can rest at parks on cliffs overlooking the Azorean beaches, where dark volcanic sand stretches to the ocean. The men stop in every village to pray. Before the pilgrimage begins, they make arrangements to stay in homes along the route. At night, they go into a church to pray, and villagers meet them and invite them into their homes.

All the pilgrims, men and boys as young as 9, wear symbolic items. The shawl represents Jesus' cloak, the scarf his crown of thorns, and the backpack his cross. The backpack also holds enough underwear and socks for the week. When the pilgrims stop to rest, they sometimes take off their shawls to cool off, but they keep the scarves on to show their membership in the group. They call themselves brothers, and when people ask how many are walking they always add three - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who they say are with them on the journey. . .

As a descendant of immigrants from São Miguel, someday I would like to become a romeiro myself. Learning to speak Portuguese will be a necessary first step. God willing, I'd also like to make the Romaria as a priest so I could offer Mass for other pilgrims along the route. Assuming I'm able to do both these things - learn Portuguese and be ordained - it'll be a while before I become a romeiro. All the more reason to look forward to the experience. AMDG.

A day in the life.

2006-03-11T11:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I attended the St. Ignatius Law Alumni Luncheon in the posh digs of the Chicago Athletic Association, a private club on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. An annual event, yesterday's luncheon gathers some of the many St. Ignatius alumni who have gone on to become practicing attorneys and judges in Chicago. As the newest Jesuit at SICP and as a law school graduate to boot, I struck the staff of the development office as a good person to represent the school at the luncheon. Unsurprisingly, the alumni I spoke with at the luncheon all expressed great curiosity regarding my work at the school, my vocation and the mechanics of my formation as a Jesuit. For my part, I enjoyed hearing the attorneys I met at the luncheon speak about how their experience of Jesuit education had positively influenced the course of their personal and professional lives. I also appreciated the opportunity to be of service to SICP by helping provide a Jesuit presence at an event where such a presence was deeply appreciated.

On my way back to school after an enjoyable hour at the luncheon, I ran into someone I didn't expect to see - or, to put it better, I ran into 100,000 people I didn't expect to see. I'd gotten a ride to the luncheon from another Jesuit working in the school; considering the impossibility of finding parking on the Magnificent Mile, we had opted to park several blocks west of Michigan Avenue. Walking back to the car, we came face-to-face with a massive demonstration in favor of immigrants' rights. A predominantly Mexican crowd that the Chicago Tribune estimated (conservatively, I would say) at about 100,000 had descended on the Loop to protest H.R. 4437, a bill recently approved by the U.S. House that threatens stricter enforcement of immigration laws and tougher penalties for those who knowingly assist undocumented immigrants. I knew about the rally ahead of time - and even knew Jesuits who planned to attend - but I was still bowled over by its massive scale. I can't recall ever seeing such a large crowd - the march of demonstrators literally went on as far as the eye could see. The marchers maintained an impresively peaceful tone - I saw no clenched fists and heard no angry shouts, only earnest and serious individuals committed to a justice issue that touches them personally.

My experiences as a guest at the luncheon and a witness to the demonstration reminded of the Jesuit's responsibility to make himself at home in two worlds. This is a topic I've written about before and one worth returning to as I begin to prepare my petition for vows. Promoting justice and acting in solidarity with the marginalized are key elements of the Jesuits' contemporary mission, but they don't represent the totality of our endeavors. Spending time among and working with the economically poor is an important part of the promotion of justice to which we are called. However, this does not mean that Jesuits should work exclusively with the poor and scorn the rich. On the contrary, maintaining relationships with affluent and influential people - including the lawyers and judges I had lunch with yesterday - is as critical to the Society's promotion of justice as direct ministry to the marginalized. Ideally, our relationships with the movers and shakers of the secular world - relationships forged most especially through educational institutions sponsored by the Society - give Jesuits an opportunity to promote a social order more in line with Gospel values. By going through the doors of the rich and powerful, Jesuits have always hoped that the rich might be brought out our door. Though these hopes have been unevenly realized, our obligation to work with people at all levels of society remains strong. It's good to be reminded of this - particularly in situations like the one I found myself in yesterday. AMDG.

Chi Prov tertians at Loyola House.

2006-03-08T21:50:00.000-05:00

Loyola House has, I suspect, been a much quieter place over the past couple months that I and my nine fellow secundi have been away on Long Experiment. From what I can tell, the resident formatores and our three brave primi have been doing a commendable job of holding down the fort in a large building that can feel eerily empty when its rate of occupancy is more than halved. After a few lean weeks, Loyola House's population has enjoyed a sudden and remarkable increase. Over the next couple months, Loyola House will be home to six Chicago Province Jesuits in the phase of formation known as tertianship - a period during which Jesuits renew their acquaintance with the Society's founding documents and repeat the full thirty-day Spiritual Exercises to make themselves ready to take the final vows that mark their full incorporation into the Society of Jesus. To learn more about tertianship and the six Chi Prov tertians currently at Loyola House - Pat Fairbanks, Bob Finn, Bob Flack, Tim Howe, Dave Meconi and Rick Millbourn - read this article from the Fall 2005 issue of Partners. If you want an update on what the tertians are doing, be sure to check out Pat Fairbanks' blog. Pat has a new post up today reporting on the end of the Long Retreat, his studies in the Jesuit Constitutions and the ministry he will soon begin at the Oakland County Jail. Watch Pat's blog for further reflections on his experience of tertianship. More importantly, pray for our tertians and for all Jesuits in formation. AMDG.

Novice in the news.

2006-03-05T20:30:00.000-05:00

On the night of the Oscars, it's fitting that I acknowledge the recent media attention accorded to Loyola House's foremost film maven, my classmate and good friend Jake Martin. Currently on Long Experiment at Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis, Jake is the subject of a glowing profile in the most recent issue of the local diocesan newspaper The Criterion. The article briefly recounts Jake's journey from stand-up comic to Jesuit novice and looks at a student improv group Jake has started at Brebeuf. In sharing his gifts with his students, Jake is helping the kids at Brebeuf develop their own talents and, in the process, helping them grow closer to God. I'm glad to see Jake get some public recognition for the strong mark he has made during his Long Experiment - the good press is richly deserved and will surely be of benefit to the Society of Jesus. Congratulations, Jake! AMDG.

All good things must end . . .

2006-03-03T21:10:00.000-05:00

. . . including the Wolfpack basketball season, which concluded tonight with a 35-39 loss to the Lincoln Park Lions in an IHSA Regional Championship game held at St. Ignatius. The regionals started out well for the Wolfpack with a 78-37 win over Dunbar on Ash Wednesday. Those in the know warned me ahead of time that tonight's game against Lincoln Park would be much more challenging, and so it was. The Wolfpack trailed badly through much of the game, and a 4th Quarter comeback that left us within four points of the Lions came too late. Though I'm sad to see the season end, I'll retain fond memories of the games I attended. Now that I won't have Wolfpack basketball to root for anymore, it's time I started to take a look at some of St. Ignatius' spring athletic teams. In the near future, perhaps, this space will carry updates on the progress of Wolfpack baseball or track and field. Go Wolfpack, AMDG.

Ash Wednesday.

2006-03-01T22:36:00.000-05:00

A bit like the young Henry Adams, I've been known to attend church twice on Sunday. Perhaps it is fitting that I would do the same on a day such as Ash Wednesday. Though Ash Wednesday is not canonically recognized as a holy day of obligation, many Roman Catholics feel both a desire and obligation to mark the start of their Lenten pilgrimage by attending Mass today. Ash Wednesday is also a day on which Catholics bear witness to their faith in a poignant and profound way, bearing on their foreheads a mark of their status as loved and redeemed sinners. I was obliged to attend Mass today not merely by faith or desire, but by responsibilities to the school in which I work and the community in which I live - it was out of loyalty to both that I ended up attending two Ash Wednesday liturgies.

This morning, the students, faculty and staff of St. Ignatius College Prep observed Ash Wednesday with an all-school Mass at Holy Family Church, a Victorian Gothic gem next door to the school. As I did last year in another locale, I helped distribute ashes at the school liturgy. Again and again I rubbed my right thumb in a bowl of ashes and made the sign of the cross on the foreheads of a procession of students and faculty, some of whom I knew fairly well, some of whom I knew simply by name, and others I knew not at all. Each time, I recited the familiar and consoling yet still rather jarring words, "Remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return." As I did this, I thought of the Meditation on the Incarnation in the Spiritual Exercises, in which Saint Ignatius invites the exercitant to imagine the three persons of the Trinity looking down upon the mass of human beings "in all their diversity of dress and appearance, some white and some black, some in peace and others at war, some weeping and others laughing, some healthy, others sick . . ." Granted, the crowd before me at Holy Family didn't exactly match Ignatius' description; this being a dress-up day (ties for boys, skirts for girls), there was less diversity in student attire than might be seen otherwise, and given the preponderance of students the group was much less diverse in age than Ignatius' meditation would have us imagine. Nonetheless, I could see the reality of Christ's Incarnation and Redemption in the face of every person who came before me. I could see that each person before me was a unique individual made in the image and likeness of God, and I could see that God came into the world for the sake of each and every one of them. By attending this Ash Wednesday liturgy and choosing to be marked with ashes, every student and teacher before me acknowledged - some more consciously than others, no doubt - both their own need for a redeemer and their need to live up to their identity as redeemed sinners. None of these thoughts are terribly new, but my experiences at this morning's liturgy brought them back to me in a particularly vivid way.

The second Ash Wednesday Mass I attended was a late-afternoon liturgy at the Jesuit residence in which I live. Though we celebrate Mass as a community every Wednesday afternoon, it seems particularly apt that we should do so on a day such as this one. Five of the eleven Jesuits in our community work at St. Ignatius and were present at the all-school Mass at Holy Family earlier in the day, but the other six men who live here and work in diverse ministries (hospital chaplaincy, parish ministry and community service) were not. In many cases, the Jesuits who weren't at today's school Mass celebrated Ash Wednesday liturgies in the different places in which they work. To be a Jesuit today, as our 32nd General Congregation reminded us, "is to know that one is a sinner, yet called to be a Companion of Jesus as Ignatius was." Thus it is highly appropriate that, after observing Ash Wednesday with their larger communities to which we belong, that members of a particular Jesuit community should come together as brothers and friends in the Lord to acknowledge our own sinfulness and need for redemption. This afternoon's community liturgy at St. Ignatius was as simple as the morning Mass at Holy Family was elaborate. We had no music and a very short homily, and in a place of a complex, carefully diagrammed plan for the distribution of communion we had only a single paten and chalice passed among ourselves. We came together not as a diverse group of students and educators but as a small group of celibate, white and mostly gray-haired men. As professional Christians, all but one of whom having made public vows of poverty, chastity and obedience (and that one hopes to profess said vows in August), we spend much of our time seeking to bring God's saving love to others. Coming together to pray as a community, we remind ourselves that we also stand in need of God's mercy and forgiveness. This thought, like the ones that came to me this morning at Holy Family, is not terribly new. Nonetheless, it stands as a salutary reminder of what Ash Wednesday is all about. AMDG.

Continued coughing.

2006-02-27T20:32:00.000-05:00

I regret to inform the readers of this blog that I'm still not feeling well. The antibiotics the doctor prescribed for the malady I described a couple weeks ago provided only temporary relief from the coughing and congestion I've been facing. Most of last week I felt better, but over the weekend my symptoms returned in full force. Nonetheless, I have a full week ahead of me that includes teaching, Ash Wednesday stuff, chaperoning a couple student field trips and attending at least one basketball game. I'm not so sick that I can't do all these things, but being under the weather still isn't fun so I ask for your prayers for my health and for all others who are currently waylaid by the opportunistic infections that winter seems to keep in business. AMDG.

Massachusetts' longest-serving elected official set to retire.

2006-02-24T16:38:00.000-05:00

Today's Boston Globe reports on Edward J. "Eddie" Sullivan's pending retirement as Clerk of the Middlesex Superior Court. A member of an important political family, Sullivan served five terms on the Cambridge City Council before being elected to his current position in 1958. After serving eight six-year terms as Middlesex County Clerk of Courts, the spry 85-year-old is retiring to spend more time with his family. Here's how the Globe describes the personal mementoes that fill Sullivan's courthouse digs:

The walls of his office are adorned with memorabilia that recall a bygone era, an ever-present reminder that Sullivan is a throwback, one of the last of a breed that flourished when all politics was not only local, as illustrious Cambridge pol and Sullivan friend Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr. once said, but also very colorful and retail. There are several photos of President Kennedy with Eddie and his brother Walter, a Cambridge councilor for 34 years. In another, Eddie is shoulder-to-shoulder with President Lyndon B. Johnson at a 1964 campaign rally. A young Francis X. Bellotti, then lieutenant governor and sporting a crewcut, is next to them.

Describing some more of Sullivan's pictures, the Globe reports that the Clerk "is also pictured alongside governors, including Edward J. King. Old-school Eddie Sullivan was not a Michael Dukakis kind of guy." I note this point of pride for the benefit of Jake Martin and others who may be familiar with my lectures on the rivalry between King and Dukakis and differences between their supporters.

Another point of pride for "old-school Eddie Sullivan" is an understanding of politics as a system intended to meet concrete human needs. As the Globe quotes Sullivan: "Many people think it's a crime to do a favor. In my opinion, if no one's getting hurt, what's wrong with doing someone a favor if you can help them out? If they need assistance one way or another, why not help them?" I suspect that individuals who may quibble with this point have always had the means to meet all of their needs. Potential critics put off by Sullivan's old-fashioned style and lengthy tenure should also be aware of the Clerk's efforts to make the Middlesex courts fair and efficient dispensers of justice - efforts that the Globe notes with appreciation.

Near the end of its article on Sullivan's retirement, the Globe reports a story which I'd like to quote in full, both for what it says about the Clerk's approach to politics and for its insight on the oft-touchy subject of town-gown relations in Cambridge:

A common subject [of Sullivan's stories] - and one he loves to needle - is Harvard University, which sits near his boyhood home on Surrey Street. In one of his yarns, he recalls that while holding the largely ceremonial post of Cambridge mayor in the mid-1950's, he broke protocol by sending a surrogate to Harvard's commencement ceremony.

There was a practical reason for this snub, however. The Harvard exercises conflicted with the public school graduations he wanted to attend. Sullivan recounted explaining the situation to an aide. "There's no . . . votes up in the Harvard Yard for me," he said. "I'm going where the future votes are."

"Thirty years later, I spoke to a group at Harvard and told them the story," Sullivan said. "I said I guess I made the right decision because they're still voting for me."

Well-done, good and faithful servant. Eddie Sullivan may be on the brink of disappearing from the political scene, but here's hoping that his legacy endures. AMDG.

Cornbread and beef stew in Jesuit life.

2006-02-22T22:19:00.000-05:00

Dinner at the St. Ignatius Jesuit Residence often involves an informal lesson or two on the history of the Society. The community I live in includes a number of accomplished raconteurs, and over the past couple months my experiences at table have been enriched by many anecdotes about Jesuit life in the 1940's, '50's and '60's. The older men here often tell stories about their own experiences in formation at the old Chicago Province novitiate in Milford, Ohio, in theology at West Baden College in Indiana or Bellarmine School of Theology in North Aurora, Illinois and working both as regents or young priests in the province's various high schools. Oral history provides an important medium through which the culture, customs and traditions of the Society are passed on, so hearing these stories is an important part of my formation as a Jesuit.

Monday's dinner provided a somewhat surprising lesson in Jesuit history. On the menu that night was beef stew served with cornbread. The older Jesuits in the community partook of this meal with great relish, some mashing up the cornbread and mixing it with the stew and others keeping the bread on the side and washing it down with maple syrup. I'd had an unusually heavy lunch (a cheeseburger and fries from Chicago's Busy Burger down the street) and I'm not much of a beef stew afficionado anyway, so I went light on the entree. One of my brother Jesuits noticed this and urged me to go up for seconds, noting that beef stew and cornbread were part of Jesuit tradition. I'd never heard this before, so I asked for an explanation. I was told that beef stew and cornbread were served regularly at the old novitiate in Milford - especially at breakfast. I must have looked fairly incredulous, because my dining companion helpfully explained that at Milford the novices had to wait a fairly long time after waking up before they had breakfast - rising at 5 a.m., each member of the community would perform his morning ablutions and meditate for nearly an hour before attending Mass and finally moving to the refectory for the first meal of the day around 7 o' clock. Under these circumstances, many novices welcomed the prospect of a hearty breakfast of beef stew and cornbread.

Having discovered the importance of beef stew and cornbread as menu items at the pre-Vatican II Milford novitiate, I wondered whether the tradition was unique to my own Chicago Province. I found a partial answer last night in the pages of I'll Die Laughing! by Father Joseph T. McGloin, S.J. A bestseller when it was first published in 1955, I'll Die Laughing! offers a lighthearted and affectionate if decidedly tongue-in-cheek account of Jesuit formation before the Second Vatican Council. In its day, McGloin's book played the role that books like The Fifth Week and In Good Company have played more recently as introductions to Jesuit life for young men interested in joining the Society. Anyhow, regarding his own novitiate at Florissant, Missouri, Father McGloin writes: "Three times a week, we had corn bread and stew for breakfast. The number of square feet of corn bread and the number of barrels of stew consumed over the course of a year would probably astonish even Ripley."

Putting Father McGloin's recollections in a larger context, one may surmise that the cornbread-and-stew tradition came to Milford from Florissant. In 1928, the Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus, which then covered nearly the entire middle third of the United States, was divided into two, with northern Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio forming the new Chicago Province. The new province adopted the traditions of the old, especially in the area of formation; thus, the new novitiate at Milford followed the ordo and regulae of the Florissant novitiate virtually to the letter. It's easy to imagine the custom of eating cornbread and stew several times a week came to Milford in this manner, but that still leaves a few questions unanswered. How, for example, did the cornbread-and-stew tradition begin at Florissant - did it originate there, or was it brought from somewhere else? Were cornbread and stew staples at other American novitiates as well? My interest in such questions may be enough to convince some readers that I'm crazy; if nothing else, this interest shows how fascinated I am by the minutiae of Jesuit history. Whatever their sentiments, readers will no doubt be consoled to know that I'm not going to lose any sleep over these matters. However, if anyone out there - particulary Jesuits and others with knowledge of our formation - has any data on this strikingly obscure topic, feel free to post a comment. AMDG.

Wolfpack defeat Eagles, 65-39.

2006-02-22T20:59:00.000-05:00

Tonight the St. Ignatius varsity boys' basketball team beat the Eagles of Jones College Prep by a 26-point margin. Though the Eagles got within striking distance of the Wolfpack early in the game, St. Ignatius developed an insurmountable lead in the second half. Though the Wolfpack will play again soon in the IHSA sectionals, this was the last official game of the season. As a result, tonight was "Senior Night," with special recognition given to the Wolfpack's stellar senior players and many of their classmates in the bleachers (here's a special shout-out to the K94 participants I spotted among them). It was another great night for Wolfpack basketball, though I feel at least tinge of sadness in realizing this was one of the last games I'll see while I'm here. I'll certainly miss the times I've spent rooting for St. Ignatius at home and away games, but I'll also treasure my memories of those special winter evenings. Go Wolfpack, AMDG.

Post-Kairos.

2006-02-20T16:39:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon I returned from my first - and hopefully not last - Kairos retreat. Attending the retreat as an adult observer, I had no specific responsibilities aside from a general 'ministry of presence' and thus enjoyed the freedom of taking in the experience without the burden of undue concern or preoccupation. I listened attentively to the various retreat talks given by a well-prepared team of student leaders and other adults, and I tried as best I could to get a sense of how the 46 retreatants were doing on the basis of their comments, reactions and overall demeanor. Over the course of four days of observation, my perceptions of Kairos changed a great deal. On the first day, I figured that a retreat experience geared specifically toward high school students wouldn't do much for someone a few years older and in a different place spiritually than most teenagers. My feelings changed as I heard the different student leaders and the retreatants speak about their experience of God. By the end of the retreat, I felt deeply moved not only by how God's love has been present and active in the lives of the students on the retreat but also by how God's love has become present to me in a new way through the students I encountered on Kairos and back at St. Ignatius. In this regard, I was particularly affected by the comments I received from students at the end of the retreat. The students' words of appreciation and encouragement - thanking me for my presence on the retreat, affirming my vocation, and telling me I'd make a good priest - meant a great deal to me. I'm grateful to the students who went on St. Ignatius Kairos 94 for their kind words of support and for sharing their Kairos experience with me. I'm also grateful to God for revealing Himself to me in new and unexpected ways during the retreat, and I prayerfully hope that the graces of the experience stay with me as I continue my experiment here at St. Ignatius. AMDG.

Kairos.

2006-02-15T21:19:00.000-05:00

I'll be away for the next few days attending a senior Kairos retreat at the Resurrection Center in Woodstock, Illinois (a place I made another retreat at barely a month ago, as recounted in this post). Kairos, in case you don't know, is "a religious retreat program grounded in Christian incarnational theology and Ignatian spirituality," in the words of the SICP Pastoral Ministry webpage. The roots of Kairos go back to 1965, when a diocesan priest in Brooklyn pioneered a "Christian Awakening" youth retreat modeled after the highly successful Cursillo Movement. In the 1960's and '70's, Kairos spread to Catholic high schools across the United States, becoming especially popular at Jesuit institutions. Students at St. Ignatius have been going on Kairos retreats since the mid-1980's. Not having attended a Jesuit or even a Catholic high school, I've never made a Kairos retreat. However, I have made a number of retreats based on the Cursillo model and have done enough preliminary reading on Kairos to get the gist of it. As an adult observer, I won't actually be "making" this retreat but will rather be expected to provide support and supervision in tandem with other adult chaperones. I'll probably post some reflections on the experience at the start of next week. AMDG.

Tonga gets first elected leader.

2006-02-15T21:16:00.000-05:00

When I was in high school, I was fascinated by the Kingdom of Tonga, a Polynesian island nation in the South Pacific. I'm not totally certain where I first stumbled upon Tonga, but I have a feeling it may have been in the pages of National Geographic. I collected back issues of National Geographic when I was a kid, largely because the magazine's vivid if dated accounts of putatively exotic foreign lands fed my youthful imagination. I remember one 1967 issue of National Geographic had a story contrasting two royal events that occurred that year: the lavish coronation of the Shah of Iran and the equally dignified though much humbler crowning of Tonga's King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV. Wherever my interest in Tonga came from, it bore fruit in a class presentation I gave in eleventh grade. Back then the Internet was relatively undeveloped as a source of information, so I wrote to the Tongan government for assistance with my project. In response, I received a gracious letter from a senior government official on palace stationery, an official photograph of the King and Queen and a crisp copy of the country's major (and, I suspect, only) newspaper. These items featured prominently in my presentation, which got an 'A.'

I've given relatively little thought to Tonga over the past decade, though given the opportunity I'd still enjoy visiting the country. Earlier this week, however, Tonga reentered my consciousness when I spotted this BBC News report on recent political developments in the country. Traditionally dominated by the royal family and hereditary nobles, Tongan politics have been inching toward democratization in recent years. Economic woes and corruption scandals have helped increase calls for a more open and accountable government. In the last few days, as reported by the BBC, public pressure has forced the resignation of a prime minister chosen by the King from among the nobility and his replacement by Dr. Feleti Sevele, a commoner and one of a handful of elected representatives in Tonga's parliament. It's been a long time since I paid any attention to Tongan politics, so I'm ill-equipped to analyze the full import of this development. However, I hope Dr. Sevele's accession to the office of prime minister is a positive step forward for the Tongan people. I'm also pleased that this news gave me an opportunity to reflect on a long-neglected interest in a small island nation. God save Tonga, AMDG.

Under the weather.

2006-02-13T20:43:00.000-05:00

This weekend, Massachusetts and the rest of the Northeast were hit by a record-breaking Nor'easter some are calling the Blizzard of 2006. While Boston and New York received upwards of two feet of snow, my home region got only 8 to 14 inches - still enough to generate a flurry of school closings and keep a lot of residents home from work. Here in Chicago, I've been feeling the effects of the season with what I take to be a nasty cold - lots of coughing, a sore throat and some congestion, but thankfully no fever or fatigue. My duties today and tomorrow are fairly light, so I'm taking it easy. However, I'm teaching on Wednesday and will be heading off on a Kairos retreat on Thursday, so hopefully I'll get well soon. AMDG.

"I'll be the judge of that . . ."

2006-02-11T13:35:00.000-05:00

Last night I attended a St. Ignatius varsity boys' basketball game at my brother novice Jake Martin's alma mater, St. Laurence High School in Burbank, Illinois. The St. Laurence Vikings provided the Wolfpack with some notably stiff competition, leading for most of the game until St. Ignatius finally pulled ahead and won by 67-62. Jake, I'm sure you're eager to hear my impressions of St. Laurence, so here they are: In its architecture and layout, St. Laurence seemed a carbon copy of many another suburban high school built in the 1950's and '60's. I was a bit surprised that St. Laurence is housed in a one-story building, but since it's a relatively small school I suppose the scale makes sense. The only discernable hints that the school was Catholic and not public were relatively subtle, such as the fact of an all-male student body and the presence of a handful of Christian Brothers (though I wouldn't have identified them as such if they hadn't been pointed out to me). St. Laurence left a decidedly positive impression on me, perhaps in large part because its design and physical setting closely resembled those of my own high school. It was also good to finally see a school of which I've heard so much - I hope you're happy, Jake. AMDG.

Father Norman F. Martin, S.J., 1914-2006.

2006-02-11T13:27:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I received word that Father Norman Martin, a Jesuit I lived with at Santa Clara, died last Sunday at the age of 91. Fine tributes to Father Martin may be read on the SCU website and in yesterday's San Jose Mercury-News. A fixture at Santa Clara for over half a century, Father Martin arrived at the university as a freshman in 1933 and entered the Society of Jesus two years later. After completing his Jesuit formation and earning a doctorate in Mexican history, Father Martin returned to his alma mater in the 1950's and spent the rest of his life there, first as a professor and then as an employee of the university development office. Father Martin enjoyed friendships with several generations of Santa Clara alumni, becoming a member of many families he had served and gotten to know over the years. These words quoted in his Mercury-News obituary could serve as a fitting epitaph: "Every one of those people I loved and understood and became a part of their lives, part of their accomplishments, part of their laughter, part of their tears." The relationships Father Martin built through his lifelong association with Santa Clara defined his life.

Though I only got to know Norman Martin in the last year of his life, he made a strong impression on me. He was one of my favorite people in the Jesuit community at Santa Clara, an unfailingly generous, kind and patient person and a genuine 'man for others.' At age 90, he swam every morning in the university's outdoor pool before working from 9-to-5 in the development office and then returned to the Jesuit residence for Mass and dinner. After dinner, he would often work a few more hours in his room at the residence, keeping up a voluminous correspondence that included scores of birthday cards, notes of congratulation and sympathy and letters to countless Santa Clara alumni. Father Martin truly cherished the relationships he'd enjoyed throughout his long life and would often share stories about the many people whose lives had touched his, from Santa Clara students and their families to friends and fellow Jesuits he had known during youthful studies in Latin America. As one whose life was touched by Father Martin, I'm grateful for having known him and for his influence on my own developing Jesuit vocation. May he rest in peace, and may he continue to bless all who remember him. AMDG.

Another Jesuit killed in Central Africa.

2006-02-10T16:26:00.000-05:00

To modern ears, the word 'martyr' can often have a deceptively antique ring, evoking images of early Christian saints dying for their faith in gory and unusual ways. Believers living in the more affluent and peaceful corners of today's world may find their faith threatened more by indifference than by outright violence. We shouldn't be so complacent, having so recently completed the most violent century in human history and finding ourselves in a new century that seems no better than the last. If you're at all skeptical about the place of martyrdom in the modern world, take a look at this list of Jesuit martyrs of the 20th century. In the first few years of the 21st century, the Society's martyrology has continued to grow.

The Society of Jesus gained a new martyr this week in Father Elie Koma, a Burundian Jesuit who was killed last Saturday in Bujumbura, one of the latest victims of a civil war that has claimed the lives of over 300,000 people. If media reports of his death are accurate, Father Koma died not because he was a Jesuit but simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A pastor and spiritual director, Father Koma was on his back to the Jesuit community in which he lived after a long day's work when he drove right into a skirmish between government soldiers and members of a rebel militia. Caught in the crossfire, the 59-year-old Jesuit was struck by three bullets and died almost immediately. The priest's death may have been purely accidental or, as sometimes happens, he could have been targeted by combatants eager to eliminate an inconvenient witness.

Reading about the death of Father Koma, I was reminded of last year's killing of Father René De Haes, an event I wrote about here. A Belgian Jesuit who spent much of his life in the Congo, Father De Haes died much as Father Koma did - in an act of random and senseless violence in a country where many innocent people had died in the same way. Given the manner in which they died, Father De Haes and Father Koma both died in solidarity with the people they served. In my work with refugees in California and Ontario, I spent a lot of time with people from the very countries in which Fathers De Haes and Koma died. Having heard stories of persecution and dispossession told by refugees from Burundi and the DRC, I feel strangely close to the conflicts that have torn these countries apart. The violent death of two of my brother Jesuits in Central Africa makes that connection seem even stronger. AMDG.

Random retreat reflections.

2006-02-10T16:25:00.000-05:00

As far as I can tell, this week's sophomore retreat at Techny was a great success. The student leaders did an excellent job, and the sophomore retreatants seemed both to enjoy themselves and to get something from the various activities of the retreat. Beyond providing supervision along with other adult chaperones, my major responsibility on the retreat was to run a Thursday morning reconciliation service. The service went well and in a larger sense I enjoyed my first high school retreat experience. Let's hope I get as much out of next weekend's Kairos retreat.

One random observation I have regarding the retreat concerns the popularity of Notre Dame apparel among St. Ignatius students. Granted a brief respite from the restrictions of the school dress code, the students on the retreat augmented their casual wardrobe with all manner of logo gear which couldn't be licitly worn within the halls of St. Ignatius. The array of ND hoodies, t-shirts and baseball caps was truly staggering; the Fighting Irish seemed to be more popular not only than any other college or university but than any sports team that SICP students might logically support, including the Chicago White Sox. I'm not surprised that many SICP students root for the Fighting Irish, given that Chicago is home not only to many ND alumni and their families but also to many "subway alumni" who didn't attend Notre Dame but are loyal fans of its football team. However, I wouldn't have expected the Irish to be the most popular team among Ignatians as measured by student apparel. Go Irish, go figure.

In the "small world" department, I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a priest of the Society of the Divine Word, the religious community that runs the Techny Towers Retreat Center. Pleased to hear that I was a Jesuit novice, the Divine Word priest noted that his order's novices had just completed the thirty-day Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius on the Massachusetts coast. I told him that my province's primi had just done the same (speaking of which, watch Richard's blog for promised reflections on his experience of the Exercises). At almost exactly the same time that Jesuit novices from half the provinces in the United States Assistancy were making the Exercises in Gloucester, the novices of the Society of the Divine Word were going through the same experience about seventy miles south at Miramar Retreat House in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Pleased by this coincidence, my interlocutor noted that the Church needed all these men, Jesuits as well as Divine Word Missionaries. I readily agreed.

Rounding out this post, I should say something about the main chapel at Techny. Built in the 1920's for what was then Divine Word Seminary, the Chapel of the Holy Spirit is the kind of place you have to explore for hours to fully appreciate. The many stained glass windows, statues and mosaics in the chapel serve as a kind of visual catechism illustrating key aspects of Catholic belief and important chapters in Church history. What most caught my eye in the chapel was a minor but telling detail, a small plaque noting that the chapel's marble high altar was "the gift of the children of the United States." I've seen many similar plaques in old chapels and churches, plaques announcing that this or that altar, statue or window was the gift of a particular family, group or individual. And yet, I've never seen a plaque that could match this one in terms of poignancy and evocative power. The plaque on the high altar at Techny conjures up images of the legions of parochial school children in 1920's Catholic America who saved their pennies, nickels and dimes to contribute to the construction of a grand chapel for a missionary seminary. Raised in the bosom of a Church that must have seemed like an impregnable fortress, these children sacrificed from their own meager means to help evangelize countries and cultures very different from their own - countries and cultures that, as presented in the popular media and in mission magazines of the day, must have seemed exotic and inviting as well as decadent and dangerous. I wonder how many of the children who helped pay for the high altar at Techny later went on to study there and to become missionaries themselves - not many, perhaps, but certainly more than a few. For me, that small plaque in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit at Techny is a memorial not simply to those schoolchildren of the 1920's - nonagenarians now - but to the precious ability of old places to evoke a distant past. For the precious hours I spent this week at Techny, I give thanks. AMDG.

Sophomore Retreat.

2006-02-07T21:39:00.000-05:00

One area of my work at SICP that hasn't received much attention on this blog is pastoral ministry. While I spend the better part of my time here in the classroom, I've also been helping out with student retreats. Most of the retreats at St. Ignatius are run by students for students, so my role as an adult team member is mainly to supervise and provide guidance when necessary - and, given my inexperience in this area, to learn something about how high school retreats are done. Tomorrow, I'll go into the 'field' for the first time when I join about ninety SICP sophomores, a team of about twenty student leaders and several other adult chaperones for Lux Vitae, an overnight retreat at Techny Towers Retreat Center north of Chicago. The Lux Vitae retreat is offered several times during the academic year and is mandatory for all sophomores at St. Ignatius. The students who go on this retreat are given a chance to reflect on areas of light and darkness in their own lives and to grow along with their peers in faith and in their understanding of interdependence and mutuality. The retreat includes a number of small- and large-group sharing sessions as well as Mass and the opportunity to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation. After helping to plan this retreat over the past month, I'm looking forward to seeing it come to fruition over the next couple days. Your prayers for the retreatants and their leaders are most welcome. AMDG.

GC35.

2006-02-05T16:25:00.000-05:00

You've certainly heard a lot about Super Bowl XL in the last few days, but unless you move in Jesuit circles you probably haven't heard about GC35. In a letter to the whole Society released last Thursday, Father General Peter-Hans Kolvenbach announced the 35th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, which will be held in Rome in early 2008. Though the convocation of GC35 has been long anticipated in Jesuit circles, the exact timetable for the Congregation wasn't clear until last week's official announcement. A news story about the event is available here. For more background on what a General Congregation is, Wikipedia has a brief but informative article providing the bare essentials.

A General Congregation is a deliberative body composed of representatives of the whole Society and is called into being only in exceptional circumstances. One of those circumstances is the election of a new General, a piece of business that Father Kolvenbach hopes GC35 will take up when the Congregation meets in January 2008. Though life tenure for the Superior General is one of the most distinctive elements of the Society's governance, experience has also shown the desirability and necessity of procedures permitting the General to resign under particular circumstances. In 2008 Father Kolvenbach will mark his 80th year of life and his 25th year as leader of the Society, and he believes the time may be ripe for a new General.

Other than to elect a new Superior General, General Congregations may be called to address "matters of great moment" that demand urgent action on the part of the Society of Jesus. In the past, such matters have included the need to reform the Society's governance and laws in response to changes in the wider Church (as in the case of GC31, which took place during and immediately after Vatican II) or to respond more generally to 'the signs of the times' (as at GC32, from which the Society's modern mission of "the service of faith and the promotion of justice" emerged). GC35 is expected to address various "matters of great moment," including issues related to ministerial collaboration among Jesuit provinces and with non-Jesuits and questions about the meaning and shape of community life.

For my own part, I look forward to GC35 with great anticipation. This is the first General Congregation called since I entered the Society, and I felt a special feeling on receiving a copy of the General's letter to the entire Society announcing the Congregation. Given the special nature of the General Congregation, I'm also curious and excited to see what emerges from the meeting two years hence. There will be a lot of discussion and speculation about GC35 in Jesuit circles over the next two years, and I'm looking forward to that as well. After spending a great deal of time in the shadow of the past four General Congregations, we in the Society of Jesus now live in expectation of GC35. In a very real sense, what we shall become has not yet been revealed. At this point, I can't even begin to imagine - nor would I be so bold as to predict - what pronouncements will emerge from GC35. At this point, I have no choice but to look ahead with hope. AMDG.

Winning, losing, dancing.

2006-02-05T16:23:00.000-05:00

The title of this post neatly summarizes the various school-related activities I took part in this weekend. On Friday night, I watched as the SICP varsity boys' basketball team beat the Guerin Prep Gators 64-47. Though the outcome of the game was never in serious doubt, as always I enjoyed seeing the Wolfpack emerge victorious. Saturday morning I joined the SICP varsity Scholastic Bowl team for a tournament at Homewood-Flossmoor High School in Chicago's south suburbs. St. Ignatius' student scholars won three of the five rounds in which they competed, but that wasn't enough to move into the higher echelon of teams competing in the afternoon. As a result, I got to go home earlier than I expected and had a chance to rest up before I had to report for chaperoning duty at Saturday night's school dance. Other than standing at the door like a bouncer in clerics, checking to make sure the students had handstamps that showed they had paid the admission fee, my major responsibility was to walk around, stand around and generally make myself visible. The general impression I got was that school dances haven't changed much in the past decade. The kids evidently had a good time, and as far as I can tell they were also remarkably well-behaved. The music that the hired deejay played was predictable in the extreme, but that's about what I anticipated. At one point during the night I thought to myself, 'I wonder if they'll play You Spin Me Right Round in the next ten minutes.' Sure enough, they did. AMDG.

Still minding the gap.

2006-02-03T16:23:00.000-05:00

In a recent post, I bemoaned the fact that cultural knowledge I take for granted as one who grew up in the 1980's and '90's is apparently lost on today's high school students. Well, experiences since have helped restore my faith in the wisdom of modern youth. One such experience took place this afternoon at Scholastic Bowl practice. In response to a question asking for the name of a James Bond known for carrying a white Persian cat, one student called out "Charles Gray!" Told that the correct answer was "Ernst Stavro Blofeld," the teenage Bond fan admitted that he was wrong but correctly noted that Charles Gray had played Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever. At this point, a couple other students indicated that they also recalled Gray's portrayal of Blofeld. Like these SICP students, I'm sure some readers will remember Gray's turn as an effeminate, petulant Blofeld who had a microchip implanted in his voicebox so he could sound like Jimmy Dean on the phone. Readers may also remember Gray as the Criminologist in The Rocky Horror Picture Show or as Sherlock Holmes' brother Mycroft in the 1980's TV series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Anyway, the fact that several contemporary high schoolers would recognize the admittedly obscure Gray was a pleasant surprise. On reflection, it occurs to me that I shouldn't have been so surprised given that Diamonds Are Forever and the rest of the James Bond canon are rerun almost constantly on Spike TV. Even so, I'm pleased to discover that kids born around 1990 are interested in Sean Connery-era Bond movies. There's hope for this generation yet. AMDG.

Mr. Koczera teaches gym.

2006-02-03T16:22:00.000-05:00

This week I started substitute teaching at SICP. Substituting is something I've wanted to do since I got here, figuring that sitting in for absent teachers would broaden my exposure to the life of the school and bring me to parts of the building I wouldn't otherwise see. Accordingly, this week I ventured into Spanish and biology classrooms and even taught gym. Yes, gym. My family and friends will no doubt be shocked and perhaps amused by the idea of me as a PE teacher. As it turns out, it was fairly easy. The substitution form read that the students were to do weight training for the entire period, and the class had the routine down well enough that no instruction on my part was needed. All I had to do was take attendance, hand out forms on which the students were to report to the teacher what they had done, supervise throughout the period and finally collect the completed forms at the end of class. I was pleased to see that some of the students read for class or completed homework while lifting weights, multitasking much as I did when I was in high school. Belying concerns I had at the start of this experiment, I'm finding that this generation of high schoolers isn't much different from my own. A fairly simple and even obvious lesson, perhaps, but one I'm learning as a sub. AMDG.

Of that hallowed Hilltop.

2006-02-01T16:37:00.002-05:00

For the edification of Hoya basketball fans everywhere, here's a recap of Georgetown's 64-44 win over DePaul last night. I attended the game with SICP President Brian Paulson, a fellow Hoya, and while it was good to see the team win I can't say there was much suspense. Continuing a mediocre season, the DePaul Blue Demons played the role of sacrificial lamb. The Hoyas almost seemed to be going through the motions, plodding to a comfortable win without much energy or enthusiasm. That said, I should emphasize once again that it was good to see the Hoyas win, and I'm thankful to Brian for giving me the chance to attend the game.

In other news, yesterday's issue of The Hoya reports that longtime student eatery Sugar's will close in May after 89 years in operation at the corner of 35th and O Streets in Georgetown. Formally known as Sugar's Campus Store, this neighborhood lunch counter started life as a pharmacy and evolved over time into a fairly typical greasy spoon. As far as I can recall, during my time at Georgetown I ate at Sugar's exactly twice. There was nothing on the Sugar's menu that you couldn't also get at student favorite Wisemiller's, and Wisey's had the advantages of being cheaper and closer to campus. Sugar's also lacked the character of my favorite neighborhood place, the Georgetown Dinette near the corner of Wisconsin and O. Also known as Harry and Emmy's after the Korean couple that ran the place, the Georgetown Dinette was as cheap as Wisey's and offered what might be described as psychic service. The first time visitor to Harry and Emmy's would do well to choose a menu item they really liked, because Emmy would remember what you ordered and start making it every subsequent time you came into the restaurant - once you placed your first order at Harry and Emmy's, you were good for life. I realized this when I returned to Harry and Emmy's in the summer of 2003 after two years away and Emmy produced my usual order (a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, onions and mayo with a side of fries) without having to be reminded what it was.

Though Sugar's never had the place in my heart that Harry and Emmy's won, I still mourn the impending loss of a Georgetown institution. Sugar's will soon join the sainted ranks of such beloved neighborhood institutions as the Georgetown branch of Olsson's Books and the lovably sleazy 24-hour French diner Au Pied de Cochon by closing its doors forever. Though Georgetown is still one of my favorite places in the world, each time I return there the loss of a few familiar haunts keeps the neighborhood from being quite the place I remembered. Goodbye, Sugar's - I'll always have my memories, even if I hardly knew ye. AMDG.

Notes on the Feast of the Three Holy Hierarchs.

2006-01-30T16:22:00.000-05:00

Today Byzantine Christians in both the Catholic and Orthodox churches celebrate the Feast of the Three Holy Hierarchs, a joint commemoration of Saints Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom. Today's feast owes its existence to a 12th century quarrel about which of these saintly bishops of the Eastern Church was greatest; to resolve this debate, the Archbishop of Constantinople decreed that all three men should be remembered together for their cumulative impact on the life of the Church. An author of numerous apologetic works, Basil of Caesarea also produced a rule for religious life that continues to guide many monks and nuns of the Eastern Church. Gregory Nazianzen acquired the epithet 'the Theologian' for his defense of the doctrines of the Trinity and of the two natures of Christ. As Archbishop of Constantinople, John Chrysostom preached courageously against corruption in the imperial court and among the ranks of his own clergy. By remembering these three outstanding figures on the same day, the Eastern Church offers the faithful three different but equally distinguished models for emulation. At the same time, taking all three together sends an important message about the church as community; each of the Three Holy Hierarchs was outstanding in his own right, but the Church would be much the poorer without the witness of all three. On this Feast of the Three Holy Hierarchs, I'll be praying in thanksgiving for the lives of Saints Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom, and asking them to intercede on behalf of those who continue their legacy today. AMDG.

Viatorians and Ukrainians.

2006-01-29T18:56:00.000-05:00

The first part of this post's title may be a bit misleading in that I didn't actually meet any real Viatorians when I was at St. Viator High School yesterday for an interleague Chicagoland Scholastic Bowl tournament. Nonetheless, I know more about the Viatorians now than I did on Friday, thanks to a historical display in a hallway at St. Viator's - not much more, but more nonetheless. SICP's varsity Scholastic Bowl team won five of the six rounds in which they competed; the junior varsity team was victorious in only one of five rounds of competition, but the freshmen on the team nonetheless did very well considering the difficulty of the questions (many of which focused on material covered in the junior and senior years of high school) and gained valuable experience. I don't know how SICP did relative to the other schools at the tournament, but I'll post this information when it becomes available. However, I do know that I'm lucky to be associated with a bright and talented group of young people. Working with the Scholastic Bowl team has been a highlight of my experience here so far, and I'm looking forward to joining the team for their next competition.

The second part of this post's title is accurate - I did see some Ukrainians over the weekend. This morning I attended Divine Liturgy at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in Chicago's historic Ukrainian Village. Though I'm told the Ukrainian Village neighborhood now has more yuppies than Ukrainians as a result of gentrification, the area retains an ethnic feel thanks to a concentration of beautiful old churches and Ukrainian businesses. I arrived for the Cathedral's scheduled 11:30 am English-language liturgy to find that a Panakhyda following the main 10 am Ukrainian liturgy was still in progress. The conclusion of the Panakhyda delayed the start of the liturgy I'd come for by about fifteen minutes, but I was glad for the chance to hear the Cathedral's superb Ukrainian choir. My brief exposure to that choir may be enough to lure me back for the Cathedral's 10 am Divine Liturgy next week. One way or another, I was sufficiently enchanted by my first furlough into Ukrainian Village that I hope to return often during my time in Chicago. AMDG.

A busy day at SICP.

2006-01-27T22:25:00.000-05:00

Setting a new personal record, this afternoon I was present for three back-to-back afterschool activities. Right after school I ran a practice for St. Ignatius' terrific Scholastic Bowl team, which seems poised to do well in an all-day tournament Saturday at St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights. Naturally, I'll be at St. Viator's tomorrow to cheer the team on. After the practice wrapped up, I spent two hours chaperoning a school dance in the dining hall. This was my first time chaperoning at such an event, and in contrast with the old clichés about Catholic school teachers going around with rulers and cautioning kids to 'make room for the Holy Spirit' my duties seemed to consist entirely of telling attendees which doors they could and couldn't use to enter or leave the premises. After the dance, I attended a varsity boys' basketball game versus the Rams of Gordon Tech. The Wolfpack led throughout the game, and though the Rams came on strong in the second half Ignatius won by 53-41. So it was a busy and varied afternoon and evening for me at St. Ignatius College Prep, but it was a fun and rewarding one as well. AMDG.

Being a Jesuit in today's Church.

2006-01-27T06:52:00.000-05:00

Mark Mossa has an excellent post up commenting on the role that the Society of Jesus plays in ideological squabbles among Catholics. Mark starts out by giving examples of the positive and negative reactions he receives when people (Catholics in particular) find out that he's a Jesuit. Commenting on these reactions, Mark writes:

These are two extremes. It seems sometimes that when it comes to Jesuits, people either love us or they hate us. The difference I find is that the people who love us, in most cases, do so because they have had good, personal encounters with Jesuits. As for the people that hate us, some have had a bad experience with a Jesuit, but some have just jumped on the bandwagon. There seems to be a rule in some quarters that if you are striving to be an orthodox Catholic, you have to hate the Jesuits. There's a strange sense of solidarity that comes with having a common "enemy."

But as with any prejudice, there are many who will say mean-spirited things about the group as a whole, but when challenged they will allow, "I didn't really mean all Jesuits. Hey, I even have friends who are Jesuits." This, then, serves as permission to continue to malign the group as a whole.

Though I've only been in the Society for a year and a half, Mark's words have a great deal of resonance for me. Most people I encounter express strong support for my vocation, often in part because of the positive impact that individual Jesuits have had on their lives. Echoing Mark's observations, I've found that people I encounter who have bad things to say about the Society often base their opinions on secondhand information or seek to defend their views with statements of the "I even have friends who are Jesuits" variety.

For me, it's hard not to take criticism of the Society personally, especially when that criticism is unfair. It's particularly hurtful to hear people suggest that the Jesuits are 'a dying order' or one that is becoming irrelevant - both of these claims are false, and furthermore both seem to implicitly condemn the commitment that I and my brothers in the Society have made. Hurtful, too, were the words of some of my Catholic friends when I told them I was entering the Society. Though most of my friends supported me, a few were tepid or even bemused in their reactions. If I were joining another religious community, I sensed, they would have been much more supportive. Some Catholics, I've learned, have a very restrictive vision of what religious life is - they expect everyone who joins a religious order to share the same attitudes and observe the same practices. They seem to believe that religious orders that don't align with their own narrow conceptions simply should not exist.

As discouraging as some criticism of the Jesuits can be, I'm happy to report that I receive many more positive responses than negative ones. Here, too, my experiences have been similar to those Mark reports: "People are very pleased to meet a young man who has chosen to serve God and the Church as a priest. Most don't care that I'm a Jesuit, some don't even know what a Jesuit is. They are very supportive, especially when I share with them who I am and why I have chosen the life I have." I love being a Jesuit novice, and the support and encouragement I've received from many quarters has been a great blessing. Being a Companion of Jesus, a member of a group every bit as committed and flawed as the Apostles, is itself a joy and a blessing. There's nowhere I'd rather be, and no group I'd rather be a part of. AMDG.

Michael Ignatieff, MP.

2006-01-25T19:12:00.000-05:00

Even if polling predicted the outcome well ahead of time, the victory of Stephen Harper's Conservatives in Monday's Canadian federal election still caught me by surprise. If experience was any guide, I thought, just enough voters would swing to Paul Martin's Liberals at the last minute to keep the Grits in power. Some media voices have been speculating about 'Canada's turn to the right,' but I suspect the Conservative win is more a reflection of public anger over the sponsorship scandal and other recent controversies than a vote of confidence in the party's platform. As the head of a fragile minority government, Harper will have to play his cards very carefully and avoid the kind of dramatic changes in government policy that many in his party would undoubtedly like to see. At least that's my take on the situation; Canadian readers who take issue with what I've written should feel free to correct me.

One of the more interesting stories to come out of this election is the political baptism of Michael Ignatieff. A prolific author and public intellectual who has made notable contributions to contemporary debates about human rights, Ignatieff returned home to Toronto late last year after almost three decades living in England and the United States and promptly became a Liberal candidate for Parliament. A star candidate in a Liberal-leaning riding, Ignatieff nonetheless faced a bruising campaign. Some grassroots Liberals in Ignatieff's riding resented the arrival of a political neophyte who'd lived outside Canada for many years and had tenuous local roots; the same politicos were upset that the Liberal party brass had pushed Ignatieff's candidacy at the expense of other potential contenders who had labored in the trenches for years and wanted a run at the seat. Ignatieff's published writings were unsurprisingly subjected to close scrutiny and criticism, as were public statements that suggested the candidate had his eye on the Liberal leadership and the Prime Minister's office. Despite all the controversy surrounding his candidacy, Ignatieff won comfortably on Monday and will soon take his seat in the Canadian House of Commons. Ignatieff's past accomplishments suggest that he has the potential to do great good in public life. It remains to be seen whether he can ascend to the heights some believe he could reach, but I'm sure he'll keep things interesting. Just watch him. AMDG.

Where everybody knows your name.

2006-01-23T16:49:00.000-05:00

As expected, my weekend away in South Bend offered some much-needed relaxation and a chance to see old friends. I actually saw more friends and acquaintances than I expected, randomly running into people I hadn't planned on seeing as I made my way across the Notre Dame campus. As always, the Jesuits of Henri de Lubac House in Granger, Indiana provided gracious hospitality and fraternal companionship. One of my brother novices once characterized the Granger Jesuit residence as my "home community" in the Society, and on that point said novice was quite perceptive. Henri de Lubac House is a place where I always feel welcome and a place I always look forward to returning to. I could say the same thing about Notre Dame and, for that matter, about South Bend in general. More desolate in the winter and considerably less cosmopolitan than most of the other places where I've lived, South Bend is nonetheless a city for which I've come to regard with affection.

One of my favorite annual campus events when I was a law student, the Notre Dame Student Film Festival continues to impress in its latest installment. From year to year, a number of the short-subject films that make up the festival seem to be variations on a theme. For example, there's always one or two slice-of-life documentaries profiling colorful local residents or chronicling peculiarly local phenomena. Two films at this year's festival fell into the "townie doc" category: Two Dollar Ride, a profile of a South Bend cabdriver popular with ND students, and Layer 18,653, a look into the life of a Southern Indiana man who has produced the world's largest ball of paint. Each year's festival also has at least one entry in the "looking for love" genre, in which date-deprived Domers adopt new strategies in their pursuit of romance - like taking to the slopes, as in this year's Skiing for Love. Every festival features at least a couple black-and-white silent films on sundry topics - this year's silents looked at a guilt-ridden thief (Possession) and a bachelor who proposes to his girlfriend by hiding a ring in a cupcake (M&M in the Middle). Each year, there's also at least one "edgy entrant" film that deals - typically with great tact and creativity - with a controversial or sensitive topic. Case History, this year's "edgy entrant" and probably the best film at the festival, tells the story of a once-popular but now disgraced Catholic priest trying to put his life back together after serving a prison term on sex charges. On the whole, the 2006 Notre Dame Student Film Festival was on a par with those of past years and left me wanting more. I can't wait to see what Notre Dame's inspired student filmmakers will think of next. AMDG.

Wolfpack defeats Lions 49-42.

2006-01-20T22:56:00.000-05:00

Continuing a strong season, the St. Ignatius varsity boys' basketball team beat the Lions of Leo High School by a seven-point margin. Though the game was played in Leo's own (surprisingly small) gym, the Lions didn't have much of a home-court advantage - in fact, the Wolfpack led throughout the game. To the credit of all players, both teams played like their lives depended on the outcome of the game. It was good to see the Wolfpack win an away game for the second week running, and it was even better watching the game in person with my current housemate Father Jim Chambers. A Jesuit who now serves as a chaplain at Cook County Hospital after having spent many years teaching in Kathmandu, Jim is also an Ignatius alum (Class of 1942) and a loyal fan of Wolfpack basketball. Jim's enthusiasm for the game and for his alma mater offer a sterling example to all Wolfpack fans.

In other news, I'll be heading to South Bend tomorrow morning for an overnight visit. My primary purpose in going is to catch up with a few good friends at Notre Dame, though I may also take in the 17th Annual Notre Dame Student Film Festival while I'm in town. Attending this yearly presentation of invariably top-notch student-produced films was one of the things I enjoyed most about my time at Notre Dame, and the festival also provided a brief ray of sunshine during otherwise bleak Indiana winters. This year's film festival also offers me the opportunity to scope out Notre Dame's new DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, which was built during my time on campus but didn't open until after I graduated. Perhaps I'll have more to say on the topic when blogging resumes on Monday. AMDG.

South Bend to join Eastern time zone.

2006-01-19T19:40:00.000-05:00

Today's South Bend Tribune reports on a U.S. Department of Transportation ruling putting the city and its environs in the Eastern time zone. In July and November posts, I commented on the ongoing political debate about how Indiana's 92 counties should be divided among the Eastern and Central time zones. For the past several decades, most of the Hoosier State has observed "Indiana East Time," a Solomonic compromise which enabled residents to spend half the year on Eastern time and half on Central time without having to worry about changing their clocks. IET will disappear in a few months, and after a great deal of controversy the federal government is releasing its final decisions on what time zones the counties that have observed IET will be placed in. The time zone issue was particularly contentious in South Bend-centered St. Joseph County. Many St. Joseph County residents look ninety miles west to Chicago for a sense of cultural and social definition, so it made sense to most local officials and many ordinary citizens for the county to become part of the Central time zone. At the same time, others observed that South Bend and the city of Elkhart in the neighboring county of the same name essentially constitute a cohesive metropolitan area with an integrated local economy; it made sense for St. Joseph and Elkhart Counties to stay together, and Elkhart wanted to be in the Eastern time zone. Both sides had a point, and in some sense both were right. However, only one could prevail. Yesterday's DOT decision putting St. Joseph County in the Eastern time zone paradoxically serves local interests while spurning local opinion. Though I retain a nostalgic hankering for Indiana East Time, I'm glad the time zone controversy has come to an apparent conclusion. AMDG.

Mind the gap.

2006-01-18T20:23:00.000-05:00

I believe I've alluded in the past to the generation gap that seems to exist between people of my age and today's high school students. On numerous occasions - including this very evening at dinner in my own Jesuit community - I've heard it said that the cultural, social and technological changes of the last three decades have reduced generations from groups of people born within periods of ten to twenty years to groups born in five-year (or even smaller) blocs. What would once be regarded as a single generation is now seen as a succession of several mini-generations. To provide an anecdotal but telling example of the gap between mini-generations, today's high school students can't remember a time when access to the Internet and cellphone use weren't widespread phenomena. I can remember such a time, and that fact means that I necessarily view the world in a different way than young people only a few years younger than me.

As you might imagine, the above reflections were prompted by an experience I had today at school. I recently agreed to help coach SICP's Scholastic Bowl team, and this afternoon I attended one of the team's practice sessions. As they would at a competition, the students listened to questions on various topics - history, language, math, science - and buzzed in to give answers. As you can imagine, the kids who do Scholastic Bowl are very bright; as I had expected, they correctly answered an array of very challenging questions. However, none of them could identify Boris Becker, Ed Koch or the movie Bull Durham. 1980's pop culture trivia that I take for granted is apparently becoming alien to modern teenagers.

Reflecting on the generation gap between myself and today's high school students helps me put my ministry at St. Ignatius College Prep in a larger context. Many of my experiments in the novitiate have focused on bridging the kind of gaps that too often drive people apart. Working with elderly nursing home residents on my hospital experiment was a means of bridging the gap between youth and age. My experiences working with refugees in California and Ontario helped me bridge gaps between different cultures and religions. And now at SICP I find myself trying to bridge a new and different kind of generation gap. Such is life as a Jesuit novice. AMDG.

From Annunciation to Resurrection.

2006-01-16T21:02:00.000-05:00

I was on the move quite a bit this weekend, moving from the center to the periphery of Chicagoland and then back again. I spent much of Saturday at Arrupe House in Rogers Park, catching up with various friends enrolled in the Jesuit First Studies Program at Loyola University Chicago. I also got a haircut from my brother novice Ben Krause and returned the favor by cutting Ben's hair immediately afterward. This is the first time that Ben has cut my hair, and I'm pleased enough with the results that I'll probably ask him to do it again.

Yesterday morning I met up again with some scholastics from Loyola (including loyal Novitiate Notes reader John Shea) for Sunday liturgy at Annunciation of the Mother of God Byzantine Catholic Church in the Chicago suburb of Homer Glen. Annunciation is known for the high quality of its liturgical celebrations and the beauty of its interior, photos of which can be seen here. Annunciation is also trying to establish itself as a model in the area of environmental sustainability, which is what stirred John's interest in the parish. Though the pastor's preaching style was quite different from what I'm used to, I found that the parish lived up to its reputation for fine liturgy. Most of Annunciation's "green" initiatives are still in the planning stage, but I still think the parish deserves credit for its creativity in this area.

Sunday evening found me far from Chicago - and even further away from Homer Glen - at the Resurrection Center in the north-central Illinois town of Woodstock. Woodstock stood in for Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania in the movie Groundhog Day, but it wasn't the Hollywood connection that brought me there. The Resurrection Center was the venue for an overnight retreat for SICP faculty, facilitated by newly-ordained Deacon Pat McGrath. Pat gave a number of excellent presentations on Ignatian themes, in between which I had plenty of time to get to know some of my new colleagues a bit better. The retreat also provided an opportunity to spend some time with the St. Ignatius Jesuit community's own Pat Fairbanks before he heads off to tertianship tomorrow. In some sense, in coming to SICP I'm trading places with Pat, who'll be based at Loyola House for the next four months and will be revisiting some of the experiences of his novitiate - the Long Retreat, classes on Jesuit history and the Constitutions, and short-termed experiments in ministry. To learn more about tertianship and about the Chicago Province Jesuits who will be undergoing this final stage in their formation this spring, check out this article in the latest issue of Partners, the Chi Prov magazine. More importantly, I hope you'll join me in praying for the tertians as they begin what ought to be a rich and meaningful experience. AMDG.

Wolfpack beats Friars 40-39.

2006-01-13T22:30:00.000-05:00

Just returned from a St. Ignatius varsity boys' basketball away game at Dominican-run Fenwick High School in Oak Park. St. Ignatius fans were unsurprisingly outnumbered by supporters of the home court Fenwick Friars, but the Wolfpack faithful offered a level of audible enthusiasm that rivaled (and at times exceeded) the cheers of the much more numerous Fenwick fans. This psychological edge may have helped the Wolfpack beat the Friars - in overtime, mind you - by a single point, 40-39. I'm told this is a significant victory for St. Ignatius, as the Friars are one of our stronger opponents and have tended to defeat the Wolfpack in past matchups. I had just as much fun as I did at last week's Jesuit Cup game, and I look forward to cheering on the Wolfpack again next Friday when they take on Leo High School. Go Wolfpack, AMDG.

Exam week at SICP.

2006-01-11T17:58:00.000-05:00

The next three days at St. Ignatius will be devoted to first semester final exams, some of which I will be proctoring. From what I can tell, most of the finals here seem to be multiple-choice tests of the Scantron variety. If you've taken a standardized test, you've probably seen a Scantron sheet - indeed, you probably have painful memories of the hours you spent filling and perhaps madly erasing and refilling the tiny bubbles of a Scantron sheet in the midst of a high-stakes exam that you thought would determine the course of your life - and perhaps did. Does SICP's use of Scantron sheets for most of its exams help the school's students feel less uncomfortable when they end up taking the standardized tests that most high schoolers dread? It's possible, but I doubt it. My sense is that students will always approach tests like the ACT and the SAT with fear and trembling, no matter how familiar they are with Scantron sheets.

To my mind, Scantron's impact on American education has been both positive and negative. On the one hand, it's hard to argue with the system's efficiency. The advent of exams that can be corrected by machines cuts down on the amount of time that teachers must devote to grading and gives them more time for other activities that can help sharpen their skills - crafting lesson plans, deepening their knowledge of the subject they teach, and even enjoying more leisure time so they'll be more well-rested and relaxed when they enter the classroom. Nonetheless, Scantron and similar technologies also limit the potential ways in which testing can help students grow. I would argue that essay-based exams demand a level of analytical ability and a competence of written expression that simply cannot be tested by even the most rigorous of multiple-choice exams. And then there is the question of objectivity. The anonymity of computer grading eliminates the possibility that teachers' personal opinion of particular students might influence their grading decisions. We've reached a point where computers - albeit not those of the traditional Scantron variety - can also be used to evaluate essays and other written work on the basis of length, word choice and the like. However, even the most sophisticated computer cannot analyze a student's essay with the level of attention and sensitivity that a human teacher can. On the same token, other methods of anonymous grading - such as the assignment of exam numbers which students may put on their tests instead of their names - can help maintain objectivity without dehumanizing the grading process.

It's hard to say what kind of exam I'd opt for as a teacher. The multiple-choice Scantron exam and the old-fashioned blue book essay exam each have their strengths and weaknesses, and I suppose which is best depends on the content of the course in question. In the arena of testing, teachers and students may have to settle for nothing more than 'good enough.' AMDG.

Becoming Mr. Koczera.

2006-01-09T22:45:00.000-05:00

My first week at St. Ignatius College Prep was a bit overwhelming, with a lot of new names and faces to remember and a lot of new information to absorb. Each day I've gotten to know the school a bit better and gotten a better sense of what I'm doing there. That's not to say there aren't some challenges - getting used to being "Mr. Koczera" instead of "Joe" is one. This is my first time working in a high school, and being regarded as an authority figure is still a very new experience for me. Even so, I think I'm getting the hang of it. I'm also making slow but steady progress in getting to know some of the students, who have impressed me as a bright and talented group. The faculty and staff here have also been very friendly and welcoming, helping a new colleague who is a novice in more senses than one to get his bearings. Though SICP is still very new to me, I think I'm settling in fairly well.

A highlight of my first week was Friday's "Jesuit Cup" varsity boys' basketball game between St. Ignatius College Prep and Loyola Academy. A spirited rivalry exists between Chicago's two traditional Jesuit high schools, and the annual Jesuit Cup game - a tradition of at least three decades' standing - holds an important place on the athletic calendars of both schools. This matchup between the SICP Wolfpack and the Loyola Ramblers draws such a large crowd that for the past couple years the Jesuit Cup game has been held at the Gentile Center at Loyola University Chicago. As anticipated, Friday night's game was played before a packed gymnasium. Students and alumni from both schools came out in force and cheered their favored teams on with admirable zeal. After an exciting, high-energy game, the Wolfpack lost to the Ramblers 47-43. Historically, I haven't been much of a basketball fan - my years at Georgetown notwithstanding - but I had such a great time Friday that I hope to attend the rest of this year's Wolfpack basketball games. This experience reminded me how glad I am to be here, and hopefully the great time I had at the Jesuit Cup game is a sign of even greater things to come. AMDG.

Father James E. Farrell, S.J., 1914-2006.

2006-01-06T15:20:00.000-05:00

Detroit Province Jesuit Father Jim Farrell, a longtime teacher, administrator and retreat director, died early yesterday in Cleveland at age 91. In his seventy-three years in the Society of Jesus, Jim served as a teacher and administrator at Loyola Academy and U of D Jesuit High School and later did retreat work at Loyola of the Lakes Jesuit Retreat House, Manresa Jesuit Retreat House and the Jesuit Retreat House of Cleveland. Jim was also the older brother of Loyola House's own Father Walt Farrell, and it was in this capacity that I met him. In October 2004, Jim came to the novitiate to help celebrate his younger brother's 70th anniversary as a Jesuit. On that visit, Jim shared a few stories about Walt and also spoke about his own life in the Society. Though they lived in different cities for much of their Jesuit lives, the Farrell brothers kept up frequent contact and often vacationed together. Though I only met him once, I'll miss Jim Farrell. His brother Walt and those who knew him well will surely miss him even more. I hope readers of this blog will join me in praying in a special way for Jim and for all who mourn his death and gratefully recall his life of service. AMDG.

Settling in at SICP.

2006-01-03T23:15:00.000-05:00

This is my first post of the new year, so it seems appropriate to begin by writing about a new experience: the first day of my Long Experiment at St. Ignatius College Prep, which was today. I spent most of the school day meeting with faculty and administrators, reading handbooks, filling out forms, touring the building and generally getting to know SICP a bit better. Having met with the principal and various department heads, I have a somewhat clearer idea of what I'll be doing at the school. It looks like I'll be dividing my time between the departments of social studies, pastoral ministry, community service and student activities. In practical terms, this will mean a combination of observing (and perhaps later teaching) some classes, helping out with Kairos and other retreats, and assisting some of SICP's many student organizations. The administrators, faculty and students I met today were friendly and seemed eager to help me feel at home. Discovering that I was a Domer, some commiserated with me over Notre Dame's loss to Ohio State yesterday in the Fiesta Bowl. Though it may be too soon to know for sure, SICP seems to be more of a Cubs rather than a White Sox school; as noted in this March post, the Cubs are my Chicago team of choice - notwithstanding Nomar's departure for the Dodgers.

Though I still haven't unpacked all my clothes and personal effects, I've settled into the rhythms of life at the St. Ignatius Jesuit Residence. Like the staff and students at the school, the dozen or so Jesuits in community here have given me a gracious welcome. The Jesuits here are a diverse group, about evenly split between men working at SICP and others involved in diverse apostolates including hospital and prison chaplaincy, parish work and ministry to people with HIV. A majority of the Jesuits here are over the age of 65, and I'm the youngest in the community by almost twenty years. Nonetheless, the generation gap is much less significant than you might suppose -I'm blessed to be in a friendly and generous multigenerational community, and even if many of my brothers at St. Ignatius are close to one another (and far from me) in terms of age, each is unique in background, interests and personality. Being in Chicago, I also have access to other Jesuit communities, such as the one at LUC. I'm also living a stone's throw away from my brother novice Ben Krause, who is doing his Long Experiment at St. Procopius Church a few blocks south of SICP. From the standpoint of Jesuit community, I'd say I'm pretty well-situated.

Rounding out this post, I should say something about my physical location. My room at the St. Ignatius community affords a breathtaking view of the Chicago skyline; I can actually see the Sears Tower from my bed. My room also looks out on trendy Taylor Street, which includes a cosmopolitan array of ethnic restaurants as well as the remains of Chicago's Little Italy (represented mainly by a few cafes and bakeries). SICP is basically surrounded by the University of Illinois at Chicago campus, with university-owned buildings next door to and across the street from the school and the Jesuit community. The neighborhood around St. Ignatius is also saturated with historic Catholic churches, each serving very different worshipping communities. Right next to SICP is Holy Family, one of only a handful of buildings to survive the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and the mother church of the Chicago Province; once a very Irish parish with tens of thousands of registered parishioners, Holy Family now serves a small and predominantly African American congregation. Just down Roosevelt Road from SICP is St. Francis of Assisi, an important presence in Chicago's Latino community for over eight decades. Notre Dame de Chicago a few blocks north of Roosevelt is another of Chicago's oldest parishes and, I'm told, one of its most diverse. Then there's the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii, a reminder of the neighborhood's days as an Italian enclave and still home to a strongly Italian faith community. While I'm here I hope to visit each of these churches and perhaps report on them on this blog.

In my last post I suggested I might say something about Peter Jackson's new remake of King Kong. To put it briefly, the film's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. King Kong is full of rich and stunning visuals, including carefully detailed recreations of 1932 Manhattan and some of the most realistic computer animation I've yet seen on the big screen. However, the creators of the new King Kong seem to have been some impressed with the tools at their disposal that they got carried away with them. The filmmakers' indulgence comes out especially in King Kong's overlong and over-the-top fight scenes; sequences in which the title ape battles three dinosaurs simultaneously or swats biplanes from the sky are suitably impressive, but they also drag on a lot longer than they have to and involve increasingly tedious choreography. King Kong proves that even visually dazzling films can wear out their welcome. In many ways, King Kong is worth seeing. However, whether this film is worth three hours of one's life is a prudential judgment each viewer will have to make. AMDG.

The last post of 2005.

2005-12-31T23:04:00.000-05:00

It's already 2006 in most of the world, but where I am we're still in the last hour of 2005. Kiddie Conference concluded this afternoon with Chi Prov Jesuit Pat McGrath's ordination as a transitional deacon at Loyola Academy. (Pat will be ordained a priest in July.) This evening I moved into the Jesuit residence at St. Ignatius College Prep in Chicago, where I'll be staying through early May. Thanks to Pat Fairbanks for giving me a ride here from the Academy. Pat, Ross Pribyl and I just got back from seeing the new remake of King Kong, about which I hope to write more tomorrow. I may also say something about Kiddie Conference, moving in at SICP and other topics. For now, please accept (again) my best wishes for the new year. AMDG.

Starbucks on the SouthCoast.

2005-12-28T23:01:00.000-05:00

I'm currently enjoying a restful and uneventful visit home with family. The old neighborhood hasn't changed much, but the landscape is still a bit different than I remembered. Until earlier this year, my parents could look out their kitchen window into what appeared to be limitless woods; the backyard view still includes a few trees, but thanks to a new condominium development it now includes a few houses as well. Renovations to Old Rochester Regional High School have changed my alma mater almost beyond recognition. Tonight the local cable access channel aired an installment of Bulldog TV, a student-produced program reporting on recent goings on at ORR; segments featuring teachers I remembered provided reassuring continuity, but the classrooms and hallways seen on the show were disconcertingly new to me. When Bulldog TV turned its attention to the laptops the school apparently now issues to students, I started to feel like an old-timer. Using laptops at school was an unimaginable prospect when I was at ORR. If memory serves, when I was at the school students had access to a lab with perhaps a dozen computers with word processing software - it bears noting that none of these machines had Internet access (there were only two computers in the school that did, and students weren't allowed to use them). Though I'm only in my mid-twenties, the access to high technology that today's teenagers take for granted strikes me as remarkable.

On this visit, I was surprised to discover that Starbucks has arrived in Southeastern Massachusetts. The coffee retailer's local presence is pretty paltry - limited to a couple coffee shops and a kiosk in a mall - but Starbucks' appearance in these parts is still a major milestone. Justly considered the heartland of Dunkin' Donuts, Southeastern Massachusetts reputedly has more Dunkin's locations per capita than anywhere else in the world. Until recently, this area in which one could seemingly find a Dunkin' Donuts on every corner had literally no Starbucks to speak of; I realized what a unique situation this was when I came to live in other places where Starbucks locations were seemingly omnipresent while Dunkin' Donuts outlets were either rare or entirely absent. It'll be interesting to see what Starbucks' arrival on the SouthCoast will mean for the region. I suppose that Starbucks could chip away at Dunkin' Donuts local dominance, but I'm also reminded of what happened when Red Lobster opened a restaurant in North Dartmouth about a decade ago - in an area flush with popular locally-owned seafood restaurants, Red Lobster flopped on the SouthCoast. Time will tell whether the same will happen with Starbucks.

In a related story, actor Michael Vale died on Christmas Eve at age 83. As the man who played Fred the Baker in innumerable Dunkin' Donuts commercials in the 1980's and '90's, Vale became the face of the chain. When I was a kid, I thought that Fred the Baker was a real person, not a fictional character played by an actor. Remembering the Fred the Baker ads with the "time to make the doughnuts" tagline, I also recall my many early experiences with Dunkin' Donuts, like enjoying a box of Munchkins every week while watching Saturday morning cartoons. Fred the Baker and Dunkin' Donuts were a part of my childhood, so the death of Michael Vale strikes a chord. Ave et atque vale.

After an enjoyable but - as always - too brief visit home, tomorrow morning I head to Chicago for the annual Chicago and Detroit Provinces' Jesuit Formation Conference. Right after the start of the new year I move into the St. Ignatius Jesuit Community and begin my Long Experiment at SICP. I'll try to post an update sometime in the next few days. However, if you don't hear from me, let me say it now - Happy New Year! AMDG.

Christmas Eve at Loyola House.

2005-12-24T16:05:00.000-05:00

Tonight the Loyola House community will celebrate Christmas as it does every year - with Mass followed by dinner and a reception at which we open our "Secret Santa" gifts. Tomorrow morning, the novices are free to go home for a few days' visit before reporting on December 29th to the annual bi-province formation conference (nicknamed "Kiddie Conference" because all the young Jesuits are required to attend), held this year at Bellarmine Jesuit Retreat House in Barrington, Illinois. Thus, the next time I post I'll probably be writing from my parents' house in Rochester, Massachusetts. 'Til then, I wish my readers a happy and holy Christmas. AMDG.

Comings and goings.

2005-12-22T20:00:00.000-05:00

Say it ain't so, Johnny . . . this was bad news to come home to after the retreat. "Many fans angry, disillusioned at Damon's move to archrival Yankees," says the Globe, understating things a wee bit.

Johnny Damon's betrayal aside, it's good to be back at Loyola House after a fine retreat. Pat Fairbanks delivered a number of eloquent and affecting talks on the theme "Questions of Advent." At the end of the retreat, Pat and I also had an opportunity to talk about St. Ignatius College Prep in Chicago - where he just spent five years and where I'll be spending the next five months. Yes, it's official: I'm going to SICP for Long Experiment. It's not yet clear exactly what I'll be doing - ideally, some combination of teaching, campus ministry and assistance with extracurricular activities. I was very impressed with SICP when I passed through there on Vo To 05 in March, and I'm looking forward to spending the spring semester there. This will be my first experience working in a high school and my first in-depth experience of Jesuit secondary education, so I'm sure I'll learn a lot. If I'm lucky, the students at St. Ignatius will learn something from me as well. Expect more details on what I'll be doing when I settle in at SICP in early January. In the meantime, your prayers for me and my brother novices - who are variously looking forward to their own postings for Long Experiment or to making the Long Retreat - are greatly appreciated. AMDG.