Loyola Institute for Spirituality :: About LIS
About LIS
LIS provides opportunities for growth in spirituality by offering retreats,
parish missions, days of prayer, conferences, and training. In addition to direct
services, LIS offers courses and other training opportunities for the purpose of enabling
individuals and groups to address their own spiritual needs.
LIS works in a collaborative way with retreat centers, schools, parishes,
dioceses, community and church organizations. LIS works not only with Roman
Catholics, but also in an ecumenical and
inter-religious manner with people of any or no specific religious tradition. It
seeks to serve all but gives special attention to the poor and marginal.
Ignatian Spirituality: What is it?
The core of St. Ignatius Loyola's spirituality is found in The
Spiritual Exercises, a small manual he wrote to help those who accompany
others seeking God. Breakthroughs in Ignatius' own life story shed light
on his spirituality's uniqueness. He enjoyed a deep sensitivity to
interior movements, his most authentic desires. Ignatius
found that what attracted and fascinated him, filled his imagination with hope
and motivated him, often came from God. He learned that God encounters us
in these affections, in powerful emotions that move us to act.
We need to be truly free to discern among the various spirits that move
us. Ignatius referred to them in terms of "consolation and
desolation." When we learn to properly interpret them we have a sure way to
distinguish between good and evil spirits and opt for life and not death.
God thus encounters us interiorly and beckons us to fall in love
with and follow him by contemplating the Gospel, entering deeply into the
mystery of Jesus Christ. The habit of daily prayer is the key for this
ongoing process. We are called to follow Christ as disciples, thus integrating
our life through loving service of others, especially the poor and
marginal. And we live Christ's values in the Church, in Christian
community.
St. Ignatius viewed all life as participation in an
intense love affair, the one eternally unfolding in the Blessed Trinity.
We integrate our lives by faithfully responding to God's creative
generosity. We gratefully love in return showing it "more
in deeds than in words." Ignatian spirituality stresses that the
marvelous gift of "finding God in all things" is possible for
all. We become contemplatives in action united with God in ordinary
activities and not just in special moments of prayer. Ignatian
spirituality breaks down the barriers between the sacred and the secular, and so
it is specially suited to the laity, to men and women who seek to make sense out
of their busy lives.
Our Mission
In the Ignatian tradition,
Loyola Institute for Spirituality
accompanies people in their journey
toward a life-giving relationship
with God, self and others,
through experiential formation
to help transform the world.
The values of collaboration, ecumenism, and
cultural diversity
guide the programs and services of Loyola Institute for Spirituality.
Our Vision
LIS seeks to offer lay people quality
spiritual experiences in the area of prayer, retreats, days of recollection,
discernment and finding God in all things. LIS especially seeks to offer these
experiences to emerging new cultural groups such as the Hispanics and Asians
as well as to African Americans. In addition, LIS offers training in spiritual
leadership. LIS hopes to contribute to the creation of growing numbers of lay
leaders in both church and society by offering them opportunities for personal
spiritual development and skills and mentoring that will allow them to share
their gifts in this area with others.
The Loyola Institute responds to today’s spiritual hungers by enabling people
to discover and nurture God’s life within them. In response, they are
empowered to act on the call of Jesus Christ to communicate and share that
life with others. Rooted in the Jesuit heritage, LIS provides services that
are mobile, ecumenical and that reach out to diverse cultural, language,
social and racial groups. The Institute seeks to work in a collaborative and
collegial way with many others.
Legal Status
The Loyola Institute
for Spirituality is the successor to the "Loyola Laymen’s Retreat Association"
that was first incorporated in the State of California in the 1930's. Its
corporate name was changed in 1947 to Manresa Retreat House. In 1997 it was
again changed to the Loyola Institute for Spirituality. LIS is a 501(c)(3)
non-profit religious corporation recognized by the State of California and the
U.S. Internal Revenue Service. The legal Board of Directors at this time is
made up of the Provincial of the California Province of the Society of Jesus
and his consulters.
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