March 2018 E-Newsletter
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Letter from the Executive Director
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LIS Seeks New Executive Director
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Upcoming Events
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Hearts on Fire 2018​
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Ohana in a Tribal Age, by Fr. David Robinson, S.J.
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Praying with Pope Francis
Table of Contents
Called to Be a Discerning People of God​
Dear Friends of Loyola Institute,
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Our annual Lenten journey towards Easter often seems more like a race than a prayerful pilgrimage. So it’s good to stop and catch our breath.
Pope Francis asks us to do just that this month when he urges all Christians to be better prepared to discern “between the voices of the culture of death and the voice of God propelling them to live and contribute to God’s mission—the Kingdom of God.” See Formation in Spiritual Discernment.
The Pope has repeatedly called us to be a discerning People of God with a special predilection for the poor, the immigrant, the abandoned. In all this he is simply preaching the Beatitudes and applying them to our urgent needs today. As a Jesuit, his call to discernment is not surprising.
Discernment lies at the heart of the Jesuit vocation, and it provides the core for the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. What better way to be shaped and formed in discernment than to undergo the dynamic, potentially transformative effect of the Spiritual Exercises.
Of course, that mission is dear to the Loyola Institute. It’s our life blood, it’s our passion. And for those who participate, it leads on precisely to the discipleship in mission, namely evangelization, that all three popes—John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis— have called us to embrace.
Let’s pick up the pace and trumpet the coming of Easter.
With blessings,
Fr. Patrick Howell, S.J.
Executive Director, ad interim
"Pope Francis with Immigrants," original painting by Paul Mullally,
gift to the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome.
Upcoming Events
The LIS Office will close, at noon on Holy Thursday, March 29, and re-open on Tuesday, April 3.
We pray you and your family have a blessed Holy Week and Easter.
Easter​
Sunday, April 1, 2018
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“On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realized the new wonder; but even they hardly realized that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden,
in the cool not of the evening but of the dawn.”
- G. K. Chesterton; The Everlasting Man
Ignatian Morning: Encountering the Risen Christ
As Christians, we are called to be people of the Resurrection and are invited to meet the world with the joy and hope of Easter. We invite you for a half-day of prayer, stimulating presentations, quiet reflection time, and faith sharing in small groups to examine the various ways we encounter the Risen Christ in our every day lives.
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Date: Sunday, April 15, 2018
Time: 10:00 am – 12:30 pm followed by Mass in the Sacred Heart Chapel
Presented by: LIS Staff and ISFP Third-Year Students
Cost: No charge; but donations will be gratefully accepted
Location: Founders' Hall, Spirituality Building, St. Joseph Center​
Click here for a flyer with more information.
For more information or to register, please contact Mr. Ryan Pratt, at pratt@loyolainstitute.org
SP1-05 Ignatian Discerment
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This is the fifth class of our ISFP Program, but may be taken independently.
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Dates: Thursdays, April 19, 26, May 3, 10, 17, 24, 2018
Time: 7:00 – 9:30 pm
Instructor: Sr. Jeanne Fallon, CSJ
Cost: $150.00
For more information or to register, please contact Br. Charlie Jackson, S.J., at jackson@loyolainstitute.org
Our 2018 Hearts on Fire Gala promises to be a memorable evening full of fun and surprises.
Our celebration will be infused with the flavors, colors, sights, sounds, and festive atmosphere associated with Cinco de Mayo.
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Margaritas, Mariachi, and More!
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We are putting together a great Silent Auction
that includes tickets to sporting events,
gourmet dinners, a cruise on a yacht, premium wine bottles, jewelry, and much more!
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Tickets are $200 per person.
Tables of ten are available for $2,000.
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For sponsorship and underwriting opportunities, Gala Dinner Program ads, table sponsorship information, and Silent Auction donations, please contact Raymond Uribe at uribe@loyolainstitute.org
Reflection
Praying with Pope Francis
Ohana in a Tribal Age
by Fr. David Robinson, S.J.
In recent months, there has been widespread reflection on the growth of tribalism in our society. It doesn’t seem so many years ago that we placed great pride in a spirit of unity, a desire to unite across the divides of diversity, and to forge a common purpose. In less than two years, we seem to have dissolved into a loose collection of alliances based more on particulars that exclude than on common values that join together. The tyranny of being ‘Right’ has come to dominate our public speech, and deafened us to the authentic voices of those who are not members of our ideological clan. Our willingness to communicate has been supplanted by our determination to win.
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During this Lenten season, I have had the opportunity to facilitate two missions in Hawaii, and was brought back into connection with a spiritual concept of community that offers a foundational principle of union—Ohana. This is a traditional notion in the islands that invites a commonality of identity and purpose so often missing in our contemporary vortex of media and political loyalties. Ohana embraces the universal concept of ‘family,’ of blood-relationship that joins individuals into a deep personal bond. It also invites a commitment to social covenant, ties that move beyond the fixed boundaries of clans or blood-lineage. In addition, Ohana encourages a breadth of intentional community, a wider-ranging desire to broaden the frontiers of kinship to those who abide outside the boundaries of our familial or social networks. In sum, Ohana offers an opportunity for a global spirit of community that is always flexible and inviting, an open invitation to the ‘many’ to join in a communion of relationship and commitment.
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When Jesus said, “They shall be one, as you and I are one,” he was not speaking of economic systems or geopolitical strategies. He was presenting an invitation and a commandment of love. We are all meant to live as one, in our families, our societies, and our world. We are human, and inevitably fall short of the dream of the Kingdom of God, but the call remains the same. We are the Ohana of the Spirit, and find our true freedom, our true hope for the future, in the unity of life which we create together day by day.
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Pope Francis' Prayer Intention for March 2018
Formation in Spiritual Discernment
That the Church may appreciate the urgency of formation in spiritual discernment, both on
the personal and communitarian levels.