December 2017 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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Jesuits West Pilgrimage
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Fleshing it Out, by Mr. Bryce Deline, S.J.
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Jesuits in the World
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Praying with Pope Francis
Table of Contents
Letter from the Executive Director
Dear Friends of Loyola Institute,
Advent is the season to set our longing free. It’s a time for gratitude. It’s a time when we ask for the grace to recognize what’s holding us down. We gently ask, “What’s the tether that binds our hearts from rising freely towards God?”
The spiritual life of the West has withered, and great numbers of individuals suffer unknowingly from the death of the spirit. The absence of religion renders the modern world a waste land, as T. S. Eliot recognized, decades ago. In the midst of this waste land, greed eviscerates the true self. One’s very core erodes. And cravings become the engine that directs the individual’s life.
The gift of the Loyola Institute for Spirituality, of course, offers life. It encourages humility –an honest appraisal of who I am before God—not in some self-flagellating way—but rather recognizing that we are enveloped in God’s love. Transformed, we in turn can freely love.
Now is the season for pruning. My brother Bill raises apples and cherries, so now in the cool, wintry days, with lowering sun, his pruning tools pare the trees of limbs diseased or overgrown. After he sheers the last tree, the orchard is ready. All is expectation. Another bounty. Another season of fruitfulness.
We too in this Advent season are ready for pruning, but not in some Manichean self-resolve, rather by looking beyond ourselves in expectation to the saving, loving grace of the birth of Jesus, God-with-us who loves us into freedom.
With blessings,
Fr. Patrick Howell, S.J.
Executive Director, ad interim
Upcoming Events
LIS Office Closed During the Holidays
The LIS office is closed from Thursday afternoon, December 21, 2017 to January 1, 2018. We will return on January 2.
On behalf of the staff at LIS, we wish you, your family, and loved ones, a blessed Christmas and a happy new year.
SP1-03: History of Christian Spirituality
This course explores the nature, origin, and historical development of Christian spirituality, while examining in greater depth some of the most significant Christian spiritualities. Participants will have the opportunity to gain greater understanding of the past, present, and future development of their own spiritualities.
Dates: Thursdays, January 4 - February 8, 2018
Time: 7:00 - 9:30 p.m.
Instructor: Br. Charles Jackson, S.J.
Cost: $150
This is the third of five courses in the ISFP Program, but may be taken separately. Click here for more information.
Ignatian Morning
This course explores the nature, origin, and historical development of Christian spirituality, while examining in greater depth some of the most significant Christian spiritualities. Participants will have the opportunity to gain greater understanding of the past, present, and future development of their own spiritualities.
Dates: Sunday, February 4, 2018
Time: 10:00 am - Noon, Followed by Mass in the Sacred Heart Chapel
Presented by: LIS Associates, Br. Charlie Jackson, S.J. & Fr. Pat Howell, S.J.
Cost: $150
For more information or to RSVP, please email Ryan Pratt at pratt@loyolainstitute.org
Save the Date
May 6, 2018
Loyola Institute for Spirituality is pleased to announce Fr. Richard Hauser, S.J.
as the 2018 recipient of the 2018 Writer's Award in Spirituality.
Fr. Hauser, is a native of Milwakee, Wisconsin. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1955 and was ordained a priest in 1968. He holds degrees in philosophy, history, and religion. Fr. Hauser is the author of three books: In His Spirit: A Guide to Today's Spirituality (Paulist Press, 1982), Moving in the Spirit: Becoming a Contemplative in Action (Paulist Press, 1986), and Finding God in Troubled Times (Loyola Press, 2002).
Mark your calendars for a special presenation by Fr. Hauser on May 5, 2018 at
St. Timothy's Church in Laguna Niguel. More details to come.
Monthly Reflection
Fleshing it Out
Mr. Bryce Deline, S.J.
One of my favorite of Ignatius’ exercises comes near the beginning of the second week. In it, he asks exercitants to survey the peoples of the world, to see “some at peace and others at war, some weeping and others laughing, some healthy and others sick, some being born and others dying.” He asks that we listen to how they are speaking to each other and watch how they behave towards one another, to see how some “swear and blaspheme,” while others “wound, kill, go to hell, and so on.” I’ve seen many adaptations of this exercise that try to paint a more balanced picture of the human race, but that is not Ignatius’ point. What’s important is the juxtaposition. We are meant to observe humanity at its worst, and to consider the fact that even while we are at war, while we are swearing, blaspheming, wounding, and killing, the three persons of the Trinity watch and say to each other “let us work the redemption of the human race.” A completely gratuitous response!
In the closing colloquy, Ignatius asks that exercitants “beg […] that [they] may better follow and imitate Our Lord, who in this way has recently become a human being.” This is where Ignatius’ desire for us becomes clearer: we are being asked to see the difficulty of embracing the human race clearly, to understand that the Trinity demonstrates the ideal response, and finally to find in ourselves the desire to imitate that response.
The upcoming season of Advent is an opportunity to consider God’s gratuitous love for us, to understand it as a gift freely given, and to reflect on how we might in kind also give freely to those around us. As we light the candles of the advent wreath over the upcoming weeks, let’s pray that we might embrace that same desire that the Trinity exemplifies, that we might also work unreservedly to bring light into our world.
Praying with Pope Francis
Pope Francis' Prayer Intention for December 2017
The Elderly: That the elderly, sustained by families and Christian communities, may apply their wisdom and experience to spreading the faith and forming the new generations.