August 20, 2019
Carissimi:
Karl Rahner summed up the point of all he had written as a theologian: “God is God; we are not; and all is grace.”

Spiritual growth can begin when we stop beating ourselves up and judging others for not being God, perfectly consistent, utterly virtuous, and unfailingly generous, wise, and merciful.

Accept being a frail, conflicted creature and grace and gratitude will fill your life. Fr. Nouwen:

The many contradictions in our lives - such as being home while feeling homeless, being busy while feeling bored, being popular while feeling lonely, being believers while feeling many doubts - can frustrate, irritate, and even discourage us. They make us feel that we are never fully present. Every door that opens for us makes us see how many more doors are closed.

But there is another response. These same contradictions can bring us into touch with a deeper longing, for the fulfillment of a desire that lives beneath all desires and that only God can satisfy. Contradictions, thus understood, create the friction that can help us move toward God.
This Week!
Our parish continues to generously support the Loyola Early Learning Center, a child-centered, developmentally appropriate program for children ages 2-5, born of Jesuit principles, and located right around the corner from our church. The children who attend the learning center are from Baltimore families of limited means, and are fully “scholarshiped”. 

If you are able to assist, please fill a bag with the items listed below and return it to the church when you come to Mass on the weekend of August 24-25.

Thank you for your kind generosity!
On God and Grief...
Stephen Colbert’s Deeply Moving Conversation About God and Grief Is Required Viewing
On Thursday, Stephen Colbert sat down with Anderson Cooper for a wide-ranging conversation that delved into Colbert’s more somber, serious side. In addition to a lengthy discussion about heresy, a visibly emotional Cooper asked Colbert about a statement he gave to  GQ  — which itself was lifted from a Tolkien essay: “What punishments of God are not gifts?”

“Do you really believe that?” Cooper asks.

Colbert expounds on the idea by explaining his ideas about grief and suffering, and why he tries not to qualify his gratitude to God. It’s one of the more moving and thoughtful conversations about loss you could ever hope to hear, and it was on CNN of all places.
“If you’re grateful for your life …not everybody is and I’m not always, but it’s the most positive thing to do, then you have to be grateful for all of it. You can’t pick and choose what you’re grateful for,” Colbert says. READ MORE
Growth Opportunity
Loyola University’s Office of Mission Integration is happy to offer the Baltimore community the opportunity to pray the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola beginning this Fall.

Our approach will be one that Ignatius himself proposed for busy people – a way to make a prayerful and potentially transformative retreat in everyday life . Over the course of nine months of daily prayer with Scripture, journaling and regular conversation with a guide, one can experience the same graced movements and discoveries that a privileged few get to make in 30 days of secluded silence.

This long retreat is undeniably a commitment of time and resolve – one that may or may not be right for everyone or perhaps not right at this time. Fortunately Ignatius offers many other practical tools for spiritual growth that we can all enjoy. Loyola University will offer these as well – including weekend Ignatian retreats, 4-week Advent and Lenten retreats, evenings of prayer, spiritual reading groups and lectures.

If you’d like to learn more about the Spiritual Exercises and Ignatian spirituality – and how YOU might experience them, please join us!

For more information, contact :   LUMspiritualexercises@gmail.com
PREP Notice
PREP Registration is now!
Parish Religious Education Program, Grades K-8:
Registration for returning children was held in April. New children entering PREP should ideally be registered and paid for. Please preview our program and register online by visiting our PREP website here . 9:30 Sunday PREP classes begin September 15th, 2019. Email questions to Sherri at  sherricurrie@st-ignatius.net , or phon e 410-719-7559 or 410-220-9141. Thank you. 

PREP Confirmation Ages and Groupings:
Our PREP program prepares children for the sacrament of Confirmation in a 2-year program, combining two grades. This September will be year 1 of the preparation. For more information, please pick up the green flyer in the Narthex. Thank you.  
Worship with Offerings, Liturgy and Prayers for Others
POOR BOX 
This weekend's Poor Box support goes to support
Vulnerable Families in Crisis.

MASS MUSIC   
Attached is the listing for the music selections at next Sunday's 10:30 Mass.
 
THE DAILY EXAMEN
Spiritual and Faith opportunities to deepen
your relationship in Christ.

Upcoming Events
Tuesday, August 20 - 6:45 PM
Women of the New Testament
Click here for complete information.





Thursday, August 22 - 6:00 PM
Movie Showing & Discussion: Stonewall Uprising
See box above for complete information.



Thursday, August 22 - 6:45 PM
Interfaith & Ecumenical Committee
Click here for complete information.



Sunday, August 25 -9:45 AM
Respect for Life
Click here for complete information.
Volunteer Opportunity
In the Media
Acting Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli, speaks during a briefing at the White House, Monday, Aug. 12, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The Myth of the Self-Sufficient Immigrant That’s Fueling the White House’s Draconian Policy

Defending the Trump administration’s decision to  tighten restrictions on legal immigrants   who receive government benefits, referred to as “public charges,” Ken Cuccinelli  suggested a creative reinterpretation  of the iconic poem by Emma Lazarus memorialized on the Statue of Liberty. Asked whether the words of the poem are a part of the “American ethos,” the acting director of Citizenship and Immigration Services said, “They certainly are: ‘Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet and who will not become a public charge.’” His remarks came two days after the U.S. gymnast Simone Biles became the first woman to ever  complete a triple-double floor routine —three turns while doing two backflips. It would require  even more difficult mental gymnastics   to conclude that revising the words etched on the most recognizable symbol of the American promise could amount to a defense of this country’s ethos. READ MORE
THE ISLAND AND FRIENDSHIP THAT CHANGED MY LIFE
BY  JIM WALLIS

It is early morning on Block Island – a time and place where I have often written over many years. My family, on our annual August vacation together here, is still asleep, liking to rise late on vacation days. Therefore, I always have several hours alone each day on Block Island, a special place introduced to me by one of my early mentors, William Stringfellow. He described the island, which is part of Rhode Island, as an hour “off the coast of America.”

Bill went from Harvard Law School to practice law in East Harlem during the 1950s where he helped to start the East Harlem Protestant Parish – an early Christian community committed to racial and economic justice – similar to our Sojourners community, but two decades earlier. In changing his location, as I did later in my hometown of Detroit, Michigan, Stringfellow too learned many things he never would have by staying in his white community and tribe in Northampton, Mass. What he learned in Harlem led to his first book, My People is the Enemy, which was one of the first things I ever read about racism in America and deeply touched me as a white teenager who was coming to realize that it was in fact white Americans who had the power and who were behind the brutal oppression of American racism. My people, my tribe, my friends, and my fellow white Christian believers were indeed the enemy when it came to racial injustice, which was a very hard realization to come to as a young man who was now moving outside of his traditional neighborhood to meet some new neighbors – a tough road to travel from white America. READ MORE
Tackle clericalism first when attempting priesthood reform

If the priesthood is to be reformed, we must tackle the disease of clericalism. It won't be easy. Clericalism is so deeply ingrained in our structures and way of thinking that we almost can't imagine how things could be otherwise.

In his 2018 "Letter to the People of God," Pope Francis condemned the sins of sexual abuse and the abuse of power in the church. He linked those sins to clericalism. "To say no to abuse is to say an emphatic no to all forms of clericalism."

What is clericalism?

The Association of U.S. Catholic Priests put out a  white paper on clericalism  in June 2019. It defines clericalism is "an expectation, leading to abuses of power, that ordained ministers are better than and should be over everyone else among the People of God." READ MORE