Practice Resurrection
Dear Friends,
March has whizzed on by. Lent has fled, and we are gasping for joy. EASTER! I am "sorta" ready-always grateful for the tangible hope and joy celebrated in the liturgies for the Resurrection-as well as the warmth of spring and leafy greenness shyly sprouting wings.
But all this speedy passage of time accentuates the claim that Thomas Friedman makes in his book Thank You for Being Late that we are in an Age of Acceleration. Friedman says that it all picked up big time from 2007 onward where the rate of technological improvements, climate change, and globalization has been doubling every two years. He laments that we don't have time for contemplation or reflection time to ponder how all the elements of our lives come together. So when someone shows up late for an appointment and he's had time to think and reflect for 20 minutes or so, he says, "Thank you for being late!"
He says that the surge of breakthroughs in robotic surgery, gene editing, self-driving cars, cloning, or artificial intelligence has far outstripped the capacity for any one individual to grasp it all. With shorter and shorter innovation cycles, human learning and constructed systems for handling the flood can no longer keep up. We're left bewildered, confused, and sometimes paralyzed.
It reminds me of a movie called "Stop the World, I want to Get Off." When I saw it several years ago in Rome, the surreal, Fellini-esque bizarreness of the city accentuated the theme of wanting to escape.
But God's peace. God's shalom has broken through time and space. Eternity has cast a wedge in the flux of time. To contradict the madness of our lives Wendell Berry urges us in his poem "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front": "Do something every day that won't compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it ... Ask questions that have no answers ... Plant sequoias ... Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts ... Practice Resurrection."
Resurrection reminds us that we do what we can and that's enough. Live in the way that Jesus calls us to live-not naively, but simply.
With Easter blessings,
Rev. Patrick Howell, S.J.
Executive Director,
ad interim
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LIS Seeks Dynamic Executive Director
Loyola Institute for Spirituality
(LIS) seeks a new Executive Director to lead a vigorous program of contemporary spirituality for leadership in the church and society.
LIS accompanies people on their journey toward a life-giving relationship with God, self, and others, to help transform the world.
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At a Glance
We invite you to join us for the
Ignatian Morning
on Sunday, April 15. Our theme for the day is "Encountering the Risen Christ."
Ignatian Discernment
, the fifth class of our Ignatian Spiritual Formation Program begins on Thursday, April 19. This course explores the subject of discernment and its impact on the spiritual life and daily living.
Hearts on Fire, our annual fundraising gala, is a month away. We are planning an exceptional evening that promises to be memorable. Purchase your tickets now!
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In Memoriam
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of
Fr. Dick Hauser,
S.J., the recipie
nt of the Writer's Award in Sp
irituality at this year's Hearts on Fire.
Fr. Hauser was born June 22, 1937 and entered eternal life on Monday, April 3rd after a quick decline with aggressive cancer, diagnosed a couple months ago.
Our sadness is met with hope and trust in God's unwavering love during this Easter season; we hold his brother, sisters, and all who mourn him in our prayers.
A dear friend of Fr. Hauser, his brother, and sister will be present at Hearts on Fire to accept the
Writer's Award in Spirituality.
We invite you to join us at Hearts on Fire to honor the life and legacy of
Fr. Dick Hauser, S.J.
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What Constitutes Eucharist a Sacrament?
by Fr. Eddie Samaniego, S.J.
Catholicism has never hesitated to affirm how all reality: the cosmos, nature, history, events, persons, objects, rituals, words, is "mysterious." Everything, in principle, can embody and communicate the divine. In other words, God is embodied in everything including us, and everything is embodied in God, especially us, for we are made in the image and likeness of God, are we not?
God is at once everywhere and all powerful, and there's nothing in this world God cannot put to use. On the human side, we humans, have nothing else apart from our world to express our response to God's self-communication. Just as God reaches us through the finite, so we reach God through the finite. The point at which this "divine interchange" occurs is the point of the sacramental encounter.
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