Carissimi,
On Monday of this week, we celebrated the Feast of the Transfiguration. In the gospel we heard what God says to Jesus and to each of us: “You are my beloved son, my beloved daughter, with whom I am well pleased.” Ponder, please the following reflection by Fr. Henri Nouwen:
"You are loved—unconditionally and completely. The limited and broken love of parents, friends, children, lovers, other family and community, is simply a reflection of that unlimited love that has already been given to you.
"It is a limited reflection of an unlimited love. It is a partial glimpse of something that was 'impartially' given. You are not what the world makes you. You were created because of love and you are given unconditional love. That is who you are: a beloved child who has love to share.
"The voice that Jesus heard was an incredible affirmation for him: 'You are my beloved Son. On you my favor rests.'
"That voice made it possible for Jesus to walk in the world, to live in truth, and also to suffer. He knew who he was, he claimed it, and he lived from it. People ruined his life, rejected him, hurt him, spat on him, and finally killed him on the cross, but he never lost the truth. He lived his pain as well as his joy under the blessing of the Father. And later he said, 'As the Father has loved me, I love you.'"
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Why Do We Call Them the "Dog Days of Summer?
?"
It doesn’t have to do with dogs lying around in the heat—the phrase comes from ancient Greek beliefs about a star.
THE “DOG DAYS,” I always thought, were those summer days so devastatingly hot that even dogs would lie around on the asphalt, panting.
Many people today use the phrase to mean something like that—but originally, the phrase actually had nothing to do with dogs, or even with the lazy days of summer. Instead, it turns out, the dog days refer to the dog star, Sirius, and its position in the heavens.
To the Greeks and Romans, the “dog days” occurred around the day when Sirius appeared to rise just before the sun, in late July. They referred to these days as the hottest time of the year, a period that could bring fever, or even catastrophe.
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St. Ignatius Waste Reduction Plan Rollout
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St. Ignatius Plans to Reduce Waste in our Facilities Over the Next Six Months
St. Ignatius has a significant historical, religious, cultural and environmental footprint in downtown Baltimore and across Maryland. By improving our environmental footprint, beginning with a comprehensive waste reduction plan, we can reduce our environmental impact not only at our physical locations, but at our parishioners' homes and businesses, and we can act as a model for other religious congregations in the area.
It Starts This Weekend!
Led by the Environmental Justice Subcommittee (formerly the Green Team), this weekend St. Ignatius will begin a multi-phased waste reduction plan with the goal of reducing our environmental footprint significantly over the next six months. The first phase is to reduce the amount and types of waste we produce during our fellowships following Mass. We are now using compostable cups, plates, and utensils which along with food waste will go to Veterans Composting for processing into usable compost. Our recycling will use Baltimore City’s single stream recycling program and any remaining trash, which we hope to be very little, will go to the Baltimore City Landfill.
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Going forward the parish will implement similar programs at the parish center and during parish events. Later in the year the Environmental Justice Subcommittee will sponsor instructional information on how each one of us can reduce our waste footprint.
If you have other ideas as to how the parish can reduce its environmental footprint, please contact Len Heckwolf at
lenheckwolf@gmail.com.
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Announcing the 75,000 Meal Challenge
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St. Ignatius is partici
pating in Catholic Relief Services’ 2018
75,000 Meal Challenge
, hosted by the Orioles, and we need you to join our Fundraising Effort! Our goal is to raise $1,500, which will be used by CRS to send 75,000 meals to vulnerable people in Burkina Faso, West Africa. It will also support long-term projects that empower individuals to be self-sufficient. You can support our efforts by donating directly on our page or by joining our team of fundraisers at the link -
If you join our team, you may also be eligible to participate in the meal packaging event at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on Sunday, September 9, from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, which will feature appearances by The Oriole Bird and Orioles Alumni! There is also a Mass scheduled from 9:00 AM -10:00 AM at the park. But you must hurry and register, because only the first 400 people can participate in this fun opportunity to make a difference! Every day, thousands of people are afflicted by hunger forcing many to risk dangerous journeys hoping to survive in foreign lands. This is an easy opportunity to contribute towards the creation of a hunger-free world.
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Bridge Prison Ministry Meeting Update
On behalf of Rev. Scott Adams of
Loyola University Maryland
and the
Justice & Peace Committee
of St. Ignatius Parish, we would like to thank those who were able to join in on the
Bridge Prison Ministry Initiative
discussion that was held on Sunday, July 22 in the Chapel of Grace.
The
Bridge Prison Ministr
y
is a faith-based initiative designed to provide support to our justice involved women, men and youth by engaging in thought provoking and inspiring spiritual gatherings at Baltimore/Maryland Correctional Institutions. We seek to cultivate relationships between Maryland correctional residents, and members of the surrounding faith community by creating an environment in which all can learn alongside one another. These gatherings will be unisex and members from any partnering faith tradition are welcome to participate. Community instructors (clergy, faith leaders, professors and lay leaders) from various local churches, colleges and universities, synagogues, mosques and other community organizations will have the opportunity teach and learn outside the traditional classroom setting.
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Upcoming August Retreat Date:
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Rev. Scott has set up a
Bridge Prison Ministry
Project Retreat at Heritage United Church of Christ. The dates are Friday, August 17 (5:30 -7:30 PM) and Saturday, August 18 (9 AM - 4 PM). If you want to attend this retreat on either or both dates, please email Candra Healy,
candrahealy@st-ignatius.net.
The Justice & Peace Committee will arrange lunch for anyone attending on Saturday August 18. The retreat address is Heritage United Church of Christ, 3110 Liberty Heights Ave, Baltimore, MD, 21215.
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Spiritual Growth Opportunity Informational Meeting
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Curious About the Spiritual Exercises & Ignatian Prayer?
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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.
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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 lgnatian spirituality and how YOU might experience them, please join us:
Thursday August 9 or Wednesday September 5
7 - 8:30 PM
Loyola University
Alumni Memorial Chapel
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Capitol Hill Chamber Music Festival at St. Ignatius
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For the second year the Capitol Hill Chamber Music Festival is delighted to bring rarely-heard 17th-century chamber music to St. Ignatius Church, performed by period instrument specialists from the Baltimore-Washington area and around the country. We’re now an affiliate organization of Early Music America.
“…A brilliant performance…eloquently played…a fine sense of dialogue
that is close to the essence of chamber music…” [Reilly Lewis, Jeffrey Cohan and John Moran] — Joseph McLellan, THE WASHINGTON POST
The eighteenth annual Capitol Hill Chamber Music Festival presents prominent period instrument specialists from the Baltimore-Washington area and beyond, including baroque and renaissance bassoonist Anna Marsh, Pershing’s Own US Army Orchestra violinist Marlisa Woods, Peabody Conservatory of Music early music program director violinist Risa Browder and artistic director and flutist Jeffrey Cohan.
The Capitol Hill Chamber Music Festival is proud to be a new affiliate organization of Early Music America, which develops, strengthens, and celebrates early music and historically informed performance in North America.
The suggested donation (a free will offering) is $20 or $25. Everyone 18 years of age and under is free. Pay-as-you-wish tickets are available through Brown Paper Tickets at
chcmf-baltimore.bpt.me
. For further information and advance tickets the public may see
www.chcmf.com/baltimore
. To learn about the performers,
click here
.
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Worship with Offerings, Liturgy and Prayers for Others
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POOR BOX
Each weekend St. Ignatius specifies a Poor Box collection for a needful cause. This week's support goes to support our
Loaves & Fishes Ministry
.
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MASS MUSIC
Attached is the listing for the music selections at next Sunday's 10:30 Mass.
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PERSECUTED CHRISTIAN REPORT
Weekly updates on Christian persecution around the globe. Keep a prayerful watch on what is
happening with your
brothers and sisters!
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Upcoming Events and Meetings
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Spiritual Exercises Information Session
Thursday, August 9 - 7 PM
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Capitol Hill Music Festival: Italian Canzonas
Sunday, August 12 - 1 PM
See box above for complete information
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Iñigo Book Group
Tuesday, August 14 - 6:30 PM
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Feast of the Assumption (A Holy Day of Obligation)
Wednesday , August 15 - 7:25 AM & 6:30 PM
Masses in Chapel.
Click here
for complete information.
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Bishop Madden's Prayer Walk for Peace in the City
Wednesday , August 22 - 5:30 PM
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Embracing God's Gifts
Tuesday, August 28 - 7 PM
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Pope Francis gestures before speaking about the death penalty at an event marking the 25th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, at the Vatican in this Oct. 11, 2017, file photo. The pope ordered a revision to the catechism to state that the death penalty is inadmissible and he committed the church to its abolition. (CNS/Paul Haring)
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Pope Revises Catechism to Say Death Penalty is 'Inadmissible'
Commits the church to working toward its abolition worldwide
VATICAN CITY — Building on the development of Catholic Church teaching against capital punishment, Pope Francis has ordered a revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to assert "the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person" and to commit the church to working toward its abolition worldwide.
The catechism's paragraph on capital punishment, 2267, already had been updated by St. John Paul II in 1997 to strengthen its skepticism about the need to use the death penalty in the modern world and, particularly, to affirm the importance of protecting all human life.
Announcing the change Aug. 2, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said, "The new text, following in the footsteps of the teaching of John Paul II in 'Evangelium Vitae,' affirms that ending the life of a criminal as punishment for a crime is inadmissible because it attacks the dignity of the person, a dignity that is not lost even after having committed the most serious crimes.
READ MORE
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READER NOTIFICATION:
"Parish: the thought" is a publication of St. Ignatius Catholic Community, Baltimore. Each edition contains articles and news feeds that are included for awareness of current topics in our world today. The positions expressed by outside authors and news feeds are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions or positions of St. Ignatius Catholic Community or its staff.
- This e-zine was compiled by John C. Odean
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