Category : Uncategorized

MASJCD student starts IPS Relay for Life team

Tonei Glavinic, a first year MASJCD student, has just started an IPS Relay for Life team. If you’re interested in either joining the team or supporting the cause, please see the below note and link from Tonei. Thanks!

Hi all,

I started an IPS team for Relay for Life this morning. If you’re not familiar with it, Relay is the signature fundraising event of the American Cancer Society and the largest fundraiser in the world. It culminates in a 12-hour overnight event where teams gather and play games, raise money, and walk laps around a track, representing the idea that “cancer never sleeps, so for one night, neither do we.” 

The central ideals of the event are celebrating successes, remembering those we’ve lost to cancer, and fighting back by raising money to further research, advocacy, and direct services. My mom is undergoing cancer treatment in Seattle right now, and ACS has offered significant support to her directly in addition to the indirect benefits of its larger efforts. If you’d be willing to help me support their work, I would really appreciate it.

Registration is $10, and since we’re the first team signed up on the website, it won’t take much for us to look really impressive. Let’s show ’em what we’ve got!

http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?team_id=1249207&fr_id=48482&pg=team

Thanks,
Tonei


Institute of Pastoral Studies Launches New Website Design

Please take the time to head over to www.luc.edu/ips to check out our new website design. The IT team in University Marketing and Communications has been working long and hard on the new site and we are very proud to unveil their good work.


Nugget Boycott: Week Two

Dr. Melissa Browning is at it again! This week she writes on The Huffington Post about the recent developments in the ongoing Chick-fil-a saga.

“…each time I walk past a Chick-fil-A without stopping in, I reaffirm my commitment to not contribute to an organization that marginalizes people based on their sexual orientation. In this small act, I am paying attention to my own moral formation. The decisions we make each day, especially the ordinary ones, shape the people we are becoming. In boycotting, I am less concerned about Chick-fil-A’s reaction, and more concerned about my own conscience. Changing ourselves is the first step in creating change in our world.”

Right on, Dr. Browning! Check out the article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-browning-phd/the-nugget-boycott-week-two_b_1696104.html


Grace and Bathsheba: Women using their bodies to fight

Dr. Melissa Browning, Director of the MA in Social Justice and Community Development graduate program, is a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post’s Religion Section. This week she reflects on the HIV/AIDS crisis, in particular, she connects its impact on sub-Saharan African women to the biblical figure of Bathsheba.

She explains in the piece, “Like the story of David and Bathsheba, death and love are too often linked in the stories of women living with HIV and AIDS in Africa. If we want to see this pandemic end, then women must be given space to have power and control over their own lives.”

You can find the article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-browning-phd/2-samuel-11-1-15-patriarchy-and-hiv-aids_b_1699687.html

Stay tuned for a more detailed profile of Dr. Browning in an upcoming IPS In Action blog post! In the meantime, check out her awesome website: http://www.melissabrowning.com/mb/Home.html


Help Celebrate the Organ

Loyola University Chicago’s Madonna della Strada Chapel is home to Goulding and Wood Opus 47, the Katheryn “Kay” Stamm Memorial Organ. This pipe organ of three manuals and pedal, 70 ranks is the musical crown jewel of our chapel. This exciting new instrument invigorates worship at Madonna della Strada and further pronounces the integral relationship between music and liturgy. The new instrument serves the community at Loyola as well as the artistic community in the greater Chicago area.

Besides leading the music every weekend for Sunday Mass, Loyola’s department of Sacramental Life is hosting a series of organ concerts throughout the year, to give Loyola and the surrounding community an opportunity to hear this instrument first hand.  Concerts take place the 3rd Sunday of the month at 3:00 p.m.  For a complete schedule of program information, check this link:  http://www.luc.edu/sacramental_life/organ/organyear.shtml


Student shares reflection on her journey to Kenya

Connie Johnson

Entry #1

May 26, 2012 8:37am Amsterdam Airport

As I sit at  gate F6 awaiting to board the second and final flight to Nairobi I am reminded of a question. While in line to check in at Chicago O’Hare I became engaged with a tall, cultured woman wearing a pink silk blouse. She asked the normal questions a fellow traveler would ask, What is your destination?, What is the reason for your trip?, How long will you be visiting? Our conversation was pretty standard for two complete strangers when it suddenly took a turn that took me by surprise. The information the woman gathered from her friendly but brief interrogation reminded her of her own journeys to Northern Africa. She shared a little about her experiences and then it happened. She asked a question so profound that I couldn’t give her an honest answer. She looked me square in the eyes and said “Are you ready for the poverty?” I tried my best to process the question and give her a scholarly answer,since I am a graduate student. But I could only come with “I don’t know.” Over the past few days several people have inquired about my feelings towards this trip. The standard questions were Are you ready?, Are you excited?, Do you have everything you need? But no one asked neither did I consider the question, Are you ready for the poverty? It never dawned on me that Kenyan poverty will probably look much different from American poverty, of which I am quite familiar with. I never considered that I could possibly, for once be considered a “have” in a land of extreme “have nots”. I walk into this experience as a blank canvas waiting for an inspired artists to skillfully cover me with brilliant, vibrant strokes of self discovery.


An Experiment in Career Opportunities

A note regarding a career opportunity from Dr. Eileen Daily:

The Archdiocese of Chicago’s Office for Catechesis and Youth Ministry (OFCYM) is located at the Cardinal Meyer Center at 35th Street and S. Lake Park Avenue. In other words it is a bit off the beaten path for most busy IPS students. Kristen Hempsted McGann, OFCYM Associate Director, is conscious of the busy lives of IPS students and alums and is doing something to make life a tad easier. On Thursday, June 28 from 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. she will be conducting interviews at IPS. OFCYM is both hiring directly (see the job description at http://www.archchicago.org/Employment/Details.aspx?JONumber=163) and assisting parishes in making their selection. Parish employment opportunities are available full- or part-time. If you would like to be considered for an interview, please send an email with time availability information and a resume to kmcgann@archchicago.org. Even if you aren’t ready to work right now, the OFCYM is always looking for qualified candidates that might be interested down the road.

If this works out, we would like to make this an event that occurs 2 or 3 times per year. In the future, we might even induce the Diocese of Joliet to conduct interviews at IPS on the same day and make a mini-career-fair of sorts. If you have thoughts about the idea of organizations conducting interviews at IPS, please comment below.


Cecilia Escajadillo Prayer Service and Memorial Service

Dear IPS Faculty and Students,

            Cecilia Escajadillo will be remembered in prayer tonight (Monday, June 18) at a candle-light vigil in Madonna Della Strada Chapel on Loyola’s Lake Shore Campus. The memorial service will be held at 5 PM.  All are welcome. 

            Her remains will be cremated and returned to her family in Lima, Peru.

            This coming Thursday, June 21, IPS will sponsor another memorial service at the Water Tower Campus.  We will be hosting a ceremony and luncheon in memory of Cecilia in the Terry Center (3rd floor, Wabash & Pearson).  The memorial will take place in All Saints Chapel at 11:30 am with lunch following.  Please RSVP to Randy Gibbons rgibbon@luc.edu if you can attend.

            The suddenness of this tragedy is mellowed by our faith that Cecilia is with God, with the martyrs and saints, and with those who have gone before her.  We pray for her mourning family and that she rest in eternal peace.  I hope you can join us in prayer either this evening or on Thursday.   

                                                                                    Sincerely,

                                                                                   Robert A. Ludwig, Director