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Meg Waldron, IPS M.A. Pastoral Studies Student

Reflection on the Gospel of John 11:  1-45   I am the resurrection and the life.

“So the sisters sent word to Jesus.  Lord, the one you love is sick . . . Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death.  No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”

I imagine my own sisters, Vicky and Chris, running to Jesus and crying out, “Jesus!  Meg, the one you love, is sick.  Do something!  Save her!  Do not take her from us!  Do not let her suffer!”   Jesus comforts them and says, “Do not be afraid.  Meg’s illness will not destroy her.  I am with her always and she believes in Me!  Meg understands this with her whole being.  She is free.  She will always be free.”

I have experienced two serious illnesses:  polymyositis in 1996 and salivary gland cancer in 2009.  Each time God sends me wonderful doctors who treat me and control my illnesses, and my family and friends love and comfort me.  For those of you living with illness, or with any form of suffering, you may experience that suffering impacts your whole being, not only physically, but spiritually, mentally, emotionally, socially, financially, etc.  In my own journey, I know that God comforts me through my pain and sets me free.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?”

Yes, I believe this.  I am still here.  Parts of me have died.  I am not the same on many levels as I was before I was ill, but that is okay.  There is something in me that cannot be destroyed, no matter how many serious diagnoses I receive; no matter how progressive my illnesses become.  My body may fail me again and again, but I am renewed in Christ each day.  I draw closer to and seek God in each moment, regardless of my illnesses.

It is God who dwells in each one of us, and He cannot be destroyed.  When we place our trust and hope in God, we witness His glory and healing power within us and our life experiences. (more…)

Loyola’s Ignatian Heritage Week celebration highlights the living legacy of St. Ignatius Loyola [1491-1556], founder of the Society of Jesus  [1540] and Patron of Loyola University Chicago. We invite the entire Loyola community to explore and recognize the diverse gifts we have received from the living legacy of St. Ignatius Loyola. Download Brochure here.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 7

12:00 Noon:  Soup and Substance

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola
Simpson Multipurpose Room

A panel of faculty and staff will discuss their experiences of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola and its impact on their work and lives.   Information will also be provided on opportunities to participate in this retreat here at Loyola.   Please join us for food that feeds both body and spirit!

The Spiritual Exercises are an unfolding series of prayers, meditations and reflections put together by St. Ignatius of Loyola out of his own personal spiritual experience and that of others to whom he listened. St. Ignatius wrote the manual of the Spiritual Exercises as a guide to those engaged in making them. They honor the uniqueness of each retreatant and lead him/her into a deeper relationship with self, God, and others.   The Spiritual Exercises are the bedrock for Ignatian spirituality and inform the mission and Jesuit, Catholic identity of Loyola University Chicago.

4 PM:  Jesuits and the Papacy
Fr. Thomas Worcester, SJ
Piper Hall

In 1540 Pope Paul III approved creation of the Society of Jesus. Since that time Jesuits have been available to be missioned by the bishop of Rome to a wide variety of works all across the globe. But the papacy has not always been favorable to Jesuits, and some Jesuits have been critical of the papacy. This talk explores some of the complexities of good and bad relations between Jesuits and the papacy over five centuries.

Thomas Worcester, SJ, is a Visiting Professor at Loyola University, Spring term 2011. He is Professor of History at the College of the Holy Cross, and specializes in the religious history of early modern France and Italy. He is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits (Cambridge University Press, 2008), and co-editor, with James Corkery, S.J., of The Papacy since 1500: From Italian Prince to Universal Pastor (Cambridge University Press, 2010).   (more…)

Michael Page speaks to the Haitian community of Sassier, Haiti. Dr. Page is an emergency physician from Holland Hospital who organized our nine-person medical team in Haiti in collaboration with Zanmi Sasye.

West Michigan doctors, nurses help Haitians suffering aftermath of earthquake & hurricane.

Heidi Russell, Ph.D.

In the book Mountains Beyond Mountains (by Tracy Kidder), Dr. Paul Farmer states, “You should compare suffering. Which suffering is worse. It is called triage” (286). Being in Haiti puts everything into perspective – a friend of mine noted that it is like going to a spiritual chiropractor for an adjustment – an adjustment on how I view the world and my own place in the world. I take for granted the ability to turn on a faucet and wash my hands. Everyone says cholera is easy to prevent; it just takes proper hand washing. But how do you wash your hands when you do not have water? I carried a bottle of hand sanitizer with me at all times; others don’t have that luxury. I watched the people of Sassier come to the pharmacy and receive Tylenol and antacids with incredible gratitude. I don’t think twice about my ability to go to my medicine cabinet and pull out either of these meds or others when I need them. More seriously, I never doubt that when I get sick and my doctor prescribes medication, I can go to Walgreen’s and pick it up. This past week I watched while the doctors diagnosed a man and prescribed medication that we did not have in our clinic pharmacy. I then watched them call the pharmacy and then the hospital in Jérémie to no avail – no one had the medication. I heard the doctors and nurses talking about the children with asthma – “They need inhalers. We don’t have any.” What would it be like to live in a world where the medicines you needed, which at times your very life depended on, were simply not available?

On the positive side, I saw children and adults receive the meds they needed for malaria. I saw people receive life-saving antibiotics. I saw wounds, abscesses, and infections treated. I saw IV fluids revive a man as if they rose him from the dead. I watched as we toured the hospital in Jérémie and the local doctor asked our medical team about medicine for a man who had broken his leg. The medicine would cost $10 a day – $10 he did not have. One of our nurses had brought what he needed with her from the states. Arrangements were made to get him what he needed. (more…)

Mary Kieffer, Loyola University Chicago Institute of Pastoral Studies, MAPS student

In the present age which is filled with rampant consumerism, disputes between nations, and, at least in American society, individualism, it is comforting to study and appreciate the ancient scriptures known as the Old Testament which are comforting in their prophetic vision that remains relevant despite the passing of time. As Walter Brueggemann attests, the Old Testament continues to offer “an alternative to the paths of death” when individuals or nations ignore the covenant relationship between humankind and YHWH. In fact, Brueggemann asserts that it is impossible to be a complete Christian if we feel that we can solely rely on New Testament teachings to guide us to the wholeness for which each of us is called. The Old Testament’s prophetic critique of autonomy, covenantal relationship and the saving power of YHWH are all tools of salvation which make us “human in the world” as well as chosen people of God. (more…)

David Bottorff, Loyola University Chicago Institute of Pastoral Studies | M.A. Pastoral Counseling Student

Abstract

Early Christianity proved to be a profound pivotal point around which the social, political, economic, and spiritual lives of many people living in the Mediterranean Basin turned. This shift is characterized by a typology of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. At the same time, this pattern of change was mirrored by one of enslavement, freedom, and reverse discrimination. Reconciling the truth of these two concurrent yet contrasting typologies, whether over the course of centuries or mere moments, has proved to be both a great personal challenge and the key to my subjective appreciation of Early Christianity. This essay explores the tension between what Early Christianity was for its seminal proponents and the gravity it exerts in the life of this post-modern author. Further, it attempts to convey my relationship with a monumental and personally challenging question: How could one man, who by all rights should have been lost in the annuls of history, effect such tremendous change in the way we appreciate salvation of the human soul? This subject remains near to the heart of my lifelong spiritual quest.

Uncovering Early Christianity

Early Christianity precipitated catalytic change in the way much of the world relates to the great metaphysical forces shaping our human condition. For many, including myself, the concepts of mystery, hope and meaning were profoundly altered by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, as told by his seminal biographers. Biblical scholars use many tools to examine scripture, including historical, political, ideological, psychological, form, and redaction approaches (Pregeant, 2009). The conclusions can be widely divergent. To express my personal take on Early Christianity, I rely not only on these academic findings, but also on the Buddhist epistemological hermeneutic through which I read scripture.

To articulate what Early Christianity was, and what it means to me, I turn to the recurring typologic analogue described by Brueggemann (1984) in his Psalms exegesis—that of orientation, disorientation and reorientation. This organic sine pattern repeats time and again throughout human history, and finds expression at the fulcrum point around which spirituality in the Mediterranean Basin pivoted some two millennia ago—the life and times of Jesus. (more…)

Living the Opposition

Katie Davis, Loyola IPS MAPS Student

In contemporary society, we are all bombarded with the temptations of individualism, consumerism, and militarism that inevitably shape our understanding of what it means to be human in the world today.  In the midst of such peril, YHWH as revealed in the Old Testament presents a countercultural path to life through the choosing of the covenant to this day.  Contrary to popular belief, the Old Testament is not merely an antiquated text; rather, it introduces poignant and relevant themes such as God’s saving power, social organization based on covenant as opposed to coercion, and the urgently important notion of “prophetic consciousness” as opposed to “royal consciousness”.

As Christians, we tend to grapple with the role that the Old Testament can or should play in our experiences of faith in the Trinity.  Are the Old Testament and the New Testament so different that Christians can disregard the former?  Is the Old Testament simply a starting point to be read solely through the lens of Christianity?  Walter Brueggemann stresses the importance of continually learning from the Jews and the way they read the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the necessity of honoring our similarities and acknowledging our differences.  For we cannot, he suggests, fully understand the New Testament without having a firm grasp on the Old Testament.  With openness to the graces of these Books, we as Christians can gain access to the interior life of a God with whom we can become acquainted in a totally fresh and more substantive way. (more…)

Heidi Russell, Loyola University Chicago IPS Graduate Program Director, MAPS

Christmas is the feast of the incarnation. In Christmas we do celebrate the nativity or birth of Christ, but what we are celebrating is not simply Jesus’ “birthday,” the way we celebrate our own birthdays. We are celebrating the mystery of Emmanuel, God-with-us, God revealed in time and space. Each week in the creed we say “by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary and became man,” and the instructions say we are supposed to bow at those words, but on Christmas, the instructions say to genuflect. Why? Because those words proclaim the incarnation, that God became human. So what is the incarnation all about?

St. Athanasius, one of the great fathers and theologians of the Church, tells us:

Obviously we do not become God in the way that God is God, but we become God-like, we are divinized. The eastern Christian tradition has done a much better job of reminding people of this fact than our western tradition has done, as the west has tended to focus much more on the incarnation as a remedy for sin (it is both). The eastern tradition has a beautiful Greek word, theopoesis or theosis, literally to make divine, to describe this process. The word is usually translated as divinization or deification. We partake in the divine nature. St. Irenaeus puts it another way:

by Stephen Dynako, IPS Student

It’s that time of year again at work where my annual performance plan and review is due. This year my boss asked me to self-evaluate on the quantitative portions of the review, then he would go back afterward to either agree with or adjust my self-imposed ratings before the document became official.

For example, say there was a category on the review called “Demonstrates Leadership.” The ratings might include: 1) exceeds expectations, 2) performs above average, 3) meets expectations, and 4) performs below expectations. Since my boss asked me to self-evaluate, let’s suppose I felt really good about my leadership performance this year and gave myself an “exceeds expectations.” Additionally, there were another six or seven quantitative categories to evaluate on this year’s review.

Because I consider myself to have good self-esteem but also because I exercise a healthy degree of humility, I rated myself a combination of “exceeds expectations” and “performs above average” on all categories. I felt it would be pompous to give myself “straight A’s” across the board, because I am aware that my job is challenging and though I am very, very good at it, I know I am not perfect.

To put it bluntly, I have never felt comfortable with self-evaluations. After all, who in one’s right mind would willingly self-evaluate on the low end of a scale in any category, especially on a document on which that person’s annual bonus and salary increase are based? Therefore, when my boss asked me to take the first crack at this document, I knew it was going to be subject to his subsequent modification. I preferred he cut out the middle man (that is, me) and just fill it out with what he knew would be the final ratings. (more…)

by Stephen Dynako, IPS Student

I attended Loyola University Chicago as an undergraduate from 1984-1989, majoring in communication. In addition to hosting the mid-day shift at Loyola’s WLUW radio station (which was then a top-40 station, nicknamed “Hitline 88-7 FM, if you can believe it.), I worked at a couple of commercial radio stations in Chicago. Immediately upon earning my degree, I ventured out into the corporate world, where I have worked for the past 22 years.

During most of my tenure in corporate America, I did not contemplate the presence of God with me in the midst of the deadlines, narcissistic personalities, variously inspirational and incompetent managers, celebrating the successes of closing the big deals, and lamenting the ones that slipped through our fingers. Don’t misunderstand me: If it seems I am putting it down, on the contrary, I have loved most every minute in working in “the business,” dysfunction and all.

In 2001, I had my own business – a small technology consulting practice, which I founded in 1993. The beginning of the end of that business occurred when the United States suffered through 9/11. In closing my business, I was compelled to seek a paying job elsewhere and entered the banking industry, where I continue to work full time while attending IPS. My dark night of the soul was the time in between shutting the business and finding the new job, which did not come quickly. It was during this time that I turned to faith in something greater than myself to encourage and strengthen me and ultimately to provide for me. (more…)