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By Allison Rieff, IPS Student, M.Div.

It is easy enough to imagine yourself in this story with all its physical details, salt water and a charcoal fire and bread and fish.  Perhaps you are one of the disciples.  They all go out fishing with Peter; I think this is less an abandonment of Jesus’ message than a way to get through one more night without Jesus, and to do it together.

Then a man appears on the shore and speaks to them.  Perhaps I should not say “appears,” since we have no record that there seemed to be anything supernatural about this visit at all.  Jesus stood on the shore and called out to them, but they did not recognize that it was Jesus.  He told them to try throwing out their net again, and it came back with an abundance of fish.  “It is the Lord,” one of the disciples told Peter, and Peter pulled his clothes back on and swam back to the shore as quickly as he could.

So here is this man waiting on the shore, next to a charcoal fire with bread and some fish.  You can imagine the disciples hanging back, likely frightened, certainly intimidated.  At the very least, whoever this man is, he seems to be someone who has died and then returned from the dead.  No one else has ever done anything like this before.  Is he now some sort of transcendent being, and will he remember them?  What will he say? Read more

By Christoph Soyer, IPS Student, M.A. Pastoral Counseling

In the book of Exodus, there is a wonderful story: Moses was tending to the sheep, when he saw fire flaming out of a bush. The bush, though on fire, was not consumed. Moses wanted to approach the bush in order to see why it was not burned, but a voice – God – said: Come no nearer. Remove the shoes from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. This is a deeply meaningful phrase for me: Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.

I would like to share with you a very important experience I had in the summer of 2008. Alongside eight young adults from my parish, we all joined the World Youth Day in Sydney. We went to Sydney as a part of the Jesuit program called MAGIS (Latin: more). Before the WYD and the gathering with the Pope, there was a special program. The core of this program was called an experiment. The experiment was centered on the idea of having a spiritual experience in an extraordinary environment and in an international group.

Our group went to Indonesia, where we lived for 6 days on the “garbage mountains” of Jakarta. This is difficult to describe in words, so I would like to share several photos as well.

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by Susan Rans

Many current and incoming students have asked for a description of the differences between the Social Justice and Community Development tracks of the Master of Arts in Social Justice & Community Development (MASJCD). In the past, I have answered this question in a kind of shorthand: Social Justice “thinks globally”; Community Development “acts locally”. Here, I attempt to put more meat on those bones.

The biggest idea behind the creation of the MASJCD was to join the theoretical and theological study of social justice to a place-based practice and policy approach to change in urban communities. While the study of social justice leads toward action, the study of community development provides effective and proven tools for action. So, another formulation might be that the study of social justice reveals why we must act and the study of community development shows what we can do.

It can also be said that community development is a form of social justice. Our religious traditions speak clearly about the injustices of poverty, of war and of oppression of the powerless. Answering this call often leads students to involvement in justice issues like eliminating poverty and hunger, ending wars, empowering women or welcoming immigrants. Community development–building strong and liberating communities in which the economy is available to all, in which every member is a valued contributor, and in which access to health care, education and secure housing is a mandate–fulfills the social justice vision. (more…)

by Beth Orchard

When I first set foot into the offices of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) in Greek town on my first day as intern in May, 2010, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I remembered reading a book titled ‘Acts of Faith,’ by Eboo Patel and read about their mission to ‘build mutual respect and pluralism among young people from different religious traditions by empowering them to work together to serve others,’ but I soon found out whatever I thought I knew about interfaith cooperation and dialogue was only part of the bigger picture.

My placement was with the One Chicago, One Nation initiative, a pilot year program designed to train people from all over the city of Chicago, from 18-88 years of age, to host Community Conversations about interfaith dialogue and cooperation around issues in their community. Through the trainings, nearly 100 Chicagoans from all over the city and suburbs came together to learn about how their story can be used to change the conversation around an issue (such as anti-violence, for example) and move together in service.

Throughout my time at IFYC, I got to interact with Community Ambassadors who were trained through the program and came from all sectors, college and university campuses and organizations as well as program officers from the Chicago Community Trust and high level corporate officials who attended the reception and induction for the trained ambassadors. I sat in on the trainings, created demographics to analyze the numbers from the pilot year and also engaged with the Community Ambassadors who were from all spiritual and religious backgrounds from Secular Humanist to Christian, Islam and others. (more…)

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by Kirsten T.

Merriam –Webster defines parable as a “short story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle.” According to Robert Ludwig in our week five essay, Jesus spoke in parables to attack fundamental beliefs of his listeners (p. 4). The parables of Jesus were not just to tell a story with a moral; the reason was to transform lives. In my life there have been many transformative moments; the birth of my son, a divorce, and the foray into a life of professional ministry. Perhaps the most significant parabolic moment in my life occurred through the death of my father almost 17 years ago. It was in the hours preceding his death that I came to experience a moment of mystery. This essay will explore that personal parable.

A brief history of my mom and dad is helpful to explain the situation. My mother was the church going Catholic. She was the one from whom I learned my prayers and observed of a life of service. She volunteered whenever possible at our local Catholic church and expected me to do the same. My mother was a model of fidelity. Questions surrounding my faith or my God were directed to her. My father had been raised Lutheran, but never went to church except when his sister visited in the winter. He did attend mass a few times in my life when I was leading music ministry. Attending his first Easter Vigil service when I was 17 was his final visit inside a Catholic church, however. A three hour service was just a little too much for him to take.

My dad never interfered with my mom and her connection to the local church. This did not mean I was not connected deeply to my father. With my dad I explored the intellect through reading, writing, history and the sciences. He and I could argue politics and my future career at length. From him, I developed a significant work ethic. Prayer was never a part of our 32 year relationship other than grace before meals on holidays. When I began my work in professional church ministry he was happy for me, but there was never any discussion around what I did on a day to day basis. He was tough on me, but also, as his sole daughter, he was quite empowering, assuring me that I could do or be anything I set my mind to. (more…)

Robert Ludwig

Perhaps the single most important spiritual issue of our time emerges in the global ecological crisis we face. The vast devastation that human beings have visited on the Earth in modernity poses profound threats to the survival of all life forms on the planet. Pollution of the land, air, and water has introduced life-threatening toxins into the food-chain and our bodies.  Depletion of the protective ozone, global warming, alarming increments in human population growth, and the killing off of millions of plant and animal species–all of these suggest a grim future devoid of natural aesthetics and a radically diminished existence, if, indeed, we can survive at all. The source of these problems is not superficial. It has to do with our self-understanding and our relationship to the natural world. We are alienated from nature, estranged from the elegant magnificence which is all about us and within us. Growing awareness of this alienation and estrangement challenges our fundamental meanings and values.

We need to stand back from the present crisis and assess why things are so amiss. What are the underlying reasons for today’s threatening situation? The answer, of course, is the human species. We are what has thrown the natural world into such imbalance. But is the human species intrinsically the problem? Are we a mistake of nature, inevitably drawn to behaviors which are destructive to the planet as a whole? A closer look suggests that the underlying problem is not the human species as such, but the human species of the past 200 years–and more precisely, the human species in the Western hemisphere and north of the equator during the past 200 years. It is modern Eurocentered humanity that has plundered nature and wrought such destruction to the planet.

Thomas Berry suggests that the underlying problem is twofold: otherworldly religion and controlling science–religion that denigrates the natural world and sees it as at best neutral and at worst our spiritual enemy; and science as conquest which seeks to conquer and subjugate the world of nature. Transcending nature through religion and overcoming nature through science–these prevailing attitudes combine to create a human species which devastates the natural world, perceiving itself as separate from, and even alien to, nature.  Clearly, it is our understanding and perception that must change.

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On Friday, August 27, Eboo Patel, PhD, the founder and executive director of Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core and a member of President Obama’s advisory council of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, will deliver a public lecture on the Lake Shore Campus. Patel will discuss “Interfaith Leadership and Transformative Education” at 7 p.m., in the Mundelein Center Auditorium.

Named one of America’s Best Leaders of 2009 by U.S.News & World Report, Patel is the award-winning author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation and a regular contributor to the Washington Post, National Public Radio, and CNN. He was named one of ten young Muslim visionaries shaping Islam in America by Islamica Magazine and he was also chosen by Harvard’s Kennedy School Review as one of five future policy leaders to watch. This May, he was honored at Loyola’s 2010 Commencement with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.

Patel’s visit is sponsored by Loyola University’s Office of the Provost, the School of Education, the Division of Public Affairs, and the Office of First-Year Experience. For more information on Patel and his Interfaith Youth Core, visit www.ifyc.org.

by Michele G.

As a veterinarian, I have been “parabled” many times.   During the course of my career, I  have come to appreciate many clients and patients as teachers  and know that there are lessons to be learned if I can only open my ears and heart and, at times, suspend belief.  As is the case with parables in their truest sense, there have been uncomfortable twists to some tales, endings that I could not have anticipated and events that challenged my previous ways  of thinking.  Perhaps one of the most potent parables, out of the many, occurred on Christmas Eve 1983.

I was working a double shift that day as a technician at a veterinary emergency clinic on Chicago’s North Side.  The evening was bitterly cold  (it would plummet to  – 25 degrees Fahrenheit) and concern  among the staff was,  as always,  for the homeless people and animals who had no place to go for warmth, food and safety.   Early in the shift, we received several calls from the far South Side about a dog who had been hit by a car and was lying unattended in a gutter.  Our calls to the local police station, humane organizations and animal rescues found no one who would come and take the dog out of the elements and into a shelter.   After a few hours, the calls from the public regarding the dog stopped coming.  We all presumed that someone had stopped to pick up the poor pooch and get him to a place of warmth and treatment.  Or, perhaps he had succumbed to his injuries.

About 10 p.m. that night, the doorbell to the clinic rang and as I peered out through the window, I saw a thin, older, shabbily dressed African American man cradling a large (approximately 40 pound) dog in his arms.  I buzzed him in and he and the dog entered the clinic in a blast of frigid air and fog.  It was clear that the dog had been injured and other staff members quickly surrounded the man and dog, wrapping each of them in heated blankets and bringing them to the back treatment area.  It was only then that the doctor on duty made the connection that this was most likely the dog that we had heard of earlier in the day – the one who had been hit and left to suffer on South Ashland Avenue.  Indeed it was. (more…)

by Kristen M.

I thought I had my life all figured out.  My husband and I were married in 2000, and two years later we were blessed with the birth of our daughter.  In 2004, God gave us our son.  We were filled with love, joy, and gratitude.  Since my husband and I are both the oldest of four children, we had always planned on having a six-person family.  At the beginning of 2006, we were ready to have another baby – right on our schedule.  Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out as we had planned.

That first year was an emotional rollercoaster.  Each month I prayed fervently that I would become pregnant, and each month I was disappointed.  I went to daily Mass, prayed the rosary, did novenas, and nothing happened.  Our regular doctors failed to find anything “wrong.”  I took my charts to a Natural Family Planning consultant, who determined that something was wrong, but could only refer me to the head of the Creighton Method who was out at the Pope Paul VI Institute in Omaha.  There was no way that we would be able to afford that, so we just kept counting on God.  The stress on our marriage had become difficult to handle.  While I was extremely happy with my two wonderful children, I still yearned to have more.  It didn’t make sense.  This secondary infertility was becoming a monster, and I really wanted to give it up.  But it wasn’t that easy.

In January 2007, we decided that we were going to see a fertility doctor, and if he wasn’t able to assist us, we would just give up the dream.  We didn’t want to do any artificial means because we already had two healthy children and we felt that if God wanted us to have more, we would.  He was neither able to help us nor provide a diagnosis.  Even though I was “supposed to” stop being obsessed with having another baby, I couldn’t.  When reading an article in St. Anthony’s Messenger one day, I discovered a shrine for infertile couples, Our Lady of La Leche/Mission Nombre de Dios in St. Augustine Florida.  I had been so close to God during this experience and found God in so many ways with the help of my spiritual director, that I was sure that God would hear my plea at our family pilgrimage.  In the midst of planning our trip, I came across a Natural Family Planning doctor in Hobart, Indiana.  After running a series of tests, he recommended some medication that I was to begin taking after the trip.

The shrine was amazing!  My husband and I both were overwhelmed with the presence of God as we prayed together, alone, and with the kids.  What I came away with was something to the effect of John 15:5.  “I am the vine, you are the branches.  Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”  When I was there, I first petitioned for a friend of mine who had been trying to conceive for almost seven years and a cousin of mine who has epilepsy and had lost two children.  Neither of them had any children, and their situations were far more significant than mine. (more…)