Joy and Merriment at the 2018 IPS Holiday Party

The Loyola IPS community gathered recently to celebrate this holiday season of hope, joy, and love.

Click on this link to view photos of community, cheer, and merriment from the 2018 IPS Holiday Party and Advisory Committee.

At the beginning of the gathering, IPS student Kascha Sanor shared the below prayer to mark the close of the IPS Wall of Prayer initiative:

God, we thank you for this community. The opportunity to grow and learn – with you of you and for you – freely. We recognize that spaces like this are rare these days. 

In this season of darkness, we call to mind some of those obstacles that hold us back from our true expression of your image.

We reflect on the barriers of our global society: fear, otherness, materialism, hatred.

We reflect on the pain of divisions within our communities: greed, ignorance, distance.

We reflect on the destructive effects of racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, poverty, isolation.

All of these walls keep us from you. 

We know that overcoming what separates us is an act of trust, and we know it will be messy but we know that you are there.

Holy Spirit, we know you are here in this season of advent, darkness, loneliness and waiting.  We know that you are here in the chaos of our growing pains and that you transcend our human-made barriers that create this isolation and loneliness.

We have this hope because we are here, together in community.  And so together in this community, we pray to welcome the chaos.  To not only know and love one another but also “the other”.  Because we know that is where we find you.

Amen.

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To learn more about IPS, go to https://www.luc.edu/ips/.

For those interested in applying to IPS, go to https://gpem.luc.edu/apply/.