Meet Masters in Spirituality Student: Br. Lee ColombinoCan you tell us a bit about yourself?
By origin, I am a yooper donchaknow, eh?! But, most of my life has now been spent outside the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. A few years after undergraduate studies, I entered the Society of Jesus and I have been a brother for nearly twenty years. I have been greatly blessed in my life as a Jesuit. I have been in community with some fantastic men and I have met so many amazing people from the wide range of experiences I have had over the years. Despite my many resistances, it has been a fascinating journey in seeking to grow within God’s Love.
What were you involved in prior to studying at IPS? How did you discern IPS to be a next step?
Two years ago I was teaching in the Visual Arts Department at Loyola Academy in Wilmette, IL. Then starting in September 2016, I worked with Jesuit Refugee Service in Kampala, Uganda, for four months. In early January 2017, I went to Nairobi, Kenya for six months to participate in the East African Tertianship program (tertianship is the last stage of Jesuit formation). It was a phenomenal experience, but one that I am still ‘unpacking’. It was during this time in East Africa that I felt an expanding desire to grow in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, along with a desire to cultivate the skills in being able to give the Spiritual Exercises and to go into spiritual direction.
What are you currently studying at IPS?
Masters in Spirituality: Spiritual Direction concentration
What has your IPS journey been like so far?
In many ways, it has been the perfect continuation of my heart-based experiences in East Africa. I feel very grateful for my instructors and classmates this semester. I particularly enjoy our class conversations as they make the readings come to life. Due to the nature of the readings and conversations, I’ve been doing quite a bit of ‘soul-work’, which has been helpful in ‘unpacking’ my experiences of the last year. My experiences in IPS are providing me with substantially delicious ‘food’ for the journey.
What are some of your favorite Chicago-related pursuits?
Walking around in the city to simply take in the city life; the Chicago skyline and architecture (Architectural Foundation walking tours and river boat tours); Art Institute, Robie House, & other museums; I am looking forward to getting down to Christkindlmarket in Daley Plaza after Thanksgiving, as well as getting glögg in Andersonville; finding new restaurants with friends; being by the lake; and walking through the Botanic Gardens.
If you could teach a class at IPS, what would it be called?
This is a fun question. Hmmm…something like: “The Contemplative Life and Art Appreciation / Art Making”
Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?
At this point, I would offer to my provincial my desires of working in a retreat house as well as my openness to possibly work abroad.
Finally, can you share a personal spiritual practice that continues to restore and re-energize your mind, body, heart and spirit?
Meditational and repetitive mark-making that is like saying the rosary, but instead of speaking, I draw with pen and ink on paper, with the work developing as it does.
This past summer, The Association of Theological Schools(ATS) awarded the Institute of Pastoral Studies and Dr. Dan Rhodes with an Innovative Projects grant to aid in developing a new approach to Contextual Education (CE) in the model of Theological Action Research Teams (TART).
As part of the research associated with this ATS grant, Professors Therese Lysaught and Dan Rhodes recently traveled to The Centre for Theology & Community (CTC) in East London, UK. While in England, Professors Lysaught and Rhodes met with CTC Director, Rev. Angus Ritchie as well as persons in their lay community, community organizers connected with the Centre, and a priest and lay leader from a Catholic Parish in nearby Manor Park.
“The Centre is doing some amazingly creative work and reinventing what parish and lay ministry look like,” says Professor Rhodes, “and the trip was wonderfully informative for learning how to engage participants in Action Research projects as well as for glimpsing the future of lay ministry.”
CTC’s Rev. Angus Ritchie and IPS’s Dan Rhodes in East London
The CE program continues to research and take preliminary steps toward instituting the TART model, building infrastructure, strengthening community partnerships, and developing programmatic components aiming to launch the first IPS student cohort to engage the TART/CE model in Fall 2018.
The long-term goal is to implement a thoroughly re-imagined approach to CE based on a model of Theological Action Research Teams (TART). This expanded and more thoroughly integrated approach to CE engages students from their first semester forward. It shifts to a 30-week placement accompanied by coaching, learning communities, skill-focused workshops, and practical instruction. Working with community partners, students will engage in discerning community-identified issues and, subsequently, organize community-based, co-creative, and theologically informed initiatives for addressing these issues. Additionally, this approach aims to develop a program of theological education that attracts and retains under-served and underrepresented students, as well as engendering new faculty scholarship across theological/ministerial specialties rooted in community collaboration.
In adopting the TART model, IPS will form equipped leaders to serve the church and society in the twenty-first century and will pioneer a model of theological education based on the process of action research teams.
In light of recent events, IPS Dean Brian Schmisek penned an opinion piece reflecting on the rising sentiments of racism and sexual assault we are seeing in the national discourse.
Add your thoughts to the discussion below.
By Brian Schmisek
60. That number is the percent of white Catholics who voted for President Trump, the candidate who admitted to the behavior of a sexual predator and appealed openly to racism. Even a leader of his own party said his words were the “textbook definition of a racist comment.” Now that the election is over and we are in the first year of the Trump administration, will the USCCB be calling for a ‘fortnight of freedom’ for women, immigrants, and minorities? Or will the focus remain on “religious liberty” and the contraceptive mandate? Those on the right claim the Supreme Court vacancy was the crucial factor in electing Trump. Does this grand prize, Gorsuch on the bench, excuse or at least rationalize the behavior of the chief executive? Though there are many things to critique about a Trump administration, this troubling number, 60, deserves attention from US Catholics for what it says about us.
Since the 1980s many quarters of Catholic leadership, including some US Bishops, reduced the pro-life issue to abortion, saying it was so beyond the pale that any candidate who openly supported a pro-choice position was thereby ineligible for consideration for elected office by Catholics. About ten years ago, some bishops claimed it was the defining moral issue of the last thirty-five years. Many bishops spoke about denying communion to such politicians, and the fervor increased with each election year. Even if this was never the official position of the USCCB, many thought leaders in conservative Catholic circles argued for that position and it took deep root in the hierarchy and among many of the faithful.
Now, while the US Catholic hierarchy and their conservative allies were focused on that issue, we have elected a President who denigrated entire classes of people based on race, and admitted to, even bragged about sexual assault. Apparently, as 60% of the white Catholic vote indicates, these were not disqualifying factors. In fact, According to the Pew Research Center, Trump received a greater percentage of the votes of white Catholics than any other candidate, Republican or Democrat, in at least 20 years. Indeed, from another more recent study by Pew, comes this startling line: “And among white Catholics – as with white evangelicals – those who attend religious services at least once or twice a month are more approving of Trump’s job performance than are white Catholics who attend Mass less often (61% vs. 44%).”
This overwhelming support from churchgoers seems to be a clarion call that something is wrong with our priorities. There is a problem with the way we are educating and catechizing our people when a blatant racist empowering alt-right groups, neo-Nazis, and other fringe elements receives 3 out of 5 votes from white Catholics, and stronger approval from Mass attending Catholics than not. Trump’s cultivation of support from these extreme groups was mocked in a spoof commercial of “Racists for Trump” on Saturday Night Live, but after a marked increase in hate crimes and violence from what he has unleashed, the stakes have been raised. We need to take a closer look at our role and ourselves as Catholics in this unique time.
Rather than seek to remove the splinter of the contraceptive mandate from the eye of the Affordable Care Act, the bishops would do better to remove the log from their own and that of their flock. Though it pains me and even shames me to say it, that log is latent, pernicious racism, and the minimization of sexual assault among the white Catholic faithful. That log is excusing behavior we would not accept in our children to achieve a seat on the Supreme Court with the hope of ending the contraceptive mandate.
Immediately I can hear the reply that elections are complicated affairs with a variety of issues at stake; white Catholics are not racists and do not minimize sexual assault. I would like to agree. But the election results and the racial divisions it exposed should cause us to reconsider. Where were the letters from US bishops that seem to have been so plentiful in previous presidential cycles? When a candidate is so openly racist and misogynistic, might he have been disqualified from consideration by followers of Jesus who claim to love their neighbor?
The fact that a majority of white Catholics thought such a vote acceptable means there is much work to do, more leadership needed from our bishops. For example, the USCCB might devote at least as much energy to eradicating racism and the trivialization of sexual assault as they do the contraceptive mandate. There is much in Scripture about hospitality, treatment of the other, the stranger, the alien, the immigrant, the widow, and the orphan. It says nothing about a contraceptive mandate. Some bishops have even been ahead of the curve and already spoken about these issues. For example, one of the few African American bishops, Bishop Braxton, published a Text and Study Guide on the topic. This is part of a solid foundation on which to build.
The election of Trump has seen fathers deported, families torn apart, mothers separated from their children, and policies called ‘inhumane’ and ‘contrary to the values of the country and its legal system,’ by at least one federal judge. Hate crimes are increasing; as is violence against minorities. Closeted racism, never locked away tightly, has emerged with a frightening boldness. The free press is threatened; truth itself is under assault with alternative facts and propaganda “news.” A ‘meanness’ and viciousness drives this administration that tears at the fabric of society, and the meaning of truth itself. It’s as though Trump is echoing the words of Pilate, “What is truth?” The contraceptive mandate and the creation of a permanent committee for religious freedom seems to be among the least of our concerns, akin to chasing windmills in the storm of racism and assault.
Was the election of a bigot and braggadocios predator worth a seat on the Supreme Court? Have we given the modern equivalent of 30 pieces of silver for that one vote? If so, there is nothing we can do now but run into the darkness and weep, hoping against hope that at some future resurrection we as a church will be forgiven by a Risen Christ who will embolden us with the command issued three times: feed my sheep. Then, the church will experience a rebirth with an outpouring of the Holy Spirit as at Pentecost. On that day, our priorities will reflect Jesus, his commands and his mission. We will welcome the stranger, protect the widow and the orphan, and love our neighbor as Christ loves us.
September 12, 2017 The Journal of Pastoral Theology has just published an article authored by IPS Adjunct Professor, AHyun Lee. In the article entitled “What Do I Call You?” Postcolonial Pastoral Care and Counseling: Ambiguous Sense of Self with Perspectives on the Experience of Korean Clergywomen, Professor Lee “explores the ambiguous sense of self with the complexity of the psychological experiences of racial–ethnic minority women, especially Korean immigrant women’s subordinate roles in intercultural contexts”. Professor Lee interviews five ordained Korean clergywomen to “address the psychological influence of stereotyped representations and expectations that intersect with race, gender, immigration, and cultures”. To read the full text of Professor Lee’s article, go here: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/xJT3P7D4yf97vPINKhXx/full. Professor Lee is currently teaching IPS 472 (Pastoral Counseling in an Intercultural Context) this Fall semester. You can reach her at alee27@luc.edu.
9-12-2017|Comments Off on IPS Professor AHyun Lee article in Journal of Pastoral Theology
Just a few days after the new president was inaugurated, he began making drastic changes in our country. People took to the streets, and the airports, in protest of the measure which banned immigrants from seven Muslim countries, and Syrian refugees. Though it was denied that this was a “Muslim ban”, it is hard to reason why Christian refugees were still allowed to enter the country, under this temporary executive order. In response to this order many bishops of the Catholic Church have spoken out against the order, calling the faithful to act in solidarity with the refugees and make their voices heard in defense of human dignity, citing the Church’s long-standing commitment to care for the defenseless of other faiths. The Catholic Church is a refuge for the defenseless, the stranger, the marginalized. Likewise, many institutions across the country have proclaimed their status as a sanctuary for those affected by this executive order, or any future order which does not regard their human dignity and basic human rights.
In a letter to the school in December, Loyola University Chicago President, Dr. Jo Ann Rooney said the following:
On Wednesday, a statement of support was published by the presidents of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) to reaffirm our commitment to undocumented students on our campuses and our unwavering support for all students, faculty, and staff, regardless of their faith traditions. This statement reflects the shared mission and values that are central to our Jesuit, Catholic tradition.
On behalf of the University, I also signed on to a statement of support initiated by Pomona College, which now has more than 400 signatures.
I encourage you to read both statements and thank you for your continued support and contributions to our mission.
The events of the past weeks have been troubling in so many ways, but one note of encouragement has been the way people are coming together in solidarity across the country to stand up for the rights of others. I attended the protests at Chicago O’Hare airport and witnessed the diversity of the people protesting. The love and acceptance was palpable. These events have reminded people of basic shared humanity, and how the threat to basic human rights can tear lives apart. People stood together to make a statement that these actions will continue to be resisted, challenged, and overturned. Those with any amount of power will continue to use their power to help the powerless and the defenseless. At Loyola, we will continue to be people with and for others.
Rosemary Hurwitz, 2004 IPS alumna, wrote about her experience at the Awakened World 2012 conference in Italy. She discusses the interfaith dialogue that occurred between lay and religious teachers and authors in many faith traditions.
The AWAKENED WORLD 2012 CONFERENCE
OCTOBER 13-22
The convening organizations of this experience were: The Association for Global New Thought;
Michael Beckwith, Barbara Fields, CA The International Interreligious Peace Council; Jim Kenney, Chicago, IL The Interreligious Engagement Project;
There were approximately 250 people (4 buses) from all around the world who attended this conference. Representatives, including educators, authors and people from several walks of life from South Africa, Africa, USA, India, China, Japan, and Europe, Israel, Italy spent five days together near Rome at Mondomigliore Spiritual Retreat Center in Rocca de Pappa, Italy. Three days were spent in the Florence, Italy area at the Hilton Florence Metropole Hotel. There were press conferences held in both the city halls of Rome and Florence.
The structure of the conference was set up with large group Plenary in the morning, which identified our topics and mutual calls to action. We then broke into smaller groups with interfaith dialogue facilitated by core leaders and assistants.
The most powerful part of the experience was simply sharing in a global commons of oneness with all of these people from different cultures and faiths; Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and Christians represented and in the large plenary and the small groups which reported back to the large group on our mission and calls to action on the following domains;
Reconciling With the Other
Embracing the Earth
Transforming Society
Rediscovering the Sacred
It will not surprise you to hear many of us wanted the same things, peace, social justice and clean air. We enjoyed stimulating dialogue and learned more of the Global Commons. We had a camaraderie that was beyond anything I have ever experienced.
We have a follow up web page and many of us would like to continue to work with specific calls to action on the above domains listed.
Join the conversation by following @BrianSchmisek on Twitter and @LoyolaIPS on Instagram! Also, network with the Loyola Chicago IPS community on LinkedIn.
12-04-2014|Comments Off on Rosemary Hurwitz on the Awakened World Conference and Interfaith Dialogue
SCUPE, in partnership with the Parliament of the World’s Religions is offering a one-day long workshop on Wednesday, May 22nd to address this question.
Tio Hardiman, director Cure Violence and Ceasefire, Rabbi Joel Mosbacher who’s work on gun legislation was recently featured in the New York Times, and Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid, the chair of the Board of Trustees of the Parliament of the World’s Religions will be the featured speakers.
In this workshop we will:
• Share stories of how we have been touched by violence.
• Explore how our faith traditions may legitimize violence.
• Build partnerships with other leaders touched by violence.
• Learn strategies for dealing with the aftermath of violence.
• Commit to bold actions for peace in and across our communities
The workshop is meant for clergy, lay leaders and professionals in the field. As in all SCUPE events, the expertise and the perspectives of the participants is sought and valued, and dialogical learning from each other, encouraged.
One of my proudest moments at IPS (not that I had anything to do with it!) was when 3 IPS students formed the White Rose Catholic Worker House a couple of years ago. Their community has grown, and their commitment to living and teaching Social Justice has been without boundaries. As a matter of fact, they are looking for a bigger place in the Rogers Park neighborhood, so if any of you know of a big old house or apartment (building) that is becoming available (at little or no cost), please contact The White Rose Catholic Worker at the e-mail address or phone number listed below.
In the meantime I received the following notice from our friends just this morning. Please help in anyway you can.
Thanks.
An Appeal for Border Justice Friends,
As many of you know, immigration and border policy are in need of drastic reform. Since 1994, over 6,000 people have died attempting to cross into the United States to re-join their families or to escape extreme poverty by looking for work. For the past three years, I’ve worked with No More Deaths – a Tucson, AZ-based community that provides life-saving humanitarian aid to undocumented migrants.
We are in need of medical supplies and funds to continue the works of mercy of providing drink to the thirsty and food to the hungry. In August, Marcy and I (Jake Olzen) will be driving from Chicago to Tucson with a load of medical donations. We are looking for more help.
So, if you are able to, please consider helping us by:
Donating Medical Supplies (We have some very specific needs, so please see the list below of what we need)
Making a financial contribution to the White Rose Catholic Worker to help defray our transportation and volunteering costs (checks can be made to “White Rose Catholic Worker”).
Organizing an education event about what’s happening on the U.S.-Mexico border or what challenges undocumented people face in their daily lives (contact the White Rose for more info or for speakers)
Pray for the revolution of hearts for a more just and humane immigration/border policy
Join in one of theFriday morning vigils at the immigrant detention center in downtown Chicago.
Thank you for considering this appeal. We know the economic times are tough and the needs of our sisters and brothers continue to grow, but like the poor woman who gave her two coins, little by little we can make the world a better, saner place.
We leave the week of August 6, so please be in touch by August 1 if you have donations. We can pick them up.
No More Deaths Medical Needs
1. One-time use ice packs (the kind you smash with your hands) This is a great need we have right now as we can’t seem to find any from our usual sources
2. Individual dose packs of Tylenol (acetominophen), bismuth tablets (not the liquid)
3. Glucometers with directions and appropriate “in-date” testing strips (for testing blood sugars for the many diabetics we encounter).
4. Lancets for testing blood sugar
5. Individual sunscreen packets/ tubes
6. Individual Biofreeze packets/ tubes or other kinds of muscle ache creams.
7. Natural Tears Eye Drops or any other type for dry eyes
8. Individual one-use packets of triple antibiotic ointment or regular size tubes if the individuals packets are not available
9. Cold medications(non-drowsy kind)
10. Anti-acids(Tums or a less expensive brand)
11. Ace wraps–2 inch and 3 inch
—
Marcy and Jake
White Rose Catholic Worker
2127 W. Devon
Chicago, IL 60659 whiterosecw@gmail.com 773.856.0315
7-21-2011|Comments Off on An Appeal for Border Justice
