a school of the heart

commencement.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Schenden) — Mon, 10 Mar 2014 15:11:00 +0000

Well, Asia-Pacific Tertianship 2013-14 formally concluded this past Friday with a final mass & dinner. Dado & Michael departed first thing Saturday (teaching, retreats). Priyono & Chanh yesterday. Johan back to Korea this afternoon. Norlan heads to Mindinao crack of dawn tomorrow morn; Suyt, Alis & I are Hanoi-bound in the afternoon. O-myun Wednesday, Tu to Saigon on Friday. Mon brings it to a close up & heads to Kuala Lumpur Saturday.

So it goes. Two shots happy, one shot sad.

So it goes, Billy Pilgrim.

In a final conversation with my spiritual director, the word was sated. Like one of those dinners where everything is dead-on perfect: astounding menu & table providing the forum for engaging & unanticipated conversation & friendship. Or a live rock gig where you spill out afterwards into the street dazed... not quite sure what just happened, but that it was good, and that you've comehow been set on fire to take it all to the streets & change the world...

(it happens. really.)

So much to pray & reflect upon. And more ink will be spilled on this, to be sure.

Allow me to return yet again to that one little but all-important word, brothers & sisters.

Gratitude.

Where it all ends & where it all begins. Alpha & Omega.

And it never, never, occurs in a vacuum, in isolation.

It's always in relationship. In community. In friendship. Cor ad cor.

Friends in the Lord.

He uttered a triumpant cry: IT IS ACCOMPLISHED!

And it was though he had said: Everything has begun.

- Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ

a little less conversation.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Schenden) — Fri, 14 Feb 2014 10:21:00 +0000

Silence is so accurate.

- Mark Rothko

main chapel, Sacred Heart Novitiate

The Grand Silence has begun.

This week here at Sacred Heart, thirtysome women & men entered into the stillness & quietude of the thirty-day Spiritual Exercises. A privilege & gift to be back here amongst them, a few months after my own experience of the Exercises this past November.

I brought along my own journal from my November retreat so as to accompany the retreatants each day by taking time with my own journal from November, aligning my own prayer with theirs. What has emerged in rereading my journal entries is how meager, how limited my words are in attempting to seize all that Christ was doing in the midst of those thirty days (and continues to do). The metaphors, the similes... way too many words, way too insufficient.

But a picture can indeed be worth a legion of words. At the end of each of the thirty-odd days of the Exercises, I picked up crayons & chalk pastels (the simple tools from childhood!) and played with colors & shapes. I allowed myself a maximum of 45 minutes each night in what became a daily attempt to capture, to sum up & somehow visualize my hours of prayer for that day.

I know I'm no artist, but those crayons & chalk pastels went a long way. It's astounding how I can now gaze on any of these drawings & recollect that day of prayer & the movements whilst in prayer. Not just a head-knowledge recollection/recognition, but a more crucial heart-knowledge... a return to that day's experience of Christ uniquely laboring for, with & through me.

And while these scribblings may have been borne of my own intimate, personal prayer, I refrain from attempting to "explain" them for a couple of reasons. First off (as mentioned above) words ultimately fail in the attempt to explain an experience of prayer (except maybe for mystic poets like Teresa of Avila or Hafiz - heck, crayons were effort enough for me). Kinda like trying to explain a Far Side cartoon. And secondly, what the colors, shapes, composition elicits in/for me might be quite different than for you. That's one of the many the cools thing about art. We bring ourselves to the experience of art.

So - for your consideration, provocation & amusement, I give you a few days worth of prayer depictions from my November experience of the Spiritual Exercises...

(disclaimer: any similarity between my feeble journal drawings & the work of the astounding mid 20th century abstract expressionist quoted up above is knowingly, emphatically & unabashedly intentional. the more abstract, the better to express the ineffable. besides, i cannot draw people or trees.)

Pictures must be miraculous.

- Mark Rothko

friends in the Lord.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Schenden) — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 13:23:00 +0000

main entrance, Sacred Heart Novitiate

Ignatius of Loyola used the phrase but once - in a letter from 1537 to his old friend Juan de Verdolay in Spain. Writing from Venice, Ignatius shared with Verdolay the beginnings of a company of - in communio with - Jesus:

In mid-January nine friends of mine in the Lord arrived here from Paris...

It was Pedro Arrupe who retrieved the expression over 400 years later from one of the volumes of the Monumenta Ignatiana. Since then, friends in the Lord has come to epitomize the animus of the Society of Jesus - it's even been incorporated into the Society's official documents. Decree 26 from the 34th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus (entitled "Characterisitcs of Our Way of Proceeding") states that

We are not merely workers; we are friends in the Lord.

An apt phrase to designate all of those sharing in the communio created by God between Ignatius & the very first companions. A blessing that it has been rescued & so widely integrated in the contemporary life of the Society of Jesus.

Yet it's astounding how often & how easily I can take compelling & central tenets such as this - as well as their realizations - for granted in my life.

Jesuit cemetery, Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches

A little ways from where I sit writing this is the Jesuit cemetery for the Philippine Province. Part of my daily prayer routine while making the Spiritual Exercises here at Sacred Heart Novitiate last November was to visit the cemetery late afternoon before mass.

Most of the names I did not recognize... but I would come to learn that Horacio de la Costa, SJ was a gifted writer, historian, and the first Filipino Provincial of the Society in the Philippines. And I learned that Richie Fernando, SJ was the 26-year-old Jesuit regent killed in 1996 when he saved his 32 students from a grenade while teaching in a technical school for the disabled in Cambodia. Some of the names were vaguely familiar - Lynch, Delaney, McFadden, Doyle - names I had heard mentioned over my years in Jesuit rec rooms before dinner, when the conversation would turn to the guys who went to the Philippines during their formation back in the 40s & 50s and remained there (here!).

Other names are just that - mere names of men about whom I know nothing, other than what the grave marker tells me:

his date of birth,
his date of entrance into the Society of Jesus,
his date of their entrance into eternal life.

Some had been robbed of even the remembrance of their names & dates due to wartime devastation..

Chaplains, writers, pastors, martyrs, scholars, bishops, spiritual guides. All who spent their lives with & for others, ad majorem Dei gloriam.

My brothers. My friends in the Lord.

Lest ye think this a nostalgic, saccharine, Proustian madleine-inspired swagger down Jesuit memory lane, please hold up. I need to say something I surely don't say often enough, and something my actions might not exclaim as boldly & as loudly as I'd like:

I love being a Jesuit priest.
I'm proud to be a Jesuit priest.
I'm humbled to be a Jesuit priest.

Y'see, God has provided a much-needed & greatly desired grace these months of tertianship. Abundantly so. And rather astonishingly too.

God has provided the extraordinary gift of a deeper appreciation & affection for this least Society, these friends in the Lord. A greater love for Our life, our mission, our way of proceeding.

I have been blessed to have such wondrous companions - past & present, acclaimed & anonymous with time's passage. Each, in his own unique way, with his own particular gifts & joys, along with equally unique trials & crosses.

Friends in the Lord. Friends whose names I have mentioned here before: Ignatius himself, Xavier, Saint Pierre Favre (thank you, Papa Francesco!), Egide van Broeckhoven, Alphonsus Rodriguez, Alfred Delp, Pedro Arrupe. And the countless other friends with whom I have journeyed these past 17 years.

Allow me to here defer to one of my dear friends in the Lord, Tom O'Neill, SJ. I first met Tommy while I was in theology in California & he was just returning from his own tertianship program. He's a remarkable priest, artist, teacher, spiritual director, superior. He's also a model Jesuit in countless other ways. A truly great friend in the Lord.


Falstaff & Prince Hal: with Tom O'Neill, SJ

The following is Tommy's most timely online posting from a few days ago. As he mentions, it's from a homily that he gave on the Feast of St. Ignatius (31july) in 2007, as he commenced his six-year term as Superior of the St. Ignatius High School Jesuit Community in San Francisco. I had the privilege of hearing it then - and it's a gift to have it now in print.

His eloquent & heartfelt words sum up (far better than I could) the reason that I am a Jesuit priest and, to paraphrase Alfred Delp, SJ, the reason I choose each day to remain a Jesuit.

You wanna know why I love being a Jesuit? Why I am humbled & oh-so grateful to be a Jesuit? Why this immense grace during this tertianship means so much?

Take your time & gently read on...

I was in South Dakota last week. Saw an old friend. Little Gold Toyota, SD Lisc. S4513

I talked about this little car in the homily I gave on St. Ignatius Day in 2007. The beginning of my time as Superior of the Saint Ignatius Jesuit Community:

There is a little gold Toyota in the middle of South Dakota
Well, it really isn’t gold anymore
After some adventures on roads made up of mud – they really looked dry – it’s more of a speckled shade of Dakota brown
License plate S4513
Cracked windshield
In two places
One windshield wiper that worked
The other that just kind of waved at me from time to time
Four doors
Three working door handles
Two little red lights on the dash – one for the air bags and the other for seat belts
That kept blinking at me, each at their own pace, and in their own rhythm…
And a tape player that ate tapes

My car
My faithful companion for four months of a Tertianship Experiment
6783.8 miles in four blessed months
Faithful all across the Pine Ridge Reservation
On nicely paved State Highway 18
And across the ruts, potholes and bumps of countless other trails and trials
Including, on the first day it snowed, one icy ditch along the side of the road

My little old companion on the road
Blessed and broken
Blessed and broken
Blessed and broken on the road

That is what we celebrate today
A blessed and broken road

What is it to be a Jesuit?
Our documents formed this answer recently:
“What is it to be a Jesuit? It is to know that one is a sinner, yet called to be a companion of Jesus, as Ignatius was…”

Blessed and broken, on the road…

Ignatius called himself a pilgrim in his autobiography
I’ve always been fond of that image
Trudging and trusting on the open road
Covered in dust and grace
Our Founder

A pilgrim who once dreamed of the Holy Land
But left us instead visions and images of an inner journey
Formed in a cave: winding deep in the recesses and caverns of his own heart and soul

A blessed and broken road
One that each of us, touched by the spirit of Ignatius Loyola, have sought to follow

For me, my own pilgrimage – in many ways – began right here
In this room
Where I started to go to daily Mass as a junior at S.I.
I didn’t go to my prom, but I went to daily Mass

And before long, I joined our Company…
And set out on the road
A young pilgrim on a pilgrimage

And here I am
Back here in the fog, after a few years

And a long journey
Some of it was outside, on the road: Montecito, L.M.U., New York, Boston, South Dakota, and, of course, 1901 Venice Boulevard, Los Angeles

But most of the adventures have been within my heart and soul
It is in here where the road truly is
It is in here where the road lies:
Blessed
And broken

Deuteronomy tells us:

“It is not up in the sky, that you should say, ‘Who will go up in the sky to get it for us…
nor is it across the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea to get it for us…
No it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts…
You have only to carry it out…

What we celebrate this day
What we share this day
What we share is this blessed and broken road
That is our sacred
And so very human pilgrimage

Sacred and human
Blessed and broken

We are both
We need both

We need both our sacred call
And our fragile humanity to do what we are called to do
And to be who we are called to be

Back on the Rez, my faithful little companion, S4513, broken in so many ways like its driver
Took me to some broken places
And broken hearts
To Jesse Bear Robe, 111 Belt Village, Oglala
Almost blind
Wheelchair bound after a stroke
Waiting for someone to drive her to church on Sunday -- while her kids and grandkids instead sit on the sofa and watch yet another video on TV

Broken and blessed
Waiting to join her mother in the Spirit world, she hopes soon
She cannot get to church
So she waits for me – and the Holy Communion I will bring
We became friends
And in time, she recognized me and was happy to see me
But she was waiting for Who I brought with me
Her God
The One who became for us – one of us
Like Jesse
And for Jesse
As broken and blessed as she is

We are called into companionship
On to our pilgrimage path
We are called onto this pilgrim path to bring Jesus to our world

We are called on to our pilgrim path:
Not because we are talented – although we are
Not because we are educated – although we are
Not because we are any of the things that we are blessed to be:

Popular
Respected
On the cutting edge
Hardworking
Connected
Creative
Passionate

We are blessed by all of these
And many more

But we are blessed more than anything because we are human
We are blessed because we are broken

We can carry Christ within our hearts not because they are strong enough to
But because they are human enough to
But because they are fragile enough to

We are companions not because we’ve earned it
But because we are loved

Paul tells us this afternoon to imitate him
Which means to imitate Christ

Ignatius wanted us to carry not his name
But that of Jesus

To carry Jesus into our broken and beautiful world
And more: to be the image of Jesus in this broken and beautiful world

This is what we seek to do
And who we are called to be

His name is bound onto our own
Society of Jesus
His name is our name:

His life must be our life:
And that is fragile
And honest
And vulnerable
And fully human and fully alive

If God was willing to embrace all that it means to be human
We can do no less

And this is where we will find our brokenness – and our salvation
How do we live?
How do we love?
Not in theory
Not in ideology
But in fact and in flesh
Incarnate, just like Him
Along His path, along His Way – to the Cross, and beyond

So, how do we carry a Sacred trust in fragile human hearts?

In my over 30 years since I first prayed in this sacred place
So filled with zeal
And knowing all the answers
Even if I didn’t yet know the questions
In these years in your company
Over the many pathways and ruts, potholes and bumps

This has become my question:
How do we carry a Sacred trust in fragile human hearts?

Companions of Jesus
With cracked windshields – or cracked spirits
And wipers – or dreams – that may or may not work
Ravenous appetites for tapes – or whatever
Muddy and dented, as we are

Like any good pilgrim

How do we carry this Sacred trust in fragile human hearts?
To be images of Jesus
Dented
Broken
And muddy as we may be

How do we do it?

I don’t know
And in all honesty, I don’t know if I – or anyone – ever will

Except for this:
And it’s been the same for every companion who ever was, is or will be

It’s what those first companions of Jesus heard that first day
It was His voice and His forever invitation:

“Come and see.”

a shepherd's welcome (Tabuk)

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Schenden) — Sun, 05 Jan 2014 08:14:00 +0000

The bishop's email was spot-on... the bus dropped us off right across the road from the cathedral and in front of the statue of a big white caribao.

Love begets love. How these words were to unfold this Christmas season...

Such was our dawn arrival in Tabuk. The five of us (Chanh, Alis, Johan, Suyt & I - the valiant ten tertians now divided into two groups for our Christmas ministries - we in Tabuk & the others in Bontoc/Lagawe) were all a bit weary from the nine-hour bus ride from Baguio, kept sleepless by such sparkling cinematic fare as Blood Shot ("HEY! that's the guy who played the robot in Aliens!") screened on the bus with volume on LOUD.

St. William's Cathedral, Tabuk.

Bishop Prudencio "Jun" Andaya,
Vicar Apostolic of Tabuk

Were it not for the pectoral cross & episcopal ring, none of us would have guessed that the man greeting us upon our arrival at the pastoral center for the Apostolic Vicariate of Tabuk was none other than Bishop Prudencio "Jun" Andaya himself. Casually dressed (how I love the Philippines!), Bishop Jun was (quite literally) all smiles and open-arms as we arrived, immediately ushering us into his modest but comfortable home (yes, home - not merely residence) for an awaiting breakfast.

Our Christmas ministries commenced & concluded in Tabuk proper, as the guests of Bishop Jun. During our brief days with him, Bishop Jun revealed himself to be a remarkably down-to-earth, pragmatic man. Born in nearby Lubuagan, Bishop Jun's deep-rooted love of family & friends spills over in his role as Bishop of Tabuk. Hospitable, funny, exceptionally candid & a natural raconteur, Bishop Jun shared countless tales of family, friends, joys & challenges as we sat around the dinner table, while grocery shopping at the local market, or watching the National Geographical channel during our brief evenings together.

Tabuk or Milledgeville? Bishop Jun's garden.
Flannery O'Connor would be most at home...
except for the wild dog that ate the peahen.

As a member of the CICMs, Bishop Jun was novice director in Rizal when in 2003 he received a call from the nuncio in Manila to come down at his earliest convenience for a conversation. The gist: pray over the possibility of becoming the next bishop in Tabuk. All delivered in a lighthearted tone but revealing a man of great depth & prayer, Bishop Jun shared with us his experience praying in a chapel (before a painting of Christ's agony in the garden, no less!) over a possibility he didn't necessarily want... but recognized a greater call to serve was being asked of him.

From these anecdotes emerges a man who lives the virtues of a shepherd & of a peacemaker.

The day before his episcopal ordination in July, 2003, Bishop Jun slipped into St. William's Cathedral in Tabuk to attend mass unnoticed. As mass began, he noticed a small crying child lost in the back of the cathedral. Picking the child up to console him, he kept the child with him through the liturgy, even carrying the child in his arms as he went up for communion. It was then the child's mother saw her lost son with Bishop (to be) Jun and gratefully received her lost child. "And that," Bishop Jun told us, "confirmed and revealed for me who I was to be as a bishop." The one lost sheep...

Bishop Jun (center) with family, Christmas night, 2013.

A common practice in Northern Luzon is to place offerings upon the altar before the preparation of the gifts - notes with parishioners' intentions written. The presider might then read off the intentions - offerings made in thanksgiving, for a sick family member, for a friend or family member's birthday. Bishop Jun shared the tale of a time recently when an older woman placed a small note upon the altar along with the others. As he read aloud through the intentions, he reached her note, paused, and then read her intention aloud to the congregation - she was asking that the mass be offered for the individual who murdered her son.

Like all of us, Bishop Jun's personal experiences have formed who he is. Out of such experiences - a lost child, a mother displaying the desired grace of forgiveness - Bishop Jun shepherds the people of the Apostolic Vicariate of Tabuk in a spirit of love, compassion, and a desire for peace & forgiveness. Next month, on February 13, Bishop Jun will be hosting "Night of 1000 Gongs", bringing together the many tribes throughout his vicariate (covering the provinces of Kalinga & Apayao). Tribal conflict & violence are still very real obstacles to peace in the provinces of Kalinga & Apayao. It is Bishop Jun's hope that this gathering will bring together the various tribes as one people, fostering unity in a spirit of peace by an evening of playing the traditional gangsa.

Love begets love.

All five of us were bolstered by Bishop Jun & his passionate, loving way of proceeding as we prepared to head off on our individual Christmas missions. As our local ordinary, Bishop Jun assigned each of us the locales for mission - all done at the table over lunch. Over the course of that lunchtime, it was decided that Chanh would go to Tinglayan, Alis to the mountainous Tanudan, Johan to the pastoral setting of Naneng along there Chico River, Suyt the furthest north to Kabugao... and I would head to Conner (that's right, send the American to the town named for the American WWII soldier).

Bishop Jun filled us in with a few details on what each place was like. So, what can you tell me about Conner?

"You're heading for the creche," he responded.

What does that mean?

"You'll see when you get there," he said with a smile. "Perfect place to meet the Holy Family."

And so I would. On both counts.

on the road again.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Schenden) — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 07:10:00 +0000

My sincerest apologies... it was my desire to add a bit more here regarding our experience of the Exercises... however - time as well as a certain of spiritual rawness in terms of the thirty days of silence managed to get in the way. I'll do my best to share a bit more with a bit more distance & settling in.

And alas, we're off again.

...methinks the bus will take
a bit longer...

Tomorrow morning we depart for our Christmas ministries in the mountainous north. We ten have been divided into two groups of five - one group heading for Bontoc, the other heading for Tabuk. I fall into the latter group.

I could tell you the little I know at this time, and you can research at your leisure online, regarding Bontoc, Tabuk & the environs. Rather, I'll try to share the lived experiences upon our return.

There will be mountains. And precipitation. And more tales of good folks, to be sure.

Until then, these Advent words from continuing Tertianship companion Alfred Delp, SJ, composed in his prison cell in December, 1944:

Our hearts must be keenly alert for opportunities in our own little corners of daily life. May we stand in this world, not as people in hiding but as those who help prepare the way for the Son of God.

Yes - let our prayers be for one another this Advent season that we each may indeed be preparing a way for the Son of God in our own little corners of daily life.

PAX.

more real.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Schenden) — Sat, 30 Nov 2013 07:00:00 +0000

Moonrise kingdom: view from my room, Sacred Heart Novitiate & Retreat Center.

Welcome back. Thanks for tuning in.

So... back amongst the talking. And the question regarding the past thirty days of the Spiritual Exercises coming from friends/family as well as within my own head/heart is...

So what was it like?

I'll feebly attempt to share a little bit with you in this way - using a phrase my spiritual director heard practically every day of the retreat - it's like this:

[London Calling] begins with one of the best opening songs of any record ever, the title track. The song starts cold. Two guitar chords ring on the downbeats, locked in step with the drums, marching forward with no dynamic variation. A second guitar introduces difference, coming toward us like an ambulance Dopplering into range. The bass guitar, sounding like someone’s voice, heralds everybody over the hill and into the song. If you can listen to it without getting a chilly burst of immortality, there is a layer between you and the world.
- Sasha Frere-Jones, “1979: The Year Punk Died, and was Reborn,” from The New Yorker (November 1, 2004)

Balete tree. Massive.

Great description, huh? And some nice similes/metaphors to try to describe what the song is like. But here's the rub: if you've never heard the tune, never experienced it, these words fall kinda flat, right? It's like trying to describe what salt tastes like: "Well, salt tastes... salty." Or endeavoring to describe what the color midnight blue looks like to someone who has never seen such color. Or to attempt describe one's own experience of the Eucharist.

And - the experience of a song, or of a color, the Eucharist, can be something incredibly unique, intimate even, to the individual, that trying to describe it becomes futile. I happen to find the song "London Calling" kinda transcendent, the way Frere-Jones details - you may not, or it might be quite a different experience. Not more or less valid. Different.

God bless the mystics, the poets, the artists, the musicians who boldly trod out with pen or guitar or paintbrush in hand & manage to capture a fleeting glance of such transcendence. I can't. No matter.

That being said, this is what is was like.

It starts with the longing - our hearts are restless indeed, Augustine. The longing to recognize & experience more fully, more deeply, Christ particular to one's own life. Not in some lofty, head-in-the-clouds way, but in the midst of the day-to-day... the regular joys & amusements & headaches & heartaches. Using one of my favorite words from the Johannine writings (as well as The Dude), to abide.

A few months back as I departed Washington DC, a wise & dear friend presented me with what would turn out to be an incredibly potent gift - a notecard, simple as that:

A quote taken from the Tertianship Spiritual Exercises journal of Alfred Delp, SJ, written 75 years prior to the precise time we would be making our own Tertianship Spiritual Exercises. Delp simply & eloquently sums it all up: the Exercises are all about entering & abiding more deeply, more uniquely, in what is more real: God, Christ, his life & ways, and yes, his demands. The demands to live more fully, to abide more deeply in who each of us uniquely is in & for Christ. To live outta that, brothers & sisters. Pretty powerful. Pretty practical, too.

To allow Christ to become more uniquely real in my own life, which ultimately comes down to allowing myself to become more real, more fully who I uniquely have been created to live & be.

So that's kinda what it's all about. Again, something we should be longing for each & every day. Yet for those easily distracted (I look at that guy every day in the mirror), sometimes it becomes desirable to step away from everything & devote the one-on-one time to moving more deeply toward this end.

Still Life with Tiger's Cap, 2013.

And that's what the Spiritual Exercises are all about. And that's the stuff of which the privileged thirty-odd days at Sacred Heart Novitiate & Retreat Center consisted.

Thirty-odd days. One-on-one time with Christ.

In silence.

And beauty.

And baletes and big bats (the ones that fly at you at dusk). Bayawak too.

And sheep. Lots of sheep.

Next up: location, location, location.

yonder.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Schenden) — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 01:36:00 +0000

So it goes, Billy Pilgrim.

We've returned from a spectacular few days of rest & relaxation in Nasugbu, Batangas - swimming in coves on the South China Sea (squid! giant clam! Nemo & Dora!), well fed & well rested. Today, we're off to Sacred Heart Novitiate & Retreat House in Novaliches to enter into our monthlong (32 days, actually) silent Spiritual Exercises. We will enter into "the great silence" tomorrow eve after dinner, and remain there until November 27th.

What to expect, you ask? Quite simply & honestly, I dunno. But something has become quite clear in my prayer these past weeks leading up to the long retreat.

Elementary, dear Watson.

During his July visit to Brazil, Pope Francis said the following regarding us as Church:

...we have forgotten the language of simplicity & import an intellectualism foreign to our people. Without the grammar of simplicity, the church loses the very conditions which make it possible to fish for God in the deep waters of his mystery.

The grammar of simplicity so as to fish for God in the deep waters of his mystery. So beautiful... and so true. If such a statement is true for us collectively as Church, then it must hold true individually, for you, for me. Simplicity.

The alternative (to which I am, on occasion, prone) is to complicate it all with my own baggage, my own disarray. But even there, in the midst of my own self-imposed chaos & unholy mess , God is at at work. As Ignatius writes to Francis Borgia (then Duke of Gandia)

...the more I see myself, the more I see myself as an obstacle to God's work. And this consideration brings me the greatest & sweetest consolation, because I realize that God in his loveliness works so many good things through me...

My own obstacle... as yet another haven for God to abide in.

Keep it simple.

Prayers.

Peace.

O then, weary then why
When the thing we freely forfeit is kept with fonder a care,
Fonder a care kept than we could have kept it, kept
Far with fonder a care (and we, we should have lost it) finer, fonder
A care kept. - Where kept? Do tell us where kept, where -
Yonder. - What high as that! We follow, now we follow. - Yonder, yes
yonder, yonder,
Yonder.

(Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo)

creature (dis)comforts. (Navotas Pt. II)

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Schenden) — Thu, 17 Oct 2013 00:36:00 +0000

Bayside, Barangay Daanhari, Navotas.

A few day ago we as Church celebrated & remembered the great 16th c. theologian & mystic St. Teresa of Avila, who famously stated that

...more tears are shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.

Indeed, indeed. Be careful what you pray for - you're gonna get it. And it ain't gonna be on your own terms, brother & sisters. Somebody else is in charge of the gig.

If you recall (or simply cursor down), a few weeks ago I passionately & piously mentioned Ignatius' words regarding himself during his conversation at Manresa in which he saw God

dealing with him(self) in the same way as a schoolteacher deals with a child, teaching him....

Ignatius understood himself in the schoolteacher-child simile by stating that God dealt with him in such a way possibly

on account of his courseness or his dense intelligence...

File me under the latter, my friends.

So... a few rather important lessons learnt by this not-quite humble schoolchild during my brief stay in Navotas:

Always, ALWAYS, remember to zip up your toiletry bag - no matter how briefly it may opened. Otherwise, there is a VERY strong possibility that when reaching into it mere minutes later to grab a razor, a cockroach the size of an eggplant may lovingly lumber up your arm (yes, such cockroaches lumber, not scurry).
There is indeed an expression that crosses a rat's face just moments before it tumbles from the wooden beam a metre above the mat upon which you're resting and lands on your chest. I cannot say precisely the emotion behind the expression is (fear? delight?), but it's quite an expression. Ditto for the landing. For all parties involved.

I can read your minds right now. Fish-outta-water American Jesuit finds himself absolutley uncomfortable with the heat, crowds, language barrier (I had ONE PHRASE in Tagalog under my belt upon entering Navotas), novel bathing conditions, and now creatures in rather too-close-for-comfort settings.

Waaaaaaa.

I mention all of this not to elicit your pity, nor simply for your amusement (tho' that may indeed be a bonus gift). Stay with me.

What I would come to realize is that all of this displeasure & discomfort was quite external, superficial. It spoke to something moving deeper within me. Something far more disconcerting & uncomfortable.

And it was this: I had absolutely no control over anything that was going on around me. I was feeling powerless.

Add to this equation my two host families, the Bohols and the Pugays. Both families unconditionally provided everything for me - from the best (if not only) private sleeping situation, to a seemingly ceaseless flow of food (made more disconcerting given mighty financial struggles), to (in spite of the language barricade) extraordinary companionship.

The feelings of powerlessness only deepened. I was unable to help anybody, to fix any situation. The only ministry I was capable of was to just be present.

And THAT, dear friends, was the grace that was emerging. To recognize myself, however minutely & fleetingly, poor & humble amidst the poor & humble.

A sliver of what my families & friends in Navotas experience each day.

And THAT, dear friends, is solidarity with the poor - a well-worn term so often misunderstood. Solidarity is not simply acknowledging the poor, nor is it even walking close to/with the poor. It is unity with, deep & authentic relationship, with all men & women, but especially the powerless. It is, in Egide van Broeckhoven's words (yes, he continues on this journey with me) the

...deep experience of impotence, as a mark of solidarity.

It's acknowledging that, in the words of Esprel (cousin to my first host mother Nora), we are all Lazaro (check out Luke 16:19-31). We are all impotent, helpless, forlorn. And loved.

So... Day Two in Navotas... it had been so hot that even Satan had taken the day off. I had been consuming large quantities to water so as to stay hydrated. Cut to 2:30 a.m. in my tiny little sleeping loft in the Bohol home. Drinking that much water has certain biological results. I soon realize that rolling over & waiting 'til morning to use the comfort room (the term for bathroom here in the Philippines) was NOT gonna happen, I angrily get up, made my way down the ladder and quietly stepped over three generations of the Bohol family (eight members sleeping in the 15' x 10' single room home - I'm up in the tiny loft where Abby, Joel & four-moth-old A.C. usually sleep). Having accomplished my task, I step out of the comfort room and BAM, manage to slam my noggin on the cinderblock corner of the doorway. Muffling any maledictions while mopping blood from my forehead, I quietly step over Abby, Joel and A.C. again... only to glance down to see baby A.C. wide awake, staring up at me.

A.C. (four months), Bohol family home, Barangay San Roque, Navotas.

Totally dependent. Totally helpless. Completely powerless on her own.

And those eyes burning with that wonder & awe.

And smiling. In the midst of the dependence, the impotence, the powerlessness.

While by NO MEANS romanticizing economic poverty, nor equating my miniscule experience of feel powerless to the crushing realities, there is (as previously mentioned) paradoxically an incredible dignity, wonder, awe... in the midst of it all. Stemming, I maintain, from a certain honesty & transparency that may come with feeling impotent to what goes on around you. Spiritual freedom, even.

Yet along with the honesty, transparency that may be afforded to being poor in spirit, there is also the invitation to unabashed delight & elation. JOY, even.

You just need to find the right excuse for a raucous bacchanal.

Like a religious feast...

It begins: Fatima festival, Barangay Daanghari, Navotas.

Hey Joe! (Navotas Pt. I: the context)

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Schenden) — Sat, 12 Oct 2013 13:45:00 +0000

"My nine friends in the Lord arrived here from Paris in mid January. All are Masters of Arts and well versed in theology: four are from Spain, two from France, two from Savoy and one Portuguese. They came braving the wars and the biting cold of winter, and on arrival they settled in two hospitals to serve the sick and the poor in the lowliest tasks, those most contrary to nature."

(from a letter of Ignatius to Juan de Verdolay, sent from Venice 24july1537)

Those most contrary to nature. And so it was with my own nine friends in the Lord 476 years later as we arrived in Navotas on 30sept2013. Yet before getting to the heart of the matter, gentle reader, a few introductory words (and images) regarding my experience of Navotas & my modus operandi herein.

Simply Google the term Navotas & you can read any number of eloquent treatises on demographics, geography, socioeconomic conditions, poverty, the causes, potential solutions, systematic theological discourses, etc. regarding the city. My aim here is (hopefully) is something rather different.

You may be wondering what I was anticipating prior to heading off to Navotas to live with my families there. As previously mentioned, I've been revisiting the slender volume of Egide Van Broeckhoven, SJ's journals - A Friend to All Men: The Diary of a Worker Priest. Prior to departing, I happened upon Egide's own reasoning for desiring to write down his experiences working in the Brussels factories from August 1965 until his death (a fatal accident in a factory) on December 28, 1967. Egide writes that his aim is to write down

...what God is doing in me and not what I am doing.

Yes. This became my prayer in the days leading up to leaving for Navotas (and, subsequently, my desired approach to writing this all down here) - to receive the grace to enter into the experiences vis a vis what God is doing in me & those around me, rather than simply reporting/reporting/reflecting upon what I was doing.

I know myself well enough. When the story starts with me, it becomes nothing but muddled obstacle. It's easier to start with what God is doing.

And if I am to merely reporting what happened to me, I run the risk of placing myself as mere observer & reporter. Worst case, I create an I and them scenario - thus keeping the experience at arm's length (and, even worse, objectifying those around me as mere subjects for my spiritual travelogue).

So we arrived that Monday in Navotas.

The key came rather early on (a grace - unquestionably not my own doing). That astoundingly stifling afternoon I walked along Abenida Leongson in Cuatro (the neighborhood in the barangay of San Roque). Amid the first cries of "Hey Joe!" (a carryover from the days of U.S. military presence in the Philippines, it's the standard greeting for anyone who "looks American"), I felt bulldozed - by the sun & the heat & the dogs & the tricycles & the stench from the fish sauce factory along with thick exhaust fumes commingled with the savory smell of meat cooking & the garbage & the roosters & building upon building & so many jeepneys & noise & humidity & the staggering stream of people...

Absolute bedlam. Full-on chaos.

But... in spite of it all, an absolutely exquisite, luminous chaos.

A magnificent bedlam.

(an aside - these sorts of seeming paradoxes would pile up during my brief days in Navotas - beauty in the midst of chaos, grace in the midst of structural evil, incredible dignity in the midst of poverty.)

But how could it all seem so exquisite & luminous & magnificent? It all seemed so incredibly messy, tumultuous.

And that's when it hit me, with the very same suddenness & force as all the din & chaos that first afternoon in Navotas...

Beauty & luminosity is in the flesh & blood.

Magnificence & grandeur in the humanity.

It all comes down to one fundamental: relationship.

wonder & awe: Fiesta of Our Lady of Fatima
Barangay Daanghari, Navotas

It's all about the Incarnation.

I recalled the first meditation in Week Two of the Spiritual Exercises, in which Ignatius invites the retreatant to gaze & reflect, from the perspective of the Trinity, upon the world:

...men and women being born and being laid to rest, some getting married and others getting divorced, the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the happy and the sad, so many people aimless, despairing, hateful, and killing, so many undernourished, sick, and dying, so many struggling with life and blind to any meaning. With God, I can hear people laughing and crying, some shouting and screaming, some praying, others cursing.

life & death as neighbors: Navotas Municipal Cemetery, home to an
estimated 6000 homeless living in a shantytown amongst & atop the tombs
Barangay San Jose, Navotas

But then, then, the real kicker...

The leap of divine joy: God knows that the time has come when the mystery of salvation, hidden from the beginning of the world, will shine into human darkness and confusion. It is as if I can hear the Divine Persons saying, “Let us work the redemption of the whole human race; let us respond to the groaning of all creation.”

The leap of divine joy. Joy. That first afternoon in Cuatro I was just as dumbfounded by a God who desired & chose to become human - to mix it up with our painfully messy humanity in a spirit of joy & love - as I was by the staggering scene around me.

The pieces were fitting together. In theory, at least.

The invitation here, the grace to be prayed & begged for, was for friendship with those around me. To allow myself to enter fully into it all. To embrace my own incarnation & that of those around me.

Egide again: the mystical depths of friendship.

What I was desiring as I prayed to recognize what God was doing in me & around me was to enter fully, authentically, without any baggage, into the relationships around me with the people in Navotas. Not to figure them out, not to fix their problems, not to minister to them.

Just to be.

croons like King Cole: Ruben, Bohol family home
Barangay San Roque, Navotas

As the Word joyfully leapt to be with us, so I prayed to be joyfully & fully with the people around me.

And God never disappoints.

It would merely be a matter of my embracing the experiences in light of this. And lest ye think I'm turning this into a lovefest in which I skip merrily through a field of gilly flowers, be patient.

I would go into all of this, in my most self-focused moments, kicking & screaming.
I would recoil upon meeting uninvited guests even Francis of Assisi might have a tough go with loving.

More to come, my friends.

PAX.

family stories.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Schenden) — Sun, 29 Sep 2013 13:58:00 +0000

I am humbled.

(And - before some snarky ha-ha retort slips into your brainpan - it actually does happen to me from time to time, thank you very much.)

So, to continue...

A most remarkable first few weeks here in Manila for tertianship. After the first weeks of acclimating, adjusting & getting over jetlag, weeks Two and Three have been onward & upward. In addition to the Five R's (see last post), these past two weeks have also included the sharing of our journeys to this point, thru the lens of a graced personal history. That is to say, to share one's journey not simply in terms of chronology & events, but to mindfully reflect on one's life... and how God has been working thru/with us... and how we've responded (and, as always, missed the boat from time to time).

Amazing... humbling... and ever-so consoling. As previously mentioned here, we're a diverse lot, coming from throughout Asia, Europe, North America. And our life experiences are ever-so more diverse - journeys through war as well as peace, supreme joys and heart-wrenching struggle & suffering, death & birth. Yet what emerged in the telling of our tales has been, quite honestly, first-hand narratives of the Principle & Foundation. Recall the concluding assertion, in which Ignatius states that

...we should not fix our desires on health or sickness, wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or a short one. For everything has the potential of calling forth in us a deeper response to our life in God.

It's that final sentence that continues to unfold for me again & again - that everything, absolutely everything in life holds the capacity for eliciting within us a response to God. Not to inundate with Ignatianspeak, but that truly is what finding God in all things is all about. And what is so wondrous about each of our accounts is that each (in the midst of such incredible variance) is rooted in the same simple (but so profound) grace:

Gratitude. Plain & simple.

And so it has been these past weeks with our shared stories... family stories. For these twelve stories - from childhoods to entrance to the Society, thru to the various stages of Jesuit formation, up to this point at which the twelve of us have converged - these chronicles are added to the countless others, the famous, the infamous, the forgotten (by human history, that is) that make up the Society of Jesus.

Egide van Broekhoven, SJ

And therein has been yet another unexpected grace - the placement of our twelve graced tales within the context of the larger family story of the Society of Jesus. As previously mentioned, part of these first weeks has been spending time revisiting our larger family history - rereading Ignatius' Autobiography, the histories of the founding of the Society. Personally, I've returned to some of my favorite family stories - both famous (Don Pedro) and not-so well know (Egide van Broekhoven). To place our stories in the same canon with them and so many others is... well, where I started this all off. Humbling.

Lest ye think that tertianship is all reading & reflection, tomorrow we're off to Navotas for the first of our tertianship "experiments" - our Filipino Life Experience. I'll surely have much more to say upon returning, but a brief word as to its purpose. Again, this comes from Ignatius and his companions' experience in Venice & Vicenza from 1535-1537 where they lived & worked amongst the people. This is precisely what we'll be doing for the next week or so. I'll be living with two families over the course of that time... in the words of our tertian director,

You are going to those people... not as teachers or preachers. Let the people minister to you and not you minister to them. It is their life you wish to share, not your life that you want them to share.

Wise words, to be sure. To just be with people... and to be ministered to. Humbling, yet again.

Surely more new graced tales to tell in a week's time. Until then, keep us in your thoughts & prayers - and be assured of ours for you. Until then - PAX.

wild orchids... growing like dandelions here!

room.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Schenden) — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 12:17:00 +0000

So, seeing that their hope of sailing was far off, (Ignatius & his companions) dispersed throughout the Venetian territory, with the intention of waiting the year they had agreed upon; after it was finished, if there was no passage, they would go to Rome.

(from The Autobiography of St. Ignatius of Loyola)

Oh happy accident... so, having completed their studies in Paris, Ignatius & the companions discerned that they would make way to Jerusalem via Venice so as to spend their lives there "in the service of souls". Always good with a backup plan (Ignatius - the Patron Saint of Plan B), they agreed that if they were not given the green light to head to Jerusalem they would return to the Eternal City and place themselves at the disposal of the pope.

Long & short: Ignatius & the boys end up staying in Venice from late 1535 thru late 1537... a period of much-neeed spiritual space & room for them - a break between the busy-ness of their studies in Paris & the awaiting busy-ness that would unfold in Rome.

The experiential foundations for Jesuit tertianship.

A break from the busy-ness.
Room.

It was about three years ago that one of my spiritual directees making the 19th Annotation Retreat used that very term - room - to describe her journey in the midst of the Spiritual Exercises... that the Exercises were providing her the much-needed space in her life to pray, reflect so as to enter more deeply into her personal, unique relationship with Christ.

Room.

Clinging to that word, I found my desire to return to the Exercises not as director but as directee emerging - a desire to enter to step away from my own busy-ness and find that explicit room the Exercises provide. Along with additional factors, it was this was this desire that led me to tertianship here in the Philippines.

As our tertian directors Pri & Mon stated on our first day together, tertianship is to provide that very room. Pri aptly said that "where there is space & room, much formation can & will occur." So true! To foster this, they provided us "the five R's" as guidelines for entering such room: rest, read*, reflect, relate (with God, one another & self), and reconcile (ibid). This is not to say that there is no apostolic component to tertianship - we'll be departing on our first "experiment" in just under two weeks (more on this later).

So for now... room**.

*Regarding reading - allow me to betray the literature geek that is me... as part of the tertianship program, each of us has been provided an individual library of books on Jesuit history and Ignatian spirituality. Our former General, Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, SJ, stressed in his document on Jesuit formation that a necessary part of tertianship is sapiential reading - that is, reading on the topics of Ignatius, the Society of Jesus and the Church not in a purely academic way, but reading with both head and heart. Room to read in such a way... as good as it gets! Current read - Dalmases' Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Jesuits. Haven't looked at this since novitiate... pure gift to be spending such time again!

**Lest ye think I am neglecting my personal soul food that is music, I offer a sixth R for fostering the aforementioned room: RPMs. On heavy rotation these days is the newly-released collaboration between Elvis Costello & The Roots - Wise Up Ghost. Brilliant stuff. Tune in, turn on... groove out.

class picture.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Schenden) — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 09:49:00 +0000

Scola Affectus Manila, 2013-2014.
front row: Ramon Bautista (assistant tertian director, Philippines),
O-myun Kwan (Korea), Alis Prasetya (Indonesia),
Chanh Nguyen (California), Norlan Julia (Philippines)
top row: Suyt Trinh (Vietnam), Michael Bugeja (Malta), Priyono Marwan (tertian director, Indonesia), Tu Pham (Vietnam), Johan Park (Korea),
Greg Schenden (Maryland), Dalibor Renic (Croatia)

arrivals.

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Schenden) — Sun, 08 Sep 2013 13:14:00 +0000

Well the roosters were crowing, heralding dawn here on my second full day in Quezon City... heralding also the fact that despite my valiant effort yesterday to push through with no napping, jet lag still has the last laugh.

So, I've arrived. Home base for this time of tertianship is Loyola House of Studies, situated on the campus of the Ateneo de Manila. All ten of us (tertians, that is) have now arrived, representing the diversity of the Society of Jesus - Croatia, Indonesia, Korea, Malta, Philippines, Vietnam, and the U.S. Always consoling is that even with such diversity, how quickly the common bonds of life in the Society emerge: mutual friends, shared locales.

Yet at the heart of these outward commonalities is something far deeper, far more moving. It is our common Jesuit identity, rooted in a love of Christ known & experienced through the lens of St. Ignatius and the Society, our formation, our shared experience of Christ via the Spiritual Exercises. Enough to inspire a good dose of... well, without sounding too trite and hackneyed, wonder & awe.

Wonder & awe. It is these two words with which I keep describing the past month of journey - from DC to Detroit, from San Francisco here to the Philippines. To state it more concisely (in the words of my wise & dear friend Frank in SF), WOW. To find myself so consistently in Christ's midst in seemingly limitless ways... astounding. And it's always experienced abiding in relationship - with Christ and with those around me. As Hopkins so exquisitely phrased it,

...for Christ plays in ten thousand places.
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

So it goes. I find myself dog-paddling in this unanticipated astonishment rooted in gratitude beginning this new chapter of my journey... I've already been privileged & buoyed by so great a cloud of witnesses (Heb 12:1). What's next?

God & tomorrow know. The Tertianship Program of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific in Manila begins at 9:00 a.m. Tune in.

hold still... keep going...

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Schenden) — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 12:18:00 +0000

Set the Wayback Machine for circa 1994 BSJ (that is, Before the Society of Jesus - I wouldn't enter the Jesuits until 1997)... I was living and working in Washington DC, having moved from Detroit a year prior. As often happens to one in their mid-twenties, I found myself mired in a bit of chaos that left me a bit spiritually, emotionally and physically undone (much of it thanks to mine own creation).

Now, I've always found a refuge in the arts - be it live music, film, or upon the walls of a museum. As chance (providence?) would have it, 1994 was the year the National Gallery of Art in DC presented the most comprehensive retrospective of photos to date by Robert Frank entitled Moving Out. I had known Frank's work as a photojournalist as well as his association with Kerouac and Ginsberg. What the exhibit introduced me to was Frank's later, more personal and introspective work from the 1970s onward.

One of the final photos in the exhibit was Hold Still Keep Going, taken by Frank in Mabou, Nova Scotia. During those months in late 1994, I found myself returning to the exhibit weekly (if not more), making my way to that sole photo and just sitting with it. Just holding still so as to keep going.

I've returned to that mantra time and again in the years that have since passed. That very holding still so as to keep going is a consideration I find echoed by St. Ignatius in the very onset of the Spiritual Exercises where the retreatant is invited to consider what I have done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What ought I to do for Christ? (SpEx 53). To take the time to examine the past, present and future in terms of one's personal, unique journey with Jesus.

And so it will be in November when I make the thirty-day silent Spiritual Exercises again during my tertianship in the Philippines. Yet, in a micro kinda way, that's where I find myself these past weeks. Between my father's death and my departure from Holy Trinity parish in DC, between DC and Detroit and now San Francisco, I find myself ever-so desirous for the opportunity to slow down, to hold still with Jesus. It feels as if I've been drinking from a spiritual firehose of God's grace in all that has transpired... and I simply need the opportunity to reflect on where I've been with Christ in the past months (and years, for that matter).

To return to all of these places... all so heavily charged with so many and so much. To allow this time betwixtbetween my experience of the past years as a parish priest and my time as a tertian to just be, to just hold still, to simply relish the abundant graces... to consider the countless gifts... and those that I might have overlooked.

To hold still.

Yet as one holds still, reflecting on past, present and future, one begins to feel... well, a bit unstuck in time.

Hold still, Billy Pilgrim.

Jesuit formation: a primer (or, why I'm going to Manila)

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Schenden) — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 15:38:00 +0000

Before moving onward & upward into a series of wise, profound, provocative (and ever-so humble) ruminations which this spiritual travelogue will surely deliver, a few explanatory words regarding this business of Jesuit tertianship...

Tertianship, or third probation, is the final stage of Jesuit formation prior to professing final vows. It is my understanding (I'll surely comment a bit more first-hand in the months to come) that tertianship is, in many ways, a return to the experiences a Jesuit encounters at the beginning of Jesuit formation as a novice in the novitiate. As a Jesuit novice, one passes through two probationary periods. In Jesuit terms, probation is not a negative; rather, it is a period of deliberation in which an individual discerns (in a disposition of spiritual freedom) one's vocation as a Jesuit. The first probation occurs the first two or so weeks after one arrives at the novititate. The second probation is the two-year novitiate that follows. During this time, a Jesuit novice is immersed in prayer, study, and apostolic works. A major facet of this time is making the Spiritual Exercises, the thirty-day silent retreat created by St. Ignatius of Loyola.

So as to deflect reception of the Tolstoy Award for prolixity ("nothing a pair of scissors can't fix"), allow me to fast-forward through roughly nine years of Jesuit formation (First Studies, Regency, Theology).

Once ordained as a Jesuit priest (unless one discerns a vocation as a Jesuit brother), one usually spends a few years in full-time apostolic work and possibly further studies. For me, this has been a graced-filled, joyous, challenging five years at here at Holy Trinity parish in Washington DC as a parochial vicar (a fancy, technical term for assistant pastor).

Upon "completing" all of these stages of formation, a Jesuit enters the third, final period of probation: tertianship (from the Latin terce, for three). This occurs around fifteen or so years after having entered the Society of Jesus. For me, it'll be sixteen years (I'm a little sluggish). Tertianship is the third probationary period in preparation for final vows in the Society of Jesus. As mentioned above, the experiences during tertianship return a Jesuit to the formative experiences of novititiate: prayer, study, apostolic works, and making the thirty-day silent Spiritual Exercises a second time.

All members before pronouncing final vows must complete a third year of probation, exercising themselves in the school of the heart... (t)he purpose of this probation is for each one, in concrete and personal contact with the things of the Society, to bring to completion a synthesis of spiritual, apostolic, and intellectual or technical formation, which makes for a fuller integration in the Lord of the whole personality, in keeping with the Society's objective as St. Ignatius described it: "that, since they have made progress, they may better help others to make spiritual progress to the glory of God and of our Lord."

(From The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complementary Norms, (Norms, Part V, 125)

School of the heart... you might now appreciate the titling of this blog. Such an evocative phrase coalescing Ignatius' worldview and spirituality. Such a beautiful, compelling description for the emerging chapter of this journey.

At this time God was dealing with him in the same way as a schoolteacher deals with a child, teaching him....

(from A Pilgrim's Journey: The Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 27)

the future is unwritten...

noreply@blogger.com (Greg Schenden) — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 12:44:00 +0000

My brother (undergrad) passed on a copy of Kerouac's On The Road to me (high school) and everything changed. I prayed, oh-so earnestly prayed, for the life described within that flimsy paperback with the ugly sun on the cover. I prayed to be the vagabond, I prayed for a life on the road in a '49 Hudson, I prayed I prayed that I would write mad spontaneous prose atop an Underwood, I prayed to roam with

the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars...

Oh yes. I prayed.

More tears are shed over answered prayers than over unanswered ones. So said Teresa of Avila.

I received everything I prayed for, but the Lord knows better our hearts' desires than we. Kerouac the vagabond was transfigured to Ignatius the pilgrim. The '49 Hudson emerged as countless minivans and Camrys (Jesuit automotive staples). And the Underwood became...

...a blog.

And yes, the mad ones.

What's past is mere prologue, dear Bard.