Reflections
Remember, Mission Week begins tomorrow with an all-university kickoff in the AMU from noon to 3 p.m.! For information on all Mission Week events, turn to the Mission Week Web page.
Tuesday, February 5 Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, You have given all to me. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. St. Ignatius Loyola
Wednesday, February 6 "Ignatian spirituality is a spirituality for busy people. Ignatius knew that the men who joined him to form the Society of Jesus would feel drawn towards being fully engaged in a busy apostolic life, and the clerics and lay people to whom he initially gave the [Spiritual] Exercises were usually people much occupied in positions of influence and responsibility Such good people tend to suffer from two opposite temptations in this matter of trying to integrate prayer and life: either to find themselves so drawn to prayer that they want to spend long hours in contemplation, with the risk that their ministry and engagement in the rest of life suffers; or to become compulsive workers, so that no time is left for prayer and the search for God's kingdom degenerates into an unreflective absorption in activity. Ignatius's approach, which is applicable to Christians in any way of life outside contemplative monasteries, is to try to move towards a balanced, discerning integration of prayer and life or ministry, such that one leads into the ohter and vice versa, and that there is mutual nourishment and enrichment between the two. One of Ignatius's favourite phrases is 'discerning love' or charity (caritas discreta). This phrase is an attempt to capture the central feature of this integration of life with prayer. The love which draws people into engagement with life and the kingdom of God is guided and attuned to the Spirit by a habit of constant, prayerful, discerning reflection." From Eyes to See, Ears to Hear
Thursday, February 7 "Our purpose in education, then, is to form men and women 'for others.' The Society of Jesus has always sought to imbue students with values that transcend the goals of money, fame and success. We want graduates who will be leaders concerned about society and the world in which they live. We want graduates who desire to eliminate hunger and conflict in the world and who are sensitive to the need for more equitable distribution of the world's goods. We want graduates who seek to end sexual and social discrimination and who are eager to share their faith with others. In short, we want our graduates to be leaders-in-service. That has been the goal of Jesuit education since the sixteenth century. It remains so today." Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J.
Friday, February 8 "What the option for the poor demands and makes possible at a university is a place of incarnation insofar as the university is a social force, a specific light for its own learning . . . . From a faith perspective, the place for incarnation is the world of the poor. This does not mean an obligation -- which for a university might be a practical impossibility -- of physical and geographical incarnation among the poor; nor in principle is it implemented by a change of membership in the student body (although something of both could signify an adequate incarnation); nor does it imply an abandoning of specifically university methods and of the required resources. What it does mean is that the world of the poor has entered the university, that its real problems are being taken into account as something central, that social reality is being dealt with by the university and that the legitimate interests of the poor are being defended because they are those of the poor. How the world of the poor enters the university materially is something to be analyzed in each case; but it is important that university members be seriously interested in bringing it in, although perhaps in the form of problems, of aspirations, and of questions posed to the university." From The University's Christian Inspiration
©2002 Marquette University -- Last Update: February 6, 2002
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