As a medical intern, I once treated a young woman with metastatic breast cancer. Every morning, her sparkling blue eyes looked up at me with hope. I did as much as possible for her medically, but unfortunately, her cancer spread further. She developed ongoing fevers and nausea, and soon rarely glanced at me when I entered her room. Most days, she lay on her side, fatigued, her face turned to the wall.
She was Catholic, and one day, I noticed that a priest had started visiting her. A week later, when I entered the room, she looked up at me again and smiled. I sensed that she felt a renewed connection to something beyond her.
Sadly, she died a month later, but had seemed far less despondent. Her priest had offered her something that I could not.
Patients with serious disease and their families commonly feel fear and despair and come to value spiritual and religious beliefs. Seventy-two percent of Americans believe in the power of prayer. Attendance at religious services has also been associated with lower risk of death, suicide, and substance abuse, and less depression.
Yet hospitalized patients and their families often are unable to attend their houses of worship or don’t have one. Chaplains thus fill crucial gaps. As the religious makeup of the U.S. has changed in recent years, their profession has begun to do so, too. Board-certified chaplains are now increasingly trained to help patients of diverse beliefs. To learn what they do, I recently conducted an in-depth study, speaking with 50 chaplains from across the country and from different faiths, and wrote a book, Doctor, Will You Pray for Me?: Medicine, Chaplains and Healing the Whole Person, presenting the extraordinary inspiration and insights I found.
One chaplain, for instance, told me about a despondent patient who was dying and felt that his life was not worth living and that he was a burden to others. The chaplain picked up a piece of bread from the patient’s meal tray and said,
“Bread is really amazing, isn’t it? Just to enjoy the taste of a piece of bread! Maybe life is not meant to be lived according to external accomplishments. What if it’s okay just to enjoy the days you have?” The patient brightened and felt a renewed sense of meaning.
Often, chaplains are the only staff with time to talk to patients, whom they can therefore get to know well. Every night at 2 a.m., one patient phoned the on-call nurse, complaining of pain. The staff tried altering his medicine without success. Finally, a chaplain spoke to the patient, who turned out to be carrying significant guilt from his mother’s suicide when he was 18. When the chaplain arranged for the man’s elder siblings to talk about it, they were “aghast,” the chaplain told me. “They reminded him that their mother had mental health issues: ‘Don’t you remember?’ It was like a 50-pound weight had been lifted. After that, he never again called the nurses at night.”
Chaplains also serve as critical mediators in conflicts among patients, families and physicians. At another hospital, a teenager who was dying wanted to donate his organs. Soon he was brain dead and on life support, which surgeons planned to remove in the operating room. The boy’s family wanted to be present when he died, but the surgeons refused for fear that they’d disrupt the procedure.
Presented with an impasse, a chaplain negotiated a solution: The family would dress in sterile gowns and stay in the theater for three minutes. The family and physicians sang “Amazing Grace,” the boy’s favorite song. When he died, the mother said to the chaplain: “Thank you for that gift. . .. We got to sing my son into heaven.”
To countless families and patients, chaplains, I saw, offer invaluable gifts.
– Robert Klitzman, MD
April 20, 2025 Essay: Easter: The Blossoming of HopeThe recent fires in Los Angeles County scorched the earth in unimaginable ways. There was devastation over thousands of acres. Homes were destroyed. Lives were lost. Livelihoods vanished in a matter of minutes. The lush vegetation incinerated into heaps of ash that blackened the landscape. Several weeks after the fires were brought under control and eventually extinguished, The New York Times, not unlike other media outlets, featured a story about the resilience not only of those who had lost everything in the fires, but also of nature itself. Included in the NYT story was a photograph of a single flower blossoming in the ashes.
As I was preparing my homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent and reflecting on the words of the Prophet Isaiah that were to be read that day, “See I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Is. 43: 18b-19a), I was reminded of the NYT story and the photograph that accompanied it. Out of the ashes, a brilliantly colored harbinger of new life was flowering.
Let us recall the backstory to the words written in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. The people of Israel, God’s chosen ones, were being held captive in a foreign land. Jerusalem lies in ruin. Their homes are reduced to heaps of ash. Their great temple and its Holy of Holies are nothing more than piles of stone and mortar. They are traumatized by their defeat, by what appeared to them as the death knell of their kingdom, abandoned by God and adrift in a torrent of despair. The message of God that Isaiah delivered to them at their darkest moment was one of challenge. Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? It became for them a rekindling of hope for the future—to return to their homes, to reclaim their identity that could never be robbed from them, and to rebuild a city and nation destroyed by treachery, corruption, and greed. The shackles of despair were broken. Even in a foreign land, a country unrecognizable to them, they confidently looked to the future, knowing that their captivity would come to an end, that God was ever faithful to God’s promise.
We live in a time not unlike that of the ancient Israelites. Overwhelmed by ferocious and vengeful forces, we are like captives in a foreign land. Our attempts to block out or ignore the din of doom only leads us to a feeling of helplessness. We are carried by circumstances beyond our control to the dark place of despair. Hope is relegated to the pages of the Bible, to stories of long ago. Nonetheless, there are lessons to be learned from the message of Isaiah and the blossoming of a single flower out of a bed of ashes, if we but dare to resist the arrogance of despair and that of the false prophets of doom among us. For without hope, there is no future.
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the abyss of death itself is the wellspring of our hope. It is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s message to the Israelites. God’s love for us will carry us through the hardships we may face and the wanton upheavals that surround us to a future filled with promise. Because of the Resurrection of Jesus, we need not succumb to fear and the sinister forces of darkness. It is the false prophets who are doomed because they know not hope.
To rejoice in the Resurrection of Jesus is to revel in God’s love for us. It is to enjoy a foretaste of the kingdom of God during our lifetime. Hope sustains us and allows us to break through the darkness of despair. With hope to guide us in all our words and actions, we will be like a forest flower rising out of the dry, charred earth to trumpet a new beginning where decency, truth, justice, and compassion matter.
May our celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ this year be filled with the radiant light of hope! Happy Easter!
— Dennis J. Yesalonia, S.J., Pastor
Essay: Earth Day: Let Our Light Shine on God’s WorldGod’s Abundant Love
During this season of Spring, God’s abundant love for us is on full display in all of nature’s creation—particularly in Central Park! As Catholics, we are called to be good stewards of creation, God’s precious gift, our common home, the Earth. That is the core essence of Laudato Si’. Throughout Scripture, Jesus makes many references to creation and reminds us in the parable of the mustard seed, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.” (Mathew13: 31-35)
This year, with respect to caring for God’s creation, we commemorate some noteworthy milestone moments. Firstly, we salute the 10th Anniversary of Pope Francis’s groundbreaking Laudato Si’ encyclical, proclaiming that God’s loving-kindness is in all creation. Therefore, we are called to care for all of creation and help those most vulnerable, poor, and in need. Laudato Si’ is anchored in the tenets of our Faith—to respect creation is to respect God and neighbor and live a life in Christ through compassion and love, action and deeds, responsibility and conscience, hope and charity.
Secondly, we recognize the 55th Anniversary of Earth Day, April 22nd—a significant turning point that pivotally raised awareness of conscious for the environment. This year’s Earth Day theme is “Our Power Our Planet”, encouraging greater awareness and acceptance of renewable energy and inviting everyone around the globe to unite behind it, and to triple the global generation of clean electricity by 2030.
God’s Grace
As we underscore these Global watershed moments of environmental conservationism, we at St. Ignatius Loyola also celebrate a significant moment— it’s the third year of being a Laudato Si’ Parish! The St. Ignatius Loyola Laudato Si’ Platform emphasizes the need for us to protect our earth, foster environmental conservationism of natural resources, and heed our Christian responsibility to help the most vulnerable and the poor.
As good stewards of creation, we should strive to emulate and personify the spirit of Christ’s mustard seed parable, by spreading the message of the St. Ignatius Loyola Laudato Si’ Platform—“We reverence God in the wonder of creation.” To this point, on Saturday evening, April 26th and Sunday, April 27th, after each Mass, the St. Ignatius Loyola Laudato Si’ Ministry will distribute seed packets along with Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’ prayer card, and compost bags in support of renewable energy—just a friendly reminder that when each of us individually care for creation and those in need we will receive God’s grace. Let us pray with Pope Francis when he says ”Everything is connected. We are all woven together by the love of God and we stand or fall together.”
End Notes
The St. Ignatius Loyola Laudato Si’ Ministry recommends the following books, films, and information to learn more about environmental conservationism and Laudato Si’.
Books: Saving Us: A Scientists Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, by Katharine Hayhoe, PhD & Come Have Breakfast, by Elizabeth A. Johnson. CSJ, PhD
Documentary Films: We’re All Plastic People Now. An Emmy Winning documentary introduced by Ted Danson and featured at the 2024 Santa Fe Film Festival & Common Ground. Celebrities and Farmers introduce the benefits to regenerative farming practices. Critically acclaimed and Winner of the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival Human/Nature Award
Renewable energy sources include solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, biomass, tidal, and hydrogen, all of which are naturally replenished and offer low- or zero-carbon footprints.
Here’s a more detailed look at each:
- Solar: Uses sunlight to generate electricity or heat.
- Wind: Harnesses the power of wind to turn turbines and generate electricity.
- Hydropower: Utilizes the flow of water, like dams, to generate electricity.
- Geothermal: Extracts heat from the Earth’s interior to generate electricity or heat buildings.
- Biomass: Uses organic matter, like wood and crops, for energy production.
- Tidal: Captures energy from the rise and fall of tides.
- Hydrogen: A clean-burning fuel produced from renewable sources, offering potential for energy storage and transportation.
Music: Dan Schutte, Canticle of Creation. Give yourself a treat and listen. We invite you to join us on selected Tuesdays at 1 PM when the ministry meets at the Parish House.
— Geraldine Rizzo, Laudato Si’/Care of Creation Ministry
April 13, 2025 Essay: Islands of Hope and Forgiveness
Though Easter and its promise of new life are peeking over the horizon, many are finding it difficult to be hopeful. Chaos and division deepen, alienation triumphs over solidarity, and institutions many of us value are being destroyed. I find myself returning to the wisdom of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, written in the darkest days of World War II: “Is there still a chance to save ourselves from this spiritual decay? Yes, but a miracle will have to happen. And miracles only happen when one believes in miracles. Small islands like mountaintops would have to grow out of the chaotic sludge; islands of contemplation and of a sense of justice. Perhaps a new world will develop from these islands.”
Jung’s words were an act of hope. He was affirming that there is light deep within the human heart that can overcome darkness; that destruction will not have the last word. A new world can rise from the sludge. This future world, a new order on earth that Jesus called the Kingdom of God, is ultimately God’s work but requires our cooperation.
Among the primary ways we can help bring about this kingdom is through the practice of forgiveness. There are forces that are actively working against God’s dream, forces that seek to keep us mired in a feedback loop of hate, conflict, polarization, revenge, violence, and isolation. To forgive is to break these cycles and to resist the forces that stir, and often profit from, them. Forgiveness becomes an act of hope in the face of the “chaotic sludge,” a way to pull ourselves up from the muck that wants to drown us.
The theologian Richard McBrien wrote, “Hope measures everything against the standard of the coming kingdom. It views reality, therefore, in terms of the totality of human relationships: with God, the neighbor, the world, the self.” Forgiveness likewise has the power to touch and transform every aspect of reality – the intrapersonal, collective, environmental, and global. For when we forgive, we no longer transmit to others the hurt we carry. A space for something new is created, and deeper, more authentic love is possible. An island rises in the sludge where new life can flourish.
Jesus journeyed through his final days steadfast in hope, hope that the One he called his “Abba” would sustain him through the darkness and transform death into life. Among the ways Jesus witnessed to hope was through the ultimate words he spoke from the cross, “Forgive them…for they know not what they do.” This was perhaps his most defiant act of hope, a counter-witness in the maelstrom of violence that plots to seduce the human heart to impulsively seek revenge. In his last words on the cross, Jesus shows us how to escape the endless cycles of retribution into which we often fall.
Jesus invites us to a forgiveness that is not passive, but actively resists the evil of vengeance and retaliation, a forgiveness that confronts abuse and maintains the dignity of all. He models a way of forgiving that is hopeful and leads to new life. Jesus seeks the healing and redemption of all, and in doing so, teaches us the costly truth that our being forgiven hinges on our forgiveness of others.
The resurrection symbolizes the “miracle” of which Jung wrote, but before we can experience that new life, we must pass through Gethsemane, observe Good Friday, and wait in the quiet darkness of the tomb. As we walk with Jesus through Triduum, we are invited to face those places within and without that are marked by woundedness, alienation, brokenness, and anger. I invite you to join Jesus in making forgiveness a part of your practice in these holy days. In doing this we witness with him to hope that something new is possible, that wounded and dead hearts can be made whole in resurrection.
— Brian Pinter, Pastoral Associate
April 6, 2025 Essay: A Vocational JourneyIn my mid-20s, I had everything I could have possibly imagined. It was basically my dream life of working in corporate sports marketing, living in my own rent-controlled apartment, and making the rounds where my friends bartended. But I noticed a recurring feeling that seemed to happen each week after the Sunday evening Mass at Epiphany Parish.
What was it? I wanted to be like the priest up in the sanctuary. I didn’t know that priest, but I thought about the two people in my life who lived their lives with meaning, purpose, and joy—both Jesuits: my uncle, Fr. Jim Dolan, SJ, and Fr. Tim Brown, SJ, my Jesuit class moderator and business law professor at Loyola University Maryland.
I decided to do something that Lent that I feared. In Fr. James Martin’s book, In Good Company, I read about how Jesuit novices in their first year serve as hospital orderlies. When I saw a bulletin ad for volunteers needed at Cabrini Nursing Home in the East Village, I thought that could possibly be a way for me to think more about the Jesuits, since everything else in my life wasn’t necessarily leading me down the path of a Jesuit vocation.
Little by little, that service—attending Saturday morning Mass with nursing home residents—became part of my routine. After a detour to a Hamptons share house and training for the New York City Marathon that fall, I found myself the next Lent more seriously considering the Jesuits. By then, I was no longer living in Stuyvesant Town—my four years of rent control were over. I had moved with two roommates to 95th Street and started attending Mass at St. Ignatius.
Almost parallel to quietly beginning Jesuit discernment, I also got more involved in the parish. I returned to the Sacrament of Reconciliation after a long time, with the newly ordained Fr. George Witt, SJ. When I shared my vocation journey with the pastor, Fr. Gerry Blaszczak, SJ, he said, “I’m going to put you to work!” and I became a lector, a Eucharistic minister, and more active in Ignatian Young Adults, helping with spirituality programming. Looking back, I see that period as my own “hidden life,” much like Jesus’ years before his public ministry—a time of growth and waiting as my call became clearer.
Now, after almost 17 years as a Jesuit, I find myself living in New York City again. My formation brought me to Syracuse, Chicago, Boston, and South Africa. I taught and served at high schools in Micronesia, Boston, and Washington, D.C. Now I work in the USA East Province office on 83rd Street as the Provincial Assistant and Director of Vocations, while living at the Xavier Jesuit Community on 16th Street.
On the last leg of my commute from the 86th Street subway station to my office, I look at the façade of St. Ignatius and think back to all the people who encouraged me during my time here. Marissa Blackett, who, during a parish capital campaign, noticed me and asked if I had ever considered becoming a priest. I was encouraged by the witness and friendship of Carlos Cuartas. The priests at St. Ignatius—Fr. Bergen, Fr. Witt, Fr. Blaszczak—their inspiring homilies and their willingness to let young adults get involved helped confirm my next steps.
When I first came back and celebrated the 7:30 PM Mass—the one where I often found myself in the pews—I was filled with gratitude, praying once again with the parish community who welcomed me and formed me.
So many young people pass through these doors. Give them a mission. If you notice a good quality in them that would make them a good Jesuit brother, priest, religious sister, or diocesan priest—tell them. One of the best things we can do if we want vocations in the Church is to notice and invite. It means so much to a young person when an adult sees something in them and shares it with them.
We might be afraid to invite. Jesus wasn’t. He invited all sorts of people to come, follow him. St. Ignatius did too. Thus, Saint Peter Faber and Saint Francis Xavier. Marissa and Carlos weren’t afraid to invite the young man they noticed around the parish.
I’m consoled—especially during this Jubilee Year of Hope—to journey once again with such faithful pilgrims.
Sincerely,
Fr. Patrick Nolan, SJ
If you or someone you know is interested in learning more about the Jesuit life of mission, community, and prayer, please visit: BeAJesuit.org.
March 30, 2025 Essay: Saved by BeautyDorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker, has been proposed for canonization. Pope Francis included her among four “great Americans” in his speech to the Congress in 2015. Much of her life was spent in city slums. Though she never became inured to the sights and smells of poverty, she remained keenly alert to signs of beauty, even cultivating the capacity to see beauty in places that others might overlook.
Often, she returned to Dostoevsky’s line, “The world will be saved by beauty.” This didn’t mean the world would be saved by fine art or pretty things. It would be saved by our capacity to see beneath the surface, to see reality in its ultimate depth, as God sees it.
I have fallen in love many a time in the fall of the year. I mean those times when body and soul are revived, and in the keen clear air of autumn after a hot exhausting summer, I felt new strength to see, to “know” clearly, and to love, to look upon my neighbor and to love. Almost to be taken out of myself. I do not mean being in love with a particular person. I mean that quality of in-loveness that may brush like a sweet fragrance, a sound faintly heard, a sense of the beauty of one particular human being, or even one aspect of life. It may be an intuition of immortality, of the glory of God, of His Presence in the world. But it is almost impossible to put into words. The point is that it is general rather than particular, though it may come as a reminder, this flash of understanding, of recognition, with the reading of a particular book, or hearing some strain of music.
It is tied up in some way also with the sense of hope, and an understanding of hope. How can we live without it, as a supernatural virtue, “hoping against hope,” during this dark period of violence and suffering throughout the world?
I am bold in trying to express the inexpressible, to write of happiness, even of Joy that comes, regardless of age, color, or condition of servitude to us all.
Regardless of failures, regardless even of the sufferings of others. If we did not have this hope, this joy, this love, how could we help others? How could we have the strength to hold on to them, to hold them up when they are drowning in sorrow, suffocating in blackness, almost letting go of life, life which we know with a sure knowledge is precious, which is something to hold to, be grateful for, to reverence.
This is the point of war protests, of a strong faith in the doctrine of nonviolence, the evidence of its continuing efficacy throughout the world.
It is the spiritual weapon of the little ones, the weak, the powerless, the poor. In some obscure way, an inarticulate way, the young have grasped this.
From this day on I am going to ask for the Holy Spirit and wait. I will be growing, of this I am sure. Maybe it won’t come until the moment I die.
But how wonderful if we could be “surprised by joy,” to use the title of C.S. Lewis’s book. I have heard of witnesses who said, “When he or she died, at that moment a look of surprise” came over their faces, “surprised joy which was wonderful to behold.” (October 1969, The Duty of Delight)
— Robert Ellsberg, Publisher, Orbis Books
Join us on Monday, March 31st at 7 PM in Wallace Hall for the Laetare Lecture “The Long Pilgrimage of Dorothy Day,” presented by Robert Ellsberg. Ellsberg will reflect on Day’s long life “on pilgrimage,” and the way her faith was tested by daily life and the challenges of history.
March 23, 2025 Essay: ShameIs there any sense of shame in today’s world? Have we become so insensitive to the dark forces at work around us or to our own misdeeds that we refuse to be touched by the pangs of shame? Have we become incapable of acknowledging our personal sins or those of society? Perhaps that is why so few of us avail ourselves of the Sacrament of Reconciliation or speak out when we witness the willful malevolence of others. Without a healthy sense of shame, we deceive ourselves into thinking that there is nothing to be forgiven by God, that we are in control of our own destiny. Redemption becomes a meaningless concept because of our foolish self-righteousness.
We need to be reminded of the lessons of history if we are truly to pray the words of the Psalmist, “In You, O Lord, I put my trust; let me never be ashamed, deliver me in Your righteousness.” (31:1).
On a far less scale, the ignominy of the Shoah and the pogroms of Russia from the last century has tragically reared its ugly head in equally fiendish ways in our generation. I think it is reasonable to ask whether we have become narcissists, sociopaths with no moral compass who refuse to respond to the needs of others and the voices that cry out for justice. Self-interest has driven us to forsake any recognition of shame both in our actions and inactions. Let us remind ourselves that such behavior will never be erased from history. In her poem Shame, Marion Strobel wrote,
Weeds that hide the fallen dead,
Time that nullifies a name,
Will not bury shame….
It will be seen no matter where
You bury it. In typhooned air
It will hang isolate and round….
Through mountain-snow, through grass,
Through ground
It will be seen….
The enduring legacy of shame, however, is not necessarily what defines someone. Rather, it is the lens through which we make our choices. Ignoring that lens only ensures a profligate life of immorality. Without a sense of contrition for shameful acts, it is impossible to ask for forgiveness; and without forgiveness, there is no redemption. To seek God’s forgiveness is to be anchored in an abiding trust in God’s mercy and love. With forgiveness, the shackles of self-delusion, unmitigated egoism, and the seductive allure of omnipotence are broken. The path of righteousness and decency will then more clearly lie before us.
During the Season of Lent we are invited to examine our consciences, to look to what we have done or what we have failed to do that ruptured our relationship with God, with one another, and with our own consciences. Do we have the moral integrity to acknowledge the shamefulness of past thoughts, words, and deeds? Equally important is a review of where we have ignored the pain and suffering being inflicted on the world by a maddening and malevolent torrent of reckless actions taken by feckless world leaders.
The promise of Easter gives us hope for the world. With contrite hearts, we look with confidence to the salvation offered to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Let our prayer be that of the psalmist, “A contrite, humbled heart, O God, you will not spurn.” (51:19b).
— Dennis J. Yesalonia, S.J., Pastor
March 16, 2024 Essay: Cutting Spending and Sacrificing LivesThe Trump administration’s decision to effectively terminate the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is already having profound consequences throughout the world and could contribute to the destabilization of entire regions.
USAID was initially established through an executive order signed by then-President John F. Kennedy in 1961 in response to the Foreign Assistance Act of the same year. The Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act in 1998 established USAID as its own agency separate from the State Department. This raises questions as to the legality of the administration’s actions in folding USAID into the State Department while substantially curtailing its work.
In 2024, USAID spent $40 billion of the $68 billion that the United States allocated for foreign aid programs with USAID providing critical assistance in the areas of health care, food, clean water, and crisis response. Although the United States was the world’s largest foreign aid donor, our foreign aid programs represented only 1% of the federal budget. Elon Musk, charged with eliminating fraud, waste, and abuse from the federal government, has a particularly strong animus toward USAID, calling it a “a viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America.”
Caritas Internationalis, the Catholic umbrella organization for 162 relief and development agencies working in more than 200 countries and territories around the world, was strong in its response to the dismantling of USAID programs. Alistair Dutton, Secretary General of Caritas, stated: “Stopping USAID abruptly will kill millions of people and condemn hundreds of millions more to lives of dehumanizing poverty. This is an inhumane affront to people’s God-given human dignity, that will cause immense suffering…” In an NPR interview, Bill Gates also argued that the shuttering of USAID would put millions of lives on the line. Rob Nabor, North America Director of the Gates Foundation has stated: “There is no foundation – or group of foundations – that can provide the funding, work force capacity, expertise or leadership that the United States has historically provided to combat and control deadly diseases and address hunger and poverty around the world.”
What types of programs are now being eliminated?
- In war-ravaged Sudan, half the population of 50 million needs food aid while famine is spreading. The USAID suspension has halted national food programs serving millions and shuttered hundreds of community kitchens that operate in areas too dangerous for major aid organizations to enter.
- Suspension of USAID programs have halted efforts to contain a deadly hemorrhagic Marburg outbreak in Tanzania, the spread of an mpox variant killing children in West Africa, as well as the monitoring of a deadly bird flu that has been identified in 49 countries.
- In extremely volatile regions, USAID provided programs aimed at fostering greater stability. USAID sponsored a project that helped communities manage water stations in Niger to avert conflicts in a region already under threat from Islamic extremists. In Basra, Iraq, USAID helped repair water treatment plants after contaminated water caused violent social unrest. USAID created the Famine Early Warning Systems Network to enable aid workers to identify potential threats to food security and to take action to prevent them. In Kenya, USAID created a program to train young people to repair motorcycles offering them an alternative to recruitment by terrorist organizations. USAID helped farmer cooperatives in Kenya get fast-growing seeds that could grow with little water. USAID has sponsored research in United States universities to develop more nutritious, higher-yielding seeds that could better withstand heat and unpredictable rains – a critical need in light of climate change. All of these programs will now be lost.
It is true that there were problems with USAID, but those problems could have been addressed without effectively eliminating the agency. Dr. Catherine Kyobutungi, executive director of the African Population and Health Research Center, recently stated: “People will die but we will never know, because even the programs to count the dead are cut.”
— Fr. Mark Hallinan, S.J., Associate Pastor
Essay: A Lent Like No OtherTo my mind, Lent comes at the perfect time of year: the middle-to-end of winter. In the Northeast, it is still chilly. The sunlight is a pale gold, reminding us that the full bloom of spring flowers is still out of reach. The trees, in their bare elegance, symbolize the need for hibernation, the need to turn inward. Along with these natural reminders, the Liturgical Calendar invites us to take a break from the routine and the everyday. We enter the Paschal Mystery with Jesus Christ, renewing our commitment to live unselfishly and love openly.
The season of Lent is an invitation to take stock of our lives: Where am I going? Where can I improve in my relationships – with God, others, and myself? Lent is a formal time of preparation for Easter and our chance to reflect. We are called to pray more, sacrifice deeply, focus on service, and renew our trust in God, letting go of the pride that mistakenly tells us we can “do” life on our own terms.
Lent is also a special time for 26 men and women at St Ignatius Loyola. These adults are part of the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA)—the way adults are welcomed into the Catholic Church. While their formal preparation began in September of 2024, their journey with God began much earlier. Some have known God their whole lives, while others have only recently been made aware of God’s personal and abiding presence. They all have one thing in common: a sense that God is calling them—each of them—by name.
Today at the 11 AM Solemn Mass, Fr. Yesalonia, our Pastor, will lead us in the Rite of Sending and the Rite of Call to Continuing Conversion. The first rite officially affirms the readiness of our catechumens (those adults preparing for Baptism, Confirmation and First Eucharist). The second rite recognizes our candidates seeking to complete their Christian Initiation or to be received into the full communion of the Catholic Church.
Then in the afternoon, our catechumens will join hundreds of other adults from parishes across the Archdiocese at the Rite of Election, where Cardinal Dolan will officially accept the catechumens’ desire to become Catholic as they enter the final phase of preparation for the Easter Sacraments. They will each write their names in the Book of the Elect, signifying that God has chosen them.
During this time, I am reminded of my own experience of becoming Catholic in April of 2004 (21 years ago). I was clearly called by Christ but was unprepared for my loved ones’ reactions. My friends, most of whom were raised Catholic, had mixed emotions ranging from thinking I had “gone off the deep end” to their wide-eyed curiosity of my being able to choose this religion for myself. My family struggled to understand while I struggled to find words to help them understand. It was challenging at times, but saying yes to God and joining the Catholic Church remains one of the most important decisions of my life.
I also recall that particular Lent seemed so long. My hunger for the Eucharist grew in leaps and bounds daily as we approached the Easter Vigil. Looking back, it was a blessing to have time to pray, come close to Jesus, and trust God – with everything. It was the most graced time in my formation. It was truly a Lent like no other.
During Lent, let’s include these men and women in our prayers—that their ‘yes’ to God’s call will reverberate in their hearts for the rest of their lives. Let us also pray for our Parish community, that we may be a shining example of Christ’s light in the world to all people, each of whom God calls by name.
Skye Christina Angioletti
OCIA Team Member
Essay: Lenten Journey of Kinship and Hope
As we enter into our Lenten Journey this week, let us take the time to pause and reflect on this parable Jesus told to his disciples in Luke’s Gospel 6:42:
“A disciple is not above the teacher, but every disciple who is fully qualified will be like the teacher.” Jesus clearly taught his disciples, that they can become qualified to teach like him, yet they will not be above him. The disciples had their place and their purpose as they were called to carry on Jesus’ teachings. As Catholics, today, we are called to be faith-filled envoys of the same teachings of Jesus.
In the spirit of kinship and hope within the community of creation, the Lenten Examen this year highlights excerpts from the book, Come Have Breakfast: Meditations on God and the Earth, by Sr. Elizabeth A Johnson. Allow this season to be an awakening of your senses to God’s Creation. Let us join hands with Pope Francis who has invited us to be co-laborers with God to care for our common home in his encyclical, “Laudato Sì.” God also invites us to be good stewards of the earth. We are kindred spirits with all of God’s creatures in one community of creation.
Sr. Elizabeth Johnson uses these three words, Come Have Breakfast from the Gospel of John (21:12), when the risen Jesus feeds his disciples who were fishing all night. Jesus has a fire on the beach, with bread and fish cooking, and calls out to the fishermen, “Come have breakfast.” Sr. Elizabeth says this, “is a bugle call of divine hospitality toward all people and all living creatures, revealing a passionate divine desire that all should be fed.”
Humankind around the globe is interconnected and interwoven in the cycle of life. Therefore, every human action affects the earth, and we are on the brink of a radical change in climate and sustainability of the earth that will affect human, animal, and plant life. What actions can you commit to during Lent that will bring kinship and hope to God’s creation?
During the next six weeks, strive to be intentional and look for God in all things. Simply look at the sky, the clouds, the trees, the mountains, the sea—it all holds the divinity of God and sustenance for all God’s creatures, which includes humankind. How can you help to sustain Eco spirituality into your neighborhood surroundings and globally? Spend time in nature contemplating God’s goodness with all the glorious pieces interwoven in this glorious tapestry. Because we are all interconnected, we will either flourish or wither together.
Most people want to flourish, and God gives humankind abundant love to allow good things to happen. Looking at others in love and seeing what is on the inside matters—a good and kind heart is what matters. It is important to be merciful to humankind, animals, and our lush earth that has been scorched with fires and ravaged by floods, just as God is merciful to us. As we co-labor with God and with our neighbors, we become the hands and feet of Jesus to help bring about a just and loving world.
Together, let us embark on this Lenten journey of reflection in our daily lives. Trust God’s goodness even during challenges when you may have given into despair, worry and lack of faith. Pray for the light of God’s grace, live in gratitude and awareness, review your day, pay attention to areas of growth, and look toward tomorrow for resolution in your reflection.
“The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil, for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).
Every Blessing
— Jean Santopatre, Pastoral Associate