In two weeks, the Church will celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. In some respects, Pentecost is like Christmas. At Christmas we celebrate the coming among us of God the Son in Jesus. On Pentecost, we celebrate the coming of God the Holy Spirit to the apostles to be with the Church as long as the world lasts. The physical Jesus has left our world, but the Holy Spirit is here to stay. So Pentecost gives us much to rejoice and be glad about.
I am reminded of the beginning of a poem that speaks of the excitement of Pentecost.
Start with my toes
you old Ghost
Spirit the soles of my shoes
and teach me a Pentecostal
Boogaloo
Sprain my ankles with dancing
Sandal around my feet,
to roam with me in the rain
and feel at home in my footprints.
What the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost did for the apostles – roaming around with them and at home in their footsteps—is what the Spirit does for the Church in every age. The clearest description of the work of the Spirit was given by St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” Any Christian community is at its strongest when these gifts shine forth.
I am sure we all know people who typify for us one or more of these marvelous qualities. Take, for example, this obituary notice in The New York Times of the death of a Jesuit priest: Hart, Daniel J., S.J. Your Christianity has been a source of inspiration to countless retreatants. You never judged. You only loved. Thank you for having touched our lives.
He never judged. He only loved. Surely this was God shining forth in him.
There is a special prayer that is part of the liturgy of Pentecost. Normally, this comes just after the second scripture reading. It is known as the Sequence. Let me share with you an original translation of the Pentecost Sequence – the work of a modern classics scholar.
Come Holy Spirit and send out a ray of your uplifting light.
Come, Father of the poor, Giver of gifts,
Source of enthusiasm,
Best Comforter, gentle of hearts,
In time of activity – calm
In time of confusion – peace
In time of sorrow – comfort.
Blessed light of awareness, renew the hearts of your faithful.
Without your guidance we have nothing, nothing is undeserved.
Clarify what is unclear for me, heal what is hurt.
Make what is inflexible in me elastic, what is frightened in me fearless,
What is inconsistent in me, constant.
Grant your gifts of peace to all who trust in you.
Give a reward of courage, perseverance and eternal joy.
As we prepare for the great Feast of Pentecost, may you experience deep within you the peace of God’s Holy Spirit.
— William J. Bergen, S.J.
May 18, 2025 Essay: Notes from Our New CatholicsTwenty-six adults were received into the Catholic Church at the April 19 Easter Vigil. Here are a few highlights of their journeys to the Catholic faith.
“Have you ever considered becoming Catholic?” asked my dear friend two years ago. Perhaps the seed was planted then, or maybe it was earlier in 2018 when I first visited Rome and felt an inexplicably strong emotional reaction when first entering the Colonnade of Saints at St. Peter’s Basilica, or even earlier still when I met my Catholic partner in the late 1990s. What was clear to me was that the Holy Spirit was trying to awaken me for many years. The OCIA program at St. Ignatius Loyola finally allowed me to open the ear of my heart and begin the formal journey of becoming Catholic, teaching me along the way that my core values align with the Church. I will be ever grateful for this opportunity—and to our devoted OCIA team! – Mitch Howell
Throughout my life, I have had various interactions with different faiths. My husband is Jewish, and before I met him, I explored Buddhism. However, it was during my struggle with infertility that I developed a deep connection with God. Over a five-year period, I prayed daily for the blessing of a child. After experiencing seven miscarriages, my husband and I were finally blessed with our son on the eighth attempt. Although I believed God’s hand played a part in this miracle, it was the acceptance of my son into Saint Ignatius Loyola Elementary School, which initiated my decision to join the Catholic Church. I felt compelled to live as a devoted servant to God, grateful for the blessings and miracles in my life, and to share my faith with my son as he embarks on his Catholic upbringing. – Jennifer G.
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I was drawn to the Catholic faith for many reasons, but perhaps the most formative was my experience providing tech support for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange during 2020. I had the honor of assisting with Zoom meetings throughout the formation process for more than 100 sisters around the world. Their example moved me deeply and set me firmly on the path to becoming Catholic. – Alex Marcus
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At first in OCIA, we met as strangers in a room at the Parish. Then, in these moments of meeting, a flame was awakened within me and we became friends in Jesus. These little moments of being together, like snapshots, were given to me, to carry with me. Jesus had friends. Now I have a community to share and connect with. I love receiving the Eucharist and asking the saints to pray for me. I am letting this flame within guide me. – Xavier Mejia
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The “call of God” manifested itself not as a voice in my head or a mystical vision, but in a continual drive to learn more and improve myself through my relationship with Christ. As I learned more about Catholicism and the Jesuits, often through the books of Father James Martin, S.J., but more often through the examples of my wonderful wife, I found myself wanting to learn more. I’ve come to understand this continued interest as my call from God. The Jesuit concept of finding God in all things led me to believe you can find God in yourself, too. This belief continually drives me to know myself better, implicitly leading me to getting to know God better. It is immensely comforting to know that the process of discovering your true self, the self God wants you to be, can be the same process of developing your relationship to God. – Alex Blake
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Raising my child Catholic, studying, and learning with him made me understand that I wanted to be on this journey of growing in faith together with him. My Christian faith was always important to me, but now I had come to the realization that I was ready to embrace the Catholic faith and its teachings, and to become Catholic. Joining the OCIA group was such a blessing. Each meeting was really special, and our catechists were outstanding. I am also grateful for Father Yesalonia’s visits to our group. I am happy that now together with my child we can pray, receive the Eucharist, and be part of the community of Saint Ignatius Loyola. – Anonymous
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Becoming Catholic feels like becoming who I’ve been all along. Both of my parents were from large Catholic families, but we were almost completely removed from the church while I was growing up. Nor did I have any interest throughout many years of adulthood. Catholicism suddenly spoke to me about a year ago, and it was like discovering something that had been present in me, quietly, my whole life. Still, I was surprised and doubtful: isn’t Catholicism restrictive and regressive? Won’t it be a hassle to have to get to Mass every Sunday? What I have found, instead, is a community bursting with warmth, the depth and richness of Mass, and a sense of inner vitality, inspiration, and ideals. I’m happy to be at St Ignatius Loyola! Anonymous
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My spiritual quest to become Catholic started with my fiancé, who is a St. Ignatius parishioner. It was important for him to raise our future family in the Catholic faith, so naturally it became important to me. I felt called to pursue this process of inquiring into Catholic faith, and it has brought me closer to my fiancé. Sunday Mass is a time for us to reconnect with our faith and each other. Thank you to the OCIA team for making me feel at home, in helping me grow in Catholic faith and values, and for their dedication in making this process so life changing. – Abbey Roberts
May 11, 2025 Essay: The Message of Laudato SiPope Francis was clearly one of the most popular religious leaders of our time. With his love for the poor, his embrace of the outcaste, and his genuine humility, he captured the hearts of millions—Christian and non-Christian alike. He inspired many by his willingness to address difficult issues such as ecology, economy, and equity, which he saw as inextricably linked. Indeed, these three interwoven issues are at the heart of his Papal encyclical, Laudato Si, which is the first encyclical on the environment in the history of the Church.
First, the encyclical addresses ecology. Pope Francis, following in the tradition of Francis of Assisi, celebrates the natural world as a sacred gift. He does this with his reference to St. Francis’ “Canticle of Brother Sun, Sister Moon” in the title of the encyclical “Praised Be”. The kinship with all creation that St Francis intuited we now understand as complex ecological relationships that have evolved over billions of years. For Pope Francis, these relationships have a natural order or “grammar” that needs to be understood, respected, and valued.
Second, the encyclical speaks about the economy. Within this valuing of nature, the Pope encourages us to see the human economy as a subsystem of nature’s economy, namely the dynamic interaction of life in ecosystems. Without a healthy natural ecology, there is not a sustainable economy and vice versa. They are inevitably interdependent. Moreover, we cannot ignore pollution or greenhouse gases as externalities that are not factored into full cost accounting. This is because, for Pope Francis, profit over people or at the expense of the planet is not genuine profit. This is what has happened with fossil fuels, causing a climate emergency with droughts, fire, flooding, and rising seas.
Third, the encyclical highlights equity. From this perspective, working within the limits of nature’s economy can lead to thriving human societies. In contrast, exploiting the Earth and using fossil fuels without limits has led to increased human inequities. Ecosystems are being undermined by climate disruption, and the poor are the most likely to suffer. The Pope recognizes that such a distorted economic system results in impoverished and unjust social systems. Thus he speaks of the interlinked “cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor.”
The encyclical is not anti-modernity but hopes to reconfigure the idea of progress. “Not blind opposition to progress but opposition to blind progress” as the environmentalist, John Muir, said. The Pope critiques a throwaway economy where humans are saturated in materialism. He calls for genuine progress where the health of both people and the planet are fostered. As the former head of the Pontifical Academy of Justice and Peace, Cardinal Peter Turkson, said, “We need to learn to work together in a framework that links economic prosperity with both social inclusion and protection of the natural world.” This linkage of ecology, economy, and equity is what is being called an “integral ecology” and is central to the encyclical.
Such an integral ecology clearly requires interdisciplinary cooperation as we find our path forward on a planet of more than 8 billion people. We need to understand more fully the challenges the world is facing in terms of economic development and environmental protection. These are not easy to reconcile. Indeed, the international community has been seeking answers since the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 set forth a framework for sustainable development. The world is ever more in need of an integral ecology that brings together a fresh understanding that people and the planet are part of one interdependent life community. Such an integral ecology affirms the cooperation of science and values, knowing that our problems will not be solved without both. Climate change is requiring moral change. Laudato Si will continue to be an inspiration for worldwide efforts that are bringing together ecology and ethics for the flourishing of the Earth community.
— Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology
May 4, 2025 Essay: The Shame of Our NationThere is a genuine moral crisis in our nation today. In our name, migrant residents in this country have been sent to a foreign prison without a proper process for vetting who they are and the threat they pose. This not only violates fundamental principles that have long defined us as a nation, but also fundamental moral principles that define us as Christians.
Writing to the bishops of the United States, Pope Francis reminded them, and us, that “the infinite and transcendent dignity of every human person” is the foundation stone upon which we build a just social order. When we speak of “infinite and transcendent dignity,” Pope Francis tells us, “we want to emphasize that the most decisive value possessed by the human person surpasses and sustains every other juridical consideration that can be made to regulate life in society. Thus, all the Christian faithful and people of good will are called upon to consider the legitimacy of norms and public policies in the light of the dignity of the human person and his or her fundamental rights.”
Using this standard, it is clear that the policy of mass deportations is a gross violation of human rights. Invoking the Alien Enemies Act provided the current administration a pretext for the swift removal of Venezuelans and El Salvadorans to a prison in El Salvador. The administration argued that those who were deported were members of either the El Salvadoran gang, MS-13, or the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, whose presence in the United States represented a “predatory incursion” that threatened national security. What we have now discovered is that the designation of individuals as members of either gang was done in a way that was deeply flawed and provided no opportunity for individuals to dispute the charges made against them.
A case that currently dominates the news is that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who is a 29-year-old El Salvadoran who has been living in this country since 2019 under “a withholding from removal order” intended to prevent his deportation to his homeland. With that order, Garcia obtained a work permit from the Department of Homeland Security under the first Trump administration that allowed him to become a union sheet-metal worker. Designating Garcia a member of MS-13, he was sent to the terrorist confinement center in El Salvador. The failure of the administration to take action to return him to the United States led to a stinging rebuke by federal appellate justice J. Harvie Wilkinson, a Reagan appointee: “It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”
Rendition of persons to a foreign prison without fair adjudication of facts is not only a shocking breach of the constitutional principles that are the foundation of our democracy, but, more importantly, a shocking breach of our obligation to protect “the infinite and transcendent dignity of every human person.” How can we live with ourselves knowing that there are persons unjustly deprived of their liberty, languishing in inhumane conditions, and that they suffer this fate due to actions of our government taken in our name?
I suspect there will come a day when persons will look back to this time and ask, “Why didn’t they act?” I know with certainty that if we don’t act, God will one day ask us, “Why didn’t you?”
— Fr. Mark Hallinan, S.J., Associate Pastor
April 27, 2025 Essay: Doctor, Will You Pray for Me?: Medicine, Chaplains and Healing the Whole PersonAs 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.