Living out our parish mission statement’s call to “Reverence God in the Wonder of Creation” is an invitation to experience joy, enrichment, and awe. It is a welcoming to understand God’s revelation of Himself in creation. Even before the universe began 13.7 billion years ago, Psalm 90:1-2 says, “Lord, you have been our refuge through all generations. Before the mountains were born, the earth and the world brought forth, from eternity to eternity you are God.”
We are enriched in appreciating this wondrous long story marked from the beginning of the universe, in experiencing creation’s intricate and interconnected beauty and in realizing our part as caretakers in creation’s evolving presence in our common home on earth. In our being intimately connected to God’s gift of the Earth, as collaborators we are entrusted to protect the earth’s resources for the Common Good of all species and the betterment of future generations.
God calls us to be good stewards of our Earth. God’s appeal for our stewardship is fundamental to our Faith—encouraging conservation, restoration, preservation—and in refocusing ourselves to take the necessary steps and heed the call to seek the greater Common Good.
The Parish’s Festival Mass on January 26th at 11 AM is a celebration of Solemn Mass and Wallace Hall Family Mass coming together as an entire parish community. First, it is to fully appreciate the grace of faith and the gifts of our parish ministries and community as a blessing and revelation of God’s timeless presence with us. Additionally, it is an opportunity as we celebrate the gifts and graces of our parish community to recognize ourselves as a Laudato Si’ Parish and to respond and act as good stewards of our common home.
Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ encyclical was first published in 2015. Its tenth anniversary this year in 2025 will be celebrated and its importance further advanced throughout the world by the Church’s worldwide Laudato Si’ Movement. In his wisdom and scholarship, Pope Francis cited scripture, as well as built upon the words of his predecessors, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, who also embraced and extolled the care of creation. Pope Francis’ words continue as a call of action while there is still hope.
While the Laudato Si’ Movement may have found somewhat less traction among United States Catholics than elsewhere in the world, there are many dioceses and parishes in our country, such as our own here at St. Ignatius Loyola, that have adopted a Laudato Si’ Action Platform to bring its message to life. An important aim of our parish’s recently initiated Creation Care Ministry will be to implement and further the goals of our parish’s Laudato Si’ Platform. Two of those goals from that Platform that are envisioned for this year are: 1. Responding to the Cry of The Poor and Vulnerable and 2.
Addressing the Economic Practices of Conservation and Sustainability.
Everyone, and all in the parish are joyfully encouraged to come together as an entire community to further the message of Laudato Si’ (Praise Be – the Care of our Common Home) as an expression of our love for God, for God’s earth and for the whole human family. May we, together as parishioners of St. Ignatius Loyola, in this year of hope, move forward together to live with Christ’s grace, active in the world.
— Nicholas Naccari, PhD & Geraldine Rizzo
Laudato Si’ Care of Creation Ministry
In May 2018, Pope Francis met briefly with a delegation of representatives of Dharmic religions as part of a conference at the Vatican. Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs attended since their faiths all had roots in India. In November 2018, he urged Christians to foster a “culture of tenderness”, ahead of the Sikh holiday honoring the birth of its founder, Sri Guru Nanak Prakash Diwas.
I knew none of this when I went to India for the first time in 2019. My husband, Kevin, and I were part of a delegation with the International Conference for the Financial Women’s Association. We learned about the economic, business, and political drivers of the country, and in our “spare time”, we learned more about India’s incredibly diverse culture. Not surprisingly for the chair of the Ignatian Interfaith Ministry, we chose to take a tour of various houses of worship in Mumbai—everything from a Catholic Church—named St. Ignatius, no less!—to Hindu and Jain temples, Muslim memorials, and even a synagogue.
However, it wasn’t until we went to New Delhi that I was truly moved. Our delegation went to Bangla Sahib Gurudwara Delhi, one of the holiest places of worship for Sikhs. Thousands visit the Gurudwara (temple) each day and it represents the Sikh teaching of simplicity, service, and respect for all beings.
What I experienced made a huge impact. From our first steps into the temple with our heads covered and barefoot walking through cleansing water, we were reminded of being humble and equal with our fellow visitors.
While the Gurudwara was as ornate as a Hindu temple and had an inner worship area covered in gold, no statues or idols were adorning its dazzling interior, in keeping with the monotheism of the Sikh faith. In the center, there was a platform with a sacred scripture and musical chanting. Both men and women were permitted to pray, and both were required to dress modestly. Some of the prayers were translated into English on video screens and I was moved by the words: “The Destroyer of Sorrow is Thy Name, O Lord, the Destroyer of Sorrow is Thy Name.” That, and its monotheism made me realize we had more in common than I realized.
Next, we moved to an immense open kitchen and we learned that service—Seva—is part of all Sikh temples. Performing Seva refers to the act of volunteering or giving back without any expectations of reward, and it plays an important role for Sikhs. Seva activities include serving food and helping with washing up, and visitors are encouraged to join in with these tasks. We all sat down and rolled out Indian flat bread, as we watched people stir huge caldrons of daal (lentils) and vegetable curry. Why do they do this? To serve anyone who wants a simple but healthy meal, “cooked in God’s name”.
Anyone can come in for a meal and all must sit on the floor as equals. There is a huge water basin outside the temple, which reminded me of the reflecting pool in Washington DC. There, anyone can ritually purify themselves as part of religious observance.
I was astonished to learn that the temple and kitchen are open 24/7 and every day the kitchen cooks and serves 1,760 pounds of curry, daal and chapattis (flat breads made out of 3,750 pounds of wheat flour), and 880 pounds of rice. The kitchen feeds over 35,000 people each day and about 100,000 people on special occasions or Sikh festivals! Can you imagine? We left awed and inspired.
I hope you can join us at the Ignatian Interfaith Ministry on Monday, January 13th at 7 PM in Wallace Hall as Harmeet Kamboj, Senior State Policy Manager, Sikh Coalition to learn more about this little understood faith tradition. Doors will open at 6:30 PM. Please register at [email protected].
January 5, 2025 Essay: We Need Rational Minds Not Irrational FearsIn July 2021, Adewale Ogunyemi, a husband and father of two daughters, was working as a contract cleaner in a food production facility outside of Chicago. Responding to his screams, fellow workers found Adewale tangled in a machine. His right arm had been pulled through the conveyor and wrapped around his head. His chest was crushed. The fire department extricated him from the machine, but he was pronounced dead at the hospital.
On January 22, 2024, Elmer De Leon Perez was working as a welder at the Thoma-Sea shipyard in Houma, Louisiana helping to build a sophisticated ship for the United States that would do vital oceanographic research. Working at the bottom of a 12-foot ballast tank, using a welding tool that can burn as hot as 20,000 degrees, Elmer died from asphyxiation and fluid in his lungs. He left behind his partner with whom he had a two-year-old child.
What did Adewale and Elmer have in common? They were both undocumented workers doing work essential to our economy. The New York Times investigated staffing agencies that provided contract workers to factories, warehouses, and distribution centers. Temporary workers supplied by these staffing agencies were found to have an injury rate 67% higher than their permanently hired counterparts. The Times found that at least 50 workplace deaths since 2017 involved staffing agencies.
Elmer’s case is particularly notable. A recent Wall Street Journal column, “Worker Shortage Risks U.S. Security,” reported that the United States lacks the skilled workers necessary to build the ships that the U.S. Navy requires. In the past three years, China has built 47% of all the world’s ships, and the U.S. just 0.1%. In sheer numbers, the Chinese navy now has more ships than the United States. Elmer was working for a staffing agency that classified him as an independent contractor. As an independent contractor, both the shipbuilder and the staffing agency denied compensation claims filed on behalf of his partner and child.
Millions of persons in this country begin this new year living in fear. President-elect Trump has made mass deportations of undocumented persons in the United States a central priority. Thomas Homan, appointed to serve as point person for all matters pertaining to border security, has been ubiquitous in the media, relentlessly stressing the need to secure the borders and begin mass arrests and deportations of persons without legal status. There are also expressions of support for revoking the temporary legal status granted by the Biden administration to different nationalities for different reasons.
The hysteria surrounding immigration in this country right now obscures a truth that has been known since at least the administration of George W. Bush (2001-2009). We need comprehensive immigration reform that will make our borders more secure, bring undocumented workers out of the shadows, and provide a means by which workers can enter the United States to work in response to specific needs that cannot be met by American workers. When you look at the broad principles put forward by the Bush administration in their efforts at such reform, they are not remarkably dissimilar from those put forward by the Center for American Progress, a progressive policy institute. The devil is in the details, but rational persons, using the wealth of data now available to us concerning the importance of migrant flows to the United States economy and how those flows can be managed and regulated so as to protect American workers, should be able to create a system that is well-administered, equitable, and in our nation’s interest. Rather than cheering on those who want to pursue a policy of mass arrests and deportations that will be a shock to our nation’s economy, we should be calling for leaders to step forward and to work for that comprehensive reform of our immigration laws and policies that we need.
— Fr. Mark Hallinan, S.J., Associate Pastor
December 22, 2024 Essay: Christ Comes UninvitedDuring the war in Vietnam (1965–1973) that witnessed the deaths of countless Vietnamese and 58,220 American soldiers, Thomas Merton penned a hauntingly evocative poem, No Room at the Inn, about hope for a broken world. It is a poem that seems appropriately fitting as we navigate toward an uncertain future amidst the raging tides of division, partisanship, global conflicts, and fear. There is a lesson to be learned today from what Merton wrote sixty years ago.
Into this world, this demented inn
in which there is absolutely no room for him at all,
Christ comes uninvited.
But because he cannot be at home in it,
because he is out of place in it,
and yet he must be in it,
His place is with the others for whom
there is no room.
His place is with those who do not belong,
who are rejected by power, because
they are regarded as weak,
those who are discredited,
who are denied status of persons,
who are tortured, bombed and exterminated.
With those for whom there is no room,
Christ is present in this world.
Merton provides us with another point of entry into the Christmas story. For him, it is not a romanticized recounting of a time long ago, it is a drama that continues to unfold to this day. Merton invites his readers to take a close look at the world within the context of the Christmas narrative. It is as relevant an exercise for us today as it was at the height of the war in Vietnam.
The sobering reality of our generation is that there is no room in the inn for far too many people. The innkeepers of today’s world—the powerful, the greedy, elected officials and misguided governments, swindlers, cheats and fraudsters—acting out of petty self-interest and blind to the needs of others, have locked the doors to scores upon scores of people who seek shelter, who are forced to live in the dark shadow of fear, and who are denied the opportunity to live with dignity. The ironic tragedy to this is that by locking the doors to let no one in, they have confined themselves to a fantasy world, an equally broken world with a façade of wealth, power, and status, where the story of Christmas holds no meaning.
It was into a cold and broken world that Christ came uninvited because, as Merton wrote, “he must be in it.” That moment in time is captured beautifully in the carol, O Holy Night, with the words, A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. That hope becomes a reality each day for all who unlock their doors to allow Jesus to reside in their hearts. Only then will Jesus be recognized in the faces of those who knock at the door seeking refuge from the buffeting winds of an indifferent world. On that day, a new morn will break through the darkness, and the “uninvited” Christ will illumine the path to a brilliant future, bathed in hope for all.
As disciples of Jesus Christ and parishioners of the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, we are called to be heralds of hope. Let our prayer be that we welcome Jesus into our hearts, so that through us his radiant light may be a beacon of hope for a weary world. May our joy at his birth renew our fervor to be faithful to our mission to walk together with those in need and to be a source of solace for those who are burdened. By our testimony of faith, people will come to know that Christ, born on Christmas Day, is truly present in the world.
May our celebration of Christmas this year be filled with the radiant light of hope!
— Dennis J. Yesalonia, S.J., Pastor
December 29, 2024 Essay: One Family in GodIf our celebration of the Feast of the Holy Family is to have any relevance for us, we have to consider the hardships faced by the family of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. We must also remember that we are all one family in God with responsibility for all of our brothers and sisters in God.
As Jesus sought to break forth from his mother’s womb, his parents found themselves repeatedly rebuffed by innkeepers who either did not have room for them or would not make room for them. Think of the desperation that Mary and Joseph must have felt as Mary’s condition grew more critical. As you think of them, think of those families who came to our border, having fled economic destitution, political unrest, or persecution for who they were or what they believed. They, too, were desperate, so desperate that some snaked their way through razor wire strung to prevent their passage. As Mary and Joseph had to accept less-than-ideal conditions in which to bring forth their child, these migrants have had to accept less-than-ideal conditions in which to try and create a new life for themselves and their families.
Mary and Joseph did not have long to celebrate the joy of bringing a son into this world. Word soon reached them of a slaughter of innocents being unleashed with the aim of killing their child. In terror, they fled south to Egypt to seek safe shelter—a forced migration requiring them to live as aliens in a foreign land. How many parents in Gaza have had little, if any, time to celebrate the birth of their child? How many of them have witnessed that tiny life snuffed out through disease, starvation, or bombings, unable, as they are, to seek and find safe shelter? How many parents in the conflict zones of Africa have also seen young lives lost through disease, starvation, and violence, as they were unable to seek, or find, safe shelter? Surely, the cries of these families must echo in the ears of a God who knew firsthand what it was like to face the situations these families faced. It must pain God to see how their suffering leaves so many unmoved, particularly those who profess to love the God whom they do not see even as they are indifferent to the suffering of the God whom they do see.
Consider what it was like for Mary and Joseph to experience the loss of their twelve-year-old son after their celebration of the Passover in Jerusalem. Once more, a sense of desperation must have gripped Mary and Joseph as they sought to find him. Finding him in the temple, Mary made it clear that Jesus had caused her, and Joseph, great anxiety. Even so, they most likely felt an overwhelming sense of relief that Jesus was safe and unharmed. How many parents in our inner cities have done the best they could to keep their children safe from harm, only to lose them to the streets, never to know the relief Mary and Joseph experienced in finding their child unharmed? How many Palestinian children have been swept up in raids in the West Bank leaving behind anxious families who have suffered cruel periods of separation that have left them uncertain as to the safety of their children? Surely, God hears their cries and how it pains God, again, to see the indifference of other members of God’s family to the plight of their brothers and sisters.
Our Feast of the Holy Family invites us to consider the one family to which all of us belong—the one family in God in which we are equal in dignity to each other and in which we are all really responsible for each other. Are we living as a holy family evidencing the care for each other that God expects of us?
— Rev. Mark C. Hallinan, S.J., Associate Pastor
December 15, 2024 Essay: Our Animal CompanionsSince St. Francis created a nativity scene for Christmas in 1223 that included a live ox and donkey, our tradition has prominently featured animals surrounding the Christ child in the creche. The inclusion of non-human creatures reminds us that God chose to become incarnate among creatures, giving both them and us an elevated dignity. Living in the Bronx, I do not have an ox and donkey to include in my scene, but I did surrender to the demands of my wife Jessica and sons (Matthew and Michael) that we get a dog. After six years of living with a 12-pound Norfolk terrier named Benny, I admit that this little creature has taught me much about joy and tenderness, aging and limits, and above all, being human. Our relationship with animal companions has the potential to convey spiritual wisdom that can guide us toward living more deeply in the image of Jesus.
Tradition tells us that St. Francis preached to birds and tamed a dangerous wolf. In doing so he treated animals as more than objects. To Francis, they were subjects worthy of a relationship. Pope Francis’ teaching on environmental ethics has echoed his namesake’s example: “In our time, the Church does not simply state that other creatures are completely subordinated to the good of human beings, as if they have no worth in themselves and can be treated as we wish.” (Laudato Si’) Preparing our creches this Advent can be an invitation to offer a contemplative, loving gaze to our animal friends, to see their worth as carriers of God’s mysterious presence, and to learn from them.
Among the highlights of Jessica’s day is coming through the apartment door, when Benny jumps into her arms. Could there be any clearer expression of spontaneous joy, of celebrating life, of pure friendship? To watch this daily ritual is to receive a lesson in the value of playfulness, of living in the present moment, of the healing solace of companionship. Living with a dog has also mirrored back to me my limitations as a creature and the need we all have for self-care. Benny always stretches his little body before he moves, seeks out the solitude of a hiding place when he doesn’t feel well or simply wants to be alone, and takes a nap when he needs rest. And as he ages (at six, he’s now “middle-aged”), he paces himself, whether on a walk or playing with puppies. Observing him reminds me that our culture conditions us to ignore or to override the needs of the body, always to our detriment. The wisdom of a dog can bring me “back to earth,” back to humility, back to my humanity.
Among the greatest lessons our animal friends teach us is total attention to the master’s presence. I notice that Benny quietly follows us wherever we go in the apartment, Jessica especially. She has his complete attention; it is a relationship of total connection. If she is in the bathroom, he is outside the door. If she is taking a nap, he is beside the bed. If she is preparing a meal, he is in the kitchen. If I attended to God’s presence with a mere 10% of what this dog gives my wife, I’d be a saint! As I watch them, I wonder what it would be like if I moved toward God with the same contemplative gaze Benny fixes on Jessica.
As these Advent days draw to a close and the nativity blooms, I invite you to reflect on the graces our animal companions convey to us: how they teach us about God’s providential care; how they remind us what it is to be a creature, to be human. By simply living, they perfectly fulfill the call of Psalm 148, “Praise the Lord…wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds! Let them praise the name of the Lord.”
— Brian Pinter, Pastoral Associate
Essay: Laudato Si’, Care for Creation… Naturally!Pope Francis, over the last several years, has globally called Catholics and all religions to recognize the effects of climate change on our Earth. Through his various encyclicals, he has reminded us that the Earth is God’s creation and our moral obligation as Catholics is to be responsible stewards of this earth, not to dominate it. The Pope’s Encyclical, Laudato Si’—which is Latin, meaning Praise Be to You—shares that caring for our common home, the Earth, is anchored in our faith, encouraging conservation, earth restoration, preservation, hope, and action.
At St. Ignatius Loyola, the new ministry Laudato Si’/Care for Creation, has been launched. We celebrated in October with a prayer service at the Church that expressed our gratitude to the Lord for our Earth. Over time the ministry will continue to develop programming and provide insights on this very salient topic for all of us at the parish. Our goal is to sharpen the lens on becoming good stewards of God’s Creation. One of the most important keys to understanding this encyclical is Pope Francis’ understanding of the interconnectedness of a healthy environment and a healthy society, and the relationship between care for creation and care for the poor.
It’s a complex topic and may seem daunting and overwhelming, yet Dr. Katharine Hayhoe’s book, Saving Us, helped us understand how to talk about these issues. To summarize, she explains how the carbon output adds an extra blanket to the earth thus disrupting nature: the sun, ocean, and land, while also affecting our basic needs, like air, water, food, and those who are most vulnerable, the poor. Dr. Hayhoe’s practical approach goes on to say that changing behavior is easier said than done and requires sincere thought and conscience, along with balancing the needs, lifestyles, and economies in the world. It’s about restoring the earth and its ecosystem and, at the same time knowing that our society and global economies, in order to function, rely heavily on resources and energy developed from the Industrial Revolution. Yet, with all this, she shares what Pope Francis also believes, that there is hope.
So how and where do we start? Easy… for some of us we need to become more aware of the issues and then talk about them to others in an amicable Christian way. In other words, becoming good stewards of God’s Creation and talking about it should come, shall we say… Naturally!
— Jean Santopatre, Pastoral Associate & Laudato Si’ Ministry
For more information, email Jean Santopatre at [email protected].
December 8, 2024 Essay: Starting a New Chapter[This Second Sunday of Advent, St. Ignatius Loyola Parish celebrates the RCIA* Rite of Entrance and Welcome, acknowledging a group of adults as they formally begin their journey toward becoming Catholic. This essay is written by Steven M., who was received into the Church at last year’s Easter Vigil.]
In December 2021, I accepted a six-month work position and was posted to New York City. It was a dream opportunity and satisfied my appetite for a new challenge. I realize now that it also appealed more deeply to my subconscious, which at the time, had to JUST. KEEP. MOVING. FORWARD.
As all of us have experienced and can relate to, the years leading up to my moving to New York City, were challenging: first, my brother-in-law’s passing and then the turbulence of the pandemic. This contributed to this need for momentum.
I guess when I reflect upon my journey of becoming Catholic, it can be summarized very simply—it gave me a stillness that I hadn’t ever been able to harness—a stillness to appreciate the present with the support and love of God.
It was my wife who ultimately brought me closer to my faith. I was raised by a Catholic father and a Church of England mother, but not baptized. Whilst privately I practiced my faith, I had never seriously pursued or committed to either. After attending a Catholic Church regularly with my wife, I decided I was ready to pursue a closer relationship with God.
After some quick research in my local area, I came across the St. Ignatius RCIA program and reached out. After an introductory meeting, I was signed up for the upcoming cohort starting in September. The program was an incredibly special experience. It provided me with a framework to explore my faith, and space and time each week to challenge my thoughts. Hearing from the RCIA leaders and sharing the journey with other participants was the most useful part. I felt appropriately vulnerable to sharing my thoughts and keen to hear other’s perspectives. So much so that when the program ended I was missing the weekly sessions!
I first started to notice this inner stillness during Mass at St. Ignatius. At first, I was blown away by a homily that really spoke directly to me. Then week by week, I felt a fluctuation of intense emotions during the services I couldn’t describe, but suitably punctuated by the incredible music of the choir and organ. And finally, I started to hear God’s voice speak back to my prayers!
As my wife and I walked back down the aisle on our wedding day, I looked out to the pews to see my friends and family, including so many members of the RCIA team and cohort. It felt like a fitting conclusion to my chapter of becoming Catholic. I really encourage anyone who is considering the RCIA program to pursue it. It changed my life and will remain a special and incredibly important experience.
— Steven M.
*Beginning in Advent of 2024, RCIA’s nomenclature will change to OCIA (from Rite to Order of Christian Initiation of Adults).
December 1, 2024 Essay: Embrace AdventHappy New Year! A new liturgical year has begun with the season of Advent. With all things Christmas already crying out for our attention, it is hard to give Advent our full attention.
In Advent, we look back while also looking forward. We look back to the remarkable truth that God entered human history in the person of Jesus. This truth is magnified in its wonder by the corresponding truth that God chose to enter human history through the person of Mary; a young woman of absolutely no significance. Yet, Mary heard the call of God to her, wrestled with that call, and then gave her assent to that call so that the great work of salvation could be accomplished through the Son she would bear. Reflecting back on these twin truths, we have occasion to ponder the depth of God’s love for us. God chose to enter fully into our humanity, sharing in all aspects of our humanity save for sin so that we might one day share in God’s own divinity. As we ponder God’s great love for us, we also reflect upon Mary’s remarkable faith and trust in God. Nothing prevents us from following Mary’s example. We simply need to do as she did. We need to enter into a living relationship with God in which we come to experience the immense love of God for us so that it makes sense for us to say “Yes” to whatever God asks of us because we know that God cannot fail us.
Let me offer two prayers to keep us focused on this Advent season.
Good and gracious God, how remarkable is your love for me! How is it that you would choose to enter our humanity for my sake in the desire that I might one day share in your own divinity? In this Advent season, keep my heart attentive to all the ways you manifest your love for me daily and help me live in a way that others will experience in me your immense love for them.
Beloved Mary. Thank you for saying, “Yes,” to God and so becoming the mother of our Savior. Help me to give God the attention that you gave to God that I might hear God’s voice calling forth the good from me. Help me to grow in faithfulness to your Son this Advent season so that I can commemorate his birth with a joyful heart and anticipate his coming for me with gladness and thanksgiving.
As our prayer to Mary reminds us, Advent is also a time to prepare ourselves for when Jesus will return at the end of history; the end of our personal histories, our deaths, and the end of this world. Are we striving each day to embody in our lives the values of Jesus Christ? Are we persons of compassion whose compassion embraces all and excludes none? Do we strive to offer mercy and forgiveness to all? Where such forgiveness is difficult for us, do we seek the grace of Jesus to heal our wounds and so free us to forgive? Do we desire the well-being of all persons without exception which is the love Jesus commands us to have for all persons? Are we making every day a little Christmas as Jesus becomes incarnate in the world through us? If so, then we have nothing to fear as we anticipate the end of our history, as we will simply be swept up into the everlasting love of Jesus.
A third Advent prayer could be this:
Jesus, help me to remember the blessing it is to be your incarnation each day in all that I say and do. May others encounter in me what I have encountered in you; a love that is merciful and compassionate. May my death be my Bethlehem; my being born into your everlasting love.
Blessed Advent!
— Fr. Mark C. Hallinan, S.J., Associate Pastor
November 24, 2024 Essay: “Pilgrims of Hope”: St. Ignatius Loyola Lecture Series 2025The ancient Romans constructed temples to their many gods—Apollo and Diana, Mercury and Minerva, Vulcan and Vesta, to name a few. One temple, the Pantheon, was dedicated to all the gods, and on the Feast Day of Hope (August 1st—my birthday!) the priests of the Pantheon hosted a banquet for the gods, according to the historian Livy. The gods were seated in a circle, boy-girl-boy-girl. The first to be seated and the last to leave was the goddess Spes (“Hope”). Hope was known as the last goddess (“spes ultima dea”), because she was the last resort of humans, the goddess who accompanied humans to the grave. Something akin to, “Hope springs eternal,” Cicero wrote, “While there’s life there’s hope” (“dum spiro spero”).
Joan Chittister in her book “Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope” (2005), calls memory the “seedbed of hope.” Hope is not “in spite of” struggle and pain, she says. Hope is born in the midst of struggle and pain from the memory of goodness and beauty and truth. “Biblical hope sees the present circumstance with the eyes of memory.” The memory of the stories and songs of the Bible gives us hope. The memory of home gives us hope, even when those memories are filled with pain and heartache.
The Bible instructs us to be “prepared” to “give reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). Did you catch it? The assumption is that disciples of Jesus are known as those who have hope. We are assumed to be a people of hope! “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all” (Emily Dickinson).
In last week’s Bulletin Essay, Fr. Hallinan presented Our Lady as a model of hopefulness: “What lessons does Mary offer us, if we are to live in hope even in times that test our faith? To live in hope, we must be persons of prayer. We must cultivate a living relationship with God in which we consciously call to mind the many ways God has proven to be faithful to God’s people. We also have to call to mind our own personal experience of God’s fidelity to us and of God’s gratuitous love for us. Remembering our own lived experience of God’s fidelity and love, it makes sense for us to persevere in hope, even in the darkest moments of our lives, because we know that God will not disappoint us.”
“Hope Does Not Disappoint” (Romans 5:5), is the title of Pope Francis’ Bull of Indiction of the Jubilee Year of 2025, and “Pilgrims of Hope” is the title of our 2025 Lecture Series. I am pleased to present today the dates and speakers for the five lectures.
1. January 27: “The Risk of Hope”
Rev. Sam Sawyer, S.J., Editor-in-Chief, AMERICA Magazine.
2. February 10: “Giving Hope to Homeless Youth”
Mr. Carl Siciliano, Founder of the Ali Forney Center, the nation’s largest and most comprehensive housing program for homeless LGBTQ youth.
3. March 31 (Laetare): “Dorothy Day: Messenger of Hope”
Mr. Robert Ellsberg, Publisher, Orbis Books.
4. April 28: “Doctor, Will You Pray for Me?”
Prof. Robert Klitzman, M.D., Director of the Masters of Bioethics Program, Columbia University.
5. May 12: “Creating a Shared Planetary Future”
Profs. Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Allen Grim
Co-Founders and Co-Directors of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, Yale University.
The lectures will be on Mondays at 7:00 PM in Wallace Hall. Please mark your calendars now!
— Rev. Michael Hilbert, S.J.
Associate Pastor