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© 2005 Marquette University Press ISBN 0-87462-015-5 ISBN 978-0-87462-015-3

All rights reserved.

Imprimi Potest James E. Grummer, S.J.

Provincial of the Wisconsin Province June 1, 2005

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Letter from the President

Dear Marquette Student,

I am pleased to present to you a newly revised edition of our Marquette University prayer book, Finding God

in All Things. The mission statement of Marquette

Uni-versity rightly says that “As a Catholic uniUni-versity we are committed to the unfettered pursuit of truth under the mutual illuminating powers of human intelligence and Christian faith.” Every university worthy of the name, public and private alike, emphasizes the pursuit of truth, the crucial role in this of human intelligence and the need for genuine academic freedom in carrying on this quest for truth. The Christian tradition insists not only on the importance of faith but on its relevance for successfully pursuing the fullness of truth, a quest that can only find its completion in the Ultimate Truth that is God. That is, something of profound importance to our human quest for knowledge will be missing when faith has no place in our lives.

All of the world’s great religions including Christian-ity involve in some way a quest, a search for faith, faith in an Ultimate Reality that worldwide is known under many names but which Christians call “God.” That faith, authentically formed, will be experienced as personal and intimate, but will also serve more and more to animate the rest of our human experience. Essential to achieving such faith is a life of prayer.

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6 Finding God in All Things

But how can we go about this business of prayer, how can we know what to say as we seek to begin a dialogue with God and allow God to dialogue with us? This book can provide a way to start. Because prayer so often begins with the present moment in which we find ourselves, this book offers a variety of prayers which come from the experience of people when they are, for example, thankful, joyful, troubled by the world situation, feeling alone or overwhelmed, concerned about others, or seeking how best to grow in a deeper relationship with God.

The prayers in this book have been recommended by students, faculty and staff. Since our students, faculty, and staff come from many different backgrounds, there is included a selection of prayers drawn from religious traditions other than Christianity. The inclusion of such prayers provides a good reminder that, though we humans express our faith in many diverse ways, ultimately we all are reaching out to one and the same God who is Creator of us all.

May our prayer book, Finding God in All Things, be a help to you in learning better how to pray and how to grow in your relationship with God.

Sincerely,

Robert A. Wild, S.J.

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Table of Contents

Letter from the President ... 5

Preface to the Second Edition ... 9

I Worship at Marquette—Why We Pray ...13

II Saint Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuits and Ignatian Spirituality ...19

III Fr. Jacques Marquette and Marquette University ...35

IV Some Noteworthy Jesuits: Men of Prayer ...41

V Some Extraordinary Women of Prayer ...55

VI Personal Prayer in the Ignatian Tradition ...69

VII Prayers and Poems in the Ignatian Tradition ...89

VIII Traditional Christian Prayers ... 111

IX Daily Prayers ... 129

X Prayers for College Life ... 135

XI Prayers for Recent Graduates and Alumni and Alumnae ... 153

XII Prayers by Women ... 167

XIII Prayers and Poems from Many Faith Traditions ... 179

XIV Psalms ... 193

XV Hymns, Poems and Various Prayers ... 205

Preface to the First Edition ... 243

Acknowledgments ... 245

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Preface to the Second Edition

Thanks to the original committee that compiled Finding

God in All Things, the work on this second edition of the

Marquette Prayer Book has been relatively easy. The current prayer book revision committee has sought primarily to augment and improve on the strengths of the first edition.

The stimulus for this revision began with Marquette President, Fr. Robert A. Wild, S.J., and Stephanie

Rus-sell, Executive Director of the Office of Mission and Identity. It is hoped that a new edition of the prayer book will help re-emphasize the role of prayer, reflection and discernment among our students, and extend the Jesuit tradition of education and service to the world.

This edition of Finding God in All Things is also meant as an introduction to the Jesuit Catholic tradition of prayer. It is designed for faculty, staff and administrators at Marquette, as well as the broader Marquette family that includes alumni/ae, benefactors, and other friends of the university. It also provides some background on the Society of Jesus and the Jesuit tradition of education. This edition includes a new set of images to accompany many of the prayers.

The prayer book revision committee would also like to thank the following for their additional help and support:

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Fr. John P. Donnelly, S.J., Professor of History Sarah Krukowski, Lecia Wardle and Nick Schroeder of the Office of Public Affairs

Dr. Andrew Tallon, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Marquette University Press, and Mrs. Maureen Kondrick, Manager of Marquette University Press.

Susan Hopwood of the Raynor Memorial Libraries, for valuable bibliographic work.

The current edition of the prayer book is still a work in progress. Marquette’s Office of Mission and Identity would appreciate your feedback and ideas.

Dr. Ed Block Dr. Nicholas Burckel

Ms. Laura Krenz Rev. Doug Leonhardt, S.J.

Ms. Sherri Lex Rev. Frank Majka, S.J.

Ms. Stephanie Russell Dr. Steven Taylor Mr. Jacob Teplesky

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I

Worship at Marquette:

Why We Pray

Tradition says people pray in order to praise and thank God, express sorrow and ask forgiveness, or ask for what they want for themselves and others. Basically, we human beings pray because we are hard-wired to pray. It is in our natures to reach out to What is beyond us and to enter into a relationship with That which we call God.

We pray as a way to go outside ourselves and connect with the One who calls us, waits for us, leads us and loves us. We also pray as a way to go into ourselves and, at the core of our being, meet the One who lives there, giving us life and purpose.

When we reach the God who calls us out and calls us in, we find ourselves in the presence of the Person who calls us by our names, keeps us safe, and connects us with others. When we pray we become better people —not better than those who don’t, but better than we would be if we didn’t pray.

People pray in a thousand ways. The aim of this collection of prayers is to provide examples of how some individuals and communities have expressed their longings for God and, thus, to encourage those who use it to make those words their own or to find their own words and ways to pray.

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14 Finding God in All Things

Saint Joan of Arc Chapel and the

Woman for Whom It Is Named

Located in the heart of Marquette’s campus, the Saint Joan of Arc Chapel is a favorite place for the Marquette comunity to pray and worship. It is the oldest building on campus, spanning five centuries as a place of prayer. It was originally built in a Little French village, Chasse, and was known as the Chapelle de St. Martin de Sayssuel. After the French Revolution, the Chapel fell into ruin where it was left until after the First World War. It was then restored by an architect named Jacques Couelle.

In 1926 Gertrude Hill Gavin, the daughter of James J. Hill, the American railroad magnate, acquired the Chapel, and it was transferred to her fifty-acre estate on Long Island. The reconstruction plans were developed by one of America’s leading architects, John Russell Pope, who also planned the National Gallery in Wash-ington, D.C.

In 1962, the Gavin estate passed into the posses-sion of Mr. and Mrs. Marc B. Rojtman. In 1964 the Rojtmans presented the Chapel to Marquette and had it dismantled and sent to the campus for reassembly. The dismantling on Long Island began in June 1964 and took nine months to complete. A fleet of trucks, each vehicle carrying forty thousand pounds, brought the Chapel stones to Milwaukee, where reconstruction

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15 I • Worship at Marquette: Why We Pray

began in July 1965. The Chapel was dedicated to St. Joan of Arc on May 26, 1966.

Saint Joan of Arc, born at Domremy in Lorraine in 1412, was an ordinary medieval peasant girl until she started to hear voices which urged her to free France from the English invaders during the Hundred Years’ War. For five years she kept these secret, but in 1429 she stole away from home and went to Charles VII. The King had her examined by theologians before agreeing to follow her advice. For a peasant girl to command the royal army was almost unthinkable! Yet the King agreed. He had little to lose since he had already lost the richest parts of France. Joan’s army lifted the siege of Orleans in a brilliant campaign, then again defeated an English army, thereby opening the way for Charles’ coronation at Reims in 1429. That was the turning point after ninety-two years of French defeats.

Joan fought another battle against the Burgundians in 1430 and was captured. They sold her to their English allies. The English could not be content merely to execute their prime enemy; they had to discredit her first. If her voices were from God, then the English cause in the war was against God.

Joan was put on trial as a heretic at Rouen and inter-rogated for three months in 1431. She was tricked into admission of guilt; this allowed the judge to sentence her as a relapsed heretic. He turned her over to the secular authorities who burned her at the stake on May 30 (now her feast day). As the flames rose, she protested her

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16 Finding God in All Things

innocence. A Church court rehabilitated Joan in 1456 and she was canonized in 1920.

Gesu Church

Gesu Church is the most recognizable building on Marquette’s campus. The Church is a Jesuit Pastoral Center, a parish of the Archdiocese sponsored by the Society of Jesus. Many of Marquette’s large liturgical celebrations take place at the Church and it has served Marquette students and faculty for over a century.

The Church was constructed under the direction of the architectural firm of H.C. Koch and Company. It was dedicated on December 16, 1894. The prevailing design is the Rayonnant style which was popular in France during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The windows were made at the Royal Bavarian Institute for stained glass in Munich, Germany, and the altars date from 1927. The inside of the Church was remodeled in 1967 but great care was taken to preserve the architectural style and meld it with the liturgical reforms of Vatican II. There is space for over 1000 worshipers.

The lower Church has a chapel for the celebration of the Eucharist several times during the day and daily opportunity for the celebration of individual Reconcili-ation, as well as a hall for parish functions.

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The Chapel of the Holy Family

Another special place of prayer and worship at Mar-quette is the Chapel of the Holy Family, located in the Alumni Memorial Union adjacent to the Office of University Ministry.

This chapel was completed in the fall of 1990, and it can seat 200 people. It was the gift of Dr. and Mrs. Robert S. Pavlic, as was the carving of the Holy Family that sits near the entrance. The statues were crafted in Ontisel, Italy.

In order for the chapel to be used for ecumenical ser-vices to meet the faith needs of many on campus, there is a separate Eucharistic chapel for prayer and adoration. The chapel was given by Mrs. Edward D. (Marguerite) Simmons, whose late husband had been the Academic Vice-President of Marquette University.

The Chapel of the Holy Family is used for university Masses for students, gatherings of friends and alumni, reconciliation services and gatherings of students in crisis or need.

Islamic Prayer Room

This place of prayer is provided for Muslim students, faculty, and staff in the Alumni Memorial Union. In-formation about this space can be obtained from the Director of Campus International Programs.

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II

St. Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuits,

and Ignatian Spirituality

Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) was born in north-ern Spain of a noble Basque family in the castle called Loyola. The year after his birth Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, and sent Columbus in search of China. A decade later two of Loyola’s brothers fought with the Spanish armies that conquered Naples, another helped crush a revolt in Granada, and a fourth sailed for America. Loyola’s youth was spent mainly as a page at two noble courts, and during his twenties he served as a courtier and heard about how an obscure German friar, Martin Luther, was questioning the basics of medieval Christianity.

Loyola was not trained as a professional soldier, but as a courtier who was expected to take up his sword in an emergency. This Loyola did when the French invaded northern Spain in 1521. Loyola was wounded trying to defend the city of Pamplona; impressed by his valor, his French captors sent him back to Loyola Castle to recover. There he began reading the lives of Christ and the saints when no novels of chivalry could be found. Gradually he came to realize that daydreams about imitating the saints

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in serving God gave more inward relish than daydreams of knightly deeds.

He determined to go as a pilgrim to Jerusalem and live there. He headed for the port of Barcelona, but on the way he paused for a few days in the small town of Manresa to write some spiritual notes. The stop dragged on for ten months as he meditated on Christ’s life. His prayer gradually deepened into mystical experiences. The notes he took down at Manresa became the nucleus of his great book The Spiritual Exercises, which allows oth-ers to share his insights and experiences. Over the next twenty years Loyola added to these notes and directed various followers through the Exercises, a spiritual retreat of thirty days.

The Spiritual Exercises break into four “weeks”: the first deals with the purpose of life, the second with Christ’s public life, the third with his passion and death, and the fourth with his resurrection. The first printed edition of

The Spiritual Exercises appeared at Rome in 1548. Since

then this little book, devoid of literary grace but potent in spiritual teaching, has enjoyed more than 5,000 edi-tions in dozens of languages.

Traveling through Barcelona, Rome, and Venice, Loyola reached Jerusalem in mid-1523, but Church authorities insisted he return to Europe. He then decided that if he were to help others find Christ, he needed an education. At age thirty-three, surrounded by adolescent boys, he spent two years at a grammar school in Barcelona so he could master enough Latin to enroll in a university. He

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21 II • St. Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuits, & Ignatian Spirituality

then attended the Universities of Alcala and Salamanca, but in both places his efforts to bring others to Christ aroused suspicion from the Inquisition and other au-thorities. His efforts also cut into his study time. Loyola determined to go the University of Paris, where he would get more systematic training.

At Paris, Loyola, like students through the centuries, had no money, and so he begged for his living from wealthy merchants. Two years after his arrival he was as-signed new quarters, where his roommates were Blessed Peter Favre and Saint Francis Xavier. Gradually he won them over to his spiritual ideals; in time he attracted four others. The seven companions were international from the beginning: two Basques, three from Castile, one from Portugal and one from Savoy. In 1534 these seven men pronounced vows of poverty and chastity and a promise to work for souls in Palestine when they finished their studies. If they could not go to Palestine, they would put themselves at the Pope’s service.

Loyola returned to Spain to settle his affairs and recover his health, then moved on to Venice to await his companions (plus several new recruits) and sail for Palestine. But a war between Venice and the Muslim Turks in 1537 prevented their departure.

They put themselves at Pope Paul III’s service, who used them as preachers and teachers. The companions decided they would need more structure if they were to serve God effectively. They discussed ways of orga-nizing their work and life together; Loyola drew up a

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document reflecting their discussions and presented it to Pope Paul III, who gave his oral approval to the new religious order in 1540. His companions elected Loyola its first superior general. For the rest of his life Loyola worked on the 1540 draft until he finished the long and elaborate Jesuit Constitutions, which were approved two years after his death.

The new order grew very rapidly, adding a thousand members before Loyola’s death. Unlike earlier orders, the Jesuits did not sing in choir but only read privately the Divine Office traditionally said by priests. This allowed them to devote more time to their ministries, which soon branched out. Francis Xavier became the great missionary to Asia. Reluctantly, the Jesuits opened schools and col-leges, but education gradually became their main work. Several Jesuits served as nuncios, or papal ambassadors. Others preached, did parish work, and gave the Spiritual

Exercises. Two of Loyola’s first companions from Paris

served as chaplains in the forces of Emperor Charles V, one in Germany, the other in Africa.

For his last fifteen years Loyola was the mystic and administrator; he alternated his time between prayer and paper work—almost 7000 of his letters from these years survive. But also he found time for several personal ministries. He organized noble women to rescue young girls from prostitution, setting up a half-way house to rehabilitate them. He even opened a convent for ex-prostitutes. He set up a home for poor abandoned girls and refinanced a similar home for boys. At the

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23 II • St. Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuits, & Ignatian Spirituality

insistence of his followers, he wrote an autobiography of his early life, but burned most of his private spiritual notes shortly before his death on July 31, 1556. He was canonized in 1622.

The Jesuits

The Jesuits, or the Society of Jesus, to use the official title, grew out of six student companions gathered by Ignatius of Loyola at the University of Paris in the 1530s. When their original project of going as missionaries to Palestine was blocked by war, they put themselves at the service of Pope Paul III. Gradually they came to see the need for rules and structures if their work and union in serving God were to continue and increase. They formed a religious order, elected Loyola as their supe-rior general, and obtained papal approval in 1540. The medieval orders such as the Benedictines, Dominicans, and Franciscans tried to mix ministry toward others with prayer; the Jesuits tilted the balance strongly in favor of helping others, striving to find God precisely in an active ministry.

The Catholic Church was facing the crisis of the Protestant Reformation when the Jesuits were founded. By seeking to break away from Rome, the Protestants encouraged efforts at reform within Catholicism. The Council of Trent clarified Catholic doctrine, the popes largely turned from political power games and art

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tronage to religious revival, new religious orders sprung up—Capuchins, Ursulines, and Oratorians, besides the Jesuits.

Initial Jesuit growth was slow in northern Europe but rapid in Spain and most rapid in Portugal and Sicily, where Islam was the threat, not Martin Luther. By 1565 there were 3,500 Jesuits, by 1626 the Jesuits probably reached the zenith of their influence and counted 15,544 members. Their growth was slower during the next century, largely because they lacked the money to train candidates.

The first Jesuits made their mark as preachers, convent reformers, and missionaries, but in 1548 the Jesuits opened their first college intended for lay students at Messina in Sicily. It was an instant success, and petitions for more Jesuit colleges flowed into Rome from most of the cities of Catholic Europe. Quickly, education became the main Jesuit ministry. By 1579 the Jesuits were operating 144 colleges (most admitted students between twelve and twenty) in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. By 1749 the Jesuits were staffing 669 colleges and 235 seminaries world-wide. The Jesuit system of education, building on the curriculum devised by Re-naissance humanists, was codified in the Ratio Studiorum of 1599. This approach controlled Jesuit education until the late nineteenth century, when American Jesuit universities began to make adjustments to the conditions in the United States. Marquette University was a pioneer

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25 II • St. Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuits, & Ignatian Spirituality

in educating women, first in nursing and education, then in other disciplines.

With education went writing books—textbooks, catechisms, scholarly works in theology and philosophy, answers to Protestant polemics, scripture studies, plays written for production at Jesuit colleges, descriptions of the peoples and parts of the world visited by Jesuit missionaries. The Jesuits introduced China to Western science and philosophy.

Missionary work has always been among the most prized of Jesuit ministries, from Francis Xavier to the present. In Loyola’s lifetime, missions were opened in Africa, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Japan. Later there were Jesuit missionaries working in North and South America. Jesuits often had to work underground in countries whose rulers persecuted Catholics, and many suffered martyrdom— as did Edmund Campion, Paul Miki and Miguel Pro.

The Jesuits have made many enemies for many different reasons during their long history. In the mid-eighteenth century they were hated by the philosophers, many of them deists, for their religious faith. The Jesuits were distrusted by the Enlightened Despots because they op-posed growing state control of religion and supported the pope. The kings of Portugal, France, Spain and Naples, urged on by advisors who were disciples of the philosophes, first drove the Jesuits from their own lands, then forced the pope to suppress the Order around the world in 1773. Thanks to a technicality in the Brief of

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Suppression and the benevolence of Catherine the Great, the Jesuits survived in Russia. Because of the Suppression, the Jesuits played only a small role in the first decades of the American Catholic Church, but a former Jesuit, John Carroll, was the first American bishop. Other former Jesuits, notably Pierre de la Clorivière, played crucial roles in the establishment of congregations of teaching nuns, who were to be the backbone of American Catholic education in the period 1850-1960.

After the era of the French Revolution and Napoleon, there was a reaction to the ideas of the Enlightenment and a religious revival. Pope Pius VII restored the Jesuits worldwide in 1814. By 1830 there were 2,137 Jesuits, by 1900 there were 15,073. The high point came in mid-1960s with 36,000 Jesuits. The Jesuits remain the church’s largest male religious order.

The Jesuits continue to operate a unique network of schools around the world, most notably in the United States, where there are twenty-eight Jesuit universities, almost all in large cities and forty-six Jesuit high schools. There are also Jesuit universities in such cities as Rome, Madrid, Beirut, Manila, Tokyo and Seoul. Jesuit peri-odicals appear in most of the world’s major languages, and some 500 Jesuits work in the communications media, mainly in the Third World. Jesuits continue to work throughout the world, from prestigious schools to refugee camps, to do their best “for the greater honor and glory of God”—A.M.D.G.

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28 Finding God in All Things

Ignatian Spirituality

Ignatius’s spiritual legacy spread through the lives of his companions in the Society of Jesus. But he also left four important documents, plus nearly seven thousand letters that give shape and color to his spirituality. Dic-tated toward the end of his life, his Autobiography tells the story of his conversation and life until 1538. His

Spiritual Journal narrates a small part of his unfolding inner

journey. Through his Spiritual Exercises and Constitutions, he systematically laid out guidelines for the spiritual life. From all of these sources, the main threads of his spirituality can be outlined.

Encountering God in Our Experience

One unshakeable belief to which Ignatius held as to a rock in all storms was that God can be encountered in our experience. God comes directly to women and men, and they will recognize God’s presence if they open their hearts and minds. The purpose of the spiri-tual exercises is to help people experience God directly and powerfully. When people encounter God, they are changed forever. Such an encounter frees people to love wholeheartedly.

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29 II • St. Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuits, & Ignatian Spirituality

For the Greater Glory of God

For Ignatius, to live meant to embrace generously and enthusiastically, the will of God. To serve and glorify God became the compelling motive of his life.

Ignatius restlessly yearned for God. He experienced the thirst and emptiness that no power or possession could satisfy. He longed for the total and consuming love that comes only from the source of all love. Once Ignatius felt the embrace of God’s love, he strove with singleness of purpose for the greater glory of God.

The Spiritual Exercises urge retreatants to listen to the Holy Spirit in order to discover God’s will and what would be the greater glory of God. Through the process of his own conversion to life according to Christ, Ignatius learned a way of discernment that remains as applicable today as it was five hundred years ago.

The Mysticism of Service

Ignatian spirituality does not demand withdrawal from the world. Rather, Ignatius brought the word of God to classrooms and hospitals, orphanages, and the halls of government. Wherever humans suffered, the heart and hands of Ignatius followed with the compassion of Christ. No sacrifice was too great, no suffering too deep, no poverty too excruciating as long as the love of Christ would be mediated.

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While answering the call to serve individuals in need, Ignatius sought to aid the reform of the Church. He preached, taught, and gave the Exercises, hoping to call the Church through its leaders to a rededication to the Reign of God.

The Call to Ongoing Conversion

Ignatius composed the Spiritual Exercises and the daily examen of consciousness to help people answer the call to conversion to Christ.

The Spiritual Exercises lead retreatants through a month-long process that begins with a confrontation of their own sinfulness; continues with the contemplation of the birth, public life, passion, and resurrection of Jesus; and concludes with meditations on God’s personal and unconditional love for each person. During the Exercises, the retreatants receive instructions about, among other topics, the three kinds of humility, methods of prayer, and how to discern God’s will. The retreat itself can be a powerful time of turning toward God, and the methods of prayer and discernment are tools for the retreatants’ ongoing journey toward God.

Devotion to the Church

For Ignatius, the Church gave physical expression to the love that Jesus has for the People of God. The Church

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31 II • St. Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuits, & Ignatian Spirituality

served as a way to God and a symbol of God’s mysteri-ous love for humankind.

Ignatius’s devotion to the Church was motivated by his desire to serve the souls of Christians. Even though Ignatius saw many human problems besetting the Church in his time, his loyalty was unflinching. The Church remained a herald of God’s word, a servant of God’s People, a community of believers, and a sign of God’s love.

Prayer that Permeates Daily Life

Ignatian spirituality invites people to daily prayer. In his writing, Ignatius described several methods of solitary prayer, and he encouraged people to develop the kind of prayer that best suits who they are and where they are on the spiritual journey. Ignatius recognized with great sensitivity that each individual has different gifts and a unique inner movement of soul.

Ignatius approached prayer not only with his intellect, memory, and will, but also with his senses and with active imagination.

The Discipline of the Ordinary

Contrary to the practices of his time, Ignatius encour-aged moderation in fasting and penitence. He knew that meeting the ordinary frictions and trials of family,

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munity, ministry, and the workplace with love required self-sacrifice and discipline enough to test anyone.

Ignatius also counseled adequate care of physical health. He appreciated the gift of food and recreation, acknowledging that health of mind and body were es-sential for one to be effective in ministry, seeking the greater glory of God.

Ignatius for Today

The desire for love, hope, and wholeness burns in the hearts of people today just as it burned in the heart of Ignatius. Ignatius’s time had its demons; our time has its demons. They may not really be so different.

The way to God that emerged from Ignatius’s own conversion can still lead us to freedom from the demons of our age: addictions, greed, emptiness of heart, despair, confusion, violence, and meaninglessness. Through the centuries, the Spiritual Exercises, which compose the heart of Ignatian spirituality, have been a powerful means of spiritual formation. Ignatius can be a wise and discerning companion on our own journey toward the embrace of the loving God. On the way, we can learn to say with him, “All for the greater glory of God!”

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III

Fr. Jacques Marquette and

Marquette University

Jacques Marquette, S.J., was a renowned Jesuit missionary and explorer. Father Marquette and Louis Joliet, along with five companions, were the first Europeans to explore the Mississippi River.

Father Marquette was born June 1, 1637 in Laon, France. He entered the Society of Jesus at the age of seventeen. After his ordination, he traveled to Quebec, introducing Christianity to Native Americans. He moved from tribe to tribe by following rivers. In the course of his two-year journey exploring the Mississippi River, he recorded information regarding the topography and animal life in the Midwest.

On May 18, 1675, Father Marquette died at the age of thirty-seven near the present-day city of Ludington, Michigan. Father Marquette’s life testifies to faith, service, and discovery, a rich legacy and a continual challenge to Marquette University.

The origins of Marquette University date from 1848 when the Most Reverend John Martin Henni, first bishop of Milwaukee, obtained money to establish a Jesuit college. In 1855 Jesuits agreed to staff St. Gall’s Parish, but they lacked personnel for a college.

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The Wisconsin Legislature eventually granted a char-ter for Marquette College in 1864, and in September, 1881 seven Jesuits opened the college. By the end of that year, 77 students were enrolled. The first graduation was held in 1887 with five students receiving Bachelor of Arts degrees.

U.S. Jesuit Colleges and Universities

Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA Canisius College Buffalo, NY College of the Holy Cross Worcester, MA Creighton University Omaha, NE Fairfield University Fairfield, CT Fordham University New York, NY Georgetown University Washington, DC Gonzaga University Spokane, WA John Carroll University Cleveland, OH Le Moyne College Syracuse, NY Loyola College in Maryland Baltimore, MD Loyola-Marymount University Los Angeles, CA Loyola University, Chicago Chicago, IL Loyola University, New Orleans New Orleans, LA Marquette University Milwaukee, WI Regis University Denver, CO Rockhurst University Kansas City, MO

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Saint Joseph’s University Philadelphia, PA Saint Louis University St. Louis, MO Saint Peter’s College Jersey City, NJ Santa Clara University Santa Clara, CA Seattle University Seattle, WA Spring Hill College Mobile, AL University of Detroit Mercy Detroit, MI University of San Francisco San Francisco, CA University of Scranton Scranton, PA Wheeling Jesuit University Wheeling, WV Xavier University Cincinnati, OH

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“What gain, then, is it for a man to have won the whole world and lose his soul?” Luke 9:25

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IV

Some Noteworthy Jesuits:

Men of Prayer

The following are some better-known members of the Society of Jesus. Space does not permit listing all those who might have been selected for one or another of their achievements.

Saint Francis Xavier

Saint Francis Xavier (1506–1552) was Ignatius Loyola’s roommate at the University of Paris and an outstanding athlete. Together with four fellow students, they formed the nucleus that grew into the Jesuit order. Xavier was the first and greatest Jesuit missionary, spreading the Catholic faith in India and Indonesia. He was the first missionary to Japan and died as he was trying to enter China.

Saint Francis Borgia

Saint Francis Borgia (1510–1572) was born into a wealthy Spanish family. His father was the Duke of Gandia in Valencia, and his mother was also of royal

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lineage. He married a noble lady, and together they had eight sons. But his wife died suddenly in 1546, and Borgia entered the Jesuits in 1548. In 1565, Borgia was elected the third superior general of the Jesuits. During his generalate, he revised the Jesuit constitutions, encouraged a deeper sense of personal prayer among Jesuits, built the Church of the Gesu in Rome, opened new mission territories in India and in North and South America, and used his wealth to reorganize the Roman College, which eventually became the Gregorian University.

Saint Peter Canisius

Saint Peter Canisius (1521–1597) was born in the Netherlands but studied at Cologne, Germany. He entered the Jesuits in 1543 and spent most of his life in Germany and Switzerland, founding Jesuit colleges, teaching, preaching, and writing his famous series of catechisms. He has been called the second apostle of Germany because he did so much to counter the spread of Lutheranism in Germany and Austria.

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43 IV • Some Noteworthy Jesuits: Men of Prayer

Saint Edmund Campion

Saint Edmund Campion (1540–1581) was an Eng-lishman who was martyred for his faith in London by Elizabeth I’s government. His studies at Oxford converted him to Catholicism. He joined the Jesuits in France because the Jesuits were not allowed to operate in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. After his studies, he taught at Prague for several years before returning secretly to England in 1580. After a period of ministering to Catholics, he was captured, tortured, and executed.

Saint Robert Bellarmine

Saint Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621), an Italian, en-tered the Jesuits in 1560. He quickly showed great talent in languages, philosophy, and theology. After six years teaching at Louvain, Belgium, he became professor of “controversial” theology at Rome in 1576. He published dozens of books, including a famous catechism and was known for his opposition to Jansenism. In 1599 he was named a cardinal and worked closely with a number of popes. His last twenty years were devoted to administra-tion and writing.

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44 Finding God in All Things

Matteo Ricci

Matteo Ricci (1550–1610) pioneered Jesuit efforts to Christianize China. He studied science and mathematics at Rome, theology in India, and Chinese at Macao. The Jesuit strategy for China was to use western science to win the respect and support of Chinese intellectuals and gain the Emperor’s assent to Christian preaching. Speaking and writing Chinese and wearing Mandarin robes, Ricci established a Jesuit residence at Beijing in 1601 where for 150 years Jesuit scientists secured impe-rial favor and fostered interchange between eastern and western intellectuals

Saint Paul Miki

Saint Paul Miki (1564–1597) was born in Japan. Francis Xavier brought Christianity to Japan in 1549, where its rapid growth (there were 200,000 Christians by 1590) alarmed Japanese rulers and forced the church underground. Paul Miki’s family converted when he was still a boy. He entered the Jesuits in 1586; just before his ordination to the priesthood, he was arrested with two other Japanese Jesuits. The three Jesuits were crucified with six Franciscan friars and fifteen other Japanese.

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45 IV • Some Noteworthy Jesuits: Men of Prayer

Robert de Nobili

Robert de Nobili’s career (1577–1656) parallels that of Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit working in China. De Nobili entered the Jesuits in 1596 and sailed for India after eight years of study. Before Nobili, Indian Christians were westernized and lived under Portuguese protection. Nobili felt that Indian Christianity should retain as much Indian culture and customs as were compatible with the faith. Expanding on Ricci’s willingness to embrace other cultures, de Nobili learned Tamil and Sanskrit and studied ancient Indian religion. In 1623 Pope Gregory XV approved his approach, and he converted 4,000 Indians, many of them Brahmins, the elite who earlier had scorned Christianity.

Saint Peter Claver

Saint Peter Claver (1580–1654) attended the Jesuit col-lege at Barcelona and entered the Jesuits in 1602. Eight years later he was assigned to Cartagena, Colombia, then the world’s greatest slave market. Peter devoted his life to meeting slave ships and declared himself the “slave of the slaves.” The voyage from Africa usually killed a third of the Africans; survivors were shattered in body and spirit. Peter brought them food, compassion and Christian faith. In forty-four years he baptized 300,000 Africans.

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46 Finding God in All Things

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga (1568–1591) was the heir to an illustrious Italian noble family and spent his youth as a page at the Spanish court. But courtly pomp drove him to reflect on the gospels. He entered the Jesuits in 1585 and studied at Rome, where he volunteered to help the plague stricken and died a martyr of charity at the age of twenty-three.

John Carroll

John Carroll (1735–1815) studied with the Jesuits in Maryland and became a Jesuit in Belgium. In 1773, after Clement XIV suppressed the Jesuits, Carroll returned to Maryland as a priest. He joined Benjamin Franklin’s fruitless effort to encourage Canada to join the American Revolution. Appointed the first American bishop in 1790, he was stationed in Baltimore where he encouraged education for men and women and helped found Georgetown University in 1789. He presided over the first national synod of bishops in 1791, which laid down rules for the American church. During his years as bishop, the number of American Catholics quadrupled. John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio was named for this important early American Jesuit.

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47 IV • Some Noteworthy Jesuits: Men of Prayer

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889) was an English-man who wrote several of the prayer-poems printed in this book. He was educated at Oxford where he converted to Catholicism. In 1866 he entered the Jesuits; finishing his training, he served as a parish priest at Liverpool and a teacher at Dublin. The poems he wrote after becoming a Jesuit were innovative in diction and rhythm, and resulted in a transformation in how subsequent poets used the English language. His poems were not published until 1918, almost thirty years after his death.

Blessed Miguel Pro

Blessed Miguel Pro (1891–1927), who was born and raised in Mexico, entered the Jesuits in 1911, but a bitterly anti-Catholic regime forced Jesuit seminarians to flee to California in 1914. After studies in California, Spain, and Belgium, Pro returned home one month before the government closed every church in Mexico. When soldiers hunted down priests who ministered the sacraments in secret, he was arrested and executed. His last cry as he faced the firing squad was, “Long live Christ the King.” Pro was known for his love for the poor. A quick wit and sense of humor also marked his life.

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48 Finding God in All Things

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) was a French Jesuit. He received his doctorate in paleontology from the Sorbonne in 1922. He worked in China as part of the team that discovered Peking Man. Throughout his life, Chardin labored to make a synthesis between Chris-tianity and science, and in his writings (many of which were viewed with disfavor by Church authorities for his views on evolution and by scientists who distrusted his religious commitment) he proposed a view of evolution in which humanity will one day reach an “Omega Point,” which has been variously interpreted as the integration of all personal consciousness and the Second Coming of Christ. Chardin’s work was more accepted after his death than during his life, and he is rightly regarded as one of the key people of the twentieth century who tried to heal the split between religion and science.

John Courtney Murray

John Courtney Murray (1904 – 1967) was an American Jesuit best known for the work he did on the intersection between public political discourse, faith, and religious freedom. As a teacher, writer, and theological scholar Murray sought to convince people that the right to religious freedom was founded in the dignity of the

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49 IV • Some Noteworthy Jesuits: Men of Prayer

human person and that neither Church nor State may compel a person to adopt a particular religious belief. In that regard, he felt that the emphasis on religious free-dom which exists in the United States makes a valuable contribution to Catholic thinking. His influence can be seen in the Declaration on Religious Freedom adopted by the Second Vatican Council.

Karl Rahner

Karl Rahner (1904–1984) was one of the most influ-ential theologians of the last century. Rahner’s thought helped influence the thinking of the Second Vatican Council, blending the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas with the modern philosophy of phenomenology. Rahner taught that all people have an openness to God whether explicitly aware of it or not and that reflection on this will open the way to an affirmation of Christ as the Word of God addressed to all human beings. He had a concern for a broad range of pastoral issues as well as theoretical ones, and his Theological Investigations (23 volumes) gave expression to his attempt to render theological teaching relevant to modern people and modern problems. One of his major works is Foundations of Christian Faith, published in 1978. As one commentator remarks, his writing style often makes for reading that is “notoriously demanding” but nonetheless very rewarding.

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50 Finding God in All Things

Pedro Arrupe

Pedro Arrupe (1907–1991), the 29th General Superior

of the Society of Jesus, was, like Ignatius Loyola, from the Basque country in Northern Spain. He abandoned his medical studies and a promising career to join the Jesuits in 1927, but in 1945 his medical training was put to use in Hiroshima, Japan, when the atomic bomb fell on that city. He headed the first rescue party into Hiroshima and turned the Jesuit novitiate outside the city into a make-shift hospital for over 200 dying people. He headed the Province of Japan from 1958 to 1965, when he was elected General of the Society of Jesus. During his time as General and under his charismatic leadership, the Jesuits strove to adapt themselves to the call of the Second Vatican Council for a renewal of spirituality and ministry, an effort that committed the Jesuits to the service of Faith and the promotion of Justice in all their apostolates and institutions.

Ignacio Ellacuria

Ignacio Ellacuría (1930–1989) was president of the University of Central America (UCA.) in San Salvador, and an outspoken opponent of oppression in that Central American country. On 16 November, 1989, he and five fellow Jesuits, Ignacio Martin-Baró, Joaquin López y

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51 IV • Some Noteworthy Jesuits: Men of Prayer

López, Segundo Montes Moso, Amando López Quin-tana, and Juan Ramón Moreno Pardo—as well as their cook, Elba Julia Ramos and her daughter Celina—were brutally murdered by members of the Salvadoran army for their writings on Liberation Theology and their solidarity with the poor of El Salvador.

Peter-Hans Kolvenbach

Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, was born on 30 Novem-ber, 1928, in a village northwest of Nijmegen, Holland. He attended Canisius College, Nijmegen and joined the Jesuits in 1948. Following philosophy studies, he went to Lebanon where he earned his doctorate in theology. He was ordained a priest in 1961. From 1963 to 1976 he studied and taught general and Oriental linguistics in diverse specialized institutes in Holland, Paris, and Beirut. He also worked in theology of spirituality at Pomfret, Connecticut. More recently, he was professor of general linguistics at St. Joseph’s University in Beirut and was the provincial (1974–1981) of the vice-province of the Middle East. In 1981 he went to Rome and became the rector of the Pontifical Oriental Institute. On September 13th, 1983, during the 33rd General Congregation of the order, he was elected twenty-ninth superior general of the Society of Jesus.

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V

Some Extraordinary

Women of Prayer

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

(1910–1997)

Mother Teresa was the founder of the Missionaries of Charity (M.C.). Born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu at Sko-pje in the former Yugoslavia, she joined the Sisters of Loretto in Ireland at the age of seventeen, and within a year she was sent to teach in Calcutta, India. There she became acquainted with the poor who lived and died in the streets. In 1948 she left the Sisters of Loretto to serve the sick and the dying in the city’s slums. She became known as Mother Teresa. In 1949 she founded the Missionaries of Charity, a community of sisters, priests, and brothers who serve the poor by providing food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. Within thirty years there were eighty foundations of this community in thirty-two countries. She was the recipient of the 1979 Nobel Peace Price, the Nehru Award, and the 1981 Père Marquette Discovery Award. Mother Teresa was beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 19, 2003.

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56 Finding God in All Things

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57 V • Some Extraordinary Women of Prayer

St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley (1774–1821)

St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley was the first American-born saint. She was born in New York City of a wealthy and devout Episcopalian family, the daughter of a professor of anatomy at King’s College (now Columbia University) in New York and the stepsister of Archbishop James Roosevelt Bayley of Baltimore. In 1794 she married William Magee Seton, a wealthy merchant, with whom she had five children. She became involved in social work and established the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Children in 1797. Six years later, dur-ing a trip to Italy with the entire family, her husband died. Inspired by the kindness of an Italian family, she converted to Catholicism in 1805, upon her return to the United States. The rector of St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore invited her to open a school for girls, and in 1809 with four companions she founded a religious community, the Sisters of St. Joseph, and also a school for poor children near Emmitsburg, Maryland.

Her community’s rule, based on the rule of Vincent de Paul, was approved by the archbishop of Baltimore in 1812. She was elected superior and, with eighteen other sisters, took vows the following year. Thus began the first American religious society, the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph, devoted primarily to the education of the poor and to teaching in parish, or parochial, schools. That is why historians often credit her with laying the

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58 Finding God in All Things

foundation for the Catholic parochial school system in the United States.

With extraordinary support from the Catholic com-munities in and around Philadelphia and Baltimore, she was beautified by Pope John XXIII and later canonized in 1975 by Pope Paul VI—the first American-born saint.

Dorothy Day (1897–1980)

Dorothy Day was a journalist, pacifist, and co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement. After the birth of her only child, Tamara, she abandoned her Bohemian lifestyle in Greenwich Village and converted to Catholicism in 1927. Five years later, Day met the French peasant phi-losopher and teacher Peter Maurin, and her life changed forever. Maurin provided her with an understanding of the meaning of the Church and her position in it. Together they founded the Catholic Worker movement, a community of laypeople from all walks of life.

Day’s belief centered on Christian personalism, a philosophical orientation that stresses the value and dignity of each individual human person. Attempting to make this Worker ideal available to every individual who desired it, she started a newspaper. She entitled it Catholic

Worker, to announce a Catholic presence and concern for

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59 V • Some Extraordinary Women of Prayer

concern by embracing voluntary poverty and establishing houses of hospitality and a farming commune.

Julian of Norwich (1342–1420)

Julian of Norwich lived a life of solitude as an anchor-ess in a cell attached to the Church of St. Edmund and St. Julian in Norwich, East Anglia. in England. At the age of thirty, and seemingly near death due to illness, she received sixteen mystical visions on the passion of Christ, the Trinity, the love of God, the Incarnation, redemption, sin, penance, and divine consolation. Through the development of images of the Creator as father and mother, of Jesus as brother and savior; of the reality of sin; of the struggle between good and evil; and the mercy of God—particularly experienced in the Church’s sacramental celebrations—Julian cre-ated a unique language that combined special words and images to convey a sense of her mystical doctrines. Her work was influenced by the English mystic Walter Hilton (d.1396) and the anonymous writer of The Cloud

of Unknowing.

At the time of her death her reputation for sanctity was already widespread. Visitors from all over Europe were attracted to her monastic cell. Although she is popularly called “Blessed,” there has never been any formal ecclesiastical confirmation of this title.

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60 Finding God in All Things

St. Clare of Assisi (1193–1253)

St. Clare was the founder of Poor Clares, a religious community of women. Clare was born in Assisi, Italy, and learned of Francis and his group of friars, who were traveling from town to town, begging and preach-ing the gospel. She refused an arranged marriage and sought advice from Francis. In 1212 he received her commitment to follow the gospel and promised to care for her as he did his own friars. After a short stay with Benedictine nuns, Clare settled at a house attached to San Damiano, a church that had been recently rebuilt by Francis. There she served as superior until her death. Among those who joined her were her sisters, Agnes, and Beatris, and her mother, Ortolana. Throughout her life she fought to maintain the Franciscan ideal of rigorous poverty for the Poor Clares while the friars were accepting modifications of their original rule. Clare was canonized in 1255.

Blessed Katherine Drexel (1858–1955)

This American Missionary was the daughter of a wealthy, Philadelphia banker. Pope Leo XIII encour-aged the young heiress to devote both her fortune and her life to the poor. She entered the Sisters of Mercy but felt called to do missionary work among black and

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61 V • Some Extraordinary Women of Prayer

Native Americans. In 1891, she founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Black People; the congregation’s mission concerns the education of African and Native Americans. Drexel established many schools on Indian reservations and instituted the first and only Catholic University designed for African Americans, Xavier University, New Orleans (1925). She was beatified in 1988.

St. Teresa of Avila (1515–1582)

St. Teresa was born just prior to the start of the Protestant Reformation. Her father was strict and her mother was afraid that she could never do anything right in a mar-riage. As a teenager, Teresa had normal teenage interests (clothes, flirting, rebellion, etc.), but eventually chose religious life over a married life, because she felt it was the only safe place for someone so prone to sin. She was installed at the Carmelite convent where she was well liked, but easily distracted away from God. At the age of 43, she founded St. Joseph’s convent, and later founded the Discalced Carmelites. In 1970, she was delared a Doctor of the Church for her writing and teaching on prayer, one of two women to be honored in this way.

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62 Finding God in All Things

St. Catherine of Siena (1347–1380)

St. Catherine was a mystical writer and Doctor of the Church. Born in Siena, Italy, she experienced her first mystical vision at the age of seven and soon after pledged virginity to Jesus. When she declined marriage, her famiy discharged the domestic help and assigned Catherine excessive household duties that curtailed her prayer. One day, while Catherine stole away from chores to pray in her room, her father reported seeing a dove hover over her head. Taking this as a sign from heaven, her father permitted Catherine to live the life of prayer and fasting which she desired. In 1365 she received the Dominican habit and continued to live a life of seclusion in the family home. In 1368, during a mystical vision, she became espoused to Christ and received a mandate to undertake an apostolic life. Catherine cared for the sick at La Scala Hospital and visited prisoners on death row, accompanying them to the gallows. She trained a growing company of disciples, a number of whom were priests. Between 1377-1378, amid much unrest, Catherine composed The Dialogue, a book describing her understanding of the Church and the sacraments. The basic theme of her spirituality was the creative and saving love of God, symbolized by the Blood of Jesus. She was declared a Doctor of the church in 1970.

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63 V • Some Extraordinary Women of Prayer

Edwina Gately

Born in Lancaster, England, Edwina Gateley’s educa-tional experiences have awarded her a Teacher’s Degree from England, a Masters in Theology from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and certification as an HIV counselor in the State of Illinois.

From 1981 to 1982, Edwina lived for nine months in prayer and solitude in a hermitage in Illinois. In 1983, she spent over a year on the streets of Chicago, walking with the homeless and women involved in prostitu-tion. Within these two experiences, were the seeds of her ministry that would be realized in 1983 when she founded a house of hospitality and nurturing for women involved in prostitution.

Edwina’s work and ministry have been publicly com-mended by numerous groups and individuals, including the Governor of the State of Illinois, the Mayor of Chicago, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, and the former President of the United States, Bill Clinton.

Edwina is currently writing, leading retreats for abused and marginalized women, and serving as “Mother Spirit” for Exodus, a program in Chicago for women in the second phase of recovery from prostitution.

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64 Finding God in All Things

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850–1917)

Mother Cabrini is the patron saint of immigrants and the first U.S. citizen to be canonized. Born in Lombardy, Italy, Maria Francesca Cabrini desired to be a sister but was refused entrance into two religious communities due to her delicate health. In 1880, Bishop Domenico Galmini encouraged her to establish a new congregation. The Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart won papal approval (1887) and grew rapidly. In 1889, Archbishop Michael Corrigan of New York invited Mother Cabrini and five of her sisters to his diocese, but when they arrived Corrigan rescinded his invitation and suggested that they return to Italy. The sisters remained and Cabrini established numerous hospitals, schools, orphanages, and convents throughout the United States, as well as foundations in Central and South America. Mother Cabrini was canonized in 1946.

Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha (1656–1680)

Kateri, known as the Lily of the Mohawks, was born of a Christian Algonquin woman who was married to a non-Christian Mohawk chief. She was orphaned during a smallpox epidemic which left her with bad eyesight and a pocked face. In 1676 she was baptized by Fr. Jacques Lamberville, S.J. Because of her conversion she

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65 V • Some Extraordinary Women of Prayer

escaped by wandering over 200 miles through the wil-derness to a Christian Native American village at Sault-Sainte-Marie. In 1679 she completely dedicated her life to Christ by taking a vow of chastity. She became known for her spirituality, austere lifestyle and her extraordinary sanctity, which not only impressed her own people but the French and the missionaries. After her death devo-tion to her began to be manifested by many people. On June 22, 1980 she was beatified by Pope John Paul II. Her feast day is celebrated on July 14.

Sojourner Truth (Isabella Baumfree)

(1797–1883)

Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree in Ulster County, New York, one of thirteen children born to slave parents. She was sold many times and suffered severely, but she had a deep and unwavering faith inculcated by her mother. Forced by her third master to marry, she and her husband had five children. When her master reneged on his promise to free the family, Isabella ran away with her infant son to New York, where she worked in several religious communes. In 1843, Isabella had a spiritual revelation which changed her life. She changed her name to Sojourner Truth and walked through Long Island and Connecticut preaching “God’s truth and plan for salvation.” She then joined the “Northhampton,

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66 Finding God in All Things

MA, Association for Education and Industry” where she worked with several noted abolitionists, then added abolitionism and women’s suffrage to her preaching. When the Civil War ended, she worked tirelessly to help the newly freed slaves from the South. She died in Battle Creek, MI.

Ain’t I a Woman?

by Sojourner Truth

Delivered 1851 at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio

… Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ‘cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

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67 I • Worship at Marquette: Why We Pray

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VI

Personal Prayer in the

Ignatian Tradition

A Short Course on Prayer

by J.J. O’Leary

These pages are written for people who are very busy, but at the same time, desire to explore their own spirituality and enhance a dimension already present in their lives. What follows are a few practical words about prayer along with some questions to facilitate discussion about your life with God, your family, and your studies.

If you are still reading, then somehow God is truly alive in your life. Spiritual writers all agree that an infallible sign of God’s presence is a desire for God. If you want to pray, you are already praying. The desire to pray is the evidence that God is already at work, at prayer, in you. The first graces we get are our desires and just to be reading this, shows desire in your life.

The prayer I would like to talk about is prayer of the heart, intimate prayer, praying from where we are. First of all, I believe most of us pray far more than we think we do. Anytime we reflect on our families, our children, our students, our job, something we are grateful for, that is beautiful prayer. Many of us think prayer is thinking

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70 Finding God in All Things

about and talking to God out there. But prayer begins with reality. The first reality we have is ourselves and that’s where prayer begins.

Touching our inner core

Karl A. Meninger, M.D., in an article on intimacy, talks about intimacy being a quality of a person not a rela-tionship. He says “in so far as I can be close to myself, I can be close to others; in so far as I can be intimate to myself, I can be intimate with others.” The deepest part of each one of us is within us, we are touching the God within.

God speaks to us in our deepest human experiences, feelings, desires, thoughts, or ideas. So to be aware of these experiences is to become aware of God’s work in them and then to offer ourselves through them to God. We focus on our own experience to hear God’s word in them and then are called to respond. What is God say-ing to us through this? We don’t need to solve problems, worry, plan, or control. In other words, we recognize the God within and then listen reverently to the many ways God speaks to us through our thoughts, our feelings, our children, our students, our fellow workers.

Intimacy then is not primarily a sharing with another. Intimacy starts with being intimate with myself. Intimacy is knowing the core of things myself. Then what I do flows from where I’ve been. But intimacy begins with

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71 VI • Personal Prayer in the Ignatian Tradition

getting in contact with myself. I have to be in contact with myself before I can donate, give myself or share. It is important to get in touch with our deepest human experiences because that is where God is present to us. Where we are most present, God is most present.

For example, let’s suppose the one I love the most has a dislocated shoulder. Where is that person most pres-ent. Of course, in his/her shoulder, where the injury is. The pain is intense. When I think of that person, what do I think of ? I wonder “how is the pain?” Wherever we are most present, God is most present. That is the importance of listening to where we are.

The Awareness of Self

Prayer, then, is a way of lowering our mind and heart to God present within us. In prayer we discover what we already have. We now have everything but we don’t know it and we don’t experience it. All we need is to experience what we already possess. Rollo May says, ”The more self-awareness one has, the more alive one is.” This statement is similar to the one made in 200 A.D. by Irenaeus of Lyons: “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.”

The more self-awareness we have, the more alive we become. Many of us don’t live a life fully alive. I believe this approach to prayer helps us to live a fuller and deeper life. So often people say, “I become distracted whenever

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72 Finding God in All Things

I try to pray…” My response to this is to suggest that people make this very distraction the content of their prayer. Not, again, to solve the problem, to figure it out, to dissect, but to hear God’s word in this person, situation, whatever it might be. It is usually the very subject situation, a person that I should be thinking reflecting, praying about in the presence of the Lord. So I think most of the distractions we get are really not distractions.

What counts is that we avoid running away from the center of our being. We start by becoming sensitive to what is happening within, being aware of our mood, our spirit because it is out of this spirit, this filter, that I will deal with others, that I will teach, and that I will receive all information.

How I Feel Right Now

For example, how did I feel, (not think), the moment I woke up this morning? For most of us this spirit, this mood will perdure throughout the day. Now just to be aware of this is valuable because if, for example, I am not my good self, I will be more guarded in what I say and more likely to receive what others say in a jaundiced way.

Some people find it very helpful to begin their prayer by making, not a “traditional act of the presence of God,” but an “act of the presence of self.” How am I?

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73 VI • Personal Prayer in the Ignatian Tradition

Where is my spirit? What is my mood? What is going on? Possibly, just bringing that to God will be someone’s prayer. Or by seeing if any special thought or concern surfaces. “God speaks to us most clearly through the events in our life,” says Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. And that may be where I would like to pray.

In the play Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye prays about the love of his wife, the marriage of his daughters, his own poverty, the loss of his homeland—because these were where he was present at that time. For others, prayer might center on a friend who is in some serious conflict; or it might be a student we have recently counseled, a regret we are wrestling with, my boyfriend/girlfriend, grieving a loss, or something I’m especially grateful for. Those are the situations where God is present in my life today.

People often ask “Where is God in my life?” The best response I can give is by asking “Where are you?—that’s where God is.” In this way prayer can be something very practical and steeped in where we really live. In brief, we recognize the divine within ourselves, rather than trying to engage a God out there somewhere. Because just to be is a blessing, to live is holy. Our lives are holy just as they are. If there is one thing Jesus revealed, it is that he loves what he finds. He loves us just as we are. Nothing in our life is distasteful to God.

Prayer starts where we really are because God is in us as we are. God doesn’t expect us to be any other than we are, except that there is a change that God is going to make in our lives. In a way we don’t have to knock,

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