The third installment of Tim and Sue Muldoon's series on "Why Children Need Ignatian Spirituality" is about the power of stories. Ignatius wanted people to use all their senses when contemplating the gospels. Stories are a powerful way for...

“Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” the interviewer asked.  “I am a sinner,” the pope replied.  “It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.”  So begins the famous interview with Pope Francis, surely the...

America Magazine, along with La Civiltà  Cattolica and other Jesuit publications around the world, has published an interview with Pope Francis, well worth the read. Among other things, the pope talks about prayer. Prayer for me is always a prayer full...

This past week or so I've been following a group of Australian pilgrims as they walk the Ignatian Camino, a 340-mile pilgrimage route in northeastern Spain that starts in the town of Loyola and ends at Manresa. It's the...

Most people who make the Spiritual Exercises these days do them over the course of six or seven months. This "retreat in daily life" involves daily prayer and reflection while you are doing all the the things you usually...

Today is the feast of St. Robert Bellarmine, SJ (1542-1621).  He was a formidable intellectual--a Doctor of the Church and one of the most important leaders of the Catholic Reformation.  He was one of the most powerful men in...

The most basic thing human beings do together is communicate. Language helps form and maintain relationships. Jesus, in the scriptures, had deep conversations with his disciples, the Pharisees, sinners, and all those who approached him. Consider the intimate conversation...

Reader Nancy Walton-House nominates this week's Best Ignatian Song. It's a lovely piece: “Holy Darkness" by Dan Schutte, one of the St. Louis Jesuits. Nancy writes: This song is about desolation and consolation. I've used it very successfully with Ignatian...

Every year when school starts, I find myself setting goals that I want to work on as a mom and that we want to work on as a family. One of mine this year is continuing to teach our...

Fridays have become Wisdom Days. I will be 60 in a few weeks and after 38 years of working full-time, I asked my boss/friend/work partner if I could reduce to working four days a week. Since August 1, I...