Newsletter Vol. 1 Issue 1

January 11, 2021

Welcome to the journey.

“Between the first step, which is to come close and allow yourself to be struck by what you see, and the third step, which is to act concretely to heal and repair, there is an essential intermediate stage: to discern and to choose. A time of trial is always a time of distinguishing the paths of the good that lead to the future from other paths that lead nowhere or backward. With clarity, we can better choose the first.”

-Pope Francis, Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future

How to Be an Antiracist is a 2019 nonfiction book by American author and historian Ibram X. Kendi. This series will offer participants texts, videos, and other content to reflect on in meditation.

The path we'll travel, together.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, the 16th-century Spanish soldier turned spiritual master, referred to himself in his autobiography as “the pilgrim.” He saw himself as someone on a lifelong spiritual journey of finding and engaging with God in the mess of ordinary life. Based on his own conversion story and time spent wrestling with God during a deep period of discernment in Manresa, Spain, St. Ignatius developed a retreat framework which he called the Spiritual Exercises. He took to the streets to proselytize, encouraging anyone who was willing to deepen their relationship with God to do so. Over time, he and his companions refined the Spiritual Exercises through their own contemplation and spiritual experiences. From these reflections, Ignatian spirituality was born. The Jesuit theologian Roger Haight describes Ignatian spirituality as championing “a radical commitment to this world and the people in it, on the conviction that the very actions that carry out that commitment are responses of love to the God of love that is within it all.”

The journey we are about to begin together asks us to commit to our world and the people in it, especially the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) who have long suffered under the cruel offense of racism. Our goal is to discern how we, as individuals, can collectively and concretely work toward racial justice in our everyday lives.

Before we act, however, we may consider the advice offered by the great Jesuit thinker Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who asks us to “trust in the slow work of God.”

This is not an easy task. During this short retreat from our daily lives, we will be confronting and reflecting on the insidious crime of racism that has rooted itself in our world. We seek discernment in an effort to help bring about the Kingdom of God where “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for we are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28).

As pilgrims ourselves, we may stumble, we may fall, we may want to turn around completely. In these moments, let us try to take one step forward at a time, and know that we are not alone. The Spirit, we believe, is with us on this journey.

The rhythm of the retreat is learning, followed by meditation. Twice weekly, on Mondays and Wednesdays, you will receive in your inbox a newsletter that provides both a curated, informative piece of content and meditative text for reflection. Our roadmap will be Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises, and our journey will take place over four weeks, as allotted in the Exercises. These are not weeks bound by seven days as in the calendar, but specific movements that ask for particular graces. Our journey begins today, at the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord when the Spirit descends upon Jesus and culminates at Pentecost when Jesus sends the Spirit to descend upon the Apostles.

So let us take this step together into the First Week by meditating on God’s unyielding love, pausing to reflect on what Ignatius calls the First Principle and Foundation.

This week's meditation.

Human beings are created to love God with their whole heart and soul, essentially by loving and serving their neighbors. In this way, they participate in God’s plan to bring all creation to completion and so arrive at their own ultimate fulfillment (eternal life).

    The other things on the face of the earth are created for human beings, and to help them to pursue the end for which they are created.

    From this, it follows that we ought to use these things to the extent that they help us toward that end, and free ourselves from them to the extent that they hinder us from it.

    For this reason, it is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created things, in regard to everything which is left to our free will and is not forbidden, in such a way that, for our part, we do not seek health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, a long life rather than a short one, and so on in all other matters, wanting and choosing only that which leads more to the end for which we are created.