It was a few years ago. I was sitting on a dock in Idaho, and it was not quite 5:00 am. I heard the lovely noises of the stirring earth: the lapping of the water against the weathered wood; the honking of geese, flying beyond my sight; and the playful chirps and tweets of various birds I could not identify. Just to my left, I heard the splash of a fish, rising to grab the small bugs that skittered across the water.
Today we celebrate Pentecost Sunday, so named because it comes 50 days after Easter (“pente” is Greek for “fifty”). In the Jewish calendar, the Feast of Shauvot (Weeks) comes 50 days after Passover. Shauvot commemorates the giving of the Law to Moses.
Early this year, a group of St. Ignatius and St. Agnes parishioners traveled to Mexicali, Mexico, to volunteer with Border Compassion, which helps migrants on both sides of the border. While our parishioners were working at a shelter, they met Cesar and his family, who had escaped from a dangerous situation in Venezuela.
Fr. John Whitney writes, "At the end of James Joyce’s novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the young protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, prepares to leave Ireland for France, to begin a new life as a writer and poet, free of the conventions of the Irish Church and the domestic banality of his family. . . .
As we come to the end of our Children’s Faith Formation program year, Director of Faith Formation Lisa Freese is grateful for all of the many ways the people of St. Ignatius Parish contribute to the faith journeys of our children.
Fr. Greg Bonfiglio, SJ asks us to consider a poem on joy. The poem is a series of questions, each inviting the reader to pause, look deep within and ask, “Is this my experience of God?” “Do I believe this?” “What if this were the case?”