As the academic year winds down, my early wishes for a relaxing and restful summer. Summer for JSEA is usually a busy time and this summer is certainly no exception. Five hundred plus Ignatian educators will gather for the JSEA Colloquium on Ignatian Education, “Jesuit Mission: Sent to the Frontiers,” at Santa Clara the third [...]

Joseph Carver, S.J. Seattle Prep Zzzzst, da-da-dading, beep, a flash, vvvvbirate, a blinking light. iPhones, Blackberries, Mp3 players, we are all plugged in. We carry two or three chargers when we travel, we have phones that are cameras, and cameras that play music. Txt msgs are abbrvted, greetings short and responses instant and often un-reflected. It [...]

Three of the current members of the JSEA Board of Directors will complete their terms this academic year. JSEA thanks Meg Florentine, PASE for the New England Province, Dave Laughlin, St. Louis University High School and Vice Chair, and Adria Renke, Brophy College Preparatory for the dedicated service during their six years as members of [...]

The Call of the King is a meditation in the Spiritual Exercises that invites us to join Christ in his work of healing the world.  Christ is a king leading an army, but he’s a leader who works alongside his troops.  He says, “I want to overcome all diseases, all poverty, all ignorance, all oppression [...]

Something to think about | Often we tell ourselves, or we are told, in an effort to quell our desires, to look at all the good we already have.  We can be made to feel guilty and ungrateful for desiring what we want.  But if we do suppress our desires without being satisfied that God [...]

One of my favorite characters in fiction is Konstantin Dmitrich Levin in Leo Tolstoy’s great novel Anna Karenina.  Levin is an intelligent young aristocrat with a powerful conscience and a strong thirst for truth.  He abandons the Orthodox Christianity of his childhood and seeks an answer to the meaning of life.  He finds none.  For [...]

Could you live your everyday life in just six pieces of clothing?  It is the question behind a website called “Six Items or Less.” In the trans-Atlantic experiment, people around the world volunteered to choose six items of clothing and wear only those six things for a month, at work and at home.  That’s it.  [...]

Since I no longer believe in coincidence, I’m wondering what God is inviting me to see, not only in the sudden spate of movies glorifying food, but because this morning’s kitchen adventure soon became an especially contemplative exercise. I’ve been cooking — and eating  — for many years. I was raised by foodies who entered [...]