The Jesuit Guide: Part One

Today I finished James Martin's The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything. It was such an amazing book. I will soon start a series on some of my favorite parts. But first...dinner!

This Interview is Over...

Recently, Fr. James Martin, SJ was on the Colbert Report to talk about social justice. "When I feed the poor they call me a saint, when I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist"

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. Holy Thursday. The celebration of the Last Supper. This year I sang at the 7:30 mass. It was probably one of the most powerful moments of my life. Precessing into the church, all singing, I was overpowered by the sense of God in my life. Ubi caritas etamor, Deus ibi est. Where charity and love are, God is there. Tonight is a reminder of our calling as humans, “Mandatum novum do vobis…a new commandment I give you, love one another as I have loved you.” Sitting in the darkened church, surrounded by the silence, I contemplated what I am called to in life. (I still have no idea, in case you care.) And how we are called to love each other. I found it really interesting how the age old message of love and charity continues to this day, how through the ages people still preach the same thing. All our technology and 'advancement' has not changed our essential humanity. We are still the same people who, many years ago, gathered around that table, broke bread and shared wine, and celebrated that paschal feast. We are called to spread love throughout the world today. And so I challenge you today to love more deeply.

The image is of Jesus washing his disciple's feet after the Last Supper.
Picture is from Jim McDermott, SJ

Hell Week to Holy Week

So the play is over! It was amazing, but I'm glad it's done. I can finally sleep! This year however, I have the interesting experience of going straight from Hell Week to Holy Week. In all honesty, there isn't much difference between the two. Hell Week means no sleep, no real food, and no homework done. It is the longest week of the year for the entire cast and crew, but it is so much fun at the end. Holy Week is the same thing, except instead of putting on a show at the end, there is Easter! Well, I'm going back to sleep. Talk to you later!

Enough Already

So here's the story: We had a tech director (hired 2 months late) who resigned. So we hired a new one (who should have been hired in the first place) and now have less than 6 days before our first show. So I hope you will all be understanding with me when I say; I won't be able to write much of anything for the next week. So here's another picture, try to figure out what it is!

So Anyway...

So anyway...I have been doing a lot for school recently, and haven't had time to do much writing. So I'm just going to throw out a few snippets:

She was once beautiful, she was once wonderful. She did not know how. She did not know why. But she was. And she used this. She was able to be who she aspired to be: she became herself. She became free.

The levels of hierarchy were very strict within the ecclesiastical system, with no person ever being in doubt about their relationship to everyone else within the system. This was a very effective means of maintaining control within a structure. In the power vacuum after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Church was the only centralized form of government left in Europe. In many areas the local bishop was the final word when it came to all issues, spiritual and temporal.

I knelt before the altar, head bowed, mind closed to the world. I waited all night, preparing myself for the final trial, the moment. As the sun began to spill through the stained glass, I rose and took my place beside the altar. There I sat until he came in. He too knelt before the Lord, He too bowed His head, and he too closed His mind to the world. He then rose, His robes billowing around his boots. He strides towards me, eyes blazing fire, and places His sword in His attendants outstretched hands. He looks down upon me, towering above me. He knows...

The picture is one of mine, of the coast of Greece.

This Day Shall Gentle His Condition

Remember when you had to memorize something in high school? Well I do. Recently I joined the speech competition, and so now I have the St. Crispin's Day Speech running through my head at all hours of the day. It has been driving my mom crazy. When you spend so much time with a text, you tend to gain a deeper understanding of it. Everyone has heard of the famous line We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. But of all the lines of the speech, I find This day shall gentle his condition to be much more powerful. For it addresses one of the big ideas of Lent, as well as life in general. The things we as humans do, our experiences, have a profound impact on our lives. They change us in ways we can't even see. Some of them, like a battle or a marriage, are things we can easily identify as life-changing. But other things, such as meeting someone or even reading a book, are harder to see and so we must watch for them more carefully.


This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian":
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

The Birthplace of Democracy

I have never spent so much time sitting down. The flight to Athens is long and sleepless and I reveled in the opportunity to stretch my legs. The rest of the group is similarly unwinding. Gathering up our assorted luggage, we walk through a set of large glass doors and turned to find our tour guide Kate smiling down on us. She beckons us closer and begins to explain what awaits us in the Birthplace of Democracy.

The bus ride into the city is spectacular. Athens built a new airport when they hosted the 2004 Olympics, Kate explains to us. We listen intently, soaking in her words as we watch the sprawling suburbs flash by. The tightly packed houses go on for miles, seemingly thousands of buildings squeezed between the high mountains on our left and the sea on our right. As we drive downtown, all around I see ancient ruins and modern buildings. It is truly awe-inspiring the way the Greeks live around these ruins, Kate is saying. They just build up the new and live among them.

The bus is too big to pull up to the hotel. Our driver pulls up to the curb, about a block away. We hop out, and start piling up our bags along the side of the road. When everyone has their luggage, we trudge to the hotel. It is a wilting day and we are exhausted, so when our chaperones instruct us that we have only thirty minutes to put our things away, we are aghast, yet we mount the stairs with grim determination. A few brave souls wait for the elevator, but when it finally descends down they find it will only fit two people. As I reach my floor, six laughing faces tumble out to greet me. I can’t help wondering how they all fit, but I am too anxious to see my room to truly care. As Nick, Eli, and myself pull up in front of our door, we put down our heavy bags and turn the knob. As the door swings wide, we can’t help notice how small the room is. There are two beds, and one cot, and about three feet of walking space. While we quickly unpack, we mutually decide to spend as little time in the room as possible.

The walk up to the Acropolis is very short. We are staying at the bottom of the hill and Kate assembles us right at the base of a cobbled path leading up to the Pantheon. We all gather close together. I take the chance to look around the group, and what a diverse group we are. People of all ages, high school freshmen to thirty-somethings. Together we walk up to the highest point in Athens: It is the place where democracy was born, where Athenians time after time held their last stands. As we crest the hill, there are actually two Acropoli, one smaller and the true Acropolis. Lucky for us, we only climbed to the smaller one. Even with that, some people are sweating. There is a large outcropping of rock on that hill and we all scramble up it to get a view of this city that we have heard so much about. For me the view was of more than just a city.