Would Ignatius spend a lot of time on Twitter and Facebook if he was around today?  Perhaps not, says Lisa Kelly:

With all our technology we truly have the capacity to live our lives in almost constant contact with others virtually anywhere.  So really, I don’t ever have to say goodbye.  “We” can live on via email forever. I wonder what Ignatius would say about trying to do so.

I think he would say that we need to first acknowledge the gift that we have in our friendship. Here and now.  I don’t know what the future holds for either of us so let me take a moment, here and now, to thank you for the gift you have been to me. Name it. Celebrate it. Wallow in it for just bit.

Then I think he would say, regarding staying in contact, we ought to use technology in as much as it helps us on our end to respond to God’s love, and rid ourselves of it so far as it hinders us in responding to God’s love.  If by staying in contact with me, you are not being fully present to those in your daily life now, you will be missing out on the presence of God in them, and they will miss out on experiencing it in you—and I know it is so fully present in you.  You need to be fully present there in this next phase of your life.  That is where God needs of you. That is what I want for you.. . .

“We” don’t have to live on via email or texting or Facebook. “We” live on in our Oneness with Christ. And in that, we will never lose contact.

Read the whole thing.

Yesterday the Ignatian Spirituality page on Facebook passed a milestone when it received its 10,000th “like.”  That’s a nice big round number–something to celebrate.  God is found in all things.  In the wired up, interconnected, always-on digital world of the 21st century, the Ignatian Spirituality Facebook page is a place where lots of people are finding God.  Surf over there and take a look, if you haven’t already.

The page is closely linked to IgnatianSpirituality.com.  The dotMagis posts appear there, as do the Picturing God images.  To mark this occasion, we’ve collected some of the most popular Facebook-dotMagis posts.  It’s called IgnatianSpirituality.com Reflections,  and it’s yours free.

UPDATE: The 10,000th person to “like” the Facebook page has been identified.  She is Mary Kate McAdams, a student at Boston College.  She is in a class taught by Tim Muldoon, one of our dotMagis bloggers.

Our second Lunchtime Examen goes live today.  This is a guided prayer, along with an explanation of some facet of the Ignatian examen.  The question today is Where can I find God? A new Lunchtime Examen will be posted every Wednesday in Lent.

We also just went live with our second presentation in the Ignatian Way series. This one is an overview of Ignatian spirituality.

If you haven’t given up Facebook for Lent, consider using it as a Lenten spiritual practice.  The Wisconsin Jesuits have some ideas.

During December 2010, I visited Loyola Press to talk with the marketing and sales team about why, when and how to use social media. As part of my preparation, I hunkered down to take a more rigorous look at the Virtual Abbey, an online community offering the Daily Office via Twitter.  This virtual monastery seems to engage new and active participants on a weekly basis.

People are hungry for prayer as well as engagement in community.  Yearning to seek and find, they’re knocking on virtual doors that open into real experiences of faith lived out in the secular world.  The Virtual Abbey uses online technologies and tools to provide prayer, as well as community, for people of faith–and those who yearn to be.

My experience with the Virtual Abbey plus participating in an ongoing conversation about what it means to be “church” these days, inspired me to create this contemporary take on Saint Teresa of Avila’s well-known prayer, Christ Has No Body. For your consideration and contemplation:

I was struck by the post here last week “Solitude in a World of iPad Apps” about an article by Fr. Jim Martin, SJ.  On the day it was posted here, I was ending an 8 day silent retreat at the Jesuit Retreat House in Colorado.  When I first arrived on retreat, I followed my usual routine and left my muted phone plugged in my room so I could check in with my husband and be available in case my children left me a message (with the OK of my spiritual director).   But on the first day of retreat, I casually picked up my “new and improved” phone – the one that now brings me email from two accounts as well as the Facebook postings updated by my nieces and nephews constantly.  It was seductively easy to move from checking email to checking Facebook postings.  I also checked the weather for home and for Colorado.   All in silence, of course.

I looked up and was unnerved to realize I had just spent 35 minutes on my cell phone.  I knew this was not the way I wanted to live my retreat for the next 8 days, so I unplugged and tucked my phone away in a drawer, bringing it out only at night for a phone call home.

Jim Martin wrote that “without some inner silence, it becomes harder to listen to God’s voice within.”  Even in a silent retreat house, it took me several days to quiet the constant chatter in my head: the ideas for our website at work, the things I want to pack for a family vacation, daydreams of our daughter’s upcoming wedding.  But as that inner silence seeped into my soul in those days, undistracted by cell phone and internet, I began to hear the quiet voice of God.

I need to clear the clutter of my everyday life sometimes, to make room for God to work in me.  The silence of a retreat helps me hear God’s invitation to open my heart and surrender my soul in a deeper way.  It helps me to untangle myself from the many responsibilities, tasks and even relationships that can keep me from being free enough to respond to God with my whole heart.

When I return home, I always pledge, with mixed success, to slow my life down and pay attention more to the world around me.  But the most powerful way for me to maintain my contact with God and with the graces of my retreat is by getting up before anyone else in the house to sit in silence with God.  Whether it is five minutes in the early morning darkness before work or a more leisurely time on a weekend morning, I offer myself and my day to God and ask to find the path being set before me.

God invites us, “Come and rest in me.”  No matter how hectic our lives have gotten, it’s an invitation that is always open to us.

I assume that everyone reading this is immersed in the “always on” world of the web, blogs, iPods, email, smart phones, iPads, and other devices. Pay heed to Fr. Jim Martin’s plea to disconnect every once in a while:

Sometimes it seems as if we can no longer stand to be alone or be “out of touch.” People use Facebook, cell phones, and text messages as a way of staying in touch with friends — an admirable goal. Many websites, apps, and gadgets help us to draw closer together — even if it’s a virtual closeness.

But without some inner silence, it becomes harder to listen to God’s voice within. It is more difficult to hear the “small, still” sound, as the First Book of Kings described God’s voice. If your eyes are glued to your iPad and your ears stopped up by your iPod, it’s hard to hear what might be going on inside you. Cutting back on these gadgets, not answering every single e-mail and phone call right away, may be necessary for a measure of calm.

Read the whole thing.

Yesterday was the first birthday of our sister Ignatian Spiritualty page on Facebook.  There’s a large, lively and growing community over there.  It has 6334 fans (as of 11 p.m. EDT last night) and about 100 new fans join every week.  Some other interesting facts about the Facebook page:

• Fans are from 38 countries, with the US first on the list and the Philippines second.
• The top six cities are Jakarta, Quezon City, Lisbon, Sydney, Manila, and Naga.
• 29 percent of fans are aged 25-34 and 21 percent are over 45.

To celebrate, Loyola Press is offering a free look at one of its most interesting books.

Sometime over the weekend, the Ignatian Spirituality page at Facebook signed up its 5000th fan.   The Ignatian community on Facebook is large and lively.  Many of the dotMagis blog posts appear there too, and they often spark lively comments.  Consider becoming a fan if you’re not one already.

The new Ignatian Spirituality page on Facebook reached a milestone this week when its fan count went over 1000. This morning it’s 1109 fans and counting. Take a look, and become a fan if you like what you see.

The page, like this web site, is a service of Loyola Press. But it really belongs to its fans and friends. Some spirited discussion is going on there. Take a look at the fans who object to the idea of taking a poll to choose the most influential modern Jesuit. Says one:

I have to say I find this question disordered; it feels quite contrary to the spirit of Ignatius. Is the question itself relevant, except to make us as Jesuits or companions of Jesuits more proud (in the manner Ignatius condemns)? Is it not a judgment based on the values of the world and not those of Christ? Comparisons in this mode are odious, failing to see that not our influence but our total submission to God’s will–as fools for Christ’s sake–is what matters. And that submission suffers no comparison and seeks no poll, but is as fully true for the obscure as the famous, who are nothing–buthave become everything by Christ who loves them.

He died in 1984, after all. But here it is. The great Jesuit theologian has 50 friends. I sent a friend request. Teilhard de Chardin has a Facebook page too, but, sadly, Teilhard has no friends. Or at least he didn’t when I wrote this. I sent him a friend request too. But I haven’t heard from either Karl or Teilhard.

Karl and Teilhard must be keeping track of social media from heaven. Maybe they’ve listened to Pope Benedict, who had some warm if rather stiffly written praise of social media in his letter for the 43rd World Day of Communications: “The concept of friendship has enjoyed a renewed prominence in the vocabulary of the new digital social networks that have emerged in the last few years.” Indeed, Benedict is a Facebook star with thousands of fans.

You have lots of choices if you’re looking for an Ignatian Facebook group.  Jesuits are well represented too.