Something to think about | I hold that every poor man, every vagrant, every beggar is Christ carrying his cross. And as Christ, we must love and help him. We must treat him as a brother, a human being like ourselves. If we were to start a campaign of love for the poor and homeless, we would, in a short time, do away with depressing scenes of begging, children sleeping in doorways and women with babies in their arms fainting in our streets.

There are many sufferings to heal. Christ stumbles through our streets in the person of so many poor who are hungry, thrown out of their miserable lodgings because of sickness and destitution. Christ has no home!  And we who have the good fortune to have one and have food to satisfy our hunger, what are we doing about it?

St. Alberto Hurtado, SJ

Something to think about | Much of the reflection in the Exercises is geared to an effort to share the vision of Jesus and understand what he was and is trying to do in the world and its history.

The meditations are very clear in their implication that the task that Jesus received from God is not to save souls out of the world, but to save the world, to refocus and reintegrate all creation by drawing the human race back into its proper relationship with God—and therefore proper relationships within the human race and all the created universe.

Such a perspective judges everything in terms of what we can know of the divinely intended outcomes. Such a vision leads to radical judgments about the way we are conducting the affairs of human society now. Such a vision certainly does not allow one to take for granted wars; poverty; famines; injustices; marginalization of ethnic, racial, linguistic, or economic groups; or other unnecessary sufferings or deprivations.

One cannot simply say that this is how it is and how it will always be because the world is like that—in the context of the Exercises, that is plainly untrue. It is untrue because God does not intend that kind of arrangement of human society in which so many are excluded. These sufferings are not divinely made but humanly made. God has not abandoned creation but reaches out at all times and to all peoples with possibilities and grace for redemption—not, according to the gospels, a redemption confined to life beyond death, but redemption of all aspects of human life in this world which we help to shape for good or for ill.

Monika Hellwig
An Ignatian Spirituality Reader

Everyone with an interest in Ignatian social ministries in the U.S. should spend some time with “Iggy”–a fascinating database of information about Ignatian-inspired direct service ministries, research projects, and social outreach programs.  The number of projects and their scope is astounding.  Hundreds of ministries and people are listed.  Users can search by type of project, issues, and location.  Want to volunteer?  Click on your state for a list of programs.  Looking for other people with similar interests?  Search by issue and interest group.

Iggy is maintained by the Jesuit Conference of the US, which wants the database to cover everything.

Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated 30 years ago today, gunned down while saying Mass.  Romero denounced human rights violations during the Salvadoran civil war, and strongly supported the poor.  He is a martyr in the struggle for justice.  Days before his death he said to a friend “You can tell the people that if they succeed in killing me, that I forgive and bless those who do it. Hopefully, they will realize they are wasting their time. A bishop will die, but the church of God, which is the people, will never perish.”

Go to U. S. Catholic’s Romero page for links to information about him.  He’s been memorialized in a movie, and you can find many videos about him.  I’m stirred by this archival footage.  If you can’t see the video, click here.

Every year some 100,000 undocumented minors are picked up by the U.S. Border Patrol as they try to enter the United States. Posada is a 55-minute documentary film that tells the story of three who stayed. The film was written, produced, and directed by Mark McGregor, SJ, who teaches film at Gonzaga University. He connects the journeys of the three youths to the annual Mexican “Posada” Christmas procession which depicts Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter before Jesus’ birth.

The film is part of the Posada Project which is promoting local posadas this Christmas to support immigration reform. Here is the trailer for the film.

A recent website JesuitSocialMinistry.org is a comprehensive listing of Jesuit programs in the social apostolate.  Programs are classified into three categories:  Direct Service, Justice Research and Education, and Advocacy/Social Change/Empowerment.  A nifty feature displays all these programs on a map.  The site includes a page of links to documents underlying the Jesuit social apostolate, including Pedro Arrupe’s famous 1973 speech Men for Others.”