Practical Theology Commons^™

'That All May Be One’: Incarnation, Solidarity, And Anti-Racism In Jesuit Education, Yancy Hughes Dominick

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

Jesuit colleges and universities in the US have been striving to become anti-racist. This work is often tied to mission and to a shared commitment to Jesuit and Catholic values like a faith that does justice and the dignity of all persons. At the same time, however, many Jesuit institutions frame their commitment to anti-racism in language that does not appeal to specific aspects of Jesuit tradition; likewise, mission and Jesuit identity is often described in ways that make no overt reference to anti-racism. A robust anti-racism, I argue, arises necessarily out of Jesuit Catholic thought, and fully realized Jesuit …

Bringing The Margins To The Center A New Model For Synodal Discernment In Parishes, Robert Choiniere

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

This article proposes a transformative approach to synodal discernment within parish communities by emphasizing the inclusion of marginalized voices. Traditional models often overlook these perspectives, resulting in a partial and sometimes skewed understanding of parish needs and aspirations. By bringing the margins to the center, this new model ensures a more comprehensive and authentic process of communal discernment. It outlines practical steps for implementing this inclusive approach, highlights the theological foundations supporting the participation of all community members, and shares case studies demonstrating the positive impact of this model. The article argues that true synodality can only be achieved when …

Key Elements Of A Holistic Approach To Communal Discernment That Promotes Synodality In Church And Society, Christina Kheng

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

Communal discernment is a relatively new topic in the academic and pastoral discourses of the Catholic Church. A variety of conceptions, approaches, and experiences exist to-date. Although this is to be expected and even welcomed, it has resulted in some doubt and even criticism about communal discernment. This article takes stock of the diversity of viewpoints and proposes an approach to communal discernment that would not only be consonant with a synodal church but also promote holistic flourishing in society. It elaborates four key elements which are crucial in this approach, highlighting their theological bases and offering suggestions on how …

Discernir Juntos En Grupos Pequeños, Franck Janin Sj

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

El autor partiendo de su experiencia personal ofrece una reflexión y una metodología clara sobre el discernimiento en común, obviamente inspirado todo ello en los Ejercicios Espirituales de San Ignacio de Loyola. Se constatan las dificultades, la problemática. pero también las posibilidades y potencialidades de dicha propuesta. Ciertamente el proceso es complejo. Requiere mucha generosidad y disposición por parte de todos aquellos que participan, pero tal y como concluye el autor “funciona”. Nos encontramos ante una propuesta de la espiritualidad ignaciana que puede enriquecer e iluminar los nuevos caminos de sinodalidad por los que camina la Iglesia.

Synod And The Arts Inspire Hope And Imagination, Becky Mcintyre, Beth Ford Mcnamee Ed.D., Maureen O'Connell

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

The process of journeying together, spiritual listening, discerning communally, and incorporating community art has kindled hope and imagination for Philadelphia-area university students during the ongoing, three-year global Synod on “Communion, Participation and Mission,” which Pope Francis convened in October of 2021. The SCHEAP leadership team desires to share what we have learned through our hope-filled and creative synodal process so that others may cultivate the protagonism of college students in imagining the future of the Church through synodal practices of spiritual listening, relationship-building, and creative communal discernment.

The Circle Of Insight: A Process For Deepening Ignatian Imagination, And Inviting Hope, Anthony Nicotera

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

Former Jesuit, educator, scholar, clinical social worker, peace and justice activist and advocate, and co-director of Seton Hall University’s Catholic Social Thought (CST) in Action Academy and NYU’s Post-Master’s Certificate Program in Spirituality and Social Work, Dr. Anthony Nicotera shares his Circle of Insight framework as a tool for deepening Ignatian imagination and inviting hope. The Circle of Insight’s See, Reflect, Act process, inspired by CST, and curated and created by Dr. Nicotera over twenty-five years of spiritual, social justice, and social work advocacy and practice, including teaching social justice courses and engaging in nonviolent civil resistance, builds on Ignatian …

An Examination Of Alternative Break Trips And Whiteness In Jesuit Higher Education, Susan Haarman, Annie Selak

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

Alternative break trips punctuate life on Jesuit college campuses, acting as experiences of conversion and putting faith into action. The Universal Apostolic Preferences of “walking with the excluded” and “accompanying the youth” come together in the practice of alternative break programs. However, these trips often operate through the position of whiteness. In this paper, we examine alternative service trips through the lens of whiteness. Too often, predominately white groups insert themselves into non-white contexts and assert themselves as owners of the space. Practices of white university students instrumentalizing experiences of service as agents in their own conversion displace the agency …

Seeing With New Eyes: Costa Rican Pilgrimage As Transformation, Elizabeth C. Reilly, Katherine Brown

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

In summer 2019, eleven faculty and staff members from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California embarked on an immersion study trip to Costa Rica. An integral part of the university’s commitment to mission and identity, it is one of a number of opportunities for its members to explore the mission and its Jesuit identity within a global context. Framed around the Ignatian principle of pilgrimage, this article describes the focus and goals for the study trip, pre-trip preparations, and the trip itself. We highlight some of the activities in which faculty and staff participated and summarize their reflections of …

Immersion Pedagogy For Ignatian Leadership: The Creighton Haddix Dean’S Fellows, Thomas M. Kelly, Jennifer Moss Breen

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

There are times and places where learning can be heightened. The proliferation of high-impact pedagogies attests to this. International immersions, done with intentionality, reflection, and follow-up, can be times and places where theories and concepts move from the abstract to the real. Immersion experiences in poor and marginalized communities are also where Ignatian leadership can be understood more profoundly, largely because of the values and commitments of Ignatius of Loyola and the spirituality that emerged from his life.

Ignatian Leadership And The Contemporary Leadership Landscape An Exercise In Counter-Cultural Engagement, Thomas M. Kelly, Jennifer Moss Breen

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

This paper is written as a dialogue between two faculty members and scholars working within a Jesuit institution. Through their shared interest in leadership, especially an interest in Ignatian Leadership, the following dialogue has emerged. Kelly works in our institution as a theologian and former director of academic service-learning, and Moss-Breen works in the graduate school directing an interdisciplinary leadership EdD program. Their backgrounds and fields are different, but their interest in the leadership of Ignatius is a common thread between them. Kelly starts the conversation and Moss Breen responds in kind.

Tolkien’S Allegory: Using Peter Jackson’S Vision Of Fellowship To Illuminate Male Adolescent Catholic Education, Adam P. Zoeller, Thomas E. Malewitz Ph.D.

Journal of Catholic Education

With many of the Catholic student population disengaged from regular ritual experiences their working vocabulary of the prayers and knowledge of the Church is limited. A beneficial bridge for many of these disconnected students, specifically male adolescents has been the use of storytelling in connection to Catholic themes to lay the foundations of ritual and deeper concepts through a more familiar setting. Through media literary, multi-modal instruction and Scripture exegesis adolescents can begin to recognize, understand, and feel a connection with the severity of the sacrifice of the Apostles in following Jesus of Nazareth. This article will offer some insights …

The Phd Dissertation As Camino, Mark Slatter

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

This article identifies some of the psychological, ethical, and spiritual undertows of the dissertation process in view of the following themes: the dissertation as discipleship and Christian vocation, psychological healing and “Shadow work”, establishing a healthy work asceticism, strategic and spiritual facets to writing, and concluding remarks on research as self-appropriation for theological renewal. Is there more at stake then getting through the defense?

Another Ignatian History: Including Women In The Story Of Jesuit Mission, Julia A. Dowd

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

Orientation programs at Jesuit universities often include a review of the life of Ignatius. What is missing from the official history of Ignatius are the stories of the women with whom he lived and worked who contributed financially, politically, and emotionally to Ignatius’ formation and that of the early Jesuits. What is also missing is a critical feminist analysis of the historical context out of which Ignatius, the Spiritual Exercises and the Society of Jesus were born. In this article, I argue that women provided essential scaffolding to bolster Ignatius’ identity and vocation, and likewise to contribute to the early …

The Emergence Of A Lay Esprit De Corps: Inspirations, Tensions, Horizons, Christopher Pramuk

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

Likening the Ignatian tradition as embodied at Jesuit universities to a family photo album with many pages yet to be added, the author locates the “heart” of the Ignatian sensibility in the movements of freedom and spirit (inspiration) in the life of the community. There are no fixed entry points or criteria of inclusion and exclusion for Ignatian lay educators save a desire to share in the questions proper to all the university disciplines that pull us toward a horizon beyond ourselves. Nevertheless a number of creative tensions endemic to Jesuit apostolic life from the beginning and also new challenges …

Introduction To The Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm: An Online Course For Librarians, Eric Kowalik, Leatha Miles-Edmonson, Vicki Rosen

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

This article discusses the development and delivery of a three-week asynchronous online course on Jesuit history, education, and the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP) for librarians working in Association of Jesuit Colleges and University (AJCU) institutions. Created by two instruction librarians and one instructional designer from a pair of AJCU institutions, the course explores incorporating the IPP -- a contemplative learning model -- into a one-shot, single class library instruction session. Included is a practical description of the development, revision, marketing, and success of the online course, along with a list of the class contents. Over three course offerings in 2017 …

Teaching Magis At College: Meaning, Mission, And Moral Responsibility, Marcus Mescher

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

Jesuit colleges and universities highlight terms like magis to accentuate the specific charism of Jesuit education. But when these words and phrases are separated from their context in Ignatian spirituality and the mission of the Society of Jesus, they risk becoming banal jargon. When magis is properly understood and effectively taught, it provides a fundamental horizon of meaning, calls everyone to partner in the mission of Jesuit education, and empowers faculty, staff, and students to embrace moral responsibility in a world marked by sin and suffering. In the praxis of teaching magis, contemplation, imagination, and vocation discernment are three …

Compassion: A Way To Live In Community, Michael Lee Spangle, Richard Marsceau

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

Beginning with a discussion about the meaning of compassion and its Judaic and Christian foundations, this article provides an understanding of how compassion builds and sustains community. It includes a model of the compassion process, a discussion of the barriers that prevent compassion from being expressed more freely, and examples about where compassion may need greater expression in our world

Book Review: Francis Of Rome & Francis Of Assisi: A New Spring In The Church, Ronald R. O'Dwyer S.J.

Journal of Catholic Education

Book review of Francis of Rome & Francis of Assisi: A New Spring in the Church (2014), by Leonardo Boff.

Speak English, Pray In Spanish: Forming Cultural Bridges Between Hispanic Teens And Parents, Dulce Flores

LMU Theses and Dissertations

Within Hispanic families there is a growing gap – a disconnection between Hispanic immigrants and their U.S. born and raised children. The cultural gap formed between these two groups has caused many U.S. Hispanic teens to disconnect from “Catholic” as a marker of identity. In order to help Hispanic teens establish a Catholic identity, the local church community needs to help families bridge the gap between teens, parents, and the Church itself. Through the exploration of mestizaje and the incorporation of lo cotidiano and accompaniment in catequesis familiar, parents in conjunction with the Church community can help engage teens in …

To Speak The Word Of God With Our Hands For Those Who Hear With Their Eyes, Miriam Nancy Lopez

LMU Theses and Dissertations

Deaf people often have been outsiders in a hearing Church. Ninety-five percent of Deaf people are born to hearing parents. This is a Community that is doubly marginalized for they are Latino/as and Deaf. Therefore, I will present the needs of Deaf Latino/a Catholics in order for the Church to recognize them as a Community of faith. First, I present how language impacts the development of culture and identity. Second, how this community of Deaf Latino/as is trying to make sense of their identity as they are being raised in the United States. Finally, I present a plan to bridge …

A Response To Poverty, Colleen R. Murray

LMU Theses and Dissertations

Current social norms support statistics that reflect the uneven distribution of economic resources within the United States. Local Catholic parishes, including its parishioners, have a responsibility to address the needs of the poor by participating in outreach to others. This is true within upper-income parishes where access to a variety of resources could provide support to those with far fewer resources. Church tradition provides the means for understanding why care for the poor is a priority and responsibility in the life of a parish. The belief of “imago Dei” forms a basis of establishing that human life has …

Catholic Labor Education And The Association Of Catholic Trade Unionists. Instructing Workers To Christianize The Workplace, Paul Lubienecki Ph.D.

Journal of Catholic Education

This article analyzes the effect of the American Catholic Church, through its program of specialized labor education, on the growth and development of organized labor in the twentieth century. With the proclamation of Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, he requested that the Church complete the work began by Pope Leo XIII in 1891 with his landmark social encyclical Rerum Novarum.

However, the American interpretation and utilization of the social encyclicals varied from their intended European meaning. The cumulative effect of these two encyclicals was support for the workers’ rights to organize and create Christian labor associations. From …

Seeking Peace, Lmu Center For Ignatian Spirituality

Books

No abstract provided.

The Joy Of Feeling Close To God: The Practice Of Prayer And The Work Of Accompaniment, Douglas E. Christie

Theological Studies Faculty Works

What does it mean to pray in response to the most acute challenges of everyday historical existence? When prayer is conceived of primarily as a personal, deeply interiorized expression of the soul’s longing to communicate with a transcendent God, it can be difficult to imagine what it might mean to incorporate the embodied, communal, historically mediated dimensions of human experience into the broader understanding about what it means to pray. The challenge is to find a way of understanding and articulating how the powerful and supple language of prayer comes to expression in and through the concrete, historically mediated forms …

Practicing Paradise: Contemplative Awareness And Ecological Renewal, Douglas E. Christie

Theological Studies Faculty Works

What would it mean for Christians to take seriously the idea that we are called to practice paradise, to inhabit the world as if “everything is in fact paradise”? In the Christian contemplative tradition, one finds recurring attention to the notion that paradise is somehow knowable, graspable, and inhabitable in this present reality, and that this experience of paradise can be incorporated into a meaningful spiritual practice. This essay asks whether, in a moment of deepening ecological degradation, the contemplative practice of paradise might help us learn again how to imagine the world as whole, inhabit it with tenderness and …

Contemplativus Simul In Actione, Lmu Center For Ignatian Spirituality

Books

No abstract provided.

Place-Making As Contemplative Practice, Douglas E. Christie

Theological Studies Faculty Works

In an age of chronic and widespread displacement, the work of place-making—the discovery and cultivation of a sense of place—has gained new significance and meaning. In this essay, I propose to consider how place-making can be understood as a form of contemplative practice. Anthropologist Keith Basso describes place-making as a work of “retrospective world-building” that enables a person or community to see a place in all its richness and complexity and hold that place in the imagination. Following the work of photographer Robert Adams, I want to suggest that what makes this work contemplative in character is the integration and …