SUNSET OVER THE POTOMAC FROM THE FAULKNER JESUIT RETREAT HOUSE IN SOUTHERN MARYLAND

The Jesuit Superiors from our Province were there for a meeting last week. We spent some time discussing the future of the Jesuits in the United States. When I first became a Jesuit, we numbered 8100. Today we are a little less than 3000 in number. We may be growing in some other countries but here we continue to decline in numbers.

Meantime a great number of lay men and women are embracing leadership positions in our schools and parishes.

So what looks like a sunset might actually be a sunrise. We are returning to the earliest days of the Jesuits 450 years ago when the lay confraternities were the leaders of Ignatian inspired ministries. 

Here is a butterfly deep in the countryside.















Herman Davis (Gesu School, 2003), a boy who lived in the center of North Philadelphia far away from the countryside, still knew something about nature and wrote this hiaku when in sixth or seventh grade:

A butterfly lands on a leaf.
I look at it.
It looks back at me.