Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Morning, October 14, 2015. Jesuit Center, Wernersville, PA.


The colors in these photos are a digital adaptation of the true colors but I like their view of what I saw this morning! 



October 14, 2015

From me, the new guy at the Jesuit Center:

Dear Friends,

This autumn of 2015 is the second time in my life that I have been the “new kid on the block” here at what is now the Jesuit Center.  My first years as a Jesuit were spent here at what was then our Jesuit Novitiate.  I remember especially the winters when we novices had plenty of snow to shovel.    This year I look forward to the winter since I am happily free at my age of that duty!  

God has been constant in so many ways but just as I have changed over fifty years, so, too, this treasured Jesuit site in Wernersville is marked most clearly by a change from Novitiate to a Center for Spiritual Growth for men and women of all ages and callings, a facility for retreats and spiritual programming of varying types, no one size fits all.

The elements of the Jesuit retreat experience known as the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius are essential to every Jesuit enterprise.   In Jesuit schools throughout the world we seek for our students the grace of self-knowledge, especially the knowledge of God’s personal love, and the grace of self-reflection as one called to respond to this love.   In that way at least my last thirty years of service in schools, a time long enough to have been amazed to watch pre-K toddlers mature even to Ignatian educators, prepares me for service at the Jesuit Center.  

The Jesuit Center continues to enrich the growth and mature commitments of thousands each year.   The health and vigor of our staff and resources allow us to plan for Ignatian retreat ministries far into the future.   Even now, for example, we already have retreats and programming in the planning stages through the next three years.  As our skills and resources flourish over these years, so, too, they will offer seamless service to the future of Christ and His people

I ask you to pray for our resident Jesuits, for our lay men and women colleagues, and for all those whom God will invite to join us in an experience of divine grace in the coming months.  


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