Issue: #01262016
January 26, 2016
ST. IGNATIUS WEBPAGE
POOR BOX COLLECTION

Each weekend 
St. Ignatius specifies a Poor Box collection for a needful cause. This week's support goes to Vulnerable Families 
In Crisis. - Click here    

 
     
MASS MUSIC

Attached is the listing for the music selections
at next Sunday's
10:30 Mass.
   click here

WORLD WATCH

Weekly updates on Christian persecution around the globe. Keep a prayerful watch on what is happening with your brothers and sisters! -  click here.

CALENDAR

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The Main Thing
Video: The Main Thing

This is a re-run from last week. Due to the blizzard, we had a total of 80 people at our Masses last weekend, so we will be starting the Archbishop's Annual appeal the weekend of January 30-31.

Carissimi,

The time has come for the Archbishop's Annual Appeal. Many of you have already received an initial mailing. This Appeal is so important for who we are and have to be as a parish in downtown Baltimore.

Last year we raised over $115,000 and received back almost $47,000. 22% of our 800 households made donations.
  • This appeal helps struggling parishes in east and west Baltimore provide religious education and youth ministry.
  • A large portion supports the programs of Catholic Charities that serve the poor and the vulnerable of all races and religions.
  • The funds the parish receives support lectures, movie nights, publications we give out during the year, religious formation for our kids, training parishioners in giving the Exercises and in advocacy for social justice, Loaves and Fishes, scholarships to Cristo Rey and St. Ignatius Academy, and ministry to young adults.
Over the next two weekends we will have the opportunity to make a single contribution or sign a pledge over ten months. Our goal is $48,200, 25% of which comes back to our parish. We get 50% back for every dollar over the goal.

I ask every household to make some gift to this appeal.

Every week you see "Live the gospel, whatever it takes" on the front of the Bulletin. There is no way around it. One of the things it takes for us to live the gospel here in Baltimore is funding for all the things I've told you about.  We do it because that's who we are.

I know you will step up. You always do. That's just one of the reasons I love being your pastor.  My prayers and affection.
 
By your side, in His service, 
  
 
 

Rachel's Vineyard



The Catholic Story, Conservative vs. Progressive

by Tom Reese

Ross Douthat is a thoughtful and articulate conservative who converted to Catholicism in his teens and now writes for The New York Times. He infuriates many of my progressive friends, but I usually find his writings interesting and thought provoking even if I often disagree with him.

This month, First Things has published his 2015 talk, "A Crisis of Conservative Catholicism," which is a thoughtful address to conservative Catholics in the era of Pope Francis. He is attempting to help conservatives cope with the changes happening in the church today.
I hope I will be forgiven for entering this intraconservative conversation. Although no one today would label me a conservative, I was raised in the conservative church of the 1950s, entered a conservative Jesuit novitiate in 1962 before the Second Vatican Council, and had a very difficult time making the transition to the post-Vatican II church.
In short, I have some sympathy with what conservatives are experiencing today because I went through a similar experience in the late 1960s.

For another view, see "Ross Douthat's Erasmus Lecture" by Michael Sean Winters, which I did not see until after I wrote this column. 

Douthat begins his talk by relating the accepted conservative narrative explaining the last 50 years of Catholicism, beginning with Vatican II. The goal of the council was "to reorient Catholicism away from its nineteenth-century fortress mentality, to open a new dialogue with the modern world, to look more deeply into the Catholic past in order to prepare for the Catholic future, and to usher in an era of evangelization and renewal."

But "the hoped-for renewal was hijacked, in many cases, by those for whom renewal meant an accommodation to the spirit of the 1960s, and the transformation of the Church along liberal Protestant lines." - READ MORE.
Reeves Gallery
Bart O'Reilly "Tigh and Chnoic  (House on the Hill)" Exhibit Opens This Weekend in the Reeves Gallery

Artist Bart O'Reilly

Bart O'Reilly is a favorite at St. Ignatius. We've hosted his works before, so it is a pleasure to have the Cultural Arts Committee present his exhibit, "Tigh and Chnoic." Not only does this showing include the items in the Reeves Gallery, but an extension video to this presentation will be shown in the Chapel of Grace at noon, as Bart recites from some of his poetic works. We are sure this will be a beautiful time in the launching of "Tigh and Chnoic (House on the Hill)." We hope you can join in the presentation! Of this new work, Bart says:
 
"This new body of work made for the Reeves Gallery at St. Ignatius Church sees a return to painting after five years making interdisciplinary work. The work maintains a strong commitment to abstraction, an engagement with the reductive use of color and mark making and an interest in the allegorical associations that can arise from sparse and simple painterly techniques. As with recent video work, I am asking the viewer to slow down and engage in a contemplative way with work that is more complex than it appears at first sight.

The premise for these works was to start with the originary space of the raw unprimed canvas. Through application of acrylic paint and a limited palette of greens, golds and earth tones I wanted to improvise and see where the process took me. Being very much a thinker and reader, I try hard to empty my mind before working and approach it as a meditation and attempt to be present. I practice allowing what ever arises on a given day to just be, find material form and then let it go as it slips into a new state. I use large quantities of water with the acrylic paint and enjoy the surprise as forms melt into one another.  Although I start with no intentional content it none the less materializes through the act of working. I call this body of work Tigh an Chnoic because as a series they remind me strongly of the landscape that I grew up in, in the Dublin/Wicklow Mountains. I hope that in viewing them you allow their materiality, color and objecthood to lead you to some allegorical associations of your own."
Save the Dates - LENT MATTERS

It's hard to fathom -- but Lent is only a few precious weeks away!  In our heart of hearts we know that this holy season is an invitation to deepen our relationship with God.  Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, in his Lenten message for 2016, exhorts us all:  "Let us not waste this season of Lent, so favorable a time for conversion!"  In that spirit of wishing to make ours a holy Lent, St. Ignatius Parish offers the following programs for spiritual renewal:

Wednesday evenings of reflection - Please consider joining your fellow parishioners on Wednesday evenings at 6:00 PM in Lent for Mass, a simple supper and some spiritual nourishment in the Ignatian Tradition. 

February 24:  
The Examen Prayer 
- Seeing Our Day Through the Eyes of God
March 2:
Imaginative Prayer 
- Entering the Story of Salvation
March 9:
Lectio Divina
- Savoring the Word of Life





More Lenten Events

Bishop Maddens Prayer Walk for Peace
(Wednesday, February 17)
Bishop Madden's monthly prayer walk for peace through troubled neighborhoods is sponsored on Wednesday, February 17th by St. Ignatius Church. We will host the event through our surrounding vacinity, and have the light supper that always accompanies this event. More details to come.

Retreat in Daily Life
(March 13-19):  Watch and Pray
This week-long Ignatian retreat will afford participants the opportunity to pray daily with Holy Scripture and meet daily with a spiritual director - right here in Charm City!  More details to come.  Please consider this entirely "do-able" retreat in preparation for Holy Week and our Easter celebrations.


Finally... The Young Adult Ministry at St. Ignatius is putting together 
Lenten Faith Sharing Groups.
  

If you are interested, sign up by February 3rd! These sharing groups, held at people's homes, will discuss Richard Rohr's book "Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent" to aid reflection. You can either purchase the book on your own, or pick it up at the  Mardis Gras Party on Tuesday, February 9th at 7:00pm for $5. Sign up for a Lenten Faith Sharing Group by clicking here
Upcoming Events
 Embracing God's Gifts 
   - Tuesday, January 26
 
Cancelled due to storm cleanup.

Young Adult - Yoga 
- Thursday, January 27 
Rejuvenate your mind, body, and spirit through yoga! Young Adults are invited to a one-hour yoga session, appropriate for all levels. Yoga is an exercise that combines physical fitness with spiritual awareness, honoring the light of God in each one of us. This Yoga Session will be held in Ignatian Hall at 7 PM. 

Poets' Night on: "Mercy and its Intersections" 
- February 1, 2016
The Cultural Arts Committee of St. Ignatius Catholic Community will present Poets' Night: on "Mercy and its Intersections" on Monday, February 1 at 7:30 PM. Join Baltimore based poets and professors Steven Leyva and Celeste Doaks for an evening of poetry that will center around and engage the concept of mercy and its intersections with race, poverty, faith, identity, and family. A Q&A period will follow the reading. There is no charge for this event and a reception will follow. For an event flyer with full biographies click here.
  
READER NOTIFICATION:  

"Parish: the thought" is a publication of St. Ignatius Catholic Community, Baltimore. Each edition contains articles and news feeds that are included for awareness of current topics in our world today. The positions expressed by outside authors and news feeds are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions or positions of St. Ignatius Catholic Community or its staff.

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                                                                                                              e-zine compiled by John C. Odean