Features
OTTAWA - Many people find that getting away for a retreat is impossible due to time, money or family reasons. Even finding a free weekend can be difficult in our busy lives.
Aside from a day at my church during Advent and Lent, where parishioners gather for lectures, quiet time and a silent meal, I haven’t attended a formal retreat in more than a decade.
Instead, I have discovered the simplest, most flexible way for me to make a retreat is to find my way to the nearest adoration chapel and stay there for an hour or two. Over the past year, I have done this frequently. I have also been blessed with the grace to pray three novenas that included a minimum of an hour of adoration for every one of the nine days.
Community building and vulnerability
By Jeremy Keong, Catholic Register SpecialVANCOUVER - Every May, the graduating class of St. Thomas Aquinas Regional Secondary School in North Vancouver, B.C., attends a three-day retreat organized and facilitated by school staff and alumni. My Grade 12 retreat four years ago is one of my fondest memories of high school. So it was a blessing this past May to be invited to help lead the 2011 class in this spiritual exercise.
The objective of the retreat, held at Camp Stillwood (about a two-hour drive from Vancouver), is to help students open up to God and to each other. Students begin from varying levels of spirituality; we had to ensure they understood that.
The retreat had all the activities that a large-scale retreat should have: a morning of team building exercises and games, a campfire, free time and an evening devoted to hilarious skits (making fun of teachers is encouraged). As a leader, I was responsible for leading some of these games, leading small group discussions and helping lead worship.
Retreats program sets young adults’ ‘Hearts on Fire’
By Sara Angle, Catholic News ServiceThe first thing Fr. Phil Hurley makes clear is that when he is speaking about Hearts on Fire he is not referring to a popular line of engagement rings.
“This is not the world’s most perfectly cut diamond,” he jokes.
The priest is the national youth and young adult director of the Apostleship of Prayer, a Jesuit association leading the Hearts on Fire retreats. The retreats are for young adults ages 18-39, married or single, based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and the spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer.
“It’s a crucial time for people in their lives,” Hurley told Catholic News Service. “They are at a place in their life that they can make decisions soon and take action on it right away and make a big difference.”
Does Super Mario go to Mass? Catholic gamers and the video game industry
By Adam Shaw, Catholic News ServiceNEW YORK - Is it possible to be a faithful Catholic and a video gamer?
That's a question all Catholic gaming enthusiasts -- including the young adults at whom many of the industry's offerings are primarily targeted -- must ask themselves as this medium continues to develop and expand its influence over contemporary society.
Once upon a time, back in the 1980s and early 1990s, classic games such as "Pac-Man" and "Super Mario Bros." raised few if any moral issues. So youthful Catholics could casually -- and comfortably -- pick up whatever new release was available at the local store. There was no need for them to worry that the sensitivities of their faith would be assaulted or that troublesome opinions would be aggressively foisted on them by game developers.
Church and state: Why can't they be friends?
By Carol Glatz, Catholic News ServiceVATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI has made the dangers of secularism a major theme of his pontificate.
And it's a battle both sides take seriously.
On the one hand, the pope warns that societies without the moorings of Christian values will be lost at sea, unaware of or indifferent to the truth that anchors humanity to justice, peace, respect and solidarity.
On the other side are groups and individuals that hold so tightly to the democratic tenet of church-state separation, they don't want any voice tied to religion to be let loose onto the public square.
Jesuits are a key part of our history
By Catholic Register EditorialFour hundred years ago a pair of brave, but no doubt anxious, French Jesuit missionaries landed at Port Royal in Acadia on the shores of the Bay of Fundy. In 1611 the small fort was a gateway to the vast, unexplored territory called New France.
Over the decades that followed, the Jesuits moved steadily inland and, while fulfilling their mission as evangelists, they also became explorers, cartographers, educators, chroniclers and pastors. More so than any other religious order, the Jesuits not only witnessed the birth of Canada, they shaped significant parts of its history.
To commemorate the 400th anniversary of their arrival to the “New World” and to celebrate their many spiritual and temporal contributions to Canada, The Catholic Register has published this 36-page homage to the Jesuit priests and brothers whose courage brought them to our shores in 1611 and whose faith and commitment to service has entwined them in the fabric of Canadian life to this day.
We originally envisioned this tribute as a 12-page section. But it tripled in size over the summer due to an outpouring of support from the many organizations on these pages that wanted to extend their own congratulations in an advertisement. As a result, when the special section is combined with our weekly 20-page paper, the 56-page Catholic Register you are holding is probably the largest we’ve ever published.
The story of the Jesuit martyrs is an important part of the Canadian education curriculum. Therefore, in addition to being delivered to subscriber homes, an additional 14,000 copies of the Jesuit section have been printed for distribution to more than 1,000 Catholic elementary and high schools in Ontario at the expense of The Register.
This 400-year milestone is worthy of celebration. We hope you enjoy it.
Jim O’Leary
Publisher and Editor
Jesuits in Canada - Browse print version
By Catholic Register StaffJesuits in Canada - 400 Years of Service
Friday, 16 September 2011
The Catholic Register is proud to honour the 400th anniversary of the Jesuits arrival in Canada with this 18 part special feature.
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You can also enjoy the articles on catholicregister.org. Just use the 18 links below the reader to browse through the stories.
Jesuits 1611-2011: 400 years of giving
By Michael Swan, The Catholic RegisterI met Jesuit Father Bill Maurice on the roof of the mission house on the Fort William Reserve, on the edge of Thunder Bay, Ont. He was repairing an outdoor loudspeaker which he had mounted to broadcast prayers and other vital messages to the surrounding households.
It was early spring with the wind whipping off Lake Superior and I had been wondering why an 82-year-old man was scrambling about on the roof with a pair of pliers and a screwdriver. Once he had persuaded me up to the roof and started handing me tools I was not so much mystified as aghast. As he handed me tools, he was talking.
Maurice had opinions about theology, liturgy, politics, the weather, hockey and everything else but I wasn’t catching much of it while I hung on to the TV antenna. I eventually learned Maurice wasn’t just a colourful, crazy character. He was a Jesuit, one of more than 2,000 Jesuits who have been entwined in Canada’s history since 1611. Just as students in Jesuit schools inscribe the top of their exam papers with AMDG, the old priest had carved Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam (“to the greater glory of God”) into his soul and into every day of the 92 years he lived.
Wherever they went, Jesuits embraced local ways
By Catholic Register StaffWhen Frs. Pierre Biard and Ennemond Massé arrived in Canada in 1611 their religious order was a relative infant. In 1611, the Jesuits had only been in existence 71 years, compared to the Benedictines who were more than 1,000 years old, or the Dominicans and Franciscans who were each about 400 years old.
But the Jesuits wasted no time in taking the Gospel to the frontiers. Just one year after the Society of Jesus was formally approved by Pope Paul III in 1540, St. Francis Xavier left for the far east. And by the time the Jesuits came to Canada, they had already established missions in the far east, Africa and Latin America.
St. Francis Xavier’s incredible success in India and Indonesia, heroic efforts in Japan and doomed attempt to reach China — all in the space of eight years — established a Jesuit pattern of absolute commitment to spreading the Gospel.
Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises still at Jesuits’ core
By Luc Rinaldi, The Catholic RegisterIgnatian spirituality, the foundation of the largest religious order of men in the world, had humble and unusual beginnings: three lay students sharing a dorm room at the University of Paris.
But these were no ordinary students. The first was Ignatius of Loyola, a converted soldier who had encountered God in a vision, and the other two were as deeply rooted in their faith as he. In that dorm room, Loyola led Francis Xavier and Peter Faber through the Spiritual Exercises, a 30-day prayer pattern he had developed. That same pattern is still used today, and is at the core of the Society of Jesus.
“The Spiritual Exercises becomes a means of knowing, experiencing, understanding and growing in intimacy with Jesus Christ,” said Fr. Bernie Carroll, S.J., director of the Martyrs’ Shrine in Midland, Ont. “You come to the end of it and realize God is in everything.”
A developed mind takes us on a path to God
By Sheila Dabu Nonato, The Catholic RegisterSome years ago, at a graduation ceremony at Gonzaga High School in St. John’s, Nfld., Fr. Len Altilia was struck by the opening line of a student’s valedictorian address.
“This school has been our home where we have felt at peace, respected and cared for,” said the student.
Altilia recalls the moment with pride. “I thought to myself, ‘Wow! we’ve succeeded,’ ” he said.
Altilia was not just pleased by the success of another class of graduates, but by the student’s recognition that his education was about more than academics. It was also about respect and caring, and about developing concern for the well being of others. Those have been guiding principles of Jesuit education for 500 years.
Education has always been a focal point of Jesuit ministry in Canada. In the 16th century, Jesuit founder St. Ignatius Loyola advocated development of the whole person — the mind, body and soul — through an education that nurtured healthy physical habits and a loving relationship with Jesus. His approach might be summarized as: academics, exercise, culture and prayer. French Jesuits schooled in the Loyolan tradition brought those values to Canada in the 17th century and on that foundation they built Canada’s first schools.
Three hundred years later, Altilia was acknowledging that those founding principles remain intact. He is just one of many Jesuits who have dedicated their lives to teaching. After Gonzaga, he taught for 25 years in Catholic schools in Toronto (Brebeuf College high school) and Montreal (Loyola High School). Wherever he went, he noted the Jesuit emphasis on educating the whole person and developing students who expressed concern for the well-being of others.
In the formation of young people, Altilia said Jesuits strive to make students realize “they will have a responsibility and ability to make the world a more humane and caring and compassionate place by the application of their skills.” That message was delivered to him in the 1970s in a talk given by then-Jesuit Superior General Fr. Pedro Arrupe. Arrupe said the test is not in the number of professionals turned out, but how well graduating students infuse their lives with Gospel values that promote faith and justice.
The history of Jesuit education in Canada began in 1635 with the opening in Quebec City of the Collège-des-Jesuites. It was founded by St. Antoine Daniel, who was martyred 13 years later. The school would last until the British conquest of 1759 and evolve into Laval University, North America’s oldest university. Its first famous alumnus was explorer Louis Joliet who, with Jesuit Father Jacques Marquette, was the first non-native person to reach the Mississippi River.
The Collège-des-Jesuites served as a model for at least 14 other educational institutions across Canada. Montreal’s Collège Ste-Marie, opened in 1848, spawned three other schools, Loyola (1896), St. Ignace (1927) and Jean-de-Brébeuf (1928). Those were followed by English colleges and high schools opened in Sudbury, Edmonton, Regina, Kingston, Winnipeg, Halifax, St. John’s and Toronto. The operation of many of those schools has since been passed to lay administrators, but the Jesuits remain involved in seven schools: Loyola High School and Jean-de-Brébeuf College high school in Montreal; Regis College at the University of Toronto; St. Paul’s High School in Winnipeg; Campion College at the University of Regina; St. Bonaventure’s College in St. John’s; and Mother Teresa Middle School that opened this month in Regina.
Another aspect of the Jesuits’ involvement in education is research. At the University of British Columbia’s St. Mark’s College, Fr. John McCarthy lectures in ecological theology. He is also the college chaplain. During the summer, McCarthy conducts research on lichen biodiversity for the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Environment and Conservation.
In Toronto, Fr. Rob Allore is a research scientist at Mt. Sinai Hospital’s Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute specializing in genetics and the development of the nervous system. He also teaches in the human biology department of the University of Toronto.
“As a teaching order, Jesuits have long held up the development of our mental faculties as a path to God and a means to a better understanding of ourselves and our neighbour,” Allore said.
“I regard the scientific research that occupies so many of my waking hours to be a particular expression of this respect for the intellectual life. As a medical researcher, I see the work that I do as being linked intimately to the healing ministries that occupied so much of Jesus’ time (on) Earth.”
The Jesuit education philosophy that combines academics, faith and social justice remains evident throughout Jesuit schools. For example, at St. Bonaventure’s College, an independent Catholic high school in St. John’s, Nfld., for students from kindergarten to Grade 12, that holistic education approach is evident in regular student involvement in inner-city charitable initiatives.
“What we try to bring across is to train young people to be young men and women for others, so when they graduate they are excellent in academics and care for other people,” said Fr. Winston Rye, the school’s first principal.
Jesuit alumni you may know
A pillar of Jesuit ministry is a commitment to education. Since the 1635 founding of the Collège-des-Jésuites in Quebec City, Jesuit colleges and high schools have graduated thousands of students, including dozens of people who rose to prominence across all sectors of Canadian society. Here is a sampling of Canadian-born, Jesuit-trained laymen.
Brébeuf College, Montreal
o Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, 1968-1979; 1980-1984.
o Robert Bourassa, Premier of Quebec, 1970-1976; 1985-1994.
Loyola High School, Montreal
o Georges P. Vanier, Governor General of Canada, 1959-1967.
o Don Ferguson and Roger Abbott, stars of radio and TV program Royal Canadian Air Farce, 1973-2010.
o Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, 2006 to present.
o Sam Roberts, Juno award-winning rock musician.
Brébeuf College School, Toronto
o Mike Murphy, former NHL player and coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
o Joseph Boyden, Giller Award winning author of Through Black Spruce and Three Day Road.
o Kevin Sullivan, film director of Anne of Green Gables and Road to Avonlea.
o Terence Leon, president of Leon Company furniture stores.
St. Paul’s High School, Winnipeg
o Angus Reid, founder of polling company Angus Reid Group (now Ipsos-Reid).
o Gary Doer, Premier of Manitoba, 1999-2009, and currently Canada’s ambassador to the United States.
o John Ferguson, Jr., general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2003-2008.