​Dear Friends of the ISLC,

This month I (Elaina Jo) will be ending my time at the Ignatian Spiritual Life Center, and come August I will be starting a full-time teaching job at a Catholic school in San Francisco. My time at St. Agnes and the ISLC has been full of abundant blessings. It has become a home for me - a place where I feel safe, cared for, and loved.

This community has taught me what it means to love the world and work for justice. One of the greatest ways I have seen this love is the way that you all have loved me, encouraged me, and challenged me to be my best self. I have learned how to be prophetic by listening to the prophetic voices of those who speak out about justice and peace, and from those whose actions speak louder than words in the way they have care for one another, our community, and all who walk through our doors.

Before I go we have some great events coming up this month. We will be having a Book Sale as we refresh our ISLC Library & Book Store. I have used many of the books there for my M.Div papers, spiritual reading, and for fun! On Sunday, June 22nd I will be speaking at our next Solidarity on Tap event, and hope to share more about what the ISLC has meant to me. Sign-ups are open for the 19th Annotation and Ignatian Companions. This past year I did the 19th Annotation Retreat and it was one of the greatest gifts of grace in my life!

You, the ISLC community, have nourished me body, mind, and soul. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You will all be in my prayers as you continue to be the face of Christ as you love the world!

Peace,
Elaina Jo

Dear Friends of the ISLC,
Last Saturday, I had the great privilege of sharing St. Agnes’s experience of providing sanctuary for a family at the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity’s (IM4HI) Sanctuary Convening in Oakland.  It was a powerful event filled with lively and committed groups across denominations and religions engaged in the work of Sanctuary as people of faith.  I shared our insights on challenges, graces and lessons learned from our night with Francisco Herrera and St. Ignatius Parish, Reflections on Sanctuary.  I also came away with ideas and connections to help our community remain responsive to the reality of immigrants and refugees.  We discussed creative strategies for offering housing, legislative actions to be taken, ways that parishes can create a stronger North-South solidarity for deported immigrants in their home communities, and ways to support and integrate our sanctuary family more in our church, especially by letting those most directly affected by the immigration crisis set the tone and strategy for our work in Sanctuary. I invite you to join the conversation on how we exercise a faith that does justice in the future Huddles for Justice and with IM4HI.  This summer is also time to recharge with a great film series and lots of ways to nurture our interior landscapes.  Consider the opportunities we have at the ISLC like Spiritual Direction, the 19th Annotation Retreat and Ignatian Companions to give us the sustenance we need for the journey ahead. There’s also a great article below on ways to recharge your spirit in times of trouble.  In the meantime, I’ll leave you with the words of Hafiz.

​In peace,
Grace

A Great Need

Out
Of a great need
We are all holding hands
And climbing.
Not loving is a letting go.
Listen,
The terrain around here
Is
Far too
Dangerous
For
That.
-Hafiz

​Dear ISLC Community,

Believe it or not, we are still in the heart of the Easter season. Christ is risen! How often, though, do I get caught up in the minutiae as the school year ends, as the hum drum of work continues, as I drive home in traffic? The ways to lose sight of this glorious moment and the invitation into a more profound way of living are endless. It comforts me, then, to read the post-resurrection stories of how Jesus continues to meet the disciples exactly as they were: locked in the upper room, discouraged and walking back from Jerusalem, gone fishing . . . Jesus was there, in the midst of his friends, urging them on in their grief until they could recognize him.

This May at the ISLC, we invite you to “learn to see,” as Christine Rodgers’ evening of social justice poetry calls us. Envision a more just economy with the story of Capeltic coffee and the Jesuit mission in Chiapas, Mexico. Bring intention into parenting with the Mindful Parenting workshops of parishioner, Rebecca Walsh, and look back on the challenges and graces of living into our sanctuary commitment with a reflection facilitated by Francisco Herrera.

As we continue to move through the Easter season, take heart that the new life emerging in our ordinariness often never looks as we would have expected. The poet John O’Donohue describes this inner movement beautifully and encourages us to believe “In out-of-the-way places of the heart / Where your thoughts never think to wander / This beginning has been quietly forming.” Join us in the ISLC’s events this May as we trust in these new beginnings.

In peace,
Grace


“For a New Beginning”

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

John O’Donohue
To Bless the Space Between Us

​Dear Community of the Ignatian Spiritual Life Center:

This March, we have continued to pray with our Lenten theme of sanctuary. After our peace vigil, we were honored to listen to the mother of our sanctuary family share her testimony of migration alongside another woman who crossed the border many years before. We also shared dinner and discussion with Jesuit Volunteers and Mercy Corps Volunteers on the human reality of migration and the role it plays in our faith.  

Importantly, for the last few weeks, we have also been intensely focused on finding safe and secure housing for our sanctuary family. The deadline to receive a stipend towards an apartment expires on March 29. Thankfully, there is a promising lead for a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco, but still, the housing is not guaranteed until a few more important pieces come together. 

Throughout this process, I have been struck by a few things. I have been amazed at the level of coordination happening across parishes, networks and NGOs as we all make a concerted effort to support the family in this crucial step towards independence. I’m also amazed at the considerable amount of uncertainty that exists amidst all of our collective resources. As I accompany our family, I am struck by the surprising joy, persistence and resilience that bubbles up through the stressful situation they are in. The children always invite me into what is happening here and now; they invite me into relationship and real engagement, and they remind me what sanctuary is about: cherishing the life that we have, which is so vulnerable and precious at the same time. The family’s ability to flex and adapt is also quite something. They challenge us to work hard, to take risks, but also to trust in a God who pays special attention to those most in need.

As we approach Holy Week, please join me in praying in a special way for our sanctuary family. We pray that the family can secure this wonderful housing opportunity. We pray in thanksgiving for who they are and who they have invited us to be: a community that is responsive, welcoming, steadfast and faithful. 

This Lent, we are also aware of our great need of bread for the journey and pray wholeheartedly with the psalm proclaimed this Sunday: “A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.” Join us in the many gatherings we have planned for the rest of March: Simone Campbell’s special talk on her theology of abundance, a Spirituality of Relationships Retreat, Taize prayer on sanctuary, and the many ongoing programs we have for spiritual growth and nourishment.  

In peace and gratitude,
Grace

“Lent 2001” by Joyce Rupp

The cosmos dreams in me
while I wait in stillness,
ready to lean a little further
into the heart of the Holy.

I, a little blip of life,
a wisp of unassuming love,
a quickly passing breeze,
come once more into Lent.

No need to sign me
with the black bleeding ash
of palms, fried and baked.
I know my humus place.

This Lent I will sail
on the graced wings of desire,
yearning to go deeper
to the place where
I am one in the One.
​
Oh, may I go there soon,
in the same breath
that takes me to the stars
when the cosmos dreams in me.

This year, Lent comes at a time when we once again know our own limitation and longing. In the midst of the crises, the deplorable treatment of the most vulnerable people in our society, and the loud bickering over political agendas, there is a turning in the Church towards our mortality: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”  It is almost with relief that we acknowledge that our lives are finite and we, thankfully, are not in control of the universe. In our limitation, we turn to our Creator to fill us, to teach us how to inhabit our days and to remind us of what it is that matters most in the end.  

In her poem, “Lent 2001,” Joyce Rupp beautifully describes a mutual desire.  She says that while “the cosmos dreams in me,” she too is “yearning to go deeper.”  Lent, then, is a season of meeting.  In our need, we are met with a God who yearns to embrace us and call us back to greater love and freedom.  The prophet Joel sends out an invitation: “Return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning.  Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God, for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting in punishment.”

As we live into our second year as a sanctuary parish, we look to Lent as an opportunity to reflect more deeply on the questions: Who is our deepest sanctuary? How do we become a sanctuary for others?  We need God in so many ways.  Here at the Ignatian Spiritual Life Center, we need God to help us secure a safe, stable home for the family that we shelter.  We need God to give us the courage and clarity to know how to act boldly in our love, and when we can finally surrender our emptiness in humility, we need God to enter in, slowly working through our humanity to make us vessels of Her mercy and compassion.  

Join us this Lent at the ISLC to pray, fast and give of ourselves together.  We have a special peace vigil with a guest speaker from SFICI’s Migrant Voices in the Pulpit series, a three-week exploration of the book, Finding God in All Things, led by Fr. Ray, and a day of retreat based on the theme of sanctuary. Through these activities and more, let us “lean a little further into the heart of the Holy.”
​
Blessings,
Grace