In his book Tattoos on the Heart, Jesuit priest Greg Boyle writes about his work with gang members in Los Angeles. Tattoos is a beautiful book, full of stories both tragic and redemptive about his and other’s efforts to serve a population truly on the margins of American life. I am reading the book this semester with a group of Freshmen to whom I have been assigned as academic advisor. Yesterday, we discussed compassion, which Boyle believes, is at the heart of the Christian life. We have to be …

Ignatian spirituality, at least in its current expression, is gifted with many slogans and buzz words. Ignatian practitioners seek “the magis” and labor to “find God in all things.” One such slogan, which is slightly less known, urges us to “set the world on fire.” This is a very interesting image.
After researching this a bit, I discovered that St. Ignatius himself used to send people forth on mission with the injunction “ite, omnia incendite et inflammate” – “Go, set the whole world on fire and in flame.” He did this …

I recently returned from a trip with students to Uganda. This was the second year of the “Backpack Journalism” project that I am a part of at Creighton University, where I teach. (See backpack.creighton.edu). The goal of this year’s class was to study the Church’s efforts to work for peace in the wake of a brutal civil war. I have blogged about this and other aspects of Uganda before, in part because traveling there has had such a big impact on me. In this post I want to focus …

I have a couple of apps on my iPhone that represent my geekier side. I have one called “Moon Phase,” which tells me at a glance if the moon is waxing or waning, full or new. I have another called “Sunrise, Sunset,” which delivers precise information about the beginning and end of civil twilight, sunrise and sunset, as well as the solar noon (called solar transit). Last night I downloaded a new app called “Star Chart.” With this one, you point your phone at the night sky and it …