SPRING THEME ARTICLE COMPLIMENTS OF IGNATIAN SPIRITUALITY

 

TIME TO PLANT A NEW HABIT

Back when so many of us in this country were farmers, when more of us lived in the country than in cities, we understood in our very bones that spring was the season for planting. Some of us still sense this when the weather warms and the days grow longer. We plant vegetable gardens or create container gardens in our small city spaces. Spring breezes inspire us to dig in the dirt and begin our own little kingdoms of beauty.

Might we apply more broadly this metaphor of planting? Can we allow spring to inspire us to plant habits that can produce good work and well-being later on?

What seeds would you like to plant?

·         More intentional physical activity

·         More cooking from scratch

·         More time with people who are important to you

·         More quiet time for prayers of gratitude

·         More energy on your gifts than on daily trivia

·         More of your talent going outward to help others

·         More giving up what is not important

 

******** Two words that are BLUE highlighted are links that lead to other articles from the archives that are similar themes

DEATH OF AN ARCHBISHOP

Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez was a prelate of the Catholic Church in El Salvador. He served as Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, the Titular Bishop of Tambeae, as Bishop of Santiago de María, and finally as the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador. As archbishop, Romero spoke out against social injustice and violence amid the escalating conflict between the military government and left-wing insurgents that led to the Salvadoran Civil War. On March 24, 1980, Romero was shot by an assassin while celebrating Mass.

Below is a link to an article from America Magazine written in 2015 on the 35th  anniversary of his assassination

   https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2015/03/11/death-comes-archbishop-martyrdom-oscar-romero-217454?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2928&pnespid=uOE8GHlFO6oE1.XQuSjpFpHQshiqXYZ4JO2lnvZk.x9mcJhaRPOhtd2_l5EGEmc8Q2W2Fiph

WE LIVED HAPPILY DURING THE WAR

                                                                  

 And when they bombed other people houses, we protested but not enough, we opposed them, but not enough.  I was in my bed, around my bed America was falling : invisible house by invisible house by invisible house--  I took a chair outside and watched the sun. In the sixth month of a disastrous reign in the house of money in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money, our great country, we (forgive us) lived happily during the war.

Poem by Ilya Kaminsky.  Published by Padraig OTuama in Poetry Unbound. 

Ilya is a deaf man , a refugee from Odessa who sought asylum in the US after the Russian invasion of the Ukraine .  Padraig describes this as a "Devastating poem about complicity" 

                                       < Excerpted from the Catholic Worker April 2023>