Boy, oh boy. I sometimes get the strangest requests.  I arrived into work this morning to find a voice message from one of my colleagues asking me for 5 “fun facts” about St. Ignatius Loyola that could be used for his feast day on July 31st.  Here’s what I came up with:

1. The youngest of 13 children.
2. Was hauled up before the Spanish Inquisition on a number of occasions.
3. At age 33, he joined a class of young children so he could learn Latin.
4. Once allowed the donkey he was riding on to determine whether he’d follow and murder someone he thought had insulted the Blessed Virgin Mary.
5. He sometimes cried with so much devotion at Mass that he couldn’t continue and feared he’d lose his eyesight.

 Is there any “fun” thing about Ignatius I’ve neglected to mention?

Loyola Press is a happy place to be.  We’re dealing with a tough economy, but we’re doing it together.  There have been budgetary restrictions, but so far we have not had to let anybody go.

Not everyone is as lucky.  We get emails and other messages from people at parishes, schools and other places telling us that they have been laid off after many years of faithful service.  The first thing I did this morning was to respond to one such person who wrote asking for our prayers.  I assured him that I would pray for him and remember him especially at our Community Mass this evening but, even as I wrote the words, they seemed cheap, easy and grossly inadequate.

I don’t want to utter platitudes like, “I’m so sorry” and “I’m sure everything will work out fine.”  But what can you say to people who are devastated to find themselves without work?  I feel guilty that I am (relatively) safe and secure and don’t know what to do.

Here are the 5 things for I am most grateful to God this morning:

1. A cool and restful night’s sleep which has left me refreshed and ready to go
2. Waking up a little early so that I had plenty of time and didn’t need to rush
3. Listening to the birds singing in the trees outside my window
4. A delicious banana & yogut breakfast
5. Meaningful work to go to each morning.

What things are you most grateful for this morning?

There were many graces to be gleaned at the Jesuit conference I attended last week and I want to share one story we heard that consoled us.

Dan Lahart, S.J., the President of Strake Jesuit College Prep. in Houston shared with us what happened after Hurricane Katrina.  He started getting phone calls from parents of students at Jesuit High in New Orleans wondering if they could send their children to Strake until things got better.  At first it was three or four students, then forty and the number kept growing until the number reached 440.

A nearby school sent out a letter to its parents telling them that they would not be taking any students from New Orleans because even accepting one would cause “unacceptable disruption” to their faculty and students.  Strake Jesuit, however, chose to deal with a completely unexpected influx of 440 new students, many of whom had to be housed and clothed and fed by volunteers.  The school began to run two sessions per day to cope with the influx and everything normal was turned topsy-turvy. 

Dan told us that it was a time of great anxiety for him and that he lost a lot of sleep.  He added, however, that despite all the capital campaigns he’d led and the other successes he’d achieved, the thing he’d remember most about his time in Houston was the decision to open wide the school’s doors to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Are there any decision’s you’ve made which seemed foolhardy but which turned out to be moments of grace for you?

As a young Jesuit in Ireland, I frequently had dinner at our community in Leeson St., Dublin.  If you asked me what painting hung above the mantelpiece in the dining room I would have told you that it was a religious picture of some kind.  Some years after I left Ireland, the picture in the dining room was discovered to be Caravaggio’s The Taking of Christ. It now hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland and has been valued in excess of $70 million.

It was always a Caravaggio, always a masterpiece.  I just didn’t have the eyes to see it for what it was. I am convinced that each and every day God shows me equally priceless treasures in encounters and experiences. I just don’t have the eyes to see them for what they are.  Lord, rip away the blindness from my eyes.

What “treasures” do you think you often overlook?

Good morning!

I’m Tom McGrath and I believe that mealtime is a great time to experience the presence of God. Since social scientists say the family meal is on the endangered list my friend Bret Nicholaus and I decided to do our part to bring fun back to the family meal by creating The Meal Box: Fun Questions and Family Faith Tips to Get Mealtime Conversations Cookin’. Regular readers of People for Others have seen samples over the past few weeks.

Bret Nicholaus LOVES creating questions that help family members and friends learn fun and fascinating things about each other. He’s been writing question books for the last16 years, so this “interest” is nothing new for him. As for me, I’ve been creating resources to nurture family spirituality for decades.

In my years exploring family spirituality, I came to realize that Jesus was onto something when he invited us to break bread in memory of him. Research study after research study has contributed to a mass of evidence showing how regular family meals (5 or more times a week) are good for what ails us. They offer stability during stress and transition. They lower the risks of cigarette use, alcohol use, drug use, and sexual activity in teens and pre-teens. They lower the risk of eating disorders in teens and increase the likelihood of success in school as well as socially. Regular family meals increase children’s health, self-esteem, personal identity, and academic achievement. And though I’ve yet to see any research data on this aspect, I’m convinced regular family meals are also a powerful way to pass on a living faith and communicate a family’s values.

Bret and I both believe that mealtime affords one of the best opportunities to help families grow in their love for one another and in their faith—and a helpful way to do that is to begin with a FUN question!

So let’s get started with a question from The Meal Box. Post your answers—your HONEST answers—and we’ll get the conversation going! Together, we’ll have fun learning about one another and discovering ways to serve up a little faith at mealtime!

Almost everyone, adults included, has a favorite “place” in their mind to “go” when they need to get away from reality for a moment or two. What is your favorite place to daydream about?

I’m virtually sweeping out the family room in time for our guests tomorrow.

Tom you know from the Blog-alogue and Bret you’ve come across from previous mentions of The Meal Box.  Bret and Tom will be “virtually visiting” the blog on Thursday.  They are both husbands and fathers and have a passion for making mealtimes a “sacred space” for families to talk and bond with each other.   They know all about the realities of overly-scheduled lives and so their suggestions for family discussion and reflection are neither overly-pious or heavy.

Bret & Tom will be delighted to talk with you about any questions or issues you might have surrounding families and faith.  Please don’t leave them sitting alone with me in the family room.  Come and join in the conversation.

You can buy The Meal Box at the special discount price of $6.97 from today until Monday.  Click here and enter pfomeal as you check out.

Right now, sitting at my desk and slightly panicking as I try to get too many things done before joining other staff members to help at a local food depository, I’ve made myself stop to think about the one thing I for which I most want to thank God right now. 

Yesterday, when I was moaning about what a horrible start to the day I’d had, Michelle reminded me that a little “self-directed humor” was in order. And so, Lord, today I thank you for giving me a deliciously warped sense of humor.  I love to laugh and I have the opportunity to laugh at lot at myself…

One of the things I didn’t expect about religious life is how funny it is.  As a teenager contemplating a vocation to the Jesuits, I thought I’d have to be solemn and serious all the time.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  The last  35 years have been filled with gales of laughter.  Please God, in whatever lies ahead, let the laughter continue.

What do you most want to thank God for right now?

Readers of a certain vintage will recognize the title of this posting as coming from a song by the Carpenters.  Karen Carpenter let us know that rainy days and Mondays really got her down.

This Monday morning in Chicago is not only rainy, but extremely muggy.  I staggered to my car under the weight of my accumulated dry-cleaning only to discover that the clicker to open the parking lot wasn’t working.  I stood there helplessly until someone else showed up.  His clicker didn’t work either and we ended up unhooking the mechanism and, with considerable physical effort, pried the gate open.

I tried to drop my cleaning off, but the street was bristling with police cars and ominous “You will be towed” signs. Ah, well.  I got into work and my computer wouldn’t boot-up.  Major panic was followed by several deep breaths and the decision to try starting it up again - it worked.

Accessing my email, I realized (oh so belatedly) that I am scheduled to be at a conference in San Jose, California this coming Friday at exactly the same time that a friend from Paris is arriving in Chicago.  Eek.  What to do?

It is barely 8:00a.m.  I am already brought low by this rainy  Monday.  What can I do to redeem the day?