Letter from the Provincial

Dear Friends,

As I write these words, the first cool breezes of fall have arrived, and I’m reminded of my days as a high school president when everything seemed to be in motion at once. I really relished the activity and excitement of a new academic year.

I felt that excitement again recently in our novitiate as we welcomed seven new novices just a week after eight novices pronounced their first vows as Jesuits (pages 6-8).

Education is also on our minds as we celebrate that three Hendrickson brothers — Ryan and Jesuit Fathers Daniel and D. Scott—are now serving as presidents at Catholic universities (page14).

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings

—Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ, from “God’s Grandeur”

Diocesan seminaries have long relied on Jesuits as teachers and spiritual advisors (page 20), with one Jesuit observing, “Most seminarians are amazed to know that we Jesuits taught people how to say Mass until the 20th century.” Meanwhile at our colleges, campus ministers are walking alongside young adults as they explore faith and Ignatian spirituality (page 22).

At Saint Ignatius College Prep in Chicago, theology teacher Tom Weiler has designed a program to show students how to find spirituality in nature, immersing them in the grandeur of National Parks in Utah and Arizona (page 10).

Adjacent to these thoughts of education is the story of a pilgrimage from Germany to South Dakota by the great-great niece of Fr. Eugene Buechel, SJ. Father Buechel, a native of Germany himself, was a champion of the Lakota people, and his memory is honored with the Buechel Memorial Lakota Museum at St. Francis Mission among the Lakota.

We have plenty of other good news to share inside, too, including the increasing numbers of adult conversions to Catholicism. Please have a look.

As we approach the Feast of All Souls, and throughout the month of November, please know that the Jesuits remember you and those dear to you in prayer. We ask your prayers for us as well.

Yours in Christ,

Letter from the Provincial

And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings