Part One
Finding God in all things
By Joe Pisani
FAIRFIELD — Five hundred years ago, a Spanish soldier named Inigo Lopez de Loyola y Onaz created a handbook of prayer and meditation that would forever change Catholic spirituality and help people find God in their daily lives … in the monumental and seemingly insignificant events.
He would go on to found the Society of Jesus and be canonized a saint. Half a millennium later, St. Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises continue to inspire clergy and laypeople, students and seniors, and people from every walk of life who want to make Christ the center of their existence.
At the Murphy Center for Ignatian Spirituality of Fairfield University, there are programs for students, adults, parishes and corporations that include spiritual direction, retreats, religious studies and formation. The most ambitious is known as the “19th Annotation Retreat” or “The Retreat in Daily Life,” which is individually directed and based on models of prayer Ignatius developed. Since the center was launched in 2014, more than 100 people have participated in the 19th Annotation, which takes about a year to complete and includes weekly meetings with a spiritual director.
Father Gerry Blaszczak, S.J., director of the center and vice president for mission and identity at Fairfield University, says that Ignatian spirituality is centered on the belief that God can be found in all things — the mundane and the monumental, the joys and sorrows of life, and even in suffering.
“God really is involved in the life of each person,” says Father Gerry. “Using Ignatian roadmaps, you try to sensitize the person to be aware and to be able to articulate the experiences that she or he is having of the transcendent God, who is mercifully active in their lives. Ignatius believed that if we pay attention to the interior movements of a person’s life, they will be able to identify and respond more effectively to the call that God is giving them for greater union and communion.”
Father Denis Donoghue, S.J., associate director of the center, says that theeExercises are the core of who they are as Jesuits. “Through them, you are able to exercise your capacity to find God in all things and learn how to practice spiritual discernment.”
Father Denis, who is spiritual director for 20 people, from students to seniors, said, “The whole focus is on growing a deeper relationship with Jesus. In these encounters, He meets us where we’re at.”
Helen Di is a Westchester businesswoman who has been coming to the Center for spiritual direction with Father Gerry for almost two years. She met him at a time when she was looking for spiritual guidance after 20 years of psychotherapy.
“Through Father, I felt a tremendous power of caring, love and respect — and that is changing me,” she said. “It has helped take away the anxiety and stress so that I feel more peaceful and at ease with myself.”
Helen immigrated to the United States from communist China 33 years ago and describes herself as an atheist, although she admits her thinking about the existence of God is evolving.
Father Gerry said that people with different spiritual backgrounds and faiths are drawn to the center. Some have solid Catholic formation with a regular prayer life even though it may largely consist of recited prayers; however, as part of their spiritual maturing, they find themselves hungry for something more.
“They want a deeper, more direct and more personal experience of God, and Ignatian spirituality helps them identify God’s presence in their lives,” he says. “With a sizable number of our students — without knowing what it is or Who it is they’re looking for — there is a spiritual hunger. It is a kind of holy discontent.”
Every semester more than 55 students commit themselves to a program in which they spend 45 minutes to an hour in silence every day for ten weeks, in addition to seeing a spiritual director. The program introduces them to prayer techniques that include meditation, centering prayer and the daily Examen of Ignatius.
Father Denis says students are unaccustomed to silence in their lives, and finding time for prayer can be difficult for them, but once they put down their cell phones and step back from social networking, “They grow really fast.”
The center also offers a formation program for those who want to become spiritual directors. Last December, 12 people, including four deacons from the Diocese of Bridgeport, completed the training, and Bishop Frank J. Caggiano presided over the first certificate awards ceremony.
Sister Karen Doyle, SSJ, who is co-director of the Spiritual Direction Training at the center with Father Gerry, comes from Philadelphia every month to teach and mentor those in formation.
Deacon Patrick Toole, chairman of the advisory board, assisted Father Jim Bowler S.J. in developing the center five years ago because they recognized the need for more spiritual directors.
Father Bowler, who is now serving at St. Peter Church in Charlotte, NC, wanted a center that would offer opportunities to learn about Ignatian spirituality and train enough spiritual directors to serve Fairfield University and the broader community.
“To me, it is very exciting,” Deacon Toole said. “This is exactly what Bishop Caggiano is calling us to do — evangelize one person at a time.”
Deacon Toole, who has done the 19th Annotation, says the beauty of Ignatian spirituality is that through it, your life becomes a prayer and an offering to God. It also helps people deal with critical issues, such as a health problem, a new job, the death of a loved one, or a personal crisis.
A former IBM executive, Deacon Toole recalls how four years ago, while he was doing the 19th Annotation, he confronted what could have been a major health problem, and he had to make decisions about his career.
“With all this stuff going on, I felt the peace of Christ that goes beyond understanding,” he said. “I realized I wasn’t alone and that one way or the other, everything would be OK. I had a really strong spiritual director walking with me who was giving me great guidance. I was accepting of whatever was going to happen and living in the moment.”
Colleen Gilbertson, administrative coordinator for the Center, helped Father Bowler implement his vision and was responsible for creating a space for the Center at Dolan House on the Fairfield University campus.
“It was an adventure,” she recalls. “We wanted it to be appealing to everybody, and we wanted a relaxing and peaceful place.” They succeeded.
“People keep coming back,” she says. “It’s a pretty crazy world, so it’s nice to have a little peace in your life.”
She admits to having found peace in her own life as a result of doing the 19th Annotation and says, “It taught me how to talk to God and have a relationship with him. He’s not up there. He’s in me.”
At first, she was hesitant; however, she has come to realize that “With God’s love, there are no boundaries at all, and sometimes you can be dealing with very difficult situations in life, and even then, you will experience his love.”
Father Gerry says Ignatian spirituality has been fundamental to his life as a Jesuit for 52 years. As a student at an integrated Jesuit prep school in Dallas during the 1960s, he was first attracted to it, along with the Society’s commitment to social justice.
“These were men who linked their faith and a commitment to doing what is just,” he said. “They lived it and breathed it. We realized this following of Jesus, this living out our faith, had practical and urgent consequences and requirements. And I wanted to be part of that.”
He entered the novitiate at 17 years old and later received a doctorate from Harvard University in the New Testament and a secondary specialization in Islamic Studies. He has been on the faculty of Le Moyne College, Fordham University and Hekima College in Nairobi, Kenya.
“People who come to the center have a chance to encounter the living Christ through a primary religious experience,” he says. “This is a jumping-off point to a yet deeper companionship with Jesus.“
He points to a wayside cross outside his office and says, “I want people to fall in love with the love of God that is made manifest to us in Jesus because to be fully human is to be conformed to Jesus.”
The center, he says, is a place that shows people another way of what it means to be fully human — a way that does not pursue the false promises of the secular world, such as money, power, fame and honor. Instead, a way that pursues Jesus Christ.
Part Two
(Editor’s note: Five hundred years ago, a Spanish soldier named Inigo Lopez de Loyola y Onaz developed a program that would help people find God in their daily lives … in the monumental and seemingly insignificant events. Half a millennium later, St. Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises continue to inspire clergy and laypeople, students and seniors, and those from every walk of life who want to make Christ the center of their being. This is the second part of a series about the Murphy Center for Ignatian Spirituality of Fairfield University.)
By Joe Pisani
Finding God in joy … and suffering
FAIRFIELD—A tragedy in her life 12 years ago brought Sue Stone closer to God than she ever believed possible, so close that today she can see him in the smallest occurrences of her day, so close she can even find him in suffering.
Today, Sue believes that God can be found in all things, and from her personal experiences she has developed a relationship with him that transcends the ups and downs of everyday life and looks to discern his will for her moment to moment.
Her prayer life centers on a spirituality based on the teachings of St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, who 500 years ago composed his Spiritual Exercises, a set of meditations, readings and prayers, which are a classic work of spiritual literature. Over the centuries, they have become popular among Catholics and non-Catholics alike and even those with no formal religious background. Jesuits continue to offer the Exercises to others in new ways at universities, parishes, schools and corporate retreats.
Four years ago, Sue started to do what is known as the 19th Annotation of St. Ignatius with Father Jim Bowler, S.J., the founder of the Center for Ignatian Spirituality of Fairfield University. Sometimes called a “Retreat in Daily Life,” it extends over a period of months and involves weekly prayer practices, readings and meditations under a spiritual director.
“I was seeking a more personal relationship with God,” she said. “I’d had some personal encounters with God and the Blessed Mother, and I didn’t know how to understand what was going on within me.”
In 2006, her older son Ben, 22, who had just graduated from Fordham University, was walking across the street when he was struck and killed by a drunk driver.
“That is when God really entered my life,” Sue said. “I could have gone a lot of different ways. It was like the hand of God was holding me and carrying me through such a difficult time. And I felt very comforted by the Blessed Mother.”
“Doing the 19th Annotation was a life-changing prayer,” she said. “You experience how God calls each of us into a close personal relationship. You come to know the great love that God has for you individually and experience great joy. You also experience a great sense of forgiveness for yourself and for others, and a great sense of gratitude to God.”
She eventually entered a four-year formation program sponsored by the Center to become a spiritual director. She currently works with two people to help them encounter God more fully in their lives and understand where the Holy Spirit is at work.
Her prayer life consists of reading Scripture in the morning and a period of spiritual meditation, and she prays the “Examen of Consciousness” in the morning and evening, an ancient practice of reflection to see God’s presence in our lives.
“I approach most of my day in a very prayerful and contemplative manner,” she says. “If I am going to a meeting, I ask God to find the right words for me and to put my day in order.”
“God has a plan for each of us,” she says. “And you realize your life is not all about you. There is more. There is a desire to be proactive in the work God wants you to do.”
Sue says that her favorite Gospel passage is the account of the disciples on the Road to Emmaus because like them she had been on the same road and didn’t recognize where God had been in her life and yet He was walking with her, during the joys and sorrows.
“Now, my ears and eyes and heart are wide open,” she said. “I see where He is and I return to tell the others.”
Walking the path Christ has for you
Dr. Louis Iorio is a retired orthopedic surgeon who started his own company to provide corporations with wellness programs.
While he was at an awards ceremony with his son, a graduate of Fairfield University, he saw a brochure for the Center for Ignatian Spirituality and was intrigued by the program, which his son had been exposed to as an undergraduate.
Soon after, Dr. Iorio began the 19th Annotation with Father Gerry Blaszczak, S.J., the Director of the Center and Vice President for Mission and Identity at Fairfield.
“I always had an active prayer life, and Christ has always been the centerpiece in my life,” Dr. Iorio said. “Throughout the course of my personal and professional life, I have taken time for prayer.”
After doing the 19th Annotation, however, he has a new orientation.
“I understand that the primary focus needs to be discerning Christ’s will for my life rather than trying to steer the ship myself. That understanding has been life-changing for me.”
He turns to Christ for everything, even business decisions, and it was this trust in God that led him into unfamiliar territory when he retired from his practice and set out to form his own company.
He rises early in the morning and reserves that quiet time for prayer. He practices the Examen and reviews his previous day, while meditating on everything he has to be grateful for.
“I look at the day and where I think I was walking the path Christ wanted me to walk and where I wasn’t.” He makes resolutions to improve in the coming day.
Ignatian spirituality has been a liberating personal experience for him.
“By virtue of our human nature, we all have weaknesses, shortcomings and failures that characterize our lives,” he said. “If we don’t have an understanding of what our relationship with Christ should really be, you wind up getting burdened by feelings of guilt and shame and all of the negative things that Christ does not want us to allow to be part of our spiritual life and relationship with Him.”
“Through Ignatian spirituality, you’re able to examine yourself and discern your failings and the path that Christ wants you to walk, but you’re able to do it in a way that isn’t painful or shameful or contributing to a separation from Christ rather than a deepening of that relationship.”
Sharing Christ’s love in every opportunity
Robin Kencel lives a hurried life … and she takes Christ with her.
As a real estate broker in The Robin Kencel Group in Greenwich, she says, “I am a great multitasker, and I’m frequently doing three things at a time and maybe not being as present to somebody as I’d like.”
In real estate, there’s no downtime, but she has learned to step back to make sure “if I am interacting with somebody, I am fully present to that person and trying to affirm them because every moment, relationship and interaction is an opportunity to share God’s presence without even mentioning his name.”
In May, she completed the 19th Annotation with Father Gerry and continues to meet with him weekly.
“The closer you get to God, the more you really understand that Christ is in everything and it changes your everyday behavior,” she says. “It gets in your blood and you focus more on loving, living and kindness.”
Despite the demands of her work, she finds time to go to daily Mass, and she is in the first year of a four-year formation program at the Center to become a spiritual director.
“My mother is Italian, and she ran a very orderly household with grace before dinner and prayers before bed — and you never missed Sunday Mass,” Robin said. Every Sunday, they visited her great-great aunt, Sister Agnes, who was a nun in the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
After she graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in philosophy, Robin considered entering a religious order. She has had several careers — writing books, ballroom dancing, interior designing, marketing management, developing business plans for university departments, renovating historic homes and real estate.
She believes the workplace offers opportunities to bring Christ to others, and she has become more vocal about her faith.
“I just put it out there,” she says. “I am always playing Christian pop music in the car, so if a buyer gets in, I might turn it off, but if they say not to, that offers another opportunity to witness.”
In addition, she recently brought someone new onto her sales team, someone who had no background in real estate but is a committed Christian and is great with people. “I decided I want my team to be very good at what they do … but to the extent they have a spiritual sense, it is important to me,” she said. “I am quietly sharing the news.”
(For more information about the Murphy Center for Ignatian Spirituality, call (203) 254-4000 ext. 3468 or visit www.fairfield.edu/cis.)
