Latest Space #26
The Newsletter of SacredSpace.ie

In this issue of Latest Space

Perhaps this summer will offer you time to reflect, to make a decision, or to do some walking. In any event, this issue of Latest Space, the Sacred Space newsletter, may offer a helpful signpost

Wishing you every blessing,

Piaras Jackson SJ
Editor, Sacred Space

Sacred Heart Novena

The feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a moveable feast, usually falling in the month of June. Given the date of Easter this year, we celebrate the feast on Friday 30 May. It is simply an opportunity for us to consider again the love that Jesus freely gives us and a time to pray that we might receive even more the grace that Jesus promises.

Thee Sacred Heart Novena is available on Sacred Space this year in an audio and text format. This novena was recorded for for distribution on CD by Messenger Publications and has kindly been made available to Sacred Space community. The final three of the nine days of prayer are on Wednesday to Friday of this week - a triduum in which you might like to take part.

Many people tell us how they remain grateful to those who put them in touch with Sacred Space. You can recommend the Novena to a friend you think might appreciate it by using this link or the link on any page.

The familiar Novena format uses texts written by Brendan Comerford, SJ and is accompanied by music by Irish artists.

http://www.sacredspace.ie/spaces/area/shnovena

Living Space

Living Space is an established part of Sacred Space. The daily commentary on the readings have become an important part of the day for for some seven thousand people every month. The texts are written by Frank Doyle, and Irish Jesuit priest who regularly updates and revises what has become a comprehensive set of reflections on the Scriptures.

One correspondent recently remarked, "I find the Living Space service to be nurturing and inspiring. I wish I could get more of those I know to avail themselves of this wonderful gift. I've used Sacred Space for 3+ years, but having just this year discovered and read LS regularly, I find the entire website to be indispensable in my life." Another said, "I have found them extremely helpful spiritually as they seem to enable me to reach beyond the daily scriptural readings themselves into a deeper and more meaningful understanding and closer relationship with my God."

The new format makes for easier management of Living Space and allows many possibilities to enhance the presentation of the daily reflections. The user of the site will find that the sidebar calendar allows quick access to the commentaries for the current days. The resource can be shared readily with others through the facilities for printing and emailing that are on each page.

In time, we hope to be able to add an index to make the selection of commentaries easier to find. It helps too that, as days are added into the new system, their contents become available to the search facility. We are grateful to all who have offered to help in putting the texts online - with no-one working full-time on the site, the help of the broader Sacred Space community is very encouraging. Read more about how you might help.

Mobile users can access the pages too. They are designed to offer a simpler page to the smaller browser.

www.sacredspace.ie/livingspace

Book review: Jesus: social revolutionary

A well-known Irish campaigner for the homeless, Jesuit Peter McVerry, recently launched a book entitled Jesus: social revolutionary?At the launch he commented: "For me, the life and work of Jesus should mean that a huge commitment to social justice should be at the heart of all that the Christian churches preach and do". This perspective pervades the book in which Peter makes clear where his own inspirations lie. As he regrets the "the Churches' emphasis on personal conversion fails to go beyond the personal, to emphasise the radical economic, social and political consequences of such conversion" he expresses his belief in God who is to be found in all things.

Perhaps we cannot say that Jesus came to tell us where to find God. We cannot find God, God finds us. It may be more accurate to say that Jesus told us where to search for God. If we search for God where God is to be found, God will reveal himself to us.

Although written from the Irish experience in which Peter McVerry has been immersed, this book will carry a broader message to all who seek a reign of justice and equality. A website with extracts from the book and interviews with Peter McVerry is published by Dublin's Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice.

Peter McVerry. Jesus: social revolutionary
Dublin Veritas. ISBN: 978 1847301109

Book review: Surprises around the bend

This is an easy read, with bite-sized accounts of the walking habits of many well-known people. Included are Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Deitrich Bonhoeffer, C S Lewis among others. Walking, it appears, can improve your life and expand your creativity! It helps the mind, as Aristotle found, and the spirit too, as those on the Camino Real will know. Walking, an imperilled spiritual practice, can be prayer in motion. But we are not talking about a walk around the block! Nothing can be more satisfying, according to the enthusiastic author, than to learn the art of LSD: long, slow, distance walking. But even if you can manage only 'mindful walking' in the Eastern style, there is plenty to enjoy in this book.

The word 'Surprises' in the title brought Gerry Hughes' God of Surprises to mind, but though a mighty walker and one who has written up his walks, he does not feature. More surprising is the omission of Ignatius of Loyola, who clocked up some 15,000 miles 'alone and on foot' as he says in his Autobiography. Had Hasler included him, he might have mentioned the following distinctive points about Ignatius as walker.

Ignatius describes himself as 'the pilgrim' - the term meant a lot to him, and gave him his identity. This pilgrim was in search of God, and God's will for himself: 'What ought I do?' was the driving motivation for his walking. He wasn't a fitness freak, nor an explorer nor did he travel for enjoyment, but with the hope of 'helping others'. He always carried his limp, so his journeys must have been more painful for him than for many of those included in Hasler's book. He travelled in utter poverty: no money, no resources. He begged his way from place to place, on land and sea. He carried one treasure - a high level of trust in the providence of God. So he faced hunger, cold and death with equanimity. He prayed constantly on the way, with the Lord as his companion, sometimes in visible form. He slowly learnt that God can be found everywhere, not simply in holy places like Jerusalem. And he walked no more once he discovered where God wanted him to settle, becoming a sedentary administrator in Rome, and walking out of the city only five times in his 16 years there. A final distinctive mark of Ignatius as walker: he alone founded a walking group whose members were willing to travel to any place in the world, where there is hope of God's greater service.

Review by Brian Grogan SJ

Richard A Hasler: Surprises around the bend: 50 adventurous walkers.
Minneapolis, Augsburg Books, 2008. ISBN: 978-0806680415

Book review: The art of discernment

Stefan Kiechle's volume in the 'Ignatian Impulse Series' provides a summary of discernment as understood by Ignatius of Loyola. The 'your' in the title indicates the book's concern with reality: the author recognises that, in our consumerist society, we are proffered thousands of choices by advertisers so our need to make good choices is at once all the more important and more difficult.

Kiechle's abiding contribution in this book is to make connections between everyday life and Ignatian insight. Writing of the fact that some people make decisions quickly and follow through on them forcefully, Kiechle remarks that, "these people either do not know or do not appreciate the fact that the soul requires a certain time to mature before there can be a clarity about what it needs or wants." He helpfully distinguishes between perceptions of time, inviting us to realise that time is not always synonymous with pressure, but also brings moments of opportunity.

Kiechle uses words like gut, intuition, mind, will and heart. In doing so he alerts the reader to the fact that there are many dimensions to the making of a decision - that the whole person is properly involved. Kiechle reminds us that that the individual variations in our personal make-up all go to determine which is our most appropriate course. Taken with prayer, this book will be good companion in making a decision - a helpful guide in seeking God's will.

Stefan Kiechle. The art of discernment: making good decisions in your world of choices.
Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 2005. 978-1594710353

Mirada Global - a different viewpoint

Mirada Global is a website that draws together a number of Jesuit publications from the Americas and Spain. Published principally in Spanish and Portuguese, it has a substantial English section. The areas of the site cover many aspects of life, dealing with religion, politics, society and culture. Articles include a reflection of the use of art in prayer, a description of the situation of the indigenous people in the Roraima region and a consideration of graffiti in Latin America.

The site will appeal particularly to people who use English but are familiar with the Spanish idiom. For anyone who needs a better balance in their news diet, Mirada rounds out the global view.