My hope for the Society of Jesus is that you may read the signs of the times with spiritual depth… you may be agile, creative, discerning, and always in mission. (Pope Leo XIV, “Address to the Major Superiors of the Society of Jesus,” 2025)
While serving with the Jesuit Schools Network (JSN), I had the pleasure of living in the St. Aloysius Gonzaga Jesuit Community in Washington, D.C. We were a multi-apostolic community comprising Jesuits who served at Gonzaga College High School and the Jesuit Conference, as well as graduate students, writers, spiritual directors, and those engaged in the Spiritual Exercises. Given the diversity of these ministries, I especially looked forward to our dinner conversations, which were always inspiring and enriching.
One ministry that struck me as especially “agile, creative, and discerning” was the Washington Metro Area Ministers of Ignatian Spirituality (WAMIS). According to the group’s vision statement, WAMIS is a community of Jesuits and lay colleagues who “desire to be attentive and responsive to the spiritual needs of the people of God in the Washington Metropolitan Area by maximizing the accessibility of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola.” I particularly valued my conversations with Gap LoBiondo, S.J., one of the group’s founders, and later with Tom Gavin, S.J., who joined our community in 2021. Both Gap and Tom regularly shared accounts of Jesuits and lay colleagues across our nation’s capital region who were engaged in the Society of Jesus’ first Universal Apostolic Preference: showing the way to God through the Spiritual Exercises and discernment.
As I have traveled throughout the province over the past few months, I have encountered a growing number of similar regional efforts by Jesuits and lay colleagues to promote the Spiritual Exercises and offer spiritual direction. For example, when I began serving as provincial, I interviewed each member of the province staff. One of those conversations was with Kathy Mahar, our province’s safeguarding advocate, who also serves as a spiritual director in the greater Boston area. She described the many and varied efforts underway in Boston to foster Ignatian spirituality through the Spiritual Exercises and spiritual direction.
During my visit to Portland, Maine, in September, I learned about “Ignatian Maine,” which is based there and offers some of its programs virtually. Later that month, in Worcester, Massachusetts, I discovered a robust Retreat in Daily Life (RIDL) program coordinated by Tom McMurray, S.J., and Dick Kirk. More recently, while in Buffalo for my nephew’s wedding, I encountered a 19th Annotation faith-sharing group meeting in one of the parlors at Loyola Hall in the Canisius Jesuit Community. In collaboration with the province’s Office of Ignatian Spirituality (OIS), these and many other initiatives reveal a broad and hopeful movement: Jesuits and lay colleagues are finding creative ways to share the gifts of Ignatian spirituality across regions and within apostolates.
As my journeys throughout the province continue, I look forward to discovering other regional collaborations through which Jesuits and lay colleagues share Ignatian spirituality and the Spiritual Exercises by “reading the signs of the times with spiritual depth” and showing the way to God.
