Did you know that the Jesuit Schools Network of North America has a new monthly publication?
The JSN Journal is a monthly digital publication that promotes professional spaces of encounter and dialogue. Typically sent on the third Tuesday of each month, it provides resources as well as professional development and partnership opportunities.
Yesterday, the second edition showed up in my inbox at just the right time!
I was working with some colleagues on designing a prayer service for our freshmen centered around Ignatius’s Presupposition of Good Will. As a reminder, the Presupposition is the primary thing St. Ignatius asks of spiritual directors when they are beginning to direct someone in the Exercises. The Presupposition reads (from the translation by George E. Ganss, S.J.:
…it should be presupposed that every good Christian ought to be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor’s statement than to condemn it. Further, if one cannot interpret it favorably, one should ask how the other means it. If that meaning is wrong, one should correct the person with love; and if this is not enough, one should search out every appropriate means through which, by understanding the statement in a good way, it may be saved.
Of course, the Presupposition is relevant to our encounters with one another well beyond just retreat experiences.
As I was looking for additional resources to help us flesh out the prayer service, I saw in my email the latest edition of the JSN Journal themed around the word “encounter” from the Vision Statement of JESEDU-Jogja2024 – particularly encounter through listening.
After reading through the opening by JSN North America Executive Director Bob Reiser, S.J., text that reminded me of the blessings of the informal and formal conversations we had during JESEDU-Jogja2024, I looked through the other resources described in the rest of the email. Due to the intentionally brief explanations of each resource, I was able to quickly pinpoint the ones that might help me with the prayer service we were designing.
In particular, the part of the journal that described the latest episode of the Ignatian Inquiry podcast caught my eye. President David Card of Regis Jesuit in Denver, Colorado was the latest guest on the podcast, and he spoke with host Kristin Ross Cully about how his school has intentionally prepared their students for community discourse during this Election Year.
I clicked on the “Listen to this Episode” link in my email and listened to the 40 minute episode. During the episode, David talks about the Presupposition as well as Our Way of Proceeding and how both inform the way they approach community discourse at Regis. He also describes a set of “BE-attitudes” that his school uses to remind each other of the guidelines they have agreed upon for discourse, particularly challenging discourse like that which arises during an Election Year like this one.
At first, I tried to frantically copy down the “BE-attitudes” as I listened to the episode, but then I went to the JSN North America website and discovered that there was a link to resources attached in the show notes of the podcast. I was able to download an image of the “BE-attitudes” as well as a couple other resources that helped me and my colleagues complete our prayer service script and also begin discussing other ways we could utilize these resources for our students.
If you do not yet receive the JSN Journal, you can sign up to receive it once a month in your inbox here.
You will not be disappointed!
For your reflection:
- What are some other resources you get directly to your inbox? How have you engaged them recently?
- How can you share these resources and how you utilize them with others?
- How are you preparing your students and yourself for thoughtful and loving discourse this upcoming election season?
Do you have a resource you’d like to share with Living Ad Majorem? Contact us and let us know!
