~ by Fr. Jack Bentz, SJ
I figure if the sign says 70 miles per hour I can set my cruise control at 79. 79 is the exact spot where I can break the law and still not be pulled over by the police. 81? Too fast. 70? Way too slow. But not any more. I have become a new man, a law abiding man, and I have found God in the slow lane, all the way over to the right. This indeed is the frontier for me and I have …

~by Fr. Jack Bentz, SJ
Parents are not the problem; they are just parents. And so, often enough, men discerning a call to the Jesuits find themselves at odds with the desires of their families. This is natural enough. Parents want their children to be happy and successful; a condition often defined by choices the parents themselves made in order to be happy and successful. And since very few parents found happiness and success as Jesuits . . . well, you get the picture. Fully evolved …

So what is your so called spiritual life all about? What are you trying to do with it, through it? Is it right up there with yoga, weight training, protein shakes, and herbal cleanses helping us to be better every day and in every way?
According to St. Ignatius, our search for God is a response to our already being found by God. Okay fine, but that just opens up more questions. The first one might be —why is God looking for us? What does God want from us? …

~by Fr. Jack Bentz, SJ
When deciding what do to with our lives we can lose track of why we are alive in the first place. Decision making can get bogged down in trying to choose what will make us happy or in trying to guess the mind of God. One can get tied in a complicated knot of possibilities. Like a great Buddhist master, Ignatius would remind us to “first train in the fundamentals.” For us Christians, the fundamental of all fundamentals is – God loves us.  God, the creator …

~by Fr. Jack Bentz, SJ
St. Ignatius did nothing by halves. Whether it was soldiering or sainting, once in, he was all in. As he recovered from his cannon ball wound, Ignatius was in that weird place between two worlds; he knew God was calling him to a new life but had only the instruments of his old life to guide him. So he fumbled his way towards an interiority beyond him at the time. Strange to say, his own interior was still out of reach. In fact, he may …