Author: Jamie Kralovec

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New Certificate Programs in Mental Health of Children and Families Advance Georgetown’s Mission and Values

Mission in Motion often highlights SCS degree and non-degree programs that advance Georgetown’s mission and values by offering professional educational opportunities that respond to pressing social and economic needs. Given the School’s experience in developing technology-mediated certificate education, SCS is uniquely positioned to leverage university resources and community partnerships to create these kinds of socially responsive programs. This way of proceeding as an educational entity at Georgetown is an important way that SCS contributes to the common good, deepening the commitment in the University’s mission statement to educate “women and men to be reflective lifelong learners, to be responsible and active participants in civic life and to live generously in service to others.” 

SCS, in partnership with Georgetown’s Center for Child & Human Development, Medstar Georgetown University Hospital Department of Psychiatry, and the Center of Excellence for Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation, recently launched certificate programs intended to address the mental health needs of infants, children, and their caregivers, and families. 

There are three new non-credit professional certificates: 

The intended audience for these certificates indicates in a powerful way how a Georgetown program, working in collaboration with subject matter experts and community resource providers, has the potential to serve critical needs while building capacity in a community to sustain more lasting change. By targeting professional clinicians, consultants, and community health workers in the field of infant mental health, these programs are working in a holistic manner by focusing on the ecosystem of care for infants and young children. The programs also reflect a pressing need surfaced during the global pandemic to create healthier, more resilient communities that can provide care and attention for children and their families, especially the most vulnerable. 

Jeffrey Warner, Senior Director of Professional Development & Certificates at SCS, articulated the mission commitment of the infant and early childhood mental health certificates when he said: 

“This program embodies the spirit of Georgetown University as an opportunity to learn to support more effective caregiving of all children, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or class. Our University’s Jesuit tradition of cura personalis is emphasized throughout the curriculum as it encourages care and individualized attention to the needs of children and their families, distinct respect for their circumstances and concerns, and an appropriate appreciation for their particular gifts and insights.” 

These new certificate programs reflect the valuable ways that SCS lives out the University’s Jesuit values in partnership with others at Georgetown and beyond. 


You can read more about these exciting new certificate programs on the SCS homepage: “Georgetown Launches New Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health Certificate Programs.” Learn more about all of the professional certificate programs offered by SCS. 

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The Olympics Highlight the Role of Sports in Fostering the Common Good

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This week’s Mission in Motion, on the occasion of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, explores the spiritual, ethical, and social dimensions of sports with the help of Pope Francis. 

Few global events bring people together quite like the Olympics. And while the summer games in Tokyo lack large in-person crowds because of the pandemic, the events still delight excited fans tuning in from all over the world. I relish the occasion of the Olympics and have transmitted my enthusiasm to my family. During the two weeks of competition, you can safely bet that I am regularly refreshing results and waiting until after work to turn on the live coverage. 

Georgetown is also celebrating these summer games by highlighting the Hoyas who are participating in them (you can visit the #HoyaOlympics site). At SCS, we are especially proud of Rachel Schneider, a graduate of the Master’s in Sports Industry Management program and a runner competing in the 1,500-meter race. The dedication required by athletes to qualify for the games, let alone compete in them, engenders enormous pride and respect. 

More than pride and national spirit, I have been wondering about the purpose of the Olympics and what we all can learn from them. Are there important moral and spiritual lessons to be gleaned from this intensive competition? How do sports, and particularly the industry surrounding them, relate to Georgetown’s mission and values? 

To help appreciate some answers to these questions, I would like to focus this week on some of Pope Francis’s reflections about the deeper purpose of sports. An avid soccer (he’d say fútbol) fan himself, energetically dedicated to his Argentinian teams, Pope Francis has not been shy about expressing the spiritual, moral, and social value of athletic competition. A few years ago, Georgetown hosted a Vatican-sponsored conference on these very questions: “Sport at the Service of Humanity.” The three pillars of that conference reflect a helpful framework for appreciating how sports can build community and foster character: inspiration, inclusion, and involvement. The conference schedule, which included an interfaith service with participation from Georgetown student-athletes and panel discussions featuring leading experts in religion, sports, and culture, demonstrated the deep linkages between sports, mission, and values. 

Pope Francis emphasizes the ways that sport can encourage a practice of encounter where people of different backgrounds and traditions meet one another and grow in belonging, inclusion, and solidarity. This theme of encounter, which Francis has echoed throughout his writings and teachings including the recent encyclical Fratelli Tutti, can become a powerful antidote to the cultural, political, and economic tendencies toward separation and isolation. The pope’s 2013 comments to the European Olympic Committee capture this idea: 

“Engaging in sports, in fact, rouses us to go beyond ourselves and our self interests in a healthy way; it trains the spirit in sacrifice and, if it is organized well, it fosters loyalty in interpersonal relations, friendship, and respect for rules. It is important that those involved at the various levels of sports promote human and religious values which form the foundation of a just and fraternal society. This is possible because the language of sports is universal; it extends across borders, language, race, religion, and ideology; it possesses the capacity to unite people, together, by fostering dialogue and acceptance.”

Sports have the transformative potential of bridging differences through a common language that is universally recognized. In this way, sports are, according to Pope Francis, a valuable resource.

While the sports industry is capable of ethical lapses and corruption in many forms, sports can also build the bonds of community and personal integrity. Teamwork and overcoming one’s own preferences provide valuable opportunities to transcend tendencies toward selfishness and intolerance of others. On this theme of inclusion, Pope Francis made news in 2020 by meeting with leaders from the National Basketball Association (NBA) to discuss their efforts around racial justice and inclusion. 

With more exciting Olympics coverage to come, I invite you to reflect on the deeper purpose of sports and how your role in sports, whether as fan, participant, or industry manager, can “rouse you” to go beyond yourself and contribute to the common good. 

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SCS Fall Elective Course, “The Reflective Professional,” To Explore Mission-Driven Leadership

Since the start of the global pandemic, Mission in Motion has provided resources, information, and reflections about how the School of Continuing Studies, rooted in the Spirit of Georgetown, is addressing the needs of our diverse community. For more than a year, the blog has shared inspiring examples of work at SCS grounded in a commitment to educate the whole person. SCS students, staff, faculty, and alumni have sustained the bonds of community despite being dispersed across the country and the globe. SCS and larger Georgetown efforts to promote racial justice that aspire to our University value of Community in Diversity have been a major focus of these weekly reflections. Along the way, the blog has hopefully helped readers understand what is distinctive about an approach to professional and continuing education animated by the Jesuit tradition. 

This week, I call attention to a course opportunity this fall that incorporates the University’s Jesuit values in a holistic way. Since 2016, “Jesuit Values in Professional Practice” has been offered as a free elective open to any degree-seeking student at SCS. The course, which Mission in Motion highlighted last year, is a unique option in the SCS curriculum in that it is truly interdisciplinary by bringing together students from across the academic degree programs. The course is also unique in that it is community-based learning, organized around opportunities for students to address the direct needs of vulnerable persons through service opportunities facilitated by Georgetown’s Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service.  

The course has been renamed “The Reflective Professional: Journeying Toward Mission-Driven Leadership” to signal how critically important reflection and leadership are in the development of professional students. The pandemic has demonstrated how necessary it is to form SCS graduates who are prepared to take on the economic and social justice challenges facing their communities in the U.S. and around the world. Inspired by the Jesuit tradition, an important motivation is an understanding that generous action in the world flows from habits of reflective self-awareness and self-discovery. This is an invaluable opportunity for students to pause and discern their values and how they want to apply these values in the workplace. The course, which is organized around the foundational concepts and applications of Jesuit education and spirituality, features professionally relevant topics like: 

  • Frameworks for professional reflection
  • Theories of leadership, including spiritual leadership
  • Discernment as a strategy for professional decision-making 
  • Exploration of Georgetown’s mission and values 
  • Models for inter-faith collaboration 
  • Contemporary social justice issues, like immigration reform and the climate crisis 

The class is open to and welcomes students from all faith traditions or no faith tradition and presents an important opportunity to engage with mission-driven leaders at Georgetown and beyond. An alum of the course described the transformative experience of hearing directly from such a diverse set of guest presenters: “The speakers who moved me the most had journeyed deeply inside their humanity and then touched mine.” 


Degree-seeking students who are interested in “The Reflective Professional: Journeying Toward Mission-Driven Leadership” (LSHV 480, CRN: 40526) should reach out to me, Jamie Kralovec, course instructor and SCS Associate Director for Mission Integration (pjk34@georgetown.edu).

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This Summer: Learning to Pray

Last summer, I offered a suggestion for “spiritual reading” as a way to grow in self-discovery during months of public health restrictions. My intention was to provide some insights about how the act of slow, sacred reading – both literal texts and the texts of our experience (like nature) – can be spiritually rejuvenating in a context that limited travel and social interaction. 

In a similar spirit, this summer, as the easing of pandemic limitations continue, I invite you to consider the practice of prayer as an opportunity to grow interiorly. Summertime, typically filled with pockets of rest and relaxation, is an opportune setting to develop healthy interior practices. I am aided in this effort by a new book from popular Jesuit spiritual writer Fr. James Martin, S.J., whose Learning to Pray: A Guide for Everyone presents valuable insights about a concept and a practice that is too often misunderstood. 

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This week, Mission in Motion explores the often misunderstood practice of prayer by taking a closer look at popular Jesuit writer Fr. James Martin’s new book on the topic. 

Given the variance in understanding of this topic, Fr. Martin has to first define the subject matter and articulate the intended audience for his writing. Thankfully, Martin’s conclusions to these points, which are largely steeped in his Catholic understanding as a Jesuit priest and spiritual director, affirm that persons of diverse spiritualities and faith understandings can benefit from his practical, experience-oriented approach to praying. In terms of audience, Fr. Martin has a large community in mind: 

“Learning to Pray is written for everyone from the doubter to the devout, from the seeker to the believer. It’s an invitation for people who have never prayed. It’s designed for people who would like to pray, but are worried they’ll do it the wrong way. It’s meant for people who have prayed and haven’t found it [as] satisfying as they had hoped. It’s also aimed at people who might be afraid of prayer (9).”

Martin goes on to say that the book is “meant for people of all faith traditions and none” and uses language purposefully familiar to the general public for this reason. This is an important point because it anticipates skepticism about prayer from people who might be agnostic in their theological beliefs or who might object to the project in the first place because of bad prayer experiences or their own resistance to religious traditions. 

Another challenge for the book and for any effort to encourage a practice of prayer is definition. Fr. Martin brings together multiple strands of spiritual history from different thinkers in defining prayer through these common elements: 

  • A Raising of the Mind and Heart to God
  • A Surge of the Heart
  • A Sharing Between Friends
  • A Long, Loving Look at the Real
  • A Personal Relationship 
  • Conscious Conversation 

In this effort at definition, there is a recognition of a multiplicity of approaches and language differences, but Fr. Martin emphasizes that what matters more than precise language is the actual, personal experience during prayer: “As with love, learning to practice it is more important than knowing the right definition.” The book goes on to describe in accessible details various ways of praying, including the examen, the well-known Jesuit practice of prayer offered each Friday at 12:00 p.m. ET as part of the SCS Digital Daily Meditations (sign up here). 

The book offers a wealth of helpful suggestions about developing a regular prayer habit. Along the way, Fr. Martin relies on his own experience as a spiritual director to point out some of the more common misgivings, challenges, and misunderstandings about how to pray that he has heard from persons attempting to pray. As a spiritual director, I identified with several of these points, including a confusion about what is supposed to “happen” in prayer and the common reason that people do not pray because they “consider prayer something reserved for holy people, not them.” If you find yourself in these categories and do not believe that a practice of prayer is worth considering, you might find consolation in Fr. Martin’s point that “God’s love does not rely on us and what we do.” 

As we continue to move through summer and transition into more and more “regular” social activities, I encourage you to take a look at this book. In addition to specific spirituality programs offered at SCS, like daily meditation and regular retreats, Georgetown’s Campus Ministry programs a diverse range of activities intended to foster a deeper life of personal and communal prayer. If you are a member of the SCS community and would like to explore your life of prayer, please reach out to me, Jamie Kralovec, SCS Associate Director for Mission Integration, at pjk34@georgetown.edu. 

For more on Fr. James Martin, S.J., please check out his Facebook and Twitter pages. Some of Fr. Martin’s recent events at Georgetown might be of interest, including: “Writing As Spiritual Practice” and “Building a Bridge: Welcoming the LGBT Catholic with Justice.” 

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Students in Summer College Immersion Program Experience Reflection in the Jesuit Tradition

Georgetown’s School of Continuing Studies is busy in the summertime, managing a range of special programs and courses for learners of differing age levels. High school students, for example, greatly benefit from the summer offerings by directly experiencing a Georgetown education and gaining valuable insights about college life. Such an experience can profoundly shape how a pre-college student prepares for the next steps in their learning journey. The value of pre-college preparation steeped in Georgetown’s whole person commitment to academic excellence and the Jesuit tradition of education is clearly at work in the Summer College Immersion Program.  

Mission in Motion has previously written about SCIP, a three-week college program for rising high school seniors from the Cristo Rey Network, KIPP Foundation, and other select school systems, networks, and community organizations. At its core, SCIP is designed “for high-achieving students with aspirations to apply to the most selective colleges and universities” and provides “a transformational learning experience and an introduction to college life.” The program does this in three intensive weeks through class sessions with Georgetown faculty, group discussions, personal mentoring, and seminars and workshops. In addition to learning content, SCIP students acquire critical skills needed to navigate the college application process. Students even experience a mock interview with Georgetown faculty and staff that simulates this significant milestone in the college admissions experience (read more about the SCIP mock interview process). 

One of the core learning objectives of SCIP is for students to prepare their own personal statements through analysis and description of the multifaceted components of their identities. This journey of self-discovery through a transformational education experience makes SCIP such an invaluable mission-aligned program at Georgetown. This week and next, I will be helping students in this task of growing in deeper awareness of their identities by providing tools, resources, and practices of reflection grounded in the Jesuit tradition. 

Students are learning and directly experiencing the examen, a practice of self-reflection that helps one notice the deeper significance of the details of one’s day. During this week’s reflection sessions I invited the students to pause and spend some time in silence noticing all of the emotions that arose for them as a result of the program experience. Students were then invited to share three words in the chat that accurately described the major emotions that came to the surface after five minutes of silence. The exercise revealed that students were feeling a mix of emotions at the start of week two, with “excitement” and “energized” balanced with “anticipation” and “uncertainty.” 

By naming emotions in this way, these sessions help students grow in deeper awareness of how SCIP is inviting them into transformation. Future reflection sessions will build on this foundation and explore the meaning of Georgetown’s mission and how students, regardless of their religious identity or spiritual practices, can find ways in a Jesuit education to lead lives of meaning, purpose, and belonging.

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Desire to Develop as an Ethical Leader? Some Suggestions for Your Journey

In my mission integration role at SCS, I am often invited by faculty members across professional disciplines to amplify the University’s mission by presenting some material related to the Spirit of Georgetown in a way that is tailored to the course’s unique learning objectives. This week, I dropped into Ethics in Urban Planning and offered a Jesuit-inspired framework for knowledge, skills, and values in the area of ethical leadership. It was an engaging session that flowed in three movements: the foundational concepts of ethical leadership, an applied case study demonstrating these principles, and suggestions for personal practices that might develop ethical leadership capacity. Grounded in the Jesuits’ spirituality and philosophy of education but offered in a way that is inclusive of spiritual diversity, the concluding segment of the session provoked critical reflection about how spirituality might relate to ethical leadership. 

There are many ways into this conversation about how Jesuit spirituality and education relates to ethics and to leadership. I rely on ideas presented by Chris Lowney, a leadership expert in the Jesuit tradition, whose book, Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company that Changed the World, offers an Ignatian style of leadership that embraces self-awareness, ingenuity, love, and heroism. 

Lowney contests traditional understandings of leadership theory grounded in competency models of what leaders need to acquire in terms of technical skills in order to be effective. While technical skills are important, the Jesuit tradition of leadership emphasizes interior self-development and the development of what many would call “soft skills” like emotional attentiveness, self-reflection, an attitude of gratitude, and a determination to care for others. This perspective on leadership emphasizes that: 

  • everyone has the opportunity to lead (not only those at the top of the organizational chart); 
  • leadership springs from interior self-knowledge (not just from actions); 
  • leadership is a way of living and not just single tasks; and 
  • leadership is an ongoing process of discovery of self and self with others.

An important takeaway of this model is that the exercise of ethical leadership depends upon taking regular time for quiet reflection in a way that facilitates greater self-awareness. Contrary to assumptions, regular silence in the form of meditation or prayer do not foster inaction and passivity in the face of pressing responsibilities but actually encourage more generous and ethical action in the world. Leaders grounded in self-awareness, cultivated by practices like the examen, are more likely to make meaningful contributions to social justice and the common good. And consistent with the Spirit of Georgetown value of Contemplation in Action, busy professionals, like the students at SCS, need this time for contemplation even more. 

One hope of a Jesuit education is that students come to realize more and more that their educations are not for themselves alone but also for others. Ethical leadership in the Jesuit tradition makes clear that one’s development as an ethical leader is not just about avoiding mistakes or bad decisions but about growing in habits of discernment about how one is called to use one’s gifts and talents in service of others, especially the most vulnerable members of society. I invite you to take this summer to reflect on these questions as they relate to your growth as an ethical leader: 

  • What are the gifts and talents that you bring to leadership? 
  • What are the values that matter most to you and why? In other words, what do you consider to be your “North Star” guiding principles for leading in the world? 
  • How are you working to translate these values into action? How are you bringing your leadership values to your work at home, in the community, at the workplace, and in the larger world?
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Georgetown’s Jesuit Values Guide the Institute for Transformational Leadership

Early in the pandemic, Mission in Motion reflected on popular articles that examined the qualities of Jesuit education that contribute to the formation of ethical and reflective leaders working in every sector of society.  The Jesuit approach to education tends to produce effective leaders because of the framework’s embrace of self-awareness, ingenuity, love, and heroism, according to Jesuit leadership expert Chris Lowney. Jesuit educated leaders are often considered “servant leaders,” or those who work against the traditional model of power accumulation and focus instead on the development and wellness of the people and communities in which they exercise leadership.  There has been a growing discussion about this relationship between leadership and Jesuit spirituality and pedagogy, leading to global efforts like the Jesuits’ recently created Program for Discerning Leadership.

This week Mission in Motion calls attention to the relationship between Jesuit values and leadership development with a special focus on Georgetown University’s Institute for Transformational Leadership.

This week we call attention to the work of Georgetown University’s Institute for Transformational Leadership (ITL), a first-of-its-kind institute that develops and sustains worldwide communities of leaders and coaches. Housed at the School of Continuing Studies, ITL’s approach to this work is anchored in the values of the Spirit of Georgetown and demonstrates Jesuit leadership principles in action.

ITL offers a range of certificates, programs, workshops, and special events dedicated to awakening, engaging, and supporting the leadership required in today’s world to create a more sustainable and compassionate future. A quick glance at ITL programs illustrates how clearly mission and values guide the Institute. With programs in Facilitation; Health & Wellness Coaching; Leadership Coaching; Organizational Consulting & Change Leadership; and Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, ITL is providing students with experiential learning opportunities geared toward helping leaders understand the context of a complex and challenged world.

The Executive Certificate in Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion is a prime example of how ITL is helping address issues of social justice through its transformative education. A recent SCS web story, “Program Promotes Equity and Belonging in the Workplace,” captures the spirit of the program and the way that it moves beyond a narrow conception of competency in DEI. More than preparing leaders to offer “stand-alone solutions” to the persisting challenges of realizing inclusion in workplaces, the program attends to both the larger structural dynamics impacting DEI as well as the self-knowledge needed to lead in this area. Program instructor Maria Kelts describes the approach in this way:

“The course is experiential in nature and is built on the foundation of understanding oneself through the identities one holds and acknowledging oneself as a change agent. Knowing how you walk through the world allows you to more effectively analyze, diagnose, and address DEI issues in the workplace and beyond.”

Aligned with a Jesuit stance on leadership development, ITL makes interior development and the contribution of spirituality a focus of its programming. This commitment to the interior lives of leaders, which is one of many leadership principles that animate ITL’s approach, aligns well with the Educating the Whole Person value at the heart of the Spirit of Georgetown. By including interiority in the curriculum, ITL reinforces a powerful lesson that generous doing or action in the world ultimately flows from a generous sense of self or being. In the midst of increased social and political polarization, a focus on the inner work of social transformation is critical.

If you want to learn more, please visit:

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A Prayer for Hope on Juneteenth

This week we honor Juneteenth, a day of celebration to commemorate emancipation and the end of slavery in the United States. While this holiday offers a welcome opportunity to celebrate that particular historical event of independence, Juneteenth also presents a challenge to confront the enduring legacy of slavery in America and how it continues to manifest in our social structures. More than a distant memory, the spirit of Juneteenth has the potential to energize our ongoing work at Georgetown to grapple with the institution’s own history of enslavement in order to realize in the present day more justice and more equity in our community.

The AJCU Justice in Jesuit Higher Education Conference focused this week on the work of racial justice in the mission of Jesuit higher education. The conversation surfaced many reflections that are relevant to the celebration of Juneteenth.

Juneteenth takes place in the midst of the AJCU Justice in Jesuit Higher Education Conference, a series of virtual programs intended to draw attention to the ways we are called to deepen a commitment to social justice in our schools. The conference featured a plenary session and a live question and response this week on “Racial Justice and the Mission of Jesuit Higher Education.” Many things shimmered in these discussions about racial justice in Jesuit higher education, but one image stood out for me as it relates to Juneteenth. Dr. Yohuru Williams, distinguished university chair and professor of history and founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas, called attention to the longitudinal work of racial justice. Racial justice efforts on our campuses will not succeed if they are temporary and they will not succeed, said Dr. Williams, if they only focus on “massive change.” Instead, he advised, we need to also focus on the capacity and potential of individuals to make change in their own lives.

The panel and Dr. Williams’ comments reminded me of a reflection written last summer by the Jesuit Patrick Saint-Jean, S.J.: “Juneteenth: A Day of Hope.” In this piece, Saint-Jean articulates the need for transformation of individuals as well as entire systems. The key ingredient in the work, for Saint-Jean, is hope:

“As a Black man in America, I see hope as the biggest weapon that I can use to fight against systemic racism. When I wake to go jogging, go to the store, drive to school, hope is the only faith that helps me make it through. I have to hope that I will make it back home each day. As a Black body, hope gives me resilience to continue despite every dehumanizing structure oppressing and suffocating me.”

Saint-Jean links this hope to a living spirituality. He invites us to a deeper moment:

“[Of the] divine timing for us to live with the audacity of hope in the midst of the chaos. This is a time that calls us to enter into a meditative conversation with themselves [sic] and uncover the unconscious biases that keep us from moving to a place of spiritual conversion, a metanoia. … Today, Juneteenth is more than a date. It is a place of hope for the Black community. … Juneteenth is like the resurrection.” 

The Jesuit Patrick Saint-Jean, S.J., contributed a reflection on hope and Juneteenth. You can learn more about the connection between racial justice and the spirituality of the Jesuits by reading Patrick’s new book.

We are fortunate in the Jesuit network that Patrick Saint-Jean, S.J., has recently written “The Spiritual Work of Racial Justice: A Month of Meditations with Ignatius of Loyola.” This is a helpful and necessary new resource for reflecting on the work of racial justice through the lens of the Ignatian spirituality that animates our Jesuit campuses. I hope that this Juneteenth holiday provides space to reflect on how personal and collective hope can sustain the difficult work of addressing the wounds of racial injustice and struggling together toward the full promise of freedom.

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2021 AJCU Justice in Jesuit Higher Education Begins, Confronts Ongoing and Urgent Challenges Too Long Deferred

This week kicked off the 2021 AJCU Justice in Jesuit Higher Education Conference, a virtual gathering hosted by Georgetown and taking place throughout the month of June that will focus on racial justice, immigration justice, environmental justice, faith and justice, and women’s leadership and justice in light of the Jesuits’ four Universal Apostolic Preferences. Mission in Motion recently reflected on how this conference fits into the larger context of the history of social justice education in Jesuit colleges and universities. The opening sessions of the first week affirmed this longstanding tradition and also invited participants to update the resources of Catholic and Jesuit education to meet the pressing challenges of today. Two of the conference’s opening session presenters captured the spirit of this challenge with their open-ended questions:

Robert Kelly of Loyola University Maryland helped kick off the 2021 AJCU Justice in Jesuit Higher Education Conference with a passionate charge to practice democracy and resist ideology.
  • Robert Kelly, Ph.D., Vice President and Special Assistant to the President of Loyola University Maryland, asked: “This time calls us to look at ourselves and our institutions and our students to see ways in which we’ve evolved, and need to evolve moving forward. What does that evolution look like?”
  • Fr. Arturo Sosa, S.J., Superior General of the Society of Jesus, asked: “The pandemic has struck us all, it has knocked us all down. Which of our plans will change? How can we better accompany the young as they build a future of hope?”

So many first week images stand out from the presentations and the live Zoom questions and responses, but one particular image surfaced for me most prominently. “Deferred maintenance” is a concept that Robert Kelly used to compare the situation of addressing pressing, no-longer-avoidable physical infrastructure needs on an aging campus with addressing persisting issues of injustice, particularly around racial equity and inclusion, that cannot be delayed any longer.

The task for all involved in Jesuit higher education is to confront the reality of racism and other pressing issues of social injustice present on campuses by engaging, according to Margaret Freije, Ph.D., Provost and Dean of College of the Holy Cross, both contemplatively and critically in this work. Taking meaningful action in response to these challenges from out of a stance of deep discernment is a hallmark of Jesuit spirituality and education. A more hope-filled future, one that is demanded by students, staff, and faculty who do not always feel welcome on Jesuit campuses including LGBTQ+, first generation students, and people of color, demands a perspective that brings together the contemplative and the critical.

Fr. Arturo Sosa, S.J, Superior General of the Jesuits, used the metaphor of building a new city that inspires hope and welcomes all those marginalized throughout the world.

Another image that resonated this week was cura propria, or personal care and wellness, an addition to the familiar Jesuit lexicon of cura personalis and cura apostolica. Debra Mooney, Ph.D., Vice President for Mission and Identity at Xavier University, introduced this newly minted Ignatian virtue in the context of the ongoing psychological pandemic. Citing the alarmingly high rates of mental health struggles on campuses, Mooney offered that Jesuit educators and students of Jesuit schools need to take care of ourselves – body, mind, and spirit – if we are to address the questions of injustice that haunt us today. Mooney then pointed to the resources of Ignatian spirituality, particularly the Examen as a healthy habit of identifying gratitude, as a way to maintain personal care and wellness in times that will continually challenge our personal and collective resolve.

Fr. Tom Smolich, S.J., International Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service, offered an extended reflection on the speech of prior Jesuit Superior General Adolfo Nicolas about the challenges posed by two –isms: aggressive secularism and fundamentalism. Jesuit schools need to discern how to make service of faith an integral component of their commitment to justice. This means taking seriously the critical questions of faith that are presented by the Catholic, Jesuit intellectual tradition. Doing so and encouraging campus communities to embrace Jesuit mission requires discernment, said Smolich, or “decision-making about the mission where the perspectives of each person and the values of the institution are brought together to find the way forward, guided by the Spirit.”

There was so much more to explore in this week’s events. Gratefully, this year’s conference materials will be preserved as digital resources, including recorded poster presentations from across the Jesuit network of schools. You can still sign up for two more weeks of events by visiting the registration page.

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Want to Flourish? Savor the Small Gifts of Each Day

Last month, Mission in Motion reflected on an article in the New York Times about the concept of languishing and its relevance to the Ignatian spiritual practice of the Examen of consciousness. The suggested antidote to the “blah” you may be feeling during the pandemic was a regular practice of creating uninterrupted interior space to reflect on moments of consolation, or effortless experiences of deep joy, in your daily life. The Examen, which we practice as an SCS community every Friday at 12 p.m. ET (register for SCS daily digital meditation), is an excellent way to notice the movements of consolation and desolation in your life. A regular habit of naming gratitude, even when gratitude seems difficult to name, ultimately leads to greater generosity, a sense of belonging, and a feeling of purpose. Healthy habits of self-reflection and a deepening awareness of one’s deeper purpose are at the heart of a Georgetown education, enshrined both in the Spirit of Georgetown and Campus Ministry whose mission is to help our community members “lead lives of deeper meaning, belonging, and purpose.”

SCS Dean Kelly Otter poses for a photo with graduate Daria Fish at last week’s Commencement in Nationals Stadium. This week’s Mission in Motion engages with the concept of “flourishing” and how savoring daily gifts, through the Ignatian Examen or other practices, can help us flourish.

Having celebrated the 2021 Commencement and now continuing into the summer and more pandemic-related transitions in daily life, I want to focus on another NYT piece about flourishing, the flip side of languishing. Dani Blum’s article, “The Other Side of Languishing Is Flourishing. Here’s How to Get There,” lays out a compelling set of suggestions about how to get closer to flourishing, or what Tyler VanderWeele, director of Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program, calls “what people are ultimately after … it’s living the good life. We usually think about flourishing as living in a state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good – it’s really an all-encompassing notion.”

Grounded in scientific evidence, Blum’s outline of flourishing-inducing activities resonates deeply with the wisdom of Ignatian spirituality. These suggestions include:

  • Assess yourself
  • Savor and celebrate small things
  • Try “Sunday dinner gratitude”
  • Do five good deeds
  • Look for communities and connection
  • Find purpose in everyday routines
  • Try something new

Each of these ideas could easily be located within the tradition of Ignatian spirituality or any of the many other spiritual, religious, and humanistic traditions expressed and practiced at Georgetown. I want to focus, in particular, on the notion of “savoring” and celebrating small things as a way to flourishing.

Blum expands upon the idea of savoring by linking it to celebration and the acknowledgment of small moments:

“It’s not just the big occasions that should be marked. Acknowledging small moments is also important for well-being, research shows. Psychologists call it ‘savoring.’ Savoring is about appreciating an event or activity in the moment, sharing tiny victories and noticing the good things around you.”

A practical example of this savoring, according to Blum, is a study of how college students were overall more appreciative after taking five photos of their everyday lives for two weeks and then reflecting on the photos – favorite books, friends, campus experiences – and the small moments that elicited joy in their lives. This invitation to enter into deeper joy by engaging with the everyday data of experience is at the foundation of the Spiritual Exercises, a prayer guide designed by St. Ignatius of Loyola that animates the spirituality of the Jesuits.

Early in the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius invites the retreatant to appreciate the various levels of how human beings encounter and know God in their lives and in the world. Ignatius writes: “For it is not much knowledge but the inner feeling and relish of things that fills and satisfies the soul.” The point Ignatius is making is that through the affections, or emotions, one is able to, according to Michael Ivens, S.J., noted commentator on the Spiritual Exercises, penetrate “beyond the immediately obvious to the ‘inner’ experience of meaning of the person or truth known.” The habit of relishing graces or gifts, fully savoring them both intellectually and emotionally, can help root ourselves in gratitude and protect ourselves against inevitable periods of desolation or languishing. In the small moments of our daily lives, we are invited to comb through, savor, and journey deeper into the mystery of who we are and how God may be at work in your life. 

Curious? Here are some suggestions for your journey to greater flourishing:

  • Please consider participating in the SCS Daily Digital Meditation offered Monday through Friday at 12 p.m. ET over Zoom (register for SCS daily digital meditation). The final meditation of each week, on Friday, is a guided Examen for 10-15 minutes inviting participants in silence to review their experiences of the past week. Please join us!
  • Reach out to explore how spiritual practices like the Examen and other forms of prayer and meditation facilitated by the chaplains and staff of Georgetown’s Campus Ministry can help you flourish. Send an email to Jamie Kralovec, SCS Associate Director for Mission Integration, to set up an initial conversation.