Category: Spiritual Life

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Capitol Campus Mass of the Holy Spirit Encourages Openness to the New (and Old)

This week’s post reflects on the Capitol Campus Mass of the Holy Spirit. Seen here are students leaving the Mass at Holy Rosary Church and proceeding to the Law Center for a reception. 

Mission in Motion recently reflected on the Mass of the Holy Spirit that took place on the Hilltop Campus and now, thanks to dedicated efforts to build Georgetown’s Mission and Ministry presence in the downtown, can reflect on last weekend’s Mass of the Holy Spirit on the Capitol Campus. 

In recent years, the Georgetown University Law Center (GULC) Mission and Ministry team has worked hard to build a neighborhood partnership with Holy Rosary Church on Third Street NW where the Catholic community celebrates weekly Mass. Today, the opportunity for the Catholic community to worship together has expanded beyond GULC to include students, faculty, and staff from SCS and the other units that make up the Capitol Campus. 

A sign of this effective partnership was the robust attendance by over 75 students, faculty, and staff at the Capitol Campus Mass of the Holy Spirit, which was presided over by Fr. Mark Bosco, S.J., Ph.D., Vice President for Mission and Ministry, and co-celebrated by several Jesuits from the nearby Gonzaga Jesuit community. On a beautiful Sunday evening, this religious gathering convened a diverse group of participants seeking spiritual consolation and greater community connection. All of it took place on the developing Capitol Campus (for more, read “Reflecting on Georgetown’s Composition of Place in the Downtown”) with the service occurring at Holy Rosary and a post-Mass reception taking place outside the GULC Campus Ministry suite in McDonough Hall. The short walk from the church to the campus contextualized the reality that Georgetown’s downtown presence is accelerating, marked by the opening this fall of the McCourt School of Public Policy at 125 E Street (pictured above as the building on the far right) and continuing construction of the 111 Massachusetts Avenue building (pictured below) that will house SCS and other schools and units starting next fall. 

111 Massachusetts Avenue, which is under construction and will be home to SCS and other units in 2025, is another sign of Georgetown’s accelerating presence in the downtown. 

Fr. Bosco’s homily pointed to themes of openness to both continuity and change by deeply exploring the meaning from Mark’s Gospel of being “opened.” The Aramaic line from Chapter 7 in Mark, “Ephphatha,” which means “Be opened!” is in the context of Jesus healing a deaf person. For Fr. Mark, this presented a point of departure for more consideration of what this openness might mean for us at Georgetown in 2024. In particular, Fr. Bosco called for us to pay more attention to the small details of our everyday lives. So many of us, obligated by the press of constant tasks and activities, forget to find beauty and goodness in the details of life. 

The need for prolonged attentiveness for the potential of deeper mystery and insight to emerge from reflecting on the objects of our sensory experience can be especially realized, Fr. Bosco noted, in the pondering one does of great art and literature. A patient and unhurried stroll through a museum presents an obvious opportunity for this delighted gazing. But so does the intentional commitment to opening ourselves up to new ideas, new people, and new perspectives as part of our learning at Georgetown. Openness as a spiritual and moral theme can then move from the personal or individual to the communal. 

As our learning at Georgetown does not take place in individualized silos, we are invited to consider what it means to learn together. Common experience suggests that life in community, however motivated we are by an aspirational shared mission, can be difficult. And these challenges become harder when division and conflict surround every part of our lives and spill over into the context of our education. We live in such a moment today. The temptation is to close off from ideas and views different from our own. Fr. Bosco’s homily encouraged the opposite: Part of the task before us this year is to expand the horizons of our perspectives by meeting old and new ideas with openness. No matter the discipline of our formal study at Georgetown, everyone engaged in this common project can grow intellectually, morally, and spiritually.

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Reflecting on Georgetown’s Composition of Place in the Downtown

graphic of the buildings around the capitol campus
This week’s post is an invitation to consider the geospatial reality of Georgetown’s downtown location. What meaning can we gain by entering more fully into the physical context of our campus and its surroundings?

St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits and patron of Jesuit schools around the world like Georgetown, possessed an impressive awareness of spatial dynamics. What do I mean by this? The Jesuit founder thought carefully about how the physical location of things influences our spiritual lives and how we go about realizing the mission of our work. In this way, the 16th Century saint was ahead of his time in his geospatial consciousness. The Jesuits were unique among religious orders of the period, for example, because of Ignatius’ insistence that locating Jesuit institutions in urban cores would bring about more mission advancement. Serving the needs of the human (people) and physical (places and spaces) city has been a hallmark of Jesuits for the last five centuries. This is one of the many reasons that most Jesuit schools around the globe are located within cities. 

But Ignatian emphasis on the mission opportunities in the city is about more than administration. In the Spiritual Exercises, the guided, developmental retreat that the Jesuit founder created, Ignatius insists that prayer experiences need to be rooted in a “composition of place.” Here is the original text from the Exercises: “It should be noted here that for contemplation of meditation about visible things … the ‘composition’ will consist in seeing through the gaze of the imagination the material place where the object I want to contemplate is situated…” (Spiritual Exercises, 47). Here we see that Ignatius is inviting the one engaged in prayer and meditation to get concrete and material about the details of their imagination. This prioritization of real description of actual objects of contemplation suggests that fruitful prayer and meditation is not a flight into fantasy but a deep engagement with the reality of one’s experiences. A very basic way of putting this is that context matters. 

Context is intentionally the first stage of the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (described here by Mission in Motion) because of this Ignatian composition of place. The idea is that any meaningful learning activity must first be situated within the material place of learning and the persons and things that comprise that place. In this way and inspired by St. Ignatius, I invite us to journey into this semester of learning at SCS by coming to better understand the composition of place for our campus. What does it mean that our study and work are based in the physical place of downtown Washington, D.C.? How can the urban context and environment of our learning inspire the ways that we engage with the tasks of education this semester? 

All of these questions about context are especially appropriate for us at Georgetown as the movement toward a unified Capitol Campus continues. In a year’s time, the SCS campus at 640 Massachusetts Avenue will migrate to 111 Massachusetts Avenue and become co-located with other schools and units that comprise a comprehensive Georgetown anchor of graduate and professional education in the downtown. The meaning and implications of our geo-location will take on more importance as SCS shifts locations in the neighborhood and additional consideration is given to the School’s urban surroundings. 

For the time being, I invite the SCS community to continue to take seriously the place-based reality of the current campus situation at 640. One way to engage deeply with this embeddedness is by understanding the place. You might consider learning about this neighborhood through reported data about the composition of place via the U.S. Census. You might also consider spending time getting to know the people and places that comprise our neighborhood. Are there opportunities this semester to better understand the challenges and opportunities facing the persons, places, and spaces of this particular neighborhood? How can our learning pursuits serve these needs? 

In all things at Georgetown, we are encouraged to seek out the resources of our Jesuit heritage and traditions in ways that inspire our present endeavors. As we continue our SCS operations in the downtown and contemplate our future operations in a more coherent Capitol Campus, I invite all of us to more deeply reflect on the significance of our spatial reality.

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Mass of the Holy Spirit on the Hilltop Invites Community to Rediscover Our Shared Purpose as Academic Year Begins

May be an image of 3 people, the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and text
This year’s Mass of the Holy Spirit, an annual tradition at Jesuit institutions that dates back five centuries, emphasized the spiritual gifts needed to flourish as an academic community. 

The annual tradition of the Mass of the Holy Spirit, a practice celebrated across the global network of Jesuit institutions since the religious order first founded schools five centuries ago, presents a welcome opportunity to consider the meaning of a Georgetown education. Each year, the Mass presents both the same and new reflections at the dawning of a new academic year. The readings from Scripture all point to the need for greater reliance on the Holy Spirit as a giver of spiritual gifts that we most need to realize our mission. Of special importance at an institution of higher learning are the gifts related to knowledge, inquiry, communication, and discernment. While a traditional Catholic religious ritual, I think emphasizing the universe of spiritual gifts needed to sustain the academic enterprise of Georgetown can resonate with people of all faith traditions and those with no tradition at all. 

The homilist for this year, Fr. Bill Campbell, S.J., the new Superior of Georgetown’s Jesuit Community, focused his reflections on the historical analogy between the founding of the Society of Jesus (or the Jesuits) by college students attending the University of Paris in the 16th Century and our contemporary experience at Georgetown. The similarities in these situations are striking: Both Paris and Washington, D.C., have prominent rivers that their prominent universities abut; both the founding Jesuits and today’s Georgetown students come from homes around the world; and both of these student populations knew how to have a good time after working hard in their courses. 

The urban experience of these educations presented many opportunities for both reverie and reverence, a reminder to us today that our experience at Georgetown is enlivened by our embeddedness in a global capital city. 

But Fr. Campbell’s main point was not just about the urban similarities in this comparison. He ended his reflection about the early Jesuits by noting that we still remember the names of the seven early companions (Faber, Xavier, Laynez, Ignatius, Rodriguez, Salmeron, and Bobadilla) because they wrote history with their lives. By professing in faith their vows to a new religious order, at a time of great challenge and resistance to such a formation, these Jesuits chose to use their higher education in the service of a noble purpose that still benefits the world today. 

The question to us in 2024 at Georgetown: How will we use our Georgetown experience in service of a larger, more noble purpose than our own personal aims or professional goals? To what do we owe our faith in the transformative possibilities of a university education rooted in the Jesuit tradition of academic excellence?  

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Reflecting on Georgetown’s Mission as a Resource for the New Academic Year

This week’s post is a reflection about the nervousness of starting a new academic year. Can we turn our jitters into joys by leaning more into the resources of Georgetown’s mission? 

A new academic year brings with it so much anticipation. These feelings are experienced in both similar and different ways by our students, faculty, and staff.  Many new students are likely asking: Do I belong at Georgetown? Can I effectively balance my academic, professional, and family commitments? What decisions will I make during my time at the University that will have a lasting impact on my future? Our staff members are likely asking: How can I best serve these incoming students? What challenges in the student experience should I be prepared for? How do we handle both the sameness of a new semester and its unpredictability? And our faculty are likely asking: How can I innovate and refine my craft of teaching in a way that registers with my students? How will I engage sensitive discussions that will inevitably arise about the U.S. presidential election and conflicts in the Middle East? What will inspire me when the semester feels long and the work is tiring? 

All of these are questions that I have either heard from others or asked of myself as a student, staff, and faculty member. I think that the recurrence of these kinds of questions is a healthy sign for an academic institution like Georgetown with a lasting mission and set of values that are intended to guide our way. In his article in America Magazine, “The Classroom as Holy Ground,” former Georgetown Vice President for Mission & Ministry, Fr. Kevin O’Brien, S.J., describes the nervousness at the root of this regular experience of working in education: 

“Every semester begins the same way. I walk to the door of the classroom and catch my breath. Like an actor walking on stage, the nervousness of a teacher on the first day—or any day—is natural. It is the same now that I am teaching college as it was when I taught high school before joining the Jesuits. The more I teach, however, the more I realize that it is not just nervousness I feel on the first day. Along with the anxiety is awe, because I am beginning to appreciate how the classroom is holy ground, a place where I can encounter God.” 

In this way, the pre-semester nerves of a new academic year tell us that something deeper, more meaningful than surface-level worry is happening when our attentions turn to the start of fall classes. If we give ourselves the time and space, we can actually convert these anticipatory feelings into some soul-searching and self-discovery that can animate our personal and professional growth at Georgetown. Our jitters can become our joys. I believe that our mission and our Jesuit and multi-faith traditions can inform this journey for all students, faculty, and staff as they begin anew this fall. 

Here are three suggestions arising from Georgetown’s religious heritage that you might consider as a new academic year gets underway:

  1. Pay Attention to Your Feelings: There is something very important about spending a little time each day pausing, slowing down, and growing in awareness of your inner experience of the day’s activities. The Ignatian tradition offers a spiritual practice, the Examen, to help with this need to slow down and process the many emotions that we experience on a daily basis. By regularly attending to the flow and movement of our feelings, we become more able to recognize patterns, both consoling and desolating, and then make better choices about how to flourish and live into our gifts and talents and pursue our mission and purpose in life. Try attending a Digital Daily Meditation (sign up here) if you would like to practice these kinds of pause moments during your semester. 
  1. Engage Your Georgetown Experience with All of Your Senses: The Spirit of Georgetown invites us to educate Whole Persons who become Contemplatives in Action. To realize this ambitious vision of personal formation, we must allow ourselves to enter into every learning experience by using not only our heads but also our hearts and our hands. The transformative potential of a Jesuit education is only possible when we use all of our mental, emotional, spiritual, psychological, and physical faculties in the knowledge process. St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, would strongly encourage you to daydream, use your imagination, and savor your sensory experiences. 
  1. Find a Mentor or Guide To Accompany Your Journey: The spiritual life should not be a solitary venture. Instead, the inner journey of the self should be joined with resources in a community, including the steady guidance of trained spiritual teachers and directors. St. Ignatius counseled that retreatants be paired with these trusted guides who could help direct a path to deep inner knowing and experience of the Divine. Today, we might say that any kind of mentor figure, whether a leadership coach, advisor, counselor, chaplain, or spiritual director, can play this role. Regardless of the type, I encourage you to find someone to accompany you and journey alongside your Georgetown experience. 

I hope the coming weeks reveal new possibilities for you. As your fall semester journey begins, whether this is your first semester at Georgetown or your twentieth, I wish you peace on the next steps. 

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July 31 Feast Day of St. Ignatius Offers Annual Opportunity to Reflect on Meaning of Adult Learning

This week’s post is a promotion of the upcoming feast day of St. Ignatius, which is being celebrated by Georgetown at a 12:10 p.m. ET mass in Dahlgren Quad followed by a reception. Event details are here. 

The Catholic ritual of feast days helps to remember, honor, and celebrate persons who have been important in building up the community of faith. The diversity of holy people honored by feast days is a sign of the Catholic Church’s global reality and invites deeper gratitude about how a long historical tradition has endured and evolved in ways that nurture and encourage people of faith. It is with this appreciation that we approach a sacred milestone for every Jesuit institution in the world: the July 31 feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola. At Georgetown, community members can participate in the feast day by attending a 12:10 p.m. ET mass in Dahlgren Chapel of the Sacred Heart followed by a light reception in Dahlgren Quad. It is important to note that this celebration is open to all at the University. 

Mission in Motion regularly reflects not only on the significance of the Ignatian feast day but also on many personae of Ignatius and the various ways that anyone in the Georgetown community, regardless of their religious tradition or relationship to spirituality, can find something inspiring and relevant in the life of this Sixteenth Century figure. At SCS, there are obvious ways that St. Ignatius relates to the unique dynamics of our learning community and our particular mission and values as Georgetown’s vibrant home of professional and continuing education. I would like to highlight one feature of the Ignatian biography, the Jesuit patron as an adult learner, and offer some relevant connections with the learners who comprise the SCS student population today. 

According to the most recent SCS Dean’s Report, SCS students range from 19 to 79 with an average age of 32. This means that most of the more than 9,000 registered degree and non-degree students that call SCS home are adults. Such a demographic reality makes sense given the School’s emphases on employability, workforce development, and the diversity of lifelong learners. Teaching adults requires a specific kind of pedagogical attention that differs in important ways from younger students. The adjustment that SCS faculty make to effectively guide their adult learners can be supported by certain resources in the Ignatian traditions of spirituality and education. Adult learning is one of the less appreciated subjects in Jesuit higher education and I believe that SCS contributes to the national and global Jesuit discussion in important ways. 

First, adults tend to prioritize their own experience as a text for learning. With so much life lived, especially professionally, SCS adult students arrive at their classrooms with much to share with their teachers and fellow students. In this way, faculty are especially encouraged to make space in class activities and learning strategies that give adult learners the opportunity to reflect on the meaning of their considerable life experience. And like St. Ignatius, a significant proportion of SCS students have military-connected experience, which adds even more dimensionality to classroom discussion. 

Second, adults tend to need special permission for reflection. Leading busy lives of work and family obligations means that reflection time, including prayer and meditation, often gets pushed to a backburner. But certain resources in the Ignatian spiritual tradition, like the Examen, give adults an opportunity to spend a short amount of time (five to 10 minutes) pausing and slowing down. The intense practicality of Ignatian spirituality, its ability to be implemented in the course of a busy day, appeals to adults in a special way. I think that adults are especially inclined to welcome class activities and teaching approaches that emphasize slowing down and reflecting as part of the course experience. In leading retreats and in teaching courses, I have found that many adult students express gratitude for the opportunity for silence, a gift not easily afforded to them because of many other commitments. 

Third, contrary to assumptions, adults are not fully formed just because they have lots of life experience, including considerable time in a career. In this way, adult learners benefit greatly from Ignatian discernment and ongoing reflection about how to realize one’s meaning and purpose vocationally. Discerning vocation does not only happen before finding one’s first job placement. Rather, vocational discernment, an ongoing reflection about how my gifts and talents are aligned to my professional choices, is a lifelong practice. Ignatian resources are especially helpful for adults seeking to transform the knowledge, skills, and values of a Georgetown SCS program into an even more meaningful professional journey.

As you can tell, adult learning and the Jesuit traditions that St. Ignatius developed have so much relevance for our SCS community. I hope this feast day presents an opportunity to gratefully enjoy our Ignatian heritage and its enduring meaning for our community. 

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Juneteenth Holiday Presents Opportunities for Spiritual Growth and Communal Reflection

This week’s post is a reflection on the Juneteenth holiday and the spiritual resources necessary to sustain the long struggle for freedom and equality. Explore Georgetown’s Juneteenth resources. 

Earlier this year, Mission in Motion shared a particularly Ignatian approach to the spiritual work of anti-racism through the 6-week retreat co-facilitated by Georgetown and Holy Trinity Catholic Church entitled “Setting Captives Free: Racism and God’s Liberating Grace.” With next week’s Juneteenth celebrations on the horizon, I would like to offer encouragement to consider how the ongoing struggle for true freedom and justice for all includes a spiritual component. Highlighting this dimension of the work of racial justice is rooted in Georgetown’s Catholic and Jesuit identity and mission and the Spirit of Georgetown, particularly our expressed values commitment to being a “Community in Diversity.” 

In reflecting on the personal meaning of Juneteenth, Georgetown undergraduate Bilquisu Abdullah emphasizes how this occasion helps her connect with the pride of her identity: “For me, this year Juneteenth is about nurturing the joy I find in my Black identity. That means doing the things I enjoy most with my BIPOC peers and recentering the conversation of Black liberation in a positive way.” 

Ella Washington, Professor of the Practice in the McDonough School of Business, echoes this affirmation of joy when she says:

“Whether by attending a Juneteenth celebration or supporting a Black-owned business, I look for opportunities to define what the holiday represents to me and Black people across the U.S. I also consider joy to be the greatest form of resistance, especially as a Black woman. Finding opportunities of joy and jubilance with my family and friends is a way to live into the dream of my ancestors and into the spirit of honoring Juneteenth.” 

Together, these testimonies reinforce how Juneteenth is a critically important annual milestone to celebrate the joy and jubilation of freedom. But the holiday also presents a spiritual opportunity to reflect on how individuals and social structures continue to challenge this journey to greater freedom.

In a recent article in the Jesuit Higher Education Journal, Marquette University Director of the Faber Center for Ignatian Spirituality Michael Dante reflects on a “A Spiritual Direction Approach Aimed at Creating Belonging.” Dante maintains that meaningful confrontation with racism and white privilege means understanding these dynamics at the “spiritual level.” In order to realize this dimension, Jesuit campuses need to develop spiritual programs that help community members “see and live out of the understanding that all people are created in the image and likeness of God.” Members of the majority community whose perspectives and identities dominate need to get in touch, Dante argues, with how their vision often excludes the experiences of others who are “marginalized, excluded, and invisible.” 

Thankfully Ignatian spiritual direction and retreats, like the Setting Captives Free program, offer participants the opportunity to undergo their own “inner journey around blindness” to become more aware and more conscious of why many BIPOC members of the university community do not always feel like they belong. Pope Francis has described these dynamics, referring to racism as a “virus that quickly mutates and, instead of disappearing, goes into hiding, and lurks in waiting.” 

While Juneteenth is certainly a time for celebration of the struggle for freedom and equality, it is also an important time at Georgetown to re-commit to this long-haul work of racial justice. Spiritual resources can accompany that journey. 

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An Examen Meditation for Commencement Season

This week’s post is a suggested reflection in advance of Commencement. 

In a few short weeks, Georgetown will host more than 10 different Commencement ceremonies that celebrate the graduating class of 2024. As staff and faculty, the annual occasion of Commencement is a refreshing reminder of the ultimate academic purpose of the university. For graduating students, the excitement of walking across the stage marks a terminus, an end point that is also the beginning of something new. These days of Commencement stir up so many emotions, some in concert and some in conflict. How am I different today than when I entered my Georgetown program? How am I being called to use the gifts of my Georgetown education in service of the world’s great and pressing needs? What does the future look like in a time of great disruption, uncertainty, and instability? 

These questions are natural and present an invaluable opportunity for deeper reflection, prayer, meditation, and counseling with trusted guides. With these much-anticipated graduation events on the horizon, I invite all of us in the Georgetown community to contemplatively consider these prompts in an Examen style of meditation. My hope is that taking time to quietly recollect our feelings in advance will lead to more grounded savoring of the exciting events to come. 

Composition of Place – First, take some time to notice the context of your life. Where are you? As you prepare for Commencement, how would you describe your world? Bring to mind all of the rich descriptive details that compose the scenes of your daily life. For example, to what communities (professional, personal, civic, religious, etc.) are you devoting yourself? What are the situations you observe on a daily basis? How are you being influenced by the places and spaces that surround you? 

Gratitude – Second, for whom and for what in your life are you the most grateful? What are the experiences, persons, and places from your time at Georgetown that arise as the most significant gifts? Allow yourself to notice everything that constitutes gratitude, but sit with the most important gifts for a longer period of time. Relish these gifts. 

Emotional Review of Experience – Third, go over the major experiences of your time at Georgetown and permit yourself not only to recall and remember these times but also how you feel now, in the present, about them. Try to notice the most significant feelings that come to the surface during your review of the Georgetown experiences you’ve had. What  brought you deep gladness and joy that put you more in touch with your sense of purpose and belonging? What brought about the opposite inner movements, namely dryness, desolation, or discouragement about your sense of self and how you relate to a larger purpose in life? 

Make a Commitment to Your Future – As you prepare to enter fully into the time of Commencement being ushered forth into the next steps of your life, make a resolution about how you would like to commit yourself to choices and actions that help realize your true self. Are you noticing yourself being challenged or invited to make a positive impact in some small or large way? What is justice and the common good asking of you in your particular situation of life and work? 

I invite you to cherish any opportunities for some quiet reflection in the week leading up to the formal ceremonies of Commencement. Look back with delight as you look forward with hope! Congratulations, Class of 2024! 

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SCS Daily Digital Meditation Enters Its 5th Year – Join Today!

This week’s post celebrates the fifth year of SCS Daily Digital Mediation, which takes place on Zoom Monday through Friday from 12:00 to 12:17 p.m. ET. Sign up online to receive a link to the virtual meeting. 

Four years ago, in the week that global lockdowns began in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, SCS started offering a 15-minute daily digital mediation over Zoom. The virtual practice, which you can sign up online , was never intended to be a permanent event, but a temporary resource to help ease some of the disquiet and anxiety that surrounded the early days of the pandemic. 

Since March 2020, more than 350 people from across Georgetown have signed up to receive the link to participate. Throughout the four years, a remarkable community has formed through this contemplative convening. What is beautiful about the daily event is that there is no pressure to attend and who shows up on a daily basis is almost always a surprise. And even in silence a community has formed, with unspoken bonds of affection and solidarity created by the fact of simple presence in a virtual meeting room.

While each attendee brings their own invisible needs to the space, there is a shared understanding that all are seeking quiet, centering, stillness, self-awareness, and pause (among other things). 

This week, I want to highlight the value of this resource that is “here to stay” and no longer considered a temporary event. Past posts from Mission in Motion have explored the meditations from different angles, include participant testimonials about their value:

In recent weeks, Mission in Motion has touched upon the value of mindfulness and its relationship to professional practices and concern for the common good. For instance, Becoming Spiritually Grounded Strategic Thinkers and Discerning Leaders examined the relationship between effectively mediating conflicts and achieving organizational objectives. Good leaders need to be able to tap into their own inner life and sensory awareness in order to manage high-stakes disagreements occurring in a group. 

In another post, SCS Retreat Invites Students Into Reflection on the Meaning and Practices of the Good Life, I emphasized the importance of taking “retreat” from one’s daily habits and obligations, even if for a single day (as is the case for the annual SCS student retreat). What so often emerges in these experiences is a recognition of how easy it is to forgo regular reflective practices in busy daily life, yet how important it is to reclaim this simple habit of an examen reflection or a “mental pit stop” as a way of staying true to one’s ultimate purpose and identity. 

Most recently, An Ongoing Journey Toward More Belonging: Some Recent Efforts took a closer look at some Georgetown efforts to create a more inclusive community . Central to the task of building inclusive spaces is the cultivation of individual habits of growing in greater awareness of how one’s own blind spots get in the way of recognizing barriers to flourishing for all members of an organization. The positive contribution of mindfulness to this work of inclusion is affirmed by Rhonda Magee (the subject of this Mission in Motion post in 2020) in her piece, “How Mindfulness Can Defeat Racial Bias.”

What better time than now to treat yourself to the treasure of quiet mindful contemplation? Sign up today! 

If you have any questions about the SCS Daily Digital Meditation, please reach out to me: Jamie Kralovec, SCS Associate Director for Mission Integration, at pjk34@georgetown.edu. 

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SCS Retreat Invites Students into Reflection on the Meaning and Practices of the Good Life

This year’s SCS student retreat, “Journeying the Good Life,” sold out and brought together participants from 15 different degree and non-degree programs. 

Every year, SCS hosts an overnight retreat at the Calcagnini Contemplative Center that is made available to degree and non-degree students. There is a certain rhythm to this yearly experience. First, the retreat developers brainstorm a theme around which the event will be organized. Second, marketing, communications, and program staff teams work to amplify and promote the retreat. Third, students across the School sign up and claim their spots. Fourth, participants receive detailed instructions (mostly logistical in nature) about what to expect at Calcagnini. Fifth, the retreat day arrives and participants descend upon the 640 Massachusetts Avenue SCS campus to meet the departing bus and each other. Sixth, the retreat takes place and all who are gathered deeply engage with the schedule and activities. Seventh, the retreat ends with a bus return to the SCS campus, evaluations are shared, and the community disperses back to their respective home locations. Eighth, reflective evaluation of the experience leads to new insights and new ideas about how to meet the spiritual needs of the SCS student community. 

Each of these steps necessitates great leaps of faith and trust that the retreat will be received in nurturing and life-giving ways by all who engage it. There is certainly some doubt that finds its way into the process. Will students actually sign up? Will the retreat theme and the practices inspired by it resonate with the group? How will this seemingly random collection of individuals, diverse in every indicator of diversity, come together in unity and form a group? Will the weather challenge the contemplative spirit and recreational activities? Will everyone find the food and accommodations suitable to their expectations? 

This year’s retreat involved asking all of these same questions and receiving some resoundingly positive feedback about what is possible when SCS students say a big “Yes” to an uncertain experience and allow themselves to be personally transformed.

The 2024 retreat, “Journeying the Good Life,” certainly had some unexpected and unplanned moments. No one could have predicted that a steady and strong downpour of rain would persist throughout the first day of the retreat. But instead of worrying about the weather, the group made a firm commitment to accept the sogginess and make the most of it. This embrace of wet slightly complicated the nature hikes sprinkled throughout the agenda, but it also led to some memorable moments. 

It was somewhat unexpected for the group to gel so quickly, becoming interested from the beginning in each other’s stories and making space for intimate and vulnerable sharing in small and large groups. One measure of a fruitful retreat is the vitality and volume of chatter over meals in the dining hall. In this case, I was struck by the handful of engaged table conversations happening over delicious meals. 

Rabbi Rachel Gartner presented on the good life by sharing “Arguments for the Sake of Heaven” from out of the Jewish tradition. 

The retreat’s principle content is shared through two short talks delivered by me and Rabbi Rachel Gartner, SCS Senior Adviser for Spiritual Care. I shared some insights, “The Good Life from the ‘I’ to the ‘We’ to the ‘Universal,’” based on two primary sources. Philosopher Adam Adatto Sandel’s recent book, Happiness in Action: A Philosopher’s Guide to the Good Life, and Jesuit Greg Boyle’s book, The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness, get at the topics of the good life in slightly different ways. Sandel argues that ends-oriented goal-setting, a hallmark of contemporary economic culture, needs to be upended by three virtues—self-possession, friendship, and engagement with nature—which cultivate flourishing and deeper happiness in the means/practices themselves. Boyle contends that the root of some of our individual and collective despair has to do with the need to recognize the “unshakable goodness” that exists in ourselves and in each other. Finding goodness in this way leads to loving, especially important when loving is made harder by structures that exclude those we allow to be “othered.”  

 Students enjoyed the Calcagnini Contemplative Center in spite of heavy rains on the first day of retreat. 

Rabbi Rachel built on these foundations in her talk about “Arguments for the Sake of Heaven.” She utilized the primary source texts of the Talmud and presented on the Jewish sages Hillel and Shammai. The reflective interpretation exercise invited close and careful reading and a discussion about the ideas of the good life rooted in this spiritual reading of texts. One particular outcome of Rabbi Rachel’s talk was deeper consideration about the importance of healthy and respectful argumentation in making communal claims about what constitutes virtuous living. 

Throughout the experience, the community brought to life Georgetown’s mission values, especially a commitment to Contemplation in Action. By the retreat’s conclusion, it was evident that students would return to their engaged lives refreshed and renewed by this brief interruption in their daily habits and responsibilities. 

As with any retreat, the effectiveness of the effort depends on how participants felt about the experience. Here is a sampling of responses to the question: “How are you returning home?”

  • “I am more grounded. I take away the importance of a community and how we are all connected and can learn from each other.”
  • “I’ve discovered more about myself in the sense I know what my mission is and I should hold onto those I love.” 
  • “I feel more grounded, peaceful, and grateful. I want to hold onto that as long as possible through daily meditation and physical connection with nature.” 
  • “I am definitely more grounded. I have a better understanding of my priorities in life. I know I must continue to explore other worldviews.” 
  • “I am returning as a more open person. I take away more connection and viewpoints. I am taking away an appreciation for Georgetown.” 

SCS students can learn more about the School’s approach to sharing Georgetown’s mission values on our Spiritual Life page and can learn about more retreat options here.

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Lent Offers Opportunity to Confront Personal and Social Realities, Commit to Healing

An image of a concrete cross sculpture installed in an outdoor garden. The words
This week’s post invites deeper reflection on the Christian season of Lent. Sign up to receive daily Lenten reflections from Georgetown students, staff, and faculty

One of the greatest strengths of Georgetown is the way it honors the holidays of the different religious traditions represented across campus. As a Jesuit and Catholic university grounded in a centered pluralism, Georgetown seeks greater mutual understanding and dialogue about the broader significance of special events on each tradition’s religious calendar. In this way, those outside of a particular tradition, or no longer practicing within one or not affiliated with one at all, can still find personal and collective meaning because of the invitation to learn more, follow along, and potentially commit to some actions related to journeying alongside particular religious communities. 

This week, Christian communities at Georgetown and around the world entered into the holy season of Lent. These 40 days, which lead to Holy Week and Easter, focus on the journey to greater spiritual freedom by embracing the paths of fasting, almsgiving, and prayer, which Fr. Mark Bosco, S.J., Vice President for Mission and Ministry, described as the “the touchstones of this spiritual journey each year” in the introduction to this year’s Lent Devotional series (sign up for these daily Lenten reflections from students, staff, and faculty across the campuses, including SCS). In Christian terms, the season is an opportunity to follow Jesus along the path of suffering that ultimately leads to redemption and new life in the Resurrection of Easter. 

Such a seemingly solemn season, so often associated with “giving up” one’s favorite treats or enjoyments for a month and a half, is about recognizing the ultimacy of our lives. What are we living for? And what is getting in the way of realizing our deeper purpose and calling? In his practical theology book, I Was and I Am Dust: Penitente Practices as a Way of Knowing, David Mellott presents a “dust theology” based on the Scriptural passage, “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  Lent, which begins with the marking of ashes on Ash Wednesday, invites participants to consider how they form a part of the Cosmos and each of these parts, however finite, has much to contribute to the ultimate purpose of the whole. In Mellott’s telling, these Lenten practices are about “coming to terms with reality, and in particular, with oneself.” This notion of growing in clearer awareness of reality is critically important to becoming the kinds of agents of consolation and love that we are called to be. 

The broken reality of the world and the need for great repair, healing, peace, and justice should animate all of our activities at Georgetown. The commitment to using our gifts and talents, resources and knowledge in service to the common good is shared across spiritual and religious traditions. Lent presents the Christian community with a particular opportunity in the religious calendar to more deeply commit to this work. 

One excellent opportunity to deepen a personal and communal commitment to non-violence is a training being offered by Georgetown’s Center on Faith and Justice, MLK Initiative, and endorsed by the Justice and Peace Studies Program. On February 16, the DC Peace Team will offer a session on Active Bystander Intervention and De-Escalation. The purpose of the session, in the context of situations of potentially escalating violence, is to equip participants with the “tools to recognize when you’re a bystander, understand the potential outcomes for all involved, and take nonviolent action.” You can RSVP and learn more here.

Sign up to receive Georgetown’s Lent Daily Devotionals!