St. Ignatius
Surrenders His Weapons
Today many parts of my life came together. For starters it was sunny. This is always good, especially when it is so cold. The sunroom made it up to 65 degrees today while it was in the low 20’s outside. Also a group of people of peace, that I am blessed to know, did a skit today in front of the Marquette Library that brought together some history, Ignatian Spirituality and our efforts to get Marquette to be faithful to the Gospel and No Longer Host Departments of Military Science. We had cut-out buses bring in students from the eight campuses that train and are indoctrinated by the military departments at Marquette. They were commissioned and got their weapons. Nearby we had a cross, covered with our MU Petitions, and a black-robed Jesuit playing St. Ignatius. After some marching around, the soldiers came upon St. Ignatius and the cross and surrendered their weapons. St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, was a soldier. After his conversion to a deeper faith he traveled to the shrine of the Black Madonna at Montserrat and surrendered his weapons. His first symbolic act on his pilgrimage to a new life as a companion of Jesus was to surrender his weapons as a soldier. We pray that Jesuits can return to the charisma of their founder and end the military training and teaching of military values that goes on at this School for the Army (SOA), Navy, Marines and Air Force at Marquette
Marquette students, except for a very few, did not participate in our nonviolent action in the name of Jesus today. Most just ignored us. But a few walked by and hurled insults at us. One particular young man who called out “hypocrites” hurt me the most. I believe we were doing just the opposite, acting on what we believe, not just talking while doing nothing, or ignoring the reality of the war and violence. However, it occurred to me this insult what was Jesus meant when he said we would be blessed when we suffered insults in his name. St. Ignatius also prayed for the desire to accept wrongs in the name of Jesus. I cannot, like St. Ignatius, pray for this to happen, but at least I can accept it.
There were seedlings poking through the soil in the planters in the sunroom. I still did not cut the greens but was glad to see new ones growing. If the weather does warm up next week, as promised, and the sun continues to shine bright, we will need to keep seeding, and cut, eat and grow. Tomorrow I am going out to the country to visit my grandchildren as one of them celebrates an eighth birthday. I will need to plant the growing power worm (bug) in them since the planting season is upon us. They will need to lay down their toy weapons and pick up the tools of gardening.
Time: 11:36 p.m., Office Temp.: 65, Sunroom Temp. Average: 55, Outside Temp.: 22, KWH: 209
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