Summer Time

"Summer time, and the livin' is easy." So goes a song of George Gershwin that premiered in the 1935 musical "Porgy and Bess." It's summer time at the Apostleship of Prayer and it's not the fish that are jumping, as in the song, but all of us.

The dream of several young Jesuits, priests and scholastics, is being realized this summer with "The Jesuit Mission Band." It's not a musical band, but a group of Jesuits that is going around the Midwest offering to young adults (18 to 35) a brief (Friday night and Saturday) retreat based on the "Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius" and the practical spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer. They've been in the office this week preparing their presentations and it's been exciting to see their energy. It's all part of the revival of the Apostleship of Prayer in the U.S.

This weekend I'll be at a conference run by a group called "Sacred Heart Communities in Collaboration." This national conference is entitled "Hearts on Fire: New Beginnings; New Challenges," and I'll be the first of three speakers. My talk is entitled "Wells of Love: Our Covenant Relationship with the Father through Jesus."

The 14 talks from my preached retreat based on the "Spiritual Exercises" are now posted online at Creighton University's Online Ministries site. They were recorded last April at the Jesuit Retreat House in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, also known as Demontreville.

After receiving encouragement from a publisher to whom we submitted a book proposal, I've begun writing a book. Right now the title is "The Power of Praying for Others" and our hope is that it will fill a void that exists among the many books on prayer. Our ambitious hope is that this book will inspire people with what we call "the simple and profound way of life" of the Apostleship of Prayer in the same way that Jesuit Fr. Henri Ramiere's classic book of the late 1800's ("The Apostleship of Prayer") did.

Along with these tasks there are the monthly and daily radio and web reflections.

There's certainly no moss gathering around the Apostleship of Prayer this summer.