This week we feature Sr. Kathy Bryant, RSC, Fr. James Martin, SJ, and Elisabeth Potts, a long-time Ignatian volunteer.

The Abundant Table, our pilgrimage to Italy, detailed below, is still open, but registration will close soon.

We promise a dynamic 10 days of sights, sounds and tastes to enlighten and inspire you as we explore all the goodness of God that Italy offers.

John 13:31-33a, 34-35

“Be nice to your sister, share with your brother, get along, use your words.” Do you remember these rules our parents gave us when we were very young? They were simple and repeated frequently, knowing that as youngsters we needed reminders.

As we got older the messages to get along continued and expanded to include thoughts like, “Keep your wits about you” or “Have fun, be good and be careful.”

Sometimes, in serious moments, and when we were old enough to understand, parents would encourage us to remember where we came from and invoke the family name as an incentive to remind us to make good decisions and stay out of trouble. That, to me, was always the one that meant business. It carried a responsibility that was far beyond the moment, taking into consideration both the past and the future.

As a mother of five children, I tend to reflect on scripture from that perspective. I have the degrees, took the preaching classes and while it was all valuable beyond measure, my authentic understanding about this life God has granted springs from my children. They have taught me to work at loving unconditionally, opening my heart to ways other than my own and to embrace change. On a humorous note, traveling with them this past week, they might raise an eyebrow at the fact that I claim to embrace change, particularly in this technological world. Nonetheless, in the lessons of life, they are my teachers.

In today’s gospel, we hear Jesus say, My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

These are sentiments that mothers and fathers throughout the world do their best to teach their children - love one another - from the time they are little into their adult years. When Jesus explains to his disciples that they will be known as his disciples if they act out of love, it reminds me of the parental plea to remember your roots.

Jesus did not spell out what it means to love one another with detailed specifics any more than a parent does. He modeled it more than talking about it. The overall arc of loving one another involves caring for each other, and how this is done in a family or society in general varies depending on the circumstances. However, we do have some specifics in the principles of Catholic Social Teaching. They are a way to act on what it means to love another.

The theme of the principles is about the dignity of each person, created in the image and likeness of God, regardless of their social status, physical abilities, gender or race. The principles recognize our interconnectedness and our responsibility to care for the earth God has given us. They call us to work for the common good and to appreciate that we are one human family called to work together globally for justice.

There is one line in these principles that screams for attention at the moment: "The moral test of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members."

Who are our most vulnerable members and how are we treating them? What are we doing as a society, a faith community, and a family to heed the words of Jesus to love one another? 

Peace,

Anne

Registration is coming to a close soon!

Join us in this time of Jubilee initiated by our beloved Pope Francis and continued by our new Pope Leo.

This week, Sr. Kathy Bryant, RSC, brought her work to the Ignatians West volunteers. She is an advocate with the Alliance to End Human Trafficking, an organization created and supported by Catholic Sisters. Her stories of children, women and men who are trafficked disturbed us and touched our hearts.

Sr Kathy informed us that human trafficking happens in cities, rural areas, and online. Over 50 million people are trafficked every year, with traffickers making billions of dollars off their exploitation.

We were particularly disturbed to hear about the exploitation of children and teens and as a group, we agreed that our schools needed to make education about human trafficking a priority for both students and their parents.



Education on this topic will make a difference. The idea that human trafficking can not and does not happen in our towns is not true. Human trafficking is everywhere from the mall to the Internet.

For more information: wwwalliancetoendhumantrafficking.org

Cristo Rey: My Happy Place

By Elisabeth Potts

After retiring from teaching (42 years) at La Reina High School, I went on a retreat. The message: find your purpose.

The following Sunday at Mass, Anne Hansen gave a presentation about Ignatians West. I had taught her three delightful daughters and knew Anne. I signed up that Sunday. I had found my purpose.

That was 10 years ago. Anne directed me to St. John’s Hospital in Oxnard and I became a Eucharistic Minister visiting patients.

Then we moved to Orange County in August 2023. “Find me something to do,” I told Anne.

She did. “I am sending you to Cristo Rey High School in Orange County. It just opened.”

Really? Fourteen- and fifteen-year-old boys and girls? Just like my first teaching job out of college. YIKES!

I did some research on the Cristo Rey model: students whose parents have limited resources take a college prep curriculum and work in a corporate office one day a week. Tuition is mostly covered by their salaries and donations. High graduation rate from both high school and college. Watch 60 minutes presentation on the Cristo Rey network.

Who would have imagined that at my advanced age I would look forward to seeing restless 14–15-year-olds every week? But I do.

They make me laugh: “Miss, were you born with that hair color?” Me to self: You mean old lady hair?

They are curious: “Miss, how many boy friends did you have when you were a teenager?” “Is this a good thesis statement?”

They are challenging: Me: “How about letting me help you get that essay written?” Them: “No thanks. I’m good.” Me: “Can I see what you have written so far.” Them: “Uh, well, nothing.”

Breakthroughs: “I changed my mind. Can you help me write that essay?” “I got an A on that essay we worked on.” “Would you be my partner?” “Are you coming tomorrow?”

This year, I added an extra day to my volunteering. I love the Cristo Rey mission. I love the students. I love giving them the rosary bracelets that Gary Pontrelli (a fellow IW volunteer) makes. When I told them he was a retired pathologist, they looked up what that meant. They were impressed.

So am I. Every Tuesday and Thursday. 

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, who has chosen the papal name Leo XIV, appears on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican May 8, 2025, following his election during the conclave. He is the first American pope and the first Augustinian pope in history. (OSV News photo/Claudia Greco, Reuters)

You won’t be surprised when I tell you that I’ve been thinking a lot about our new pope, Leo XIV. Most Catholics could say the same, with millions of us amazed by the activity of the Holy Spirit in inspiring the College of Cardinals to elect the first American pope, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, O.S.A. 

There’s been a fair amount written about his past comments on LGBTQ issues, and you can check out this article by our executive director Michael O’Loughlin for more on that. 

But for this meditation I would like to focus on the ways that God surprises us. For there were several other cardinals whose chances (if you could even use that word) to become the next pope seemed more likely—at least if you listened to the Italian press and other Vaticanologists. Cardinal Prevost’s candidacy, while strong, was usually relegated to one of the “compromise” candidates who would emerge only after many days of voting. But the Holy Spirit had other ideas: Cardinal Prevost was elected on the second day and the fourth ballot.

When Pope Leo XIV stepped out onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, in the blink of an eye the church changed.

When he stepped out onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, in the blink of an eye the church changed. The first American pope. The first pope from the Augustinian order in many years. The first pope whose native language is English. And a pope who, at 69, is younger and healthier than the beloved Pope Francis, who had died just a few days before, at age 88. It all seemed so new.

In today’s second reading, the writer of the Book of Revelation has a vision of “a new heaven and a new earth.” He sees “a new Jerusalem.” The thrust of the passage is how God can “make all things new.”

Sometimes we doubt that. I remember before the conclave that elected Pope Francis in 2013, a great deal of people expressed despair. Nothing will change, some said, because most of the cardinal-electors were named by either Pope John Paul II or Pope Benedict XVI. This is not a knock against either of those two holy men. Rather, many thought that no matter what happened, not much would change.

Denying that God can surprise us is a form of despair. It says, “I know better than God. Nothing can change. There is no progress in the world. Or in the church.”

But God makes all things new: onto the balcony in 2013 stepped Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., who not long afterwards pledged to make a “mess.” (His critics say he made too much of a mess; I think he shook things up just enough). 

Denying that God can surprise us is a form of despair. It says, “I know better than God. Nothing can change. There is no progress in the world. Or in the church.” 

The Risen Christ has to remind us not to despair. He has to remind us that God can make “all things new.” He understands that when the disciples are locked behind closed doors on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, he must break through their hopelessness to tell them—show them—that things have changed. Things are new. And he greets them not with condemnation of their despair, but with the first words that Pope Leo XIV used on the balcony of St. Peter’s: “Peace be with you.”

The Risen Christ has to remind us not to despair. He has to remind us that God can make “all things new.”

The newness that Jesus offers the disciples in today’s Gospel passage from John is the newness of his love. The disciples are to love one another not as they would love one another but in a new way: as Jesus has loved them. And in this newness, they are reborn as disciples.  

As Pope Leo XIV begins his papacy, let us never doubt that God can always surprise us by making things new. And let us remember that the newness we are called every day to is the newness of Jesus’s love.

James Martin, S.J.

James Martin, S.J., is the founder of Outreach, where this article was posted and the editor at large of America Media.

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