The Messenger and the Novena

The Sacred Heart Messenger is bringing out a CD of the Novena to the Sacred Heart, complete with prayers and hymns. John Looby SJ, editor of the Messenger, explains the initiative.

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A young school girl, as an article in the June issue of the Sacred Heart Messenger recalls, asked the Archbishop of Paris why there was no month dedicated to the Sacred Heart. And so began the process which led eventually to the establishment in 1856 of the Feast of the Sacred Heart for the Universal Church. Read more »

Asking for trouble!

Andrew Bates, a former Belvedere student, is taking a 1990 Toyota Starlet across 10,000 miles of every kind of terrain, as he and his team make their way to Mongolia. They hope to raise €5,000 for a number of charities.

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In December of 1995 I found myself hanging out the open door of a crowded train as it made its way across a strange countryside full of palm trees and people making fuel from cow dung by the side of the tracks. I was 17 years old and had spent the past two weeks in Calcutta as part of the first group of 5th year students from Belvedere College who had travelled to India to work in local schools and experience another side of this world. Read more »

Solemn greetings from Virginia Tech

Mia Ortega, a JVC volunteer some years ago, wrote from Virginia Tech just after the horrendous shootings which took 32 lives. A good friend of hers was killed after he came to the aid of another of the victims.

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Hello everyone,

First of all, I’d like to thank you for the continued messages of concern, hope, and prayers. I am so grateful to know that I have your support. As silly as this may sound, I can truly feel your prayers and positive thoughts coming from your corners of the world. In such a time of grief, it is certainly helpful to know I am in the minds and hearts of my friends near and far. Read more »

Taking a page out of the Jesuits’ book

Chris Lowney, renowned author of a book on how the Jesuit understanding of leadership holds valuable lessons for commercial companies, spoke at a number of venues in Ireland last month. Here are some excerpts from one of his entertaining and thought-provoking talks.

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In my talk I now plan to set out a leadership style based on the example of the Jesuits….

When the ten Jesuit founders were getting their company started in the 1540s, even though they had no business plan and no very clear idea of the kind of work they would do, they did have a very clear idea of the kind of person they wanted to recruit to join them. Read more »

Contemporary Irish art: a view from Cologne

Attention was drawn to the Hugh Lane Gallery’s Francis Bacon collection recently when a record price was set for post-war art in Sotheby’s. Bacon was the subject of a Jesuit’s interest when Friedhelm Mennekes SJ gave a lecture on the artist at the Dublin Gallery in April.

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A painting by Francis Bacon was sold for $52.7m at a recent Sotheby’s auction. An anonymous telephone bidder paid the record-breaking price for ’Study From Innocent X’ by the Baggot Street-born artist. Having been estimated at $30m, the new high price caused some to reconsider the value of the Dublin City Gallery collection, where the artist’s studio has been preserved. Read more »