Paula Hamilton is an Ignatian Volunteer Corps member serving at the Ronald McDonald House in Albany. Paula and her husband David live in Delmar. Paula offers her reflection about her service for Ronald McDonald House at Albany Medical Center.
Frank McDonnell, the very first IVC NEPA service corps member, firmly grasps the Ignatian philosophy of Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam: For the Greater Glory of God. “Mickey’s” life-long desire to serve arises from an appreciation of how fortunate he has been in his own life, manifesting in acts of quiet kindness and moments of joy-filled smiles.
Nothing should be more expected than old age, yet nothing is more unforeseen. It is a situation that exists outside of oneself – I am old to others. There is a disconnect between how I feel inside me, and the judgmental
Cathy became interested in IVC after seeing a feature story in the Clarion Herald (New Orleans’ Archdiocesan newspaper – see the article here). She was looking for a next step because she felt, although retired from work, she “did not retire from life.”
Reflecting on the stories that formed Ignatius, I found myself wondering how there could only have been two books in all of Loyola castle. The availability of nothing to read but The Life of Christ and The Lives of the Saints is the core of the conversion story we tell, yet it seems so improbable. Ignatius was recuperating in the wealthy home where he had learned to read; hadn’t he also cultivated his fondness for chivalric tales and courtly romances there?
“Through the desert God leads us to freedom” is the theme of Pope Francis’s 2024 Lenten Message. Beginning in the Book of Exodus, Pope Francis said that when God reveals God’s self, the message is one of freedom: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Ex 20:2). Pope Francis asks us to consider those things that we cling to that perhaps need to be left behind so we can grow in the freedom of God’s love.
