Photo by Omar Lopez on UnSplash.
Jesuit Alumni & Friends Morning of Reflection
Companions on the Journey:
Reimagining Connection and Community
Saturday, November 12, 2022
9:30am - 11:30am PST
Online via Zoom - closed captioning available
elise gower, Presenter
Fumi Tosu, Christian Verghese, SJ, & Mimi Krsak,
Alumni Panelists
Please register by Wednesday, November 9, 2022
About this Program
Join us for a morning of reflection for Jesuit alumni and friends to listen, share, and pray together as a community. The Ignatian tradition invites us to reimagine connection and sustain community in the context of today. What is our spiritual anchor that grounds us in navigating a changing world, transcends the limitations of “cancel culture,” and holds us accountable to ourselves and others?
Presenter Elise Gower of Contemplative Leaders in Action will share opening remarks to begin our morning, followed by an opportunity for individual reflection and an alumni panel who will share their responses on the theme, as well as a chance for small group conversation and prayer. Let us gather for a nourishing morning together!
This program is for anyone who has graduated or been formed by a Jesuit university, high school, volunteer program, formational program, parish, and/or has an appreciation for all things Jesuit. All are welcome!
COST
This will be a sliding-scale, donation-based program. Please donate as much or little as you are able. Thank you!
Suggested donation: $30
Are you a current Jesuit Volunteer Northwest or Jesuit Volunteer Northwest EnCorps volunteer?
Please email maria@ignatiancenter.org to receive a special code for FREE registration.
HELP SUPPORT A PARTICIPANT
If you would like to help subsidize the cost of participation for another person, we welcome your donation. Thank you for helping us to make it possible for all persons to participate in this program!
Elise Gower is the associate director for Contemplative Leaders in Action (CLA), an Ignatian spirituality and leadership program for young adults through the Office of Ignatian Spirituality. She formerly served as the Associate Director of Programs at Loyola University Maryland's Center for Community Service & Justice, guiding strategies for mission and identity, and overseeing community engaged learning and scholarship, immersions, and initiatives to advance community impact. She also worked in ministry at Loyola and the University of Scranton, focusing on Ignatian retreats, justice programming, and interfaith engagement. Elise has a master’s in education and attributes much of her personal and professional development to the dynamic gifts of Ignatian spirituality.
Elise is committed to individual and collective antiracism work, faith intersections within the LGBTQ+ community, and understanding discernment as a critical tool for informed and effective leadership. She seeks to engage others in Ignatian spirituality, a tradition that is rich in history and adaptable in meeting communities diverse in background, identity, and experience. Elise lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
about the panelists
Fumi Tosu is an educator, story-teller, and community builder. He is founder and director of Dandelion House Catholic Worker in Portland, Oregon. He is a former Jesuit Volunteer, taught for seven years at a Jesuit high school, and is a spiritual director in the Ignatian tradition. He received his Master of Divinity degree from the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California.
Christian Verghese, SJ is a Jesuit scholastic, working as a regent at McQuaid Jesuit in Rochester, NY as a math teacher and service director. Before entering the Society of Jesus, he graduated from McQuaid in 2011 and majored in mathematics at Georgetown University. He discovered his vocation to the Jesuits on a 5-day Silent Ignatian Retreat during his junior year, hearing the call to accompany others in radical kinship, companionship, and community. During his seven years as a Jesuit, he has had the opportunity to complete the 30-day Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius as a novice, live in community with Greg Boyle and work alongside his sister at Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, CA, complete a master's degree in mathematics at St. Louis University, immerse in Guatemalan culture while learning Spanish, and promote racial justice on the East Coast through his time in the USA East Province chapter of the Jesuit Antiracism Sodality. Through his vocation, he strives to accompany others intellectually in the tradition of Jesuit education, spiritually in the footsteps of St. Ignatius, and lovingly alongside his companion and Lord, Jesus.
Mimi Krsak is a proud legacy alum of Seattle University’s College of Education. She has taught in Japan, in the Archdiocese of Seattle, and found her calling teaching newly arrived refugee and immigrant kids. She is a Spiritual Exercises in Everyday Life (SEEL) Spiritual Director, a volunteer at Seattle Nativity School, and a former leader of Ignatian Spirituality Project Retreats. Retirement has freed her to be a volunteer prison chaplain, to welcome refugee families from Afghanistan and the Ukraine, and to hang out with her friends at L’Arche Noah Sealth, where she is a Covenanted Associate Member.
QUESTIONS?
Call (206) 329-4824 or email Maria Ochoa Vazquez, ISC Program Coordinator.
Sponsored by the Ignatian Spirituality Center.