A Word of great encouragement

“Three burning candles” by Johan Swanepoel

Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

-Rom 8:35-39, NLT from Biblehub.com – accessed 4 Dec 2025

Dear Jesuit women,

It has been something like nine years since my first post here, and seven years since my last. Wow! Lately, when people reach out, they often add a caveat: “If this site is still active…” or “If you are still writing…”

I completely understand. Seven years, online, feels like forever. It even feels pretty long in the flesh! Seven years ago, I was in some ways a completely different person. When we look closely, this is true of most lives, I think. The amount of learning, growth, and transformation that is always actually happening, even when we feel stagnant, or humdrum, or unadventurous, is staggering. Yet through all the changes in appearance – in the texture, the location, the material, the color scheme of our lives, there is a thread that runs consistently. Sometimes the thread lies hidden, and sometimes it is exposed, but always it holds everything together whether we realize it or not. That thread is vocation. It can be called by many other names – purpose, the inner self, the spiritual journey, the pilgrimage of life, the awareness of God. But for the purposes of this missive, let’s call it the golden thread of vocation.

Throughout the years, there have been two pages on this website that consistently receive the most visits by far. The number one most visited page is “Ignatian Women’s Religious Orders.” The number two most visited page is “Jesuit Women: Start Your Journey.” This indicates to me that the people who find this website (apart from web developers, who understandably would like me to pay them to coach me on how to receive more hits…because that’s their livelihood, and God bless them!) are probably Google searching “Jesuit Women” and “Ignatian Religious Orders.” The people who come to this website are exploring the nature of their vocation. I feel so happy about that, because exploring the nature of one’s own vocation seems to be the first step in learning to truly listen to God. Through all the noise, we are listening, God!

What inspires me to write to you today, as we begin the new Church year, “examening” what has come before and just beginning to articulate our hopes for the year to come — is my feeling of gratitude, hope, and excitement that my own search for vocation has brought me not only a rich and full life for and with others, but also other Jesuit women to share it. It doesn’t look the way I thought it would (in my experience, God never answers prayer the way you think God will, as God’s creativity and sense of humor are too vast for that) but we are three women, living our lives in the Ignatian Way, networked and woven together in a way that only God can weave. These two women keep me honest. They keep me in my spirituality. They supported me through what was probably the hardest moment of my grown up life so far this autumn, during the 8th anniversary of my Long Retreat. (More to come on that. We have a lot to catch up on!)

In my mind, I call us Jesuit Women: Mother, Sister, and Priest. There are so many more Jesuit women than us, I know: the Directors, the Advocates, the Organizers, the Teachers, the Scholars, the Spiritual Friends. But these two are the particular women I share with. These are the particular Jesuit women who know and support my path, and I know and support theirs. If my sharing with each of them has taught me anything, it’s that the golden thread of vocation does not look one way.

It has also taught me that there is not much difference at all between Jesuit spirituality and Ignatian spirituality. Jesuit spirituality is a subset of Ignatian spirituality, and if there is any special quality of Jesuit spirituality that all Jesuit people share, it may be the desire for complete and total surrender. You do not have to be a Jesuit to completely and totally surrender in an Ignatian way. But most Jesuits are drawn to that kind of outpouring, that kind of kenosis, that emptying of a little river into the great ocean of God: of God, from God, for God, back to God. Another quality often ascribed to Jesuit people is heroism, because this kind of surrender is incredibly scary in the abstract. But as all Jesuit men and women, as all Jesuit people find out eventually, this surrender is not so scary in the happening. We must choose over and over to surrender, to go with God’s flow; and as we choose, we find out again and again that there wasn’t much of a choice there. There was only resisting God’s love, or not.

Tell me about more your Jesuit journey! Can you add your golden thread to this tapestry of vocation? Please do get in touch. The site is still active, and I am still writing. We are all very much alive.

with love,

Maggie