The Feast of St. Ignatius Loyola on July 31 will mark the end of the Ignatian Year, through which we have been celebrating the 500th anniversary of Ignatius getting hit in the leg with a cannonball. This is admittedly a weird-at-first-glance event to be marking. What about Ignatius’ birth or the beginning of his ministry?

The cannonball gets special attention in Ignatius’ story because it was such a vivid and transformative moment. The cannonball sparked Ignatius’ conversion. It shattered his plans for a life of chivalry and set him on a dramatically new path. This anniversary has been a great opportunity for all of us to look at our own life paths and see how the Lord might be trying to reach out to us or maybe even shake us up a little.

Today’s guests took the opportunity of the Ignatian Year to start a brand-new creative project. Dr. Paola Pascual-Ferrá is a communications professor at Loyola University Maryland. Her friend Sean Bráy is the interim vice president for mission at the university. They decided to start a podcast called "This Ignatian Year," which welcomed guests to reflect on how they live Ignatian spirituality in their everyday lives. They talked with host Mike Jordan Laskey about how their how their own spiritualities were affected through this process, and how we might continue living the key themes at the heart of the Ignatian year even after this celebration is over.

Listen to “This Ignatian Year”: https://www.loyola.edu/department/campus-ministry/ignatian-spirituality/ignatian-year

Read about its creation: https://www.ajcunet.edu/june-2022-connections/2022/4/25/loyola-maryland-thematic

AMDG is a production of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.