In honor of the Feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola on July 31, we're taking a green look at his Spiritual Exercises.

When today's host, Eric Clayton, was in college, he stumbled upon a book entitled “The Eucharist and Social Justice.” It’s a small volume and was easily tucked into his bag when he went to Nicaragua on a service immersion trip. He remembers paging through that book with an excitement that rarely appeared when reading other theology texts. But something about this one, this invitation to consider how the source and summit of our Catholic faith was in fact a radical call to justice — that was formative. It’s what he was looking for as an undergraduate who was very much searching for answers when it came to faith and God and the church.

The author of that little book is Sr. Margaret Scott. She’s a Handmaid of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and a renowned spiritual director and retreat giver. She’s fluent in numerous languages, which has led her into ministries that have taken her around the world. She has a lived experience of the universal church and the needs and joys of God’s people in many, many places. She has brought those insights into the classroom; she taught theology at Philly’s own Jesuit university, St. Joe’s.

But most importantly for today, she’s brought that same global perspective, that tender pastoral care, to a new book all about Ignatian spirituality and ecological conversion. It’s called “Ignatius Was Green: Ecological Dimensions of the Spiritual Exercises” and it’s available now from Paulist Press. Like “The Eucharist and Social Justice,” this is a small, approachable volume. And for those of us engaged in the ministry of the Exercises, it’s quite helpful. Sr. Margaret invites us to deepen our own encounter with Christ through the Exercises by paying careful attention to those places in Ignatius’ text that invite deeper ecological reflection.

Learn more about her book: https://www.paulistpress.com/Products/5716-7/ignatius-was-green.aspx