The Amazing Gregory Boyle, S.J.

For seventeen semesters from the autumn of 2006, I had the privilege of teaching one course a semester at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, a Jesuit school founded in 1910. It was a rewarding experience for me, and I grew in appreciation for the Jesuits, whose Order was formed in 1534.

I regret that I did not know about Father Gregory Boyle back then in order to introduce him to my students. He has now been a Jesuit for 50+ years and has had a remarkable ministry in Los Angeles for 35+ years. Let me share with you some highlights about this amazing man. 

Gregory Joseph Boyle was born in Los Angeles in 1954. Upon graduating from a Jesuit high school, he joined the Society of Jesus (S.J., the Jesuits). Following his graduation from Gonzaga University, he then earned master’s degrees from three other Jesuit schools.

After being ordained as a priest in 1984, Boyle lived/served for a year in Bolivia. He then returned to LA, where he was appointed pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, then the poorest Catholic parish in LA and with the highest concentration of gang activity in the city.

In 1988, Boyle began what grew into Homeboy Industries, which, according to their website “is the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world.” They go on to say,

For over 30 years, we have stood as a beacon of hope in Los Angeles to provide training and support to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated people, allowing them to redirect their lives and become contributing members of our community.

Fr. Boyle has written three major books that I highly recommend. His first book, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (2010) became a “New York Times Bestseller.” It is a delight to read—as is his second book, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship (2017).*

The third of Boyle’s Power trilogy doesn’t have such a catchy title, but it is an equally engaging book. It is The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness (2021). Like the two predecessors, this book is also a delightful blend of theological reflections and conversations with “homies.”

Consider these key quotes from Boyle’s books:

** “Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.” (Tattoos)

** “Compassion isn't just about feeling the pain of others; it's about bringing them in toward yourself. If we love what God loves, then, in compassion, margins get erased. 'Be compassionate as God is compassionate,' means the dismantling of barriers that exclude.” (Tattoos)

** “God, of course, is unchanging and immutable. But our sense of who God is changes as we grow and experience God, and God is constantly nudging us toward that evolution.” (Barking)

** Kinship asks us to move from blame to understanding.” (Barking)

** “It is our lifelong task … to refine our view of God. We won’t be able to speak the whole language until we know the wholeness of God” (The Whole Language, p. 12)

And then there is this quote (which is directly related to my Feb. 16 blog post): 

This is one of more than 50 Boyle quotes found at
Top 50 Gregory Boyle Quotes

I am deeply grateful to Fr. Boyle for what I have learned from him about compassion, kinship, and tenderness. But most of all I am grateful for how he has expanded my understanding of God.

The first chapter of my book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now (2018) is “God is Greater than We Think, or Even Can Think.” Reading Fr. Boyle’s books has increased my awareness of the greatness of God and God’s unconditional love (grace).

That unconditional love is personified in the life and work of Father Gregory Boyle, an amazing man, indeed.

_____

* In reading Barking, I learned that G-Dog, a nicely done documentary of Fr. Boyle, was produced in 2012, and last month June and I really enjoyed watching it (on Amazon Prime; it is also available on other streaming services.)

Thank God for Nurses!

The recently maligned (by DJT) World Health Organization has designated 2020 as “Year of the Nurse,” marking 200 years since the birth of Florence Nightingale (FN). This post is my third this year about an outstanding woman born in 1820, the other two being Susan B. Anthony and Fanny Crosby.  

Learning about FN

In preparation for writing this article, I read Florence Nightingale the Angel of the Crimea, first published in 1909. The author of that old book is Laura E. Richards, whose mother was Julia Ward Howe.

Julia, who is best known for writing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,’ was born less than a year before FN and died just over two months after FN died 110 years ago in August 1910—and the two women knew each other to some degree. I was unable to find out whether Laura (1850~1943) also knew Florence personally.

According to Laura, it was her father, Samuel G. Howe, who in 1843 encouraged Florence to enter nursing at a time when, except for the Catholic Sisters of Charity, nurses in England “were for the most part coarse and ignorant women, often cruel, often intemperate” (p. 35).

Laura’s book, said to be “a story for young people,” was certainly a hagiographical account of Nightingale, but I much enjoyed reading it. Nearly three-fourths of the book is about FN’s meritorious work during the Crimean War (1854~56). 

The Influence of FN

Florence felt God’s call to service of others in 1837 when she was 17 years old, and then she became a nursing student in 1844. After several years of courtship, in 1849 she declined a marriage proposal. Four years later she became the superintendent of the Institution for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in London.

In the spring of 1854, Britain and France joined Turkey in opposition to Russia in what became known as the Crimean War. In the fall of that year, Florence went with a party of 38 nurses to work in a hospital in Scutari, Turkey, where thousands of injured soldiers were being cared for—and where a large percentage of them were dying.

When Florence and the other nurses arrived in Scutari, they were not welcomed. According to Richards, “the military authorities did not want female nurses,” because as mentioned earlier, nurses at that time were “often drunken, generally unfeeling, and always ignorant” (p. 52).

But Florence began to implement significant changes. One of the patients there when she arrived wrote, “Everything changed for the better.”

According to an essay about Florence’s legacy, because of her work in Scutari and her subsequent teaching, FN “will forever be linked with modern nursing—and rightly so.”

The same essay says that three areas of contemporary medicine were “deeply influenced by her.” Those three were hospital infection control, hospital epidemiology, and hospice medicine.

Following in the Footsteps of FN

After retiring as a teacher/administrator in Japan and moving to the Kansas City area in 2005, I had the privilege of teaching a required theology course at Rockhurst University from 2006 to 2015. My classes in sixteen of those seventeen semesters were in the evening, and a majority of my students were in the nursing program.

With few exceptions, those nursing students were serious, hard-working students, and I wonder now how they are faring as practicing nurses during the current pandemic. I am quite confident that many of my former students are a part of the dedicated core of nurses ministering to covid-19 patients across the country.

I hope they all are all right, but some might not be. According to a recent report by the National Nursing Associations (see the reference in this article), at least 90,000 healthcare workers have been infected with covid-19 and more than 260 nurses have died.

The nursing students I taught (and all dedicated nurses) are following in the footsteps of Florence Nightingale, and I write this to honor them (and all nurses) this week, which is National Nurses Week. This special week begins each year on May 6 and ends on May 12, FN’s birthday.

Thank God for Florence Nightingale, and thank God for nurses!

In Appreciation of Ignatius and the Jesuits

As many of you know, I teach one course a semester at Rockhurst University in Kansas City. I have been doing that, and have greatly enjoying doing that, since August 2006, so I am now in my fifteenth semester there. How time flies!

Founded in 1910 as Rockhurst College, it became a university in 1999 and is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. The oldest and most prestigious member of that organization is Georgetown University, founded in 1789.

The Society of Jesus (S.J.), whose members are usually called Jesuits, is a Catholic Order founded by Ignatius Loyola and officially approved six years later by Pope Paul III in 1540. It is currently the largest male Order in the Roman Catholic Church with about 17,500 members worldwide.

Ignatius, whose real name was Iñigo López de Loyola, was born in the Basque region of Spain on October 27, 1491. (Loyola was the name of the village where he was born, not a “family name,” although it is often used that way now.)

As a young man, Ignatius was a knight and was wounded in battle in 1521—a month after Luther had declared “Here I stand” at the Imperial Diet of Worms in Germany.

While recovering, Ignatius turned his attention to spiritual matters. This resulted in his writing “Spiritual Exercises” in 1522-24. After recuperating, he ended up at Paris University where he and six university friends formed the Society of Jesus on August 15, 1534.

Statue of Ignatius at Rockhurst U.

Before starting to teach at Rockhurst, I knew little about Ignatius or the Jesuits. (I was a big admirer, though, of Father Gabriel, the impressive young Jesuit missionary in the superlative 1986 movie “The Mission.”)

And I did know about Francis Xavier, one of the original seven Jesuits and the first Jesuit missionary. In 1549 he became the first Christian missionary to set foot in Japan.

As I have learned more about them, my appreciation for both Ignatius and the Jesuits has grown. Earlier this year I read Margaret Silf’s popularly done, and somewhat quixotic, book “Just Call Me López: Getting to the Heart of Ignatius of Loyola” (2012). (This might be a book some of you would enjoy reading if you want to learn more about Ignatius.)

Perhaps the primary popularizer of the Jesuits in the U.S. at this time is James Martin (S.J., b. 1960). In addition to his highly readable “The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life” (2010) in which he explains how Ignatius helps people with practical spirituality, from time to time he also appears on “The Colbert Report.”

Some of the notable Jesuits you may have heard of include Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Daniel Berrigan, and John Dear (about whom I want to post an article soon). Of course the most famous Jesuit of all is now Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope.

Ignatius’ main life principle became the Jesuit motto: Ad maiorem Dei gloriam (“For the greater glory of God”). I use this on the introductory page of the PowerPoint slides I use for each class period at RU.

Even though I am not a Jesuit and have several distinctly different doctrinal beliefs, I admire the sincerity and spiritual commitment of Ignatius and am not reluctant to use his words as a suitable expression for my work at a Jesuit university.

And I am happy to post this in appreciation of Ignatius and the Jesuits.