The Sanguine Sixties

At the top of my list of people from history who I would like to meet are St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits and developer of the Spiritual Exercises, and Lydia Moss Bradley, founder of Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. Besides being on my list, they have something else in common: July 31st. Lydia was born July 31, 1816 and St. Ignatius was born to eternal life (i.e. died) on July 31, 1556. Today is his Feast Day.  The story of Ignatius's life is very compelling. Born in Spain, he was a soldier and lady's man, when he was seriously injured by a cannonball during a battle with the French. While he was recovering, he read the books available to him. He noticed that when he read adventure stories, he enjoyed them while he was reading them but afterwards, he felt empty. But when he read about Jesus and the saints, he felt uplifted afterwards. This was the beginning of his conversion, which led him to commit his life to Jesus and go on a rigorous pilgrimage through...

"FYI Monsignor Beebe's estate sale tonight," texted my friend Christy this morning to our group text. Christy is an inveterate estate sale shopper and keeps abreast of the sales around town. This one would be at our former teacher's condo. Msgr. Charles Beebe was a priest of the Diocese of Peoria. One of his many assignments was at my high school the Academy of Our Lady/Spalding Institute, where I was fortunate to have him as a religion teacher in 1977. Up until I had him for "Jesus and the New Testament," I had found religion class boring. Teaching/learning religion is kind of a strange thing, right? Are we supposed to learn a body of knowledge, a set of beliefs, practices to follow? Not sure, but the classes I had previously left me less than inspired.  I can't remember any of the details about Msgr's class, but I do remember that it was interesting and that Msgr. Beebe was a good teacher. Perhaps it was because the class was about Jesus. Whatever ...