Praying with refugees

10 November 2010

Jesuit Refugee Service will hold a month-long online retreat as part of celebrations to mark the organisation's 30th anniversary. JRS was founded by Fr Pedro Arrupe SJ on 14 November 1980, and currently operates in more than 50 countries around the world, including Australia.

'We recall fondly Fr Pedro Arrupe's sound advice to "pray, pray much" as he encouraged the struggling first generation of Jesuit Refugee Service team members in Southeast Asia to bring the overwhelming challenges of their new apostolic work to the Lord in prayer', says JRS USA, which will run the retreat under their 'Praying with Refugees' online portal.

To highlight the anniversary and its ongoing work with refugees and forced migrants, JRS invites members of the pubic to visit its website and participate in the Online Retreat.

Each day of this online retreat will offer the opportunity to reflect prayerfully on the situation of refugees via the lens of The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits.

JRS says that by linking the Spiritual Exercises to the plight of refugees and vulnerable migrants, the retreat will provide an easy way for people to fuse spirituality and social justice into their daily life.

'During the next four weeks we invite you — day by day — into an experience of "prayerful storytelling" as we share with you the grace-filled stories of God's powerful love for all of us.

'All are invited to join us each day in prayer for the coming four weeks. May God move your heart through the thoughts, desires, memories, and feelings that come to you in these days of 'prayerful story-telling.'

To find out more, or to begin your online retreat, click here.