St. Ignatius of Loyola's feast day isn't until next week, but today I felt like it arrived early, as I had the great pleasure of meeting one of the saint's spiritual sons, Father James Kubicki, S.J., national director of the Apostleship of Prayer. The apostleship promotes the spirituality of the Morning Offering, which, since I entered the Church in 2006, has been a fundamental part of my growth in Christ.
Father Kubicki and I first connected by e-mail this past spring, when we both had books published by Ave Maria Press and noticed that our books' topics were complementary. My book, My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints, gives a Catholic spirituality of redemptive suffering. Father Kubicki's A Heart on Fire: Rediscovering Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus gives a deep, theologically rich, and eminently readable account of how our sufferings—as well as all our prayers, works, and joys—gain profound meaning when we offer them to God in union with the crucified and resurrected Christ. He and I were able to meet in person for the first time today because he was in nearby Rockville, Maryland, to record talks for Now You Know Media, a Catholic audio and video company.
I had imagined that Father Kubicki would have a serene and joyful spirit, and he did not disappoint. You can catch a bit of that spirit in this video he made in 2008 that outlines the spirituality of the Morning Offering, which is the foundation of the work of the Apostleship of Prayer.
