Crossroads: The ISP Blog
A Hopefulness Has Bloomed (Reflection #4 in our Advent Series)
by Jack Gonsalves, ISP Orange County Coordinator I became a volunteer with ISP about seven years ago. I was a little intimidated by the whole idea, but inside the Lord had been inviting me for years to get to know those who are or have been homeless. Many years ago, I...
Finding Love in Unlikely Places (Reflection #3 in our Advent Series)
by Dawn Davis For me, Advent is about LOVE. Love can be found in the most unlikely places. On a street corner, I saw love. A random stranger stopped to help an elderly woman cross the street. Without hesitation, he greeted her with a smile and escorted her across the...
The Gift of A Spiritual Companionship (Reflection #2 in our Advent Series)
by Fr. Bill Creed, SJ Recently, I was surprised to be chatting with a guy I had not seen in nearly two decades. He talked about the time twenty years ago when I had known him as a kind of newly reformed gang member. Often he would show up for meetings wearing a tank...
The Gift of Sacred Stories: Dorothy’s Reflection
Finding Hope: My First ISP Retreat by Dorothy Celestin In 2018, I was coming out of the hardship of drug addiction. I had nowhere to turn, I didn’t know which way to go, and I didn’t have much to live for. I was staying in a halfway house full of chaos--until I was...
The Gift of Sacred Stories: An Advent Journey with ISP
ISP invites you to reflect and pray with our reflection series for this Advent, this time of waiting in the darkness. Maybe you can recall a time in your own life when you felt a sense of being stuck in the dark, afraid, not knowing what was next. And then, in the...
We’re grateful to be back!
Thanksgiving's just around the corner, and in that spirit of gratitude... we sure are grateful to have programs back in full swing! Our ISP teams have been working hard to rebuild retreat and reflection programs following the pandemic, and the energy around our...
Recovery is for everyone
“Recovery means being able to be the authentic self that God created me to be.” -Dawn “What does recovery mean to me? Abundant life!” -Dorothy It’s National Recovery Month, which is close to our hearts here at ISP. We believe recovery is for everyone: “every...
“After the Cannonball” Reflection #12: Don’t keep it to yourself!
by Vinita Hampton Wright Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. When we’re having a hard time—grieving a loss, looking for a better...
“After the Cannonball” Reflection #11: Awake and active
by Vinita Hampton Wright Step 11: We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. When we look at most religions, especially...
“After the Cannonball” Reflection #10: The search within
by Vinita Hampton Wright Step 10: We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. One of the best gifts of Ignatian spirituality is a simple prayer called the Examen. Ignatius considered it so important that he allowed...
