This past June, more than 325 Jesuits and lay partners descended on the campus of Loyola College in Maryland to partake in Maryland Province Days.

Fully embracing the theme of “Communion, Companionship, Collaboration – Sharing the Ignatian Vision,” Province Days attendees prayed, listened and worked together to strengthen the community of Ignatian Partners, lay and Jesuit. Fortified by an enlivened sense of community, participants challenged themselves and one another to think about how they want to live their lives and how they can work together to demonstrate solidarity, faith, mission, leadership, and partnership.

Keynote speakers Chris Lowney, author of Heroic Leadership: Best Practices from a 450 Year-Old Company That Changed the World, and Peggy Steinfels, former editor of Commonweal magazine, encouraged those in attendance to exercise Ignatian leadership in promoting the Jesuit mission in the cities, institutions, and parishes where they work.

Provincial Timothy Brown, SJ, framed the Province Days program as a template of the Ignatian process of being “contemplatives in action,” described in Decree 26 of General Congregation 34 as constantly continuing “experience, reflection, decision, and action.” Father Brown encouraged those who attended Province Days to live out this Ignatian ideal in their daily lives and invite others to join them in making a difference in the Church and in the world.

View a full schedule of events from Province Days.