Announcing a Special Project For the Society

In a little over a week, Monday August 17 2009 will mark the 85th anniversary of the birth of Stanley L. Jaki.

It would be appropriate if we could have our first international congress around then, but I have a feeling it would be hard to schedule such a grand event at this late date. We'll have to try again next year. And I don't think we'll be ready with the first issue of our journal. That will also take some planning.

But there is something we can all do. Starting on Sunday, August 9, you can join us in a novena of prayer for Father Jaki. Anyone who can should arrange to attend Holy Mass on that day for the repose of his soul.

It had been hoped, several times, that we might produce a "Festschrift" for Father Jaki. If you do not know this interesting word, it is a gift book, written for the occasion of an anniversary or other event in the life of a man of letters. The friends of that person arrange to have various essays or articles written about his work and thought, which are collected and published - or at least bound in an elegant form - and this unique gift is presented to him at a reception or banquet in his honour at the appropriate time. We may yet assemble such a volume, as a memorial tribute - but we can render a spiritual gift without the fuss of typographical errors and binding charges. Let us consider how we might participate by prayer.

Let us also ask God to enlighten us, to show us how we might carry out His will, whether through the Society or in our own professional lives, by writing or working or studying, by living a more perfect life of love and of truth in whatever place He has given us in His wonderful universe.