For the last Evening of Reflection for the 2022 academic year, the congregation was treated to a familiar and compelling speaker. After President Fr. John Brown, S.J., celebrated Mass, Prefect of Discipline Fr. Stephen Kramer, S.J., led the fourth reflection from the pulpit.

Kramer focused on being a “loving soldier of Christ” through actions and inactions.

In response to the first reading, he posed the question “What does it mean to follow Jesus?” and mused on the long-standing tradition of Christianity being likened to soldiering.

“Seeing the spiritual life as a battle, a battle between good and evil,” St. Ignatius, once a soldier himself, adopted this image of Christian soldiering and built it into the foundation of the spiritual exercises.

Kramer went on to illustrate three modes Christian soldiery: fear, duty, and love. To a give concrete examples of these three categories, he used the story of Desmond Dos, who, in response to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, enlisted in the United States Army as a medic. Dos, who Kramer labelled a prime example of a loving solider, saved the lives of his fellow soldiers out of selfless love of Christ and country.

A video of Kramer’s reflection can be found below.