News - October 2026

St. Alphonsus Rodríguez, S.J.'s Feast Day is October 31. We invite you to come to the Chapel of St. Alphonsus Rodríguez, S.J. here in St. Ignatius Church, on this day, this month, or any time. Born in 1532 to a working-class Spanish family, Alphonsus Rodríguez faced many hardships— he lost his father at age 13, lost his own wife and children to a plague outbreak, and suffered a business bankruptcy that left him desolate and in poor health. When he applied to become a Jesuit priest, even the Jesuits initially rejected him as too infirm and unqualified.

I was honored to be part of the delegation from St. Ignatius Parish that recently traveled to El Salvador to renew our bond with our sister parish, the San Antonio de Padua Parish in Soyapango. In June, this group of 9 parishioners went with Fr. Greg to El Salvador. The delegation went to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the founding of Parroquia San Antonio — and the 25-year anniversary of our sister parish covenant.

In what parts of our lives do we feel the need to dominate? To have control? Is it keeping up with the latest trends? Finding the perfect job to make the most amount of money? For me as a college student, it manifests in wanting to get the perfect grades. In Genesis 1 it says, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."

This past June, I had the privilege of traveling again with a delegation from St. Ignatius to Parroquia San Antonio, our sister parish in Soyapango, El Salvador. We went to celebrate the 25th anniversary of a relationship that began when our two parishes entered into a Sister Parish Covenant in 2001. I had been to San Antonio twice before, but this visit renewed my own commitment to Las Vecinas de El Salvador, reminding me how important this relationship is to St. Ignatius.