FR. BRENDAN MCGUIRE

I just got back from vacation. I had been in Florence for a conference on artificial intelligence for the first nine days, where I gave four presentations over those days. Then I had the great opportunity to go to Sicily and visit with a friend of mine, with another friend, and we spent two weeks there. It was great to catch up and see my friends, but I must confess, one of the struggles with vacation is that you get out of your routines, right? You do not have as much control of the environment, and that was certainly my case.

Last year, when we were on pilgrimage to Turkey and Greece, in the footsteps of St. Paul, we had nearly 50 parishioners. When you have a group of people like that, something always goes wrong! So the first day, somebody cut their foot on something as we were walking somewhere. I turned around and I asked, “Rachel, we need a large bandage.” Rachel opens up her bag and out comes this huge bandage.

But in hi book, he says that once we find this purpose, in relation to the world’s needs, and that it is a dynamic process. I think that insight is very powerful. It is a process that we come to, and we know when we get there. We have this aha moment.

I bring you this homily today from Florence, Italy. I am here with a group of Jesuits from throughout the whole world, those working in formation, bringing them all together to learn a little bit more about artificial intelligence and how to integrate that into their ministry.

One of the great gifts that we have as priests is that we are invited to journey with people in some of the most tender and vulnerable moments of their life. In particular, when people get sick, and when they get terminally sick,
they invite us into that very vulnerable part of their life, and they share the most powerful insights and the most tender moments ever shared.

Our conversation led to talking not so much about artificial intelligence, as what this means for humanity. What does it mean for humans to flourish? What does that conversation look like? It really was a mirroring of the document that Pope Leo announced.