“Some people think [hip-hop and God] are completely disconnected. But when we actually come to look at both, we try to see God in all things, and this is one way of doing that,” Martínez, FCRH ’13, said in an interview before the main event.

On Oct. 25, Martínez returned to his alma mater to share how he blends hip-hop with Ignatian spirituality. 

Under Flom Auditorium’s stage lights, he performed several original songs and spoke to alumni, faculty, staff, and students at Fordham’s Ignatian Week event “Prophetic Fire: The Power of Hip-Hop, Media, and Faith,” sponsored by Campus Ministry and the Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies.  

“One of the main missions that you have as a Jesuit scholastic and as a Jesuit, period, is to set hearts on fire. Set hearts on fire with love …  for something greater than yourself,” Martínez said. “For me, music is one powerful way [of doing that]. It’s a universal language that speaks and crosses borders, cultures, and even language. It connects with people.” 

Martínez, a Cuban American from Miami, graduated from Fordham College at Rose Hill with degrees in philosophy and psychology in 2013. Later that year, he joined the Society of Jesus in the Antilles Province (Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Miami). He currently serves as a theology teacher and campus minister at his high school alma mater, Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, in Miami. 

For more information about Martínez, visit his website: http://www.mikemartinezsj.com. 

“Why do I find myself representing the children of former clients?” he wondered. “When will all of this hurt end? Most importantly, where is God in all of this and why am I a witness to such horror?”

He started digging deeper into his motivations for becoming a public defender, and realized he was drawn to his clients’ plight. “I knew I cared for them and was always fighting for them,” he says, “but I didn’t realize just how deeply they had touched me.”

Booth recognized that there was a spiritual element to addressing the causes of criminality and the problems of mass incarceration and recidivism, and that there were limits to what he could do in his role as a lawyer, both from an ethical and a practical standpoint. He knew that it was inappropriate to discuss matters of faith with his clients, that “melding the roles of attorney and minister can add another injustice upon the accused person,” as he put it, but he also had no plans to give up his day job.

A Route to Spiritual Freedom

So in 2009, after considering ways to help people like his clients beyond the courtroom walls, and after the loss of a child to stillbirth, Booth started a journey toward deeper spiritual reflection and practice. He began further exploring Ignatian spirituality and took the Nineteenth Annotation, or the “Ignatian retreat in daily life,” a way to complete the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius in a less intensive time period than the traditional 30-day retreat.

He also felt that the Spiritual Exercises could prove as valuable a healing process to incarcerated people as they were to him.

“I know there are many routes to that goal of freedom for everybody, and [Ignatian spirituality] is just one potential route,” Booth says. “Since it meant something to me, I thought it might be meaningful to others.”

That thinking led Booth to Fordham’s Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education (GRE), where he completed a master’s degree in religious education in 2014. His studies culminated in a thesis titled “Prison Ministry’s Quest for Spiritual Freedom in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola,” which explored how the Exercises could be applied within a prison setting to provide emotional support and spiritual freedom to inmates, and to help them make a successful transition to society after release.

“You can still bring the spirituality [into prisons], and you bring portions of the Exercises,” Booth says. “They need that psychology. They need to be able to somehow express what they’re going through in a safe environment. A lot of [inmates]will say that they can’t do this on their own.”

Bringing Guidance Behind the Walls

Booth’s desire upon completing his master’s was to become a part-time prison minister outside of his professional jurisdiction and establish a prison ministry program in his and other parishes in Jersey City. As he continued to look into bringing those goals to fruition, he met Zach Presutti, S.J., a Jesuit scholastic and a psychotherapist with an interest in prison ministry. Booth gave Presutti a copy of his thesis, and Presutti realized it was the exact kind of spiritual guidance he wanted his new nonprofit, Thrive for Life, to provide for the incarcerated.

Booth drew on his thesis to create a brochure for Thrive for Life, “From Fear to Freedom: Spiritual Exercises Behind Prison Walls,” which functions as a guide for those providing Ignatian spiritual direction to inmates. Meanwhile, he began volunteering with Thrive for Life as a spiritual director within the prison setting.

Now, several times a month, Booth visits with inmates in New York—at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, the State Correctional Institution in Otisville, and the Manhattan Detention Complex, also known as the Tombs—leading them through an abridged version of the Spiritual Exercises. He has become one of the core volunteer spiritual directors with Thrive for Life.

“[When we met], it was clear to me that this man was a disciple of Jesus,” Presutti says of Booth. “I saw someone who could really accompany the men behind the walls in their spiritual life.”

Booth relishes seeing inmates open up as they transition to life outside the prison walls.

“They can just kind of let go and be themselves and express themselves,” he says. “And as time goes on, you see them expressing more and more and more, individually, and collectively.”

Breaking the Cycle, Building Relationships

The relationships between Thrive for Life’s spiritual directors and the inmates with whom they work does not end once the inmates are released from prison. One former inmate now works full-time at Thrive for Life. Many others gather once a month for a Sunday dinner at the Church of St. Francis Xavier, where the organization is based. These dinners not only include volunteers and former inmates but also family members and partners. Thrive for Life recently opened Ignacio House, a Bronx residence with space for 20 to 24 men who have recently been released from incarceration.

Booth himself is working to expand his thesis into a book-length text that would serve as a manual for the organization, and he recently contributed an essay on the stressors of racism in inmates’ lives to Today I Gave Myself Permission to Dream: Race and Incarceration in America, published by the University of San Francisco Press. He also provides one-on-one spiritual direction for parishioners at St. Francis Xavier through Charis NYC, and for two inmates on death row at San Quentin State Prison in California, corresponding with them by letter.

Meanwhile, his workload as a public defender, was made more manageable by the bail reform measures New Jersey instituted two years ago, eliminating cash bail and setting new standards on releasing individuals based on whether they pose a danger to society. He is now able to focus on processing cases and appearing for a smaller number of trial cases. Beyond that, his volunteer work as a spiritual director has given him new perspective on his day job, and he says his colleagues have reacted very positively when they find out about his life as a spiritual guide.

Booth credits his wife, Nancy Mendez-Booth, with being at the center of everything he does, but he says it was his time at Fordham’s Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education that laid the foundation for his current work and provided the opportunity to explore how to practice his faith in service of others.

“Courses were geared toward trying to live out your faith in the modern world with constant interaction with the real world,” Booth says.

“Fordham made me into the best spiritual director that I could be.”

First, learn a philosophy; then, become it.

“The course gets back to the ancient idea of philosophy as a way to live well,” said Grimm, PhD, an associate professor of philosophy. “To learn these ideas properly, you can’t just sit in a classroom and talk about it for 50 minutes to an hour and think it will set it. Philosophy is a practice that you incorporate into your life.”

The “practice” Grimm had in mind was a three-day experiment in which students adopted one of five philosophies they learned in class: Stoicism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, or Ignatian spirituality. The students were then tasked with living according to the principles of their chosen philosophy, engaging in everything from meditation to veganism to total emotional detachment (depending on the philosophy).

At the end of the three days, students reflected on the extent to which the philosophies were compatible—or not—with their lifestyles as college students.

“I also asked the students what they might take with them from this assignment to draw on 30 years from now,” Grimm said. “All of them were able to find something…that had been absent from their lives or had gone missing. They said the assignment helped to bring them back to things they cared about.”

The assignment also elicited a creative side that hadn’t surfaced inside the lecture hall: Two-thirds of the class produced short videos.

“[They] were just brilliant… I couldn’t be more impressed with them as students and with how seriously they engaged in the course,” Grimm said.

Student Robert Denault, who spent three days as a Buddhist, said practicing his chosen philosophy had immediate, positive effects on his life.

“The one thing I wanted out of this was a new way to calm myself down in moments of stress,” said Denault, who graduated last week from Fordham College at Rose Hill. “I’m so grateful I found one. I slept better, I woke up less stress, and I had better dreams during this entire project.”

Others said they became conscious of what in their lives needed improvement.

“I need to be more mindful of my yin and my yang—that balance I need to strike in my life,” said FCRH rising junior Keighly Baron, who practiced Daoism, an Eastern philosophy that emphasizes living in harmony with the Dao, or “the way.”

“I am so much more active than I am passive. I almost never say no to anything. I take on way more than I should. And I feel it.”

Students said that even those ideas they struggled with proved enlightening.

“One routine that was unusual for me was the attempt to rid myself of emotion altogether,” said Abigail David, who graduated last week from the Gabelli School of Business. David adopted Stoicism, an ancient Greek philosophy that counsels self-control and equanimity as protection against turbulent emotions.

“To combat emotion, I tried to keep levelheaded in dealing with regular occurrences between roommates or friends, but I often felt in doing so that I was coming off as standoffish or disinterested… After three days of practice I determined my life is substantially impacted if I fail to embrace natural emotions.”

Grimm said the students found that embodying different philosophies helped them to attend better to their present situations, rather than to their anxiety about past or future.

“I hope what they gain from this is an appreciation of what’s truly important in life and of the skills they have within themselves to cope with adversity and achieve more happiness, wellbeing, and tranquility,” Grimm said.

Beginning Nov. 13 and continuing through Wednesday, Nov. 20, the Office of University Mission and Ministry and its partners will sponsor a series of discussions, meals, and prayer centered on the legacy of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, and the unique spirituality that characterizes the Jesuit Order.

“The Jesuits are renowned the world over for excellence in education, focusing on liberal arts, value-centered education of the whole person, and a commitment to lifelong learning, social justice, and service,” said Carol Gibney, associate director for campus ministry at Lincoln Center and director of Ignatian Programs.

“As a Jesuit institution, the University’s principles are based on the 450-year old teaching traditions of St. Ignatius… The Ignatian Week events highlight our rich Ignatian heritage and what it means to be part of a Jesuit university.”

The festivities commence on the Rose Hill campus with “Law and Order: The Jesuit Factor,” presented by Msgr. Thomas J. Shelley, professor emeritus of theology. Msgr. Shelley will discuss the case of New York-based Jesuit Anthony Kohlmann—after whom Fordham’s Kohlmann Hall is named—who was integral to the landmark legal case about the Seal of the Confessional, which prohibits priests from disclosing information learned during the sacrament of penance.

Ignatian Week continues later that evening at the Lincoln Center campus with the fall McGinley Lecture, “To Be a Pilgrim: A Geography of Faith for Jews, Christians, and Muslims,” presented by Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society.

Other upcoming events include:

• A discussion and guided meditation with Zen roshi (“master”) and Jesuit priest Robert Kennedy, S.J.;
• An outing at Pugsley’s with America Magazine editor-in-chief Matt Malone, S.J., who will discuss the recent interview with Pope Francis;
• A trip to Washington, D.C., to participate in the Ignatian Family Teach-In, lobbying for issues of humane comprehensive immigration reform and raising minimum wage;
• An interactive video conference with Catholic feminist theologians in Asia;

…and more!

To see a full list of Ignatian Week events, visit Campus Ministry’s website.