Father Joe Laramie, SJ New Director of Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat House is no stranger to Colorado

By Veronica Ambuul

SEDALIA.  It’s been 17 years since Jesuit Father Joe Laramie lived in Colorado, but in some ways it seems like he never left.

“I’m excited to be back in Colorado,” said Father Laramie, who taught at Regis Jesuit High School in Aurora from 2005-2008. “I’m proud to say that two boys that I taught are now priests in Colorado — Father Sean McCann (parochial vicar at Corpus Christi Parish in Colorado Springs) and Father Matt Magee (pastor of St. Stephen the Protomartyr Parish in Glenwood Springs).”

That’s not to say that the intervening years have been uneventful for Father Laramie. Following his ordination to the priesthood in 2011, he served at a parish in Belize, worked as a campus minister and a retreat master, among other assignments. In 2020, he was appointed National Director of the Pope’s Prayer Network — also known as the Apostleship of Prayer — a 200-year-old Jesuit ministry promoting devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The assignment overlapped with the pontificate of the first Jesuit pope — Pope Francis.

  “I got to travel around giving talks and retreats and got to meet the pope twice. I think serving him was a challenge to all Jesuits. On occasion, he would speak very directly to us. . . . As Jesuits, we love our books; we love our universities. He would tell us, ‘Don’t just stay in the library — get out there with the poor, with young people.’”

 Father Laramie was one of the first speakers to be featured on the “Hallow” app, where he recorded a four-part series on the topic of Ignatian Spirituality.

“I like to say I was on Hallow before Hallow was cool,” Father Laramie said.

He has also written two books on Ignatian Spirituality.

“There are so many gems in (the writings of St. Ignatius) that help us grow in our relationship with Christ and live that out in our daily life,” Father Laramie said. “Even though Ignatius lived 500 years ago, he lived in the busy cities of Rome, Paris and Madrid, where there were professionals — lawyers, doctors, traders, merchants. I think he had a strong sense that he was doing something uniquely suited to modern city life.”