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By Gary Jansen

On Good Friday, 1991, Pope John Paul II introduced an alternative way to pray the Stations of the Cross. Foregoing some of the traditional scenes that are not found in the Bible (e.g., Veronica wipes the face of Jesus), this new approach to the centuries-old devotion allowed believers to engage in the mysteries of Christ’s […]

Click through to read the full article Praying with the Stations of the Cross, which appeared first on Ignatian Spirituality.

IgnatianSpirituality.com ® is a service of Loyola Press, a Jesuit ministry.

Embark on a unique retreat experience guided by Pope Francis himself through First Belong to God by Austen Ivereigh.

by Matt Porritt.  

Hi Everyone,

We’re excited to announce the release of Moodle LMS 5.0! A big thank you to our amazing community, the Moodle LMS teams, and all those who played a part in bringing this release to life; we truly appreciate your shared effort and dedication.

This latest release brings new features and enhancements that make it easier to manage courses, assess learners, and configure AI tools, all while giving administrators more control and flexibility.

Here’s an overview of what’s new in LMS 5.0:

🧭 A clearer view of course activities

A new Activities page gives educators and learners one place to see all course activities, deadlines, submissions, and grading progress.
→ Saves time, reduces clicks, and helps everyone stay organised and on track.

🧠 AI tools you can configure and track

Admins can now:

• Track how AI tools are used across the site with a new AI usage report
• View who’s accepted the AI policy
• Manage multiple AI providers with custom settings for each model
  → Greater transparency and control - plus better support for cost management and compliance.

New for learners: Explain joins Summarise as an AI-powered tool to help unpack course content and improve understanding, all within the LMS.

✅ Assessment updates that save time

• Shared question banks across courses for easier reuse and collaboration
• New question bank filters to quickly find questions by type, status, date, and more
• Site-wide late submission penalty rules, applied automatically
• Faster performance with pre-created quiz attempts and background regrading
  → Create and manage assessments more efficiently, with less manual work and smoother workflows

📊 Faster, smarter reporting

Admins can now duplicate custom reports, keeping all filters, fields, and schedules intact - making report creation more efficient than ever.
New filtering options also improve the accuracy and clarity of course tracking.

♿ Accessibility improvements across the platform

Moodle 5.0 introduces long image descriptions, richer glossary and navigation filtering, and an updated accessibility checker in TinyMCE. These updates help educators build more inclusive learning environments, with less manual work.

→ We’re committed to continuous accessibility improvements in every release - supporting educators in meeting standards and reaching all learners.

Other enhancements include manual grading for BigBlueButton sessions, new media playback options, transparent drag-and-drop question elements, and more control over enrolment messaging.

Moodle LMS 5.0 includes many more updates across grading, media, enrolment, and reporting - each designed to save time and improve the teaching and learning experience. You can explore an overview of the new features or dive into technical details in the developer documentation. As you begin to plan for site upgrades, be sure to review the important changes introduced in this release first.

Thank you to everyone across the Moodle community who contributed to making LMS 5.0 possible, your collaboration and dedication continue to shape the future of open-source learning.

Warm regards,
Matt Porritt
Product Director, Platform Solutions

Can you stand with Christ if it means going against the crowd? Deacon Tommy O'Donnell, SJ, reflects on how the criminal in today's gospel goes against the crowd and puts his faith in Christ. Based on the readings for Palm Sunday.

The post Placing Our Cross with Christ | One-Minute Homily appeared first on The Jesuit Post.

by Simey Lameze.  

We want to say a big thank you to all our QA testers for helping us complete 412 tests during this cycle! Your dedication made the 100% pass rate achievement possible. 🧡

All testers will be awarded a badge, so please ensure you have a valid moodle.org account and that your details are correct to receive it. 🏅

During this cycle, we identified some deprecated capability errors that appear during the upgrade process. The underlying issue, tracked in MDL-77237, requires further work and has been deferred to be fixed after the Moodle 5.0 release. These messages, while unexpected, should not prevent the upgrade process from completing successfully.

A big thanks to our core developers for their swift action in fixing the bugs we encountered during testing. Your hard work ensures we're ready for the release of Moodle 5.0!

Lastly, thank you to everyone who contributed in any way—whether through testing, investigating, or fixing bugs. Your efforts have been crucial in maintaining the quality and reliability of Moodle for educators and learners worldwide. 🚀🏆

By Loretta Pehanich

“I hope it rains tomorrow.” “I hope they like me.” “I hope there’s cheesecake for dessert.” Before reading Pope Francis’s thoughts in his book, On Hope, I hadn’t thought much about the difference between ordinary hope and Christian hope. The greatest of all hopes is every Christian’s belief in eternal life. And as the Pope […]

Click through to read the full article We Don’t Hope Alone, which appeared first on Ignatian Spirituality.

IgnatianSpirituality.com ® is a service of Loyola Press, a Jesuit ministry.

Embark on a unique retreat experience guided by Pope Francis himself through First Belong to God by Austen Ivereigh.

by Richard Lefroy.  

During this webinar you will learn about the new features in Moodle 5.0 for administrators and teachers.

The webinar will be presented by Mary Cooch and Helen Foster from Moodle HQ. 

Note: this webinar is part of the course 'What's New in Moodle 5.0'. You have to be enrolled in the course to register and join the webinar.

Register at Moodle Academy.

By Lisa Kelly

This post is based on Week Six of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure. For all of my life as I have heard the Beatitudes read, my first reaction has been: “Which one am I? I am definitely not the poor in spirit. Am I the peacemaker? Am I the one who hungers for righteousness?” Essentially I […]

Click through to read the full article Blessed Are Those in the Crowd, which appeared first on Ignatian Spirituality.

IgnatianSpirituality.com ® is a service of Loyola Press, a Jesuit ministry.

In God Finds Us, Jim Manney shares his experiences of making the Spiritual Exercises in a down-to-earth, accessible narrative.

As a semi-professional soccer player, Javi Bailén, SJ understood the importance of routine reflection. As a Jesuit, he discovered how the Ignatian spirituality provides perfect tools for athletes and teams to reflect on their performance. In his first for TJP, Javi writes about how the Examen can be adapted for sports teams to find God in their game - and perhaps improve their future play.

The post Finding God in Football: The Ignatian Examen Applied to Sports appeared first on The Jesuit Post.

By Eric Clayton

I draw comfort from old things. An ancient tree, twisted and gnarled, reaching for the sky. A humble hillside chapel, its stones from a distant age, a spiritual shelter for pilgrims past. A simple pathway, well-trodden and well-kept, flattened by booted feet year after year. I draw comfort from old things and from knowing that […]

Click through to read the full article Comfort in Old Things, which appeared first on Ignatian Spirituality.

IgnatianSpirituality.com ® is a service of Loyola Press, a Jesuit ministry.

In God Finds Us, Jim Manney shares his experiences of making the Spiritual Exercises in a down-to-earth, accessible narrative.

by Marie Achour.  

To all, 

As we are rapidly approaching the release of Moodle LMS 5.0 we wanted to ensure that you, our community, are informed about major changes, outside of new functionality, that may impact the work you need to do prior to upgrading your Moodle implementations.  

As you will be aware with the change to the version numbering that was announced approximately 12 months ago, the start of each new series (the X.0 version) will be when final deprecations will be occurring, and when we will be making other big underlying changes to Moodle.  The rationale and benefits for this change are detailed in the linked announcement, so please take the time to review it.

All of the changes listed here have previously been announced. We are collecting them into one communication summary ahead of the release to help increase awareness and aid you in planning your upgrades.

Plugins 

A number of plugins have been removed in Moodle LMS 5.0.  These plugins will be available either in the Moodle HQ github for those who wish to continue to use them or, if they are adopted by a maintainer, in the plugins directory.  Specific details can be found in the listed tracker issues. Please note that if these plugins are not reinstalled before completing the upgrade process, the data tables will be removed as part of the upgrade process.  These plugins are:

• MDL-82457 - Chat (mod_chat) 

• MDL-82457 - Survey (mod_survey)

• MDL-78778 - CAS Authentication (auth_cas)

• MDL-77005 - Atto editor and its sub-plugins (editor_atto) 

• MDL-84652- MNET plugins (auth_mnet, block_mnet_hosts, enrol_mnet, mnetservice_enrol, portfolio_mahara)

Oracle Database support  (MDL-80166)

Oracle Database support has been removed from Moodle LMS 5.0, and community members who are currently using Oracle will need to migrate their database to a supported system before upgrading.  This decision was made due to the lack of ongoing support for Oracle in PHP and the very low usage of the platform within the Moodle community, Oracle has not been a recommended platform since prior to Moodle LMS 3.0.

Course formats (MDL-83527)

With the work being done to modernise the Moodle course look and feel, support for some legacy course formats libraries will be deprecated in Moodle LMS 5.0.  All course formats that still depend on libraries from Moodle LMS 3.11 and prior will be deprecated. This is primarily to remove the use of YUI from Moodle but also to allow the code to be cleaned up and made more maintainable for the future. From Moodle LMS 6.0, the deprecated libraries will be completely removed.  Details on migrating a course format from the 3.11 libraries can be found in the dev docs.

Bootstrap 5 (MDL-71979)

Moodle LMS 5.0 will be the first version of Moodle to use Bootstrap 5.  This is a big change, but a lot of work has been put into making this as seamless as possible.  The team has invested in creating a compatibility layer between Bootstrap 4 and Bootstrap 5 to ease the transition, however, the complexity of this change will mean for many with custom themes and other customisations that it is recommended that these are checked prior to upgrading.  The dev docs provide guidance on the major changes between Bootstrap 4 and 5 and how to migrate between them.

Quiz and Question Bank (MDL-68806 and MDL-71378) 

There has been considerable work in improving the functionality of Quiz question banks to simplify the management and sharing of questions within Moodle.  This is a major change in functionality, and as a result, if question bank sharing is commonly used at a Category or System level, please ensure that you fully understand the impact to your processes before upgrading.  Documentation is currently in the process of being created and will be available close to the time of release.

Additionally, a new option has been created that allows institutions to pre-create quiz attempts before the student commences the quiz.  This has been designed to help mitigate database loads when Moodle is used for large-scale synchronous exams.  Use of this is optional and needs to be enabled in the administration settings; however, if it is enabled, this will affect events appearing in the logs and potentially other reporting that utilises data from the quiz attempt tables.

MimeTex removal

MimeTex is being removed as an option for TeX filters.  The underlying 3rd party library that is used was added as a fall back option if other TeX filter options were not available, the library has not been maintained for an extremely long time and as a result is becoming a security and stability concern.  If your installation uses TeX filters please ensure that an alternative such as MathJax, LaTeX, or another is installed to ensure the proper functionality is maintained.

Final deprecation policy update

Finally a reminder that there will been a small update to the deprecation policy in the coming weeks clarifying the retention of the method signature.  This will be important to be aware of moving forward.  As always please check the release notes when they are available to see a full list of final deprecations in this release.

Thank you in advance for your continued support and happy Moodling!

The Moodle Products Team

In today's gospel, Jesus turns the tables on us. Fr. Michael Mohr, SJ, calls us to imitate Jesus in the way he loves others. Based on the readings for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year C.

The post There is No Outsmarting Jesus | One-Minute Homily appeared first on The Jesuit Post.

By dotMagis Editor

“This is what Christian hope is: having the certainty that I am walking toward something that is, not something that I hope may be. This is Christian hope. Christian hope is the expectation of something that has already been fulfilled and that will certainly be fulfilled for each one of us.” —Pope Francis Enjoy this […]

Click through to read the full article Christian Hope, which appeared first on Ignatian Spirituality.

IgnatianSpirituality.com ® is a service of Loyola Press, a Jesuit ministry.

In God Finds Us, Jim Manney shares his experiences of making the Spiritual Exercises in a down-to-earth, accessible narrative.

By Lisa Kelly

This post is based on Week Five of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure. This faith thing takes labor, actual work. I can’t think, pray, study, reason, talk, or argue my path to God. I have to walk it, act it out, and labor. In my book, The Spiritual Path, I invite readers to set out on […]

Click through to read the full article The Call to Co-Labor, which appeared first on Ignatian Spirituality.

IgnatianSpirituality.com ® is a service of Loyola Press, a Jesuit ministry.

In God Finds Us, Jim Manney shares his experiences of making the Spiritual Exercises in a down-to-earth, accessible narrative.

On March 16, Newcastle United F.C. won their first trophy in over half a century. Christopher Brolly, SJ, a Newcastle lad living in Boston, reflects on the significance of his beloved football club’s victory for the city and its people. Brolly writes that the club's triumph in the Carabao Cup goes deeper than football.

The post Finding God in Newcastle United’s Long-Awaited Trophy appeared first on The Jesuit Post.

By Vinita Hampton Wright

I once led a retreat on the Jersey shore. This particular weekend the sun came out bright and the temperature rose, and during our first session Saturday morning I announced that I would allow retreatants plenty of outdoor time. When we came to our lengthy break in the afternoon, I could see women heading off […]

Click through to read the full article Prayers and Practices for Spring: Awakening Movement, which appeared first on Ignatian Spirituality.

IgnatianSpirituality.com ® is a service of Loyola Press, a Jesuit ministry.

In God Finds Us, Jim Manney shares his experiences of making the Spiritual Exercises in a down-to-earth, accessible narrative.

The Fourth Sunday of Lent is unique in the Lenten Season because we are called to rejoice on this day. Jordan Jones, SJ, reflects that the source of that joy is God. Based on the readings for the Fourth Sunday of Lent.

The post Today We Rejoice | One-Minute Homily appeared first on The Jesuit Post.

By dotMagis Editor

“Prayer leads us forward in hope.” Download a coloring page featuring this quote from On Hope by Pope Francis. You may wish to use the coloring page as a reflective experience. If you’re not drawn to coloring, a completed version of the page is provided. Use it as a decoration near where you like to […]

Click through to read the full article On Hope Coloring Page, which appeared first on Ignatian Spirituality.

IgnatianSpirituality.com ® is a service of Loyola Press, a Jesuit ministry.

In God Finds Us, Jim Manney shares his experiences of making the Spiritual Exercises in a down-to-earth, accessible narrative.

By Lisa Kelly

This post is based on Week Four of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure. Parenthood: there is no greater joy or desperation. A parent is fully responsible, yet fully out of control. All of us know how easily a toddler can bring the most eloquent and intelligent to their knees. As a vocation, a calling from God, […]

Click through to read the full article Where Desperation Ends, which appeared first on Ignatian Spirituality.

IgnatianSpirituality.com ® is a service of Loyola Press, a Jesuit ministry.

In God Finds Us, Jim Manney shares his experiences of making the Spiritual Exercises in a down-to-earth, accessible narrative.

Visiting theologian program in BarcelonaApplications can be submitted until April 30th.25/03/2025

Until April 30th, theologians interested in developing a research project in Barcelona during the first half of next year can submit their application through this link. This initiative aims to continue promoting theological reflection in Barcelona and to strengthen the presence of theology in the Jesuit university centers in Catalonia.

By Loretta Pehanich

To celebrate the Jubilee Year, Holy Doors opened in Rome. Like loving arms, these doors will welcome pilgrims all year, from all over the world, seeking hope and grateful for hope. The current bronze Holy Doors at St. Peter’s Basilica replaced wooden ones from the 18th century and were installed for the Holy Year 1950. […]

Click through to read the full article Holy Doors, which appeared first on Ignatian Spirituality.

IgnatianSpirituality.com ® is a service of Loyola Press, a Jesuit ministry.

In Always Discerning, Joseph A. Tetlow, SJ, shares how we can implement discernment into not only life’s big decisions but also into the everyday, more mundane choices we constantly have to make.