Natch Ohno, SJ
2026 Peter Favre Award Winner
The Ignatian Spirituality Center is proud to present the 2026 Peter Favre Award to Natch Ohno, SJ. Since 2014, the ISC has bestowed this award to honor a person who has spent their life in service to Ignatius’ works and ministry—and who reflects the qualities of St. Peter Favre: humility, purity, simplicity, open-hearted relationality, and cura personalis—the care of the whole person.
Father Natch quietly embodies and radiates these Favre-like graces. Across the Seattle region, he has poured himself out in service. He has served ISC in countless ways over many years, including presenting at the Novena of Grace and the Ignatian Summer Retreat. He serves as the Seattle University Chaplain for faculty, staff, and students, has led pilgrimages with Pat O’Leary, SJ, and is currently the Provincial Delegate for senior Jesuits at the Sacred Heart Jesuit Center. He serves SEEL Puget Sound in spiritual director and board roles. He has been steadily active in JVC Northwest and Jesuit Volunteer Encore, retreat work, spiritual direction, and presides at Catholic communities all around the Puget Sound—showing up again and again wherever he is needed.
A Jesuit since 1983 and a priest for 33 years, Fr. Natch emigrated from Japan to the United States as a young child in the early 1950s, and grew up navigating the complexities of assimilation at a time when Japanese American communities still carried the trauma of internment. His family’s Catholic faith remained an anchor. “It was helpful for me to get a sense of myself,” Natch said of his spiritual formation, “and to explore the Shinto and Buddhist threads in my life. I really had to slow down to discover who I was.” His desire to bring his “whole self” to the spiritual journey has become part of his gift to others. “I joined the society because I saw this other call that I didn't find in in relationships or in work or in other things.”
ISC staff know Fr. Natch as faithful, pastoral, humble, and generous. During the sharing of graces at a recent ISC summer retreat, he noticed a woman who sat in silent timidity. Attentive to her reticence, he made an invitation that gently drew her forward—and then, “with his short and vulnerable gait,” he walked the microphone across the room to her in a moment that was tender and full of grace—modeling his Favre-like attentiveness to the Spirit moving in the room.
For a life spent illuminating Ignatian spirituality through relationships, service, and deep care for the whole person, the ISC is honored to present Natch Ohno, SJ with the 2026 Peter Favre Award.
Fr. Natch will receive this award at the Hearts on Fire Benefit Dinner on April 18, 2026.