What Is Ignatian Spirituality?

Ignatian spirituality is a spirituality for everyday life. It insists that God is

present in our world and active in our lives. It is a pathway to deeper prayer,
good decisions guided by keen discernment, and an active life of service to
others.

The Ignatian Year 2021–2022

We join the Society of Jesus and all who follow the ways of Ignatian
spirituality in celebrating the Ignatian Year. May 20, 2021, the starting date
for the year, is the 500th anniversary of St. Ignatius Loyola’s injury during
the Battle of Pamplona, which ultimately led to his conversion from soldier to
saint. During the year, we’ll mark the 400th anniversary of the canonization
of St. Ignatius and St. Francis Xavier on March 12, 2022. The year concludes
on the Feast of St. Ignatius, July 31, 2022.

#Ignatius500

WATCH This: ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdg0XHdD5XI

Ten Elements of Ignatian
Spirituality
Ignatian spirituality is one of the most influential and pervasive spiritual
outlooks of our age. There’s a story behind it. And it has many attributes.
This page provides an introduction to it.

1. It begins with a wounded soldier daydreaming on his sickbed.

Ignatian spirituality is rooted in the experiences of Ignatius Loyola (1491–
1556), a Basque aristocrat whose conversion to a fervent Christian faith
began while he was recovering from war wounds. Ignatius, who founded the
Jesuits, gained many insights into the spiritual life in the course of a
decadeslong spiritual journey during which he became expert at helping
others deepen their relationship with God. Its basis in personal experience
makes Ignatian spirituality an intensely practical spirituality, well suited to
laymen and laywomen living active lives in the world.

2. “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”

This line from a poem by the Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins captures a
central theme of Ignatian spirituality: its insistence that God is at work
everywhere—in work, relationships, culture, the arts, the intellectual life,
creation itself. As Ignatius put it, all the things in the world are presented to
us “so that we can know God more easily and make a return of love more
readily.” Ignatian spirituality places great emphasis on discerning God’s
presence in the everyday activities of ordinary life. It sees God as an active
God, always at work, inviting us to an ever-deeper walk.

3. It’s about call and response—like the music of a gospel choir.

An Ignatian spiritual life focuses on God at work now. It fosters an active
attentiveness to God joined with a prompt responsiveness to God. God calls;
we respond. This call-response rhythm of the inner life makes discernment
and decision making especially important. Ignatius’s rules for discernment
and his astute approach to decision making are well-regarded for their
psychological and spiritual wisdom.

4. “The heart has its reasons of which the mind knows nothing.”
Ignatius Loyola’s conversion occurred as he became able to interpret the
spiritual meaning of his emotional life. The spirituality he developed places
great emphasis on the affective life: the use of imagination in prayer,
discernment and interpretation of feelings, cultivation of great desires, and
generous service. Ignatian spiritual renewal focuses more on the heart than
the intellect. It holds that our choices and decisions are often beyond the
merely rational or reasonable. Its goal is an eager, generous, wholehearted
offer of oneself to God and to his work.

5. Free at last.
Ignatian spirituality emphasizes interior freedom. To choose rightly, we
should strive to be free of personal preferences, superfluous attachments,
and preformed opinions. Ignatius counseled radical detachment: “We should
not fix our desires on health or sickness, wealth or poverty, success or
failure, a long life or a short one.” Our one goal is the freedom to make a
wholehearted choice to follow God.

6. “Sum up at night what thou hast done by day.”

The Ignatian mind-set is strongly inclined to reflection and self-scrutiny. The
distinctive Ignatian prayer is the Daily Examen, a review of the day’s
activities with an eye toward detecting and responding to the presence of
God. Three challenging, reflective questions lie at the heart of the Spiritual
Exercises, the book Ignatius wrote, to help others deepen their spiritual
lives: “What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What ought
I to do for Christ?”

7. A practical spirituality.
Ignatian spirituality is adaptable. It is an outlook, not a program; a set of
attitudes and insights, not rules or a scheme. Ignatius’s first advice to
spiritual directors was to adapt the Spiritual Exercises to the needs of the
person entering the retreat. At the heart of Ignatian spirituality is a profound
humanism. It respects people’s lived experience and honors the vast
diversity of God’s work in the world. The Latin phrase cura personalis is
often heard in Ignatian circles. It means “care of the person”—attention to
people’s individual needs and respect for their unique circumstances and
concerns.

8. Don’t do it alone.
Ignatian spirituality places great value on collaboration and teamwork.
Ignatian spirituality sees the link between God and man as a relationship—a
bond of friendship that develops over time as a human relationship
does. Collaboration is built into the very structure of the Spiritual Exercises;
they are almost always guided by a spiritual director who helps the
retreatant interpret the spiritual content of the retreat experience. Similarly,
mission and service in the Ignatian mode is seen not as an individualistic
enterprise, but as work done in collaboration with Christ and others.
9. “Contemplatives in action.”

Those formed by Ignatian spirituality are often called “contemplatives in

action.” They are reflective people with a rich inner life who are deeply
engaged in God’s work in the world. They unite themselves with God by
joining God’s active labor to save and heal the world. It’s an active spiritual
attitude—a way for everyone to seek and find God in their workplaces,
homes, families, and communities.

10. “Men and women for others.”

The early Jesuits often described their work as simply “helping souls.” The
great Jesuit leader Pedro Arrupe updated this idea in the twentieth century
by calling those formed in Ignatian spirituality “men and women for
others.” Both phrases express a deep commitment to social justice and a
radical giving of oneself to others. The heart of this service is the radical
generosity that Ignatius asked for in his most famous prayer:

Lord, teach me to be generous.

Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.

The Daily Examen

The Daily Examen is a technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the
day in order to detect God’s presence and discern his direction for us. The
Examen is an ancient practice in the Church that can help us see God’s hand
at work in our whole experience.

The method presented here is adapted from a technique described

by Ignatius Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises. St. Ignatius thought that the
Examen was a gift that came directly from God, and that God wanted it to
be shared as widely as possible. One of the few rules of prayer that Ignatius
made for the Jesuit order was the requirement that Jesuits practice the
Examen twice daily—at noon and at the end of the day. It’s a habit that
Jesuits, and many other Christians, practice to this day.
A Spirituality of the Heart
By David L. Fleming, SJ

Ignatius prefaced his Spiritual Exercises with twenty notes that explain the
purpose of his exercises and offer advice and counsel to the director who is
guiding the retreat. The very first of these “preliminary helps” explains what
he means by spiritual exercises. Physical exercise tunes up the body and
promotes good health. Spiritual exercise, he writes, is good for
“strengthening and supporting us in the effort to respond ever more
faithfully to the love of God.”

Note what Ignatius did not say. He did not say that the Spiritual Exercises
are designed primarily to deepen our understanding or to strengthen our
will. He did not promise to explain spiritual mysteries to us or enlighten our
minds. We may emerge from the Exercises with enhanced intellectual
understanding, but this is not the goal. The goal is a response—a certain
kind of response. Ignatius is after a response of the heart.

“Heart” does not mean the emotions (though it includes our emotions). It
refers to our inner orientation, the core of our being. This kind of “heart” is
what Jesus was referring to when he told us to store up treasures in heaven
instead of on earth, “for where your treasure is, there also will your heart
be.” (Matthew 6:21) This is the “heart” Jesus was worried about when he
said “from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, unchastity, theft,
false witness, blasphemy.” (Matthew 15:19) Jesus observed that our heart
can get untethered from our actions: “This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.” (Matthew 15:8) Heart in this sense—the
totality of our response—is the concern of the Spiritual Exercises.

This is the ancient meaning of “heart” in biblical usage, but we actually

retain traces of this meaning in contemporary English. When we say to
someone “my heart goes out to you,” we mean something more than a
feeling of concern. If said sincerely, it communicates a sense of solidarity
with someone. It means more than “I understand” (our intellect). It means
more than “I sympathize” (our feelings). It means something like, “I stand
with you in this.” It is an expression of a fundamental choice.

Today we commonly say about someone who shows no enthusiasm for a

project that “his heart isn’t in it.” We usually say this when people behave in
a way that is at odds with their deepest desires. We say it about ourselves
when we hurt people that we love and do things that we know are at odds
with who we really are. This “heart” is what Ignatius is concerned with. We
might think about Ignatian spirituality as a way of getting our hearts in the
right place.

Ignatius understood this because that is what happened to him. He

underwent a profound conversion while recuperating from his wounds, but it
was not a conversion of the intellect or will. Before his conversion—and
afterward—he was a thoroughly orthodox Catholic who followed the religious
practices expected of him. That was not what changed. His conversion
involved his deepest desires and commitments, that essential center of the
personality in which man stands before God. His religious practice and
intellectual understanding deepened over time, but it was his heart that was
transformed.

Over years of prayerful reflection and spiritual direction of others, Ignatius

developed many ways to listen to the language of the heart. This is the
language that reveals God’s intentions and inspires us to a generous
response. What we believe and what we do are important. But Ignatius is far
more interested in the condition of our hearts.

Still, most of us face a persistent temptation to make the Spiritual Exercises

or any kind of spiritual renewal a matter of changing the way we think.
Indeed, this danger arises even in a book like this, which sets forth ideas
and concepts and principles to broaden our understanding of Ignatian
spirituality. It is vital to realize that understanding is not the goal. We can
understand a great number of things, but this may not affect the way we live
our lives. The goal is a response of the heart, which truly changes the whole
person.

God taught Ignatius about the heart though several mystical visions he
received early in his spiritual formation. One such vision came upon him at a
time when he was questioning whether he should say three or four prayers
to our Trinitarian God—a prayer directed to each Person, Father, Son, and
Spirit, and then a fourth prayer to the One God. He was praying outside on
the steps of a monastery when he suddenly “heard” God the Trinity as the
musical sound of three organ keys playing simultaneously. Another time he
received a vision of God the creator as “something white out of which rays
were coming.” Out of this whiteness God created light. “He did not know
how to explain these things,” he writes of himself in the third person. But
Ignatius responded with his heart: “This was accompanied with so much
tears and so much sobbing that he could not restrain himself.”
This heart response is a cornerstone of the Spiritual Exercises. Creation is a
flow of God’s gifts, with a human response being the link that allows the flow
to return to God. The human response is a free choice to allow God’s
creation to speak. Creation helps us to know and love God and to want to
live with God forever.

Early in the Exercises, Ignatius asks the retreatant to pray before Jesus
Christ on the cross. He identifies Christ as creator, the God of the Principle
and Foundation. “Talk to him about how he creates because he loves,”
Ignatius seems to say. This is no abstract God of reason, but a loving God
seen in the face of Jesus Christ. It is the Pauline Christ of Colossians and
Ephesians. It is the Christ of the Prologue to John’s Gospel: the Word “in
whom all things were created.” This is the Son of God, the Alpha and
Omega of John’s Apocalypse.

Our spiritual journey is an attempt to answer the question, “What is life all
about?” Here is Ignatius’s answer: a vision of God for our hearts, not our
minds. It is a depiction of the Creator as a superabundant giver. He gives
gifts that call forth a response on our part, a free choice to return ourselves
to him in grateful thanks and love. It is a vision that only a heart can
respond to.

Excerpt from What Is Ignatian Spirituality? by David L. Fleming, SJ

What Are the Spiritual Exercises?

The Spiritual Exercises grew out of Ignatius Loyola’s personal experience as
a man seeking to grow in union with God and to discern God’s will. He kept a
journal as he gained spiritual insight and deepened his spiritual
experience. He added to these notes as he directed other people and
discovered what “worked.” Eventually Ignatius gathered these prayers,
meditations, reflections, and directions into a carefully designed framework
of a retreat, which he called “spiritual exercises.”

Ignatius wrote that the Exercises: “have as their purpose the conquest of
self and the regulation of one’s life in such a way that no decision is made
under the influence of any inordinate attachment.” He wanted individuals to
undertake these exercises with the assistance of an experienced spiritual
director who would help them shape the retreat and understand what they
were experiencing. The book of Spiritual Exercisesis a handbook to be used
by the director, not by the person making the retreat.

The Structure of the Exercises

Ignatius organized the Exercises into four “weeks.” These are not seven-day
weeks, but stages on a journey to spiritual freedom and wholehearted
commitment to the service of God.

First week. The first week of the Exercises is a time of reflection on our
lives in light of God’s boundless love for us. We see that our response to
God’s love has been hindered by patterns of sin. We face these sins knowing
that God wants to free us of everything that gets in the way of our loving
response to him. The first week ends with a meditation on Christ’s call to
follow him.

Second week. The meditations and prayers of the second week teach us
how to follow Christ as his disciples. We reflect on Scripture passages:
Christ’s birth and baptism, his sermon on the mount, his ministry of healing
and teaching, his raising Lazarus from the dead. We are brought to decisions
to change our lives to do Christ’s work in the world and to love him more
intimately.

Third week. We meditate on Christ’s Last Supper, passion, and death. We

see his suffering and the gift of the Eucharist as the ultimate expression of
God’s love.

Fourth week. We meditate on Jesus’ resurrection and his apparitions to his

disciples. We walk with the risen Christ and set out to love and serve him in
concrete ways in our lives in the world.

Prayer in the Exercises

The two primary forms of praying taught in the Exercises are meditation and
contemplation. In meditation, we use our minds. We ponder the basic
principles that guide our life. We pray over words, images, and ideas.

Contemplation is more about feeling than thinking. Contemplation often

stirs the emotions and enkindles deep desires. In contemplation, we rely on
our imaginations to place ourselves in a setting from the Gospels or in a
scene proposed by Ignatius. We pray with Scripture. We do not study it.

The discernment of spirits underlies the Exercises. We notice the interior

movements of our hearts, and discern where they are leading us. A regular
practice of discernment helps us make good decisions.

All the characteristic themes of Ignatian spirituality are grounded in the

Exercises. These include a sense of collaboration with God’s action in the
world, spiritual discernment in decision making, generosity of response to
God’s invitation, fraternity and companionship in service, and a disposition
to find God in all things. Spiritual integration is a prominent theme of the
Exercises: integration of contemplation and action, prayer and service, and
emotions and reason.

Discernment of Spirits
Discernment of spirits is the interpretation of what St. Ignatius Loyola called
the “motions of the soul.” These interior movements consist of thoughts,
imaginings, emotions, inclinations, desires, feelings, repulsions, and
attractions. Spiritual discernment of spirits involves becoming sensitive to
these movements, reflecting on them, and understanding where they come
from and where they lead us.

Spiritual Direction
Spiritual direction is “help given by one Christian to another which enables
that person to pay attention to God’s personal communication to him or her,
to respond to this personally communicating God, to grow in intimacy with
this God, and to live out the consequences of the relationship.” (William A.
Barry and William J. Connolly, The Practice of Spiritual Direction)

 Spiritual direction focuses on religious experience. It is

concerned with a person’s actual experience of a relationship with
God.
  Spiritual direction is about a relationship. The religious
experience is not isolated, nor does it consist of extraordinary
events. It is what happens in an ongoing relationship between the
person and God. Most often this is a relationship that is experienced
in prayer.
 Spiritual direction is a relationship that is going
somewhere. God is leading the person to deeper faith and more
generous service. The spiritual director asks not just “what is
happening?” but “what is moving forward?”
 The real spiritual director is God. God touches the human heart
directly. The human spiritual director does not “direct” in the sense
of giving advice and solving problems. Rather, the director helps a
person respond to God’s invitation to a deeper relationship.

What Is Distinctive About Ignatian

Spiritual Direction?
Spiritual direction is a feature of many Christian traditions. In fact, forms of
spiritual direction are found in all religions. What distinguishes Ignatian
spiritual direction from other approaches? The Irish Jesuit Brian O’Leary lists
these elements.

A theological vision rooted in the Spiritual Exercises. The theology of

the Exercises is optimistic. It affirms the goodness of the world. But it also
is acutely aware of the pervasive problem of evil. At the same time it is
contemplative and service-oriented.

Flexible. The Ignatian spiritual director does not impose a program on the
directee. The manner of the direction is adjusted to fit the person’s
personality, life history, and spiritual experience. The director “cannot know
beforehand what he or she will suggest.”

A partnership. Ignatian spiritual direction is a partnership. It thus demands

mutual respect and openness to the other’s frame of reference. It follows
Ignatius Loyola’s admonition, “Let it be presupposed that every good
Christian is to be more ready to save their neighbor’s proposition than to
condemn it.”

What do you really want? Ignatian spiritual direction attempts to uncover

the deepest desires of the human heart. Typically, these are smothered by
superficial desires for transitory things. Our most profound desires are
shaped by the Holy Spirit and point toward new choices for spiritual growth
and fruitful service.

Rules for discernment. Ignatius Loyola’s rules for discernment of

spiritspermeate Ignatian spiritual direction. These are methods for
identifying inner movements, reflecting on them, and understanding where
they come from and where they lead us.

(See Brian O’Leary, SJ, “What Is Specific to an Ignatian Model of Spiritual

Direction?” The Way, Jan/April 2008, pp. 9-28).

Working with Others

By David L. Fleming, SJ

Ignatius understood early on that God was calling him to a life of service,
but it took him many years to figure out how he was supposed to do this.
His first notion was to set off by himself. Solitary individual accomplishment
was the knightly ideal of the time, and Ignatius applied this to his new life as
a Christian. He conceived of himself as a Christian knight in service of his
Lord. This did not work out very well. As a solitary pilgrim, he went to the
Holy Land, but was forced to return home. He began to teach others about
the spiritual life, but ran afoul of mistrustful inquisitors, who were deeply
suspicious of lone itinerant preachers sharing their spiritual insights with
others.

The real change in Ignatius’s style of ministry came when he went to the
University of Paris to get the education he needed to teach about the faith.
He notes what happened in a brief comment in his autobiography. He
studied philosophy and theology, he writes, “and gathered about him a
number of companions.” These companions were the men who became the
first members of the Society of Jesus. From this point on Ignatius always
worked in concert with others. The Jesuit order has included many
outstanding individuals with exceptional skills and talents, but Jesuit
ministry, and the ministry of others formed in Ignatian spirituality, has
always been formulated in a spirit of collaboration.
Collaboration is built into the very structure of the Spiritual Exercises.
Ignatius intended that the Exercises be undertaken not alone but with the
help of a spiritual director. The term director is actually something of a
misnomer. “The director’s role is that of being a helper to us in retreat,”
Ignatius writes at the beginning of the Exercises. This person does not
“direct” but rather guides and helps. The relationship between God and the
retreatant is always the focus of the Exercises, but we do not examine this
relationship alone. We are to do it collaboratively, with the assistance of a
wise and trusted guide who can help us be sensitive to the Spirit’s
movements and arrive at a discerning interpretation of these movements for
our spiritual growth.

Much of the spiritual director’s work involves careful listening to the

retreatant’s account of what happens in prayer and during the retreat. The
director helps us filter out what is extraneous and focus on the essential.
With help, we are able to see how apparently scattered things come together
in a meaningful pattern. The director helps us learn the “language of God”
spoken through the various media that flood our lives. With the help of our
spiritual director we come to understand that our relationship with God is a
real relationship with ups and downs, a give and take.

It is a relationship in which the parties collaborate on a mission of service to

others. We have seen how the meditation the Call of the King presents
Jesus’ call to work with him. Jesus’ call to join him in his work in the world
means that we are to serve with others as well as with Christ. Paul uses the
striking metaphor of the body to express the interrelatedness of those who
respond to Jesus’ call to join him in his mission. We are all parts of the body
of Christ, he writes. He continues:

God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended. If they
were all one part, where would the body be? But as it is, there are many
parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I do not need you,”
nor again the head to the feet, “I do not need you.” . . . God has so
constructed the body . . . that there may be no division in the body, but that
the parts may have the same concern for one another. If (one) part suffers,
all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.
(1 Corinthians 12:18-21, 24, 25-26)

Christian ministry and mission can never be seen as an individualistic

enterprise. We always interact as members of the body of Christ. We always
serve in the context of a relationship with Christ and with others. One of the
great gifts we share with others is the fruit of these life-giving relationships.
Ministry is a sharing of life and love. Jesus gives us the gift of divine life, and
invites us to join him in giving this life to others. Ministry in the Ignatian
mode is based on Jesus’ promise that “where two or three are gathered
together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20)

Excerpt from What Is Ignatian Spirituality? by David L. Fleming, SJ.

God Calls, We Respond

By David L. Fleming, SJ

Ignatian spirituality asks the question: What more does God want of
me? Ignatius had a profound insight into God and his creation, and he
developed many prayer methods, rules for discernment, spiritual disciplines,
and approaches to apostolic service. But all these elements of Ignatian
spirituality are ways to help us answer a single burning question, “What
more does God want now?”

God calls. We respond. It is the fundamental dynamic of the spiritual life.

The concluding prayer exercise at the end of the Spiritual Exercises shows
God pouring his limitless love and his gifts down on the world, “like the light
rays from the sun.” This is not just a global vision. God is active in each of
us personally. The purpose of the Spiritual Exercises, writes Ignatius, is to
facilitate the movement of God’s grace within us “so that the light and love
of God inflame all possible decisions and resolutions about life situations.”

God is an active God. He is ever at work in people’s lives, inviting, directing,

guiding, proposing, suggesting. This understanding of God animates Ignatian
spirituality and gives it its internal cohesion. The techniques and practices
associated with Ignatian spirituality are all designed to help us be more
attentive to this active God. Ignatian spirituality can be described as an
active attentiveness to God joined with a prompt responsiveness to his
leading.

Our response to God occurs now. We are not to be inhibited by our own
weakness and failure. We are not to ponder our unworthiness. God is
working in our lives now and we are to respond now.
This is certainly Jesus’ attitude when he called the first disciples. One day on
the Sea of Galilee Jesus directed Peter to cast his nets into a place on the
lake where Peter had had no luck fishing. Peter objects, but makes an
enormous catch, a clear sign of his call as one of Jesus’ followers. He
immediately raises the “unworthy” objection. “Depart from me, Lord, for I
am a sinful man,” he says. This is certainly true, but Jesus ignores him. “Do
not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men,” he says. (Luke
5:8,10)

Jesus surrounded himself with sinners. Ignatius draws our attention to the
call of Matthew. He was a tax collector, an agent of the hated Romans, who
made his living by extracting money from destitute peasants. Jesus
encountered Matthew sitting at his customs post and said simply “Follow
me.” The sinner’s response: “He got up and followed him.” Matthew threw a
party to celebrate his new life; he invited his old friends to come and meet
his new ones: “many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and
his disciples.” When the Pharisees objected to this spectacle Jesus replied, “I
did not come to call the righteous but sinners.” (Mark 2:14,15,17)

The Gospels show us Jesus entering into people’s lives and inviting them to
follow him—right from where they are, from boats and fishnets and from tax
booths. He does not demand first that they run to the synagogue. Neither
should we delay our response to God until we deal with our neuroses and
character defects and our own sinful behaviors.

Our response to God grows and matures and deepens over time. It is a
process, not an event. Paul writes to the Corinthians that “I fed you milk,
not solid food, because you were unable to take it.” (1 Corinthians 3:2) God
will give us what we need. If we are beginners, or if we are troubled and
weak, God will give us milk. Later on we will have solid food. All along the
path we will be answering God’s call to “follow me.”

Our response to God has a particular quality to it. Our response is

a response. God initiates; we answer. We do not strike out on our own. We
are to “follow.” To follow means that we adopt a kind of active passivity
toward the action of God. “Active passivity” captures the characteristic tone
of Ignatian spirituality. It is a spirituality of attentiveness, of watching and
waiting, of noticing the ebb and flow of our feelings and inner dispositions.
We are like the servant and maid in Psalm 123:

Yes, like the eyes of a servant

on the hand of his master,
 Like the eyes of a maid
on the hand of her mistress,
So our eyes are on the LORD our God. (Psalm 123:2)
The question we seek an answer for is “What more does God want of
me?” More is the magis of Ignatian spirituality—the aspiration to always
grow in service for the greater glory of God. Magis has been described as the
Jesuit “itch”—a restlessness in service, an ambition to maintain high
standards of performance, a desire to conquer new frontiers. But it simply
means more. We are loved by a God who loves without limit. We love him in
return. What more can we do to love him?

This is the question that the rich young man asked Jesus in the Gospels.
“What must I do to inherit eternal life,” he asked Jesus. Jesus reminded him
of his duties as a good Jew: to love God, keep the commandments, and love
his neighbor. “All of these I have observed from my youth,” he replied. He
wants to do more. At this, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” He tells the
young man to get rid of his possessions, and to “follow me.” (Mark 10:17-
21)

Jesus challenges the young man—and us—to be free of what we claim as our
own. This may be our material or worldly possessions. It may be our ideas
and our desires. God calls us to be free of these things, claiming them as our
own. Will we offer them to God and to God’s shaping and forming and using
them? He looks on us with love. What more can we do to respond to this
love?

Excerpt from What Is Ignatian Spirituality? by David L. Fleming, SJ.

Introduction to Discernment of
Spirits
St. Ignatius of Loyola began to learn about the discernment of spirits while
convalescing from serious battle injuries. He noticed different interior
movements as he imagined his future. In his autobiography, Ignatius writes
(in the third person):
He did not consider nor did he stop to examine this difference until one day
his eyes were partially opened and he began to wonder at this difference and
to reflect upon it. From experience he knew that some thoughts left him sad
while others made him happy, and little by little he came to perceive the
different spirits that were moving him; one coming from the devil, the other
coming from God (Autobiography, no. 8).

Good and Evil Spirits

Ignatius believed that these interior movements were caused by “good
spirits” and “evil spirits.” We want to follow the action of a good spirit and
reject the action of an evil spirit. Discernment of spirits is a way to
understand God’s will or desire for us in our life.

Talk of good and evil spirits may seem foreign to us. Psychology gives us
other names for what Ignatius called good and evil spirits. Yet Ignatius’s
language is useful because it recognizes the reality of evil. Evil is both
greater than we are and part of who we are. Our hearts are divided between
good and evil impulses. To call these “spirits” simply recognizes the spiritual
dimension of this inner struggle.
Consolation and Desolation
The feelings stirred up by good and evil spirits are called “consolation” and
“desolation” in the language of Ignatian spirituality.

Spiritual consolation is an experience of being so on fire with God’s love

that we feel impelled to praise, love, and serve God and help others as best
as we can. Spiritual consolation encourages and facilitates a deep sense of
gratitude for God’s faithfulness, mercy, and companionship in our life. In
consolation, we feel more alive and connected to others.

Spiritual desolation, in contrast, is an experience of the soul in heavy

darkness or turmoil. We are assaulted by all sorts of doubts, bombarded by
temptations, and mired in self-preoccupations. We are excessively restless
and anxious and feel cut off from others. Such feelings, in Ignatius’s words,
“move one toward lack of faith and leave one without hope and without
love.”

The key question in interpreting consolation and desolation is: where is the
movement coming from and where is it leading me? Spiritual consolation
does not always mean happiness. Spiritual desolation does not always mean
sadness. Sometimes an experience of sadness is a moment of conversion
and intimacy with God. Times of human suffering can be moments of great
grace. Similarly, peace or happiness can be illusory if these feelings are
helping us avoid changes we need to make.

Rules for Discernment

In the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius provides various rules for the
discernment of spirits (Spiritual Exercises, 313-336). Good and evil
spirits operate according to the spiritual condition of the individual.

For people who have closed themselves off from God’s grace, the good spirit
disturbs and shakes up. It stirs feelings of remorse and discontent. The
purpose is to make the person unhappy with a sinful way of life. On the
other hand, the evil spirit wants such people to continue in their confusion
and darkness. So the evil spirit tries to make them complacent, content, and
satisfied with their distractions and pleasures.
For people who are trying to live a life pleasing to God, the good spirit
strengthens, encourages, consoles, removes obstacles, and gives peace. The
evil spirit tries to derail them by stirring up anxiety, false sadness, needless
confusion, frustration, and other obstacles.

Discernment of spirits is a challenging task. It requires maturity, inner quiet,

and an ability to reflect on one’s interior life. Discernment takes practice. It
is something of an art. Ignatius Loyola’s rules for discernment provide a
framework, not a program. We must be ready to improvise and adjust
because God works in each of us so uniquely. That is why most counselors
recommend undertaking discernment of spirits with the assistance of a
spiritual director.

RULES FOR THE SAME EFFECT WITH GREATER DISCERNMENT OF SPIRITS

AND THEY HELP MORE FOR THE SECOND WEEK

First Rule. The first: It is proper to God and to His Angels in their movements to
give true spiritual gladness and joy, taking away all sadness and disturbance
which the enemy brings on. Of this latter it is proper to fight against the spiritual
gladness and consolation, bringing apparent reasons, subtleties and continual
fallacies.

Second Rule. The second: It belongs to God our Lord to give consolation to the soul
without preceding cause, for it is the property of the Creator to enter, go out and cause
movements in the soul, bringing it all into love of His Divine Majesty. I say without cause:
without any previous sense or knowledge of any object through which such consolation
would come, through one's acts of understanding and will.

Third Rule. The third: With cause, as well the good Angel as the bad can console the soul,
for contrary ends: the good Angel for the profit of the soul, that it may grow and rise from
good to better, and the evil Angel, for the contrary, and later on to draw it to his damnable
intention and wickedness.

Fourth Rule. The fourth: It is proper to the evil Angel, who forms himself under the
appearance of an angel of light, to enter with the devout soul and go out with himself: that
is to say, to bring good and holy thoughts, conformable to such just soul, and then little by
little he aims at coming out drawing the soul to his covert deceits and perverse intentions.

Fifth Rule. The fifth: We ought to note well the course of the thoughts, and if the beginning,
middle and end is all good, inclined to all good, it is a sign of the good Angel; but if in the
course of the thoughts which he brings it ends in something bad, of a distracting tendency,
or less good than what the soul had previously proposed to do, or if it weakens it or
disquiets or disturbs the soul, taking away its peace, tranquillity and quiet, which it had
before, it is a clear sign that it proceeds from the evil spirit, enemy of our profit and eternal
salvation.

Sixth Rule. The sixth: When the enemy of human nature has been perceived and known by
his serpent's tail and the bad end to which he leads on, it helps the person who was
tempted by him, to look immediately at the course of the good thoughts which he brought
him at their beginning, and how little by little he aimed at making him descend from the
spiritual sweetness and joy in which he was, so far as to bring him to his depraved
intention; in order that with this experience, known and noted, the person may be able to
guard for the future against his usual deceits.

Seventh Rule. The seventh: In those who go on from good to better, the good Angel
touches such soul sweetly, lightly and gently, like a drop of water which enters into a
sponge; and the evil touches it sharply and with noise and disquiet, as when the drop of
water falls on the stone.

And the above-said spirits touch in a contrary way those who go on from bad to worse.

The reason of this is that the disposition of the soul is contrary or like to the said Angels.
Because, when it is contrary, they enter perceptibly with clatter and noise; and when it is
like, they enter with silence as into their own home, through the open door.

Eighth Rule. The eighth: When the consolation is without cause, although there be no
deceit in it, as being of God our Lord alone, as was said; still the spiritual person to whom
God gives such consolation, ought, with much vigilance and attention, to look at and
distinguish the time itself of such actual consolation from the following, in which the soul
remains warm and favored with the favor and remnants of the consolation past; for often in
this second time, through one's own course of habits and the consequences of the concepts
and judgments, or through the good spirit or through the bad, he forms various resolutions
and opinions which are not given immediately by God our Lord, and therefore they have
need to be very well examined before entire credit is given them, or they are put into effect.

MEN AND WOMEN FOR OTHERS

by Pedro Arrupe, S.J.
Superior General of the Society of Jesus
1973, Valencia, Spain

Re-Education for Justice

Education for justice has become in recent years one of the chief concerns of the
Church. Why? Because there is a new awareness in the Church that participation in the
promotion of justice and the liberation of the oppressed is a constitutive element of the
mission which Our Lord has entrusted to her.1 Impelled by this awareness, the Church is
now engaged in a massive effort to education - or rather to re-educate - herself, her
children, and all men and women so that we may all "lead our life in its entirety... in accord
with the evangelical principles of personal and social morality to be expressed in a living
Christian witness."2

Men and Women for Others

Today our prime educational objective must be to form men-and-women-for-others; men

and women who will live not for themselves but for God and his Christ - for the God-man
who lived and died for all the world; men and women who cannot even conceive of love of
God which does not include love for the least of their neighbors; men and women
completely convinced that love of God which does not issue in justice for others is a farce.

What then shall we do?

This kind of education goes directly counter to the prevailing educational trend practically
everywhere in the world. We Jesuits have always been heavily committed to the
educational apostolate. We still are. What, then, shall we do? Go with the current or
against it? I can think of no subject more appropriate than this for the General of the
Jesuits to take up with the former students of Jesuits schools.

First, let me ask this question: Have we Jesuits educated you for justice? You and I know
what many of your Jesuit teachers will answer to that question. They will answer, in all
sincerity and humility: No, we have not. If the terms "justice" and "education for justice"
carry all the depth of meaning which the Church gives them today, we have not educated
you for justice.

Repair the lack in us

What is more, I think you will agree with this self-evaluation, and with the same sincerity
and humility acknowledge that you have not been trained for the kind of action for justice
and witness to justice which the Church now demands of us. What does this mean? It
means that we have work ahead of us. We must help each other to repair this lack in us,
and above all make sure that in future the education imparted in Jesuit schools will be
equal to the demands of justice in the world.

It can be done

It will be difficult, but we can do it. We can do it because, despite our historical limitations
and failures, there is something which lies at the very center of the Ignatian spirit, and
which enables us to renew ourselves ceaselessly and thus to adapt ourselves to new
situations as they arise.

What is this something? It is the spirit of constantly seeking the will of God. It is that
sensitiveness to the Spirit which enables us to recognize where, in what direction, Christ is
calling us at different periods of history, and to respond to that call.

In accord with God's will

This is not to lay any prideful claim to superior insight or intelligence. It is simply our
heritage from the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. For these Exercises are essentially a
method enabling us to make very concrete decisions in accordance with God's will. It is a
method that does not limit us to any particular option, but spreads out before us the whole
range of practicable options in any given situation; opens up for us a sweeping vision
embracing many possibilities, to the end that God himself, in all his tremendous originality,
may trace out our path for us.

It is this "indifference," in the sense of lack of differentiation, this not being tied down to
anything except God's will, that gives to the Society and to the men and women it has been
privileged to educate what we may call their multi-faceted potential, their readiness for
anything, any service that may be demanded of them by the signs of the times.

Readiness for change

Jesuit education in the past had its limitations. It was conditioned by time and place. As a
human enterprise it will always be. But it could not have been a complete failure if we
were able to pass on to you this spirit of openness to new challenges, this readiness for
change, this willingness - putting it in Scriptural terms - to undergo conversion. This is our
hope: that we have educated you to listen to the living God; to read the Gospel so as always
to find new light in it; to think with the Church, within which the Word of God always
ancient, ever new, resounds with that precise note and timbre needed by each historical
epoch. For this is what counts; on this is founded our confidence for the future.

It is not as a father speaking to children that I speak to you today. It is as a companion, a

fellow alumnus, speaking to his classmates. Sitting together on the same school bench, let
us together listen to the Lord, the Teacher of all mankind.

WHAT KIND OF JUSTICE? WHAT KIND OF PERSON?

There are two lines of reflection before us. One is to deepen our understanding of the idea
of justice as it becomes more and more clear in the light of the Gospel and the signs of the
times. The other is to determine the character and quality of the type of people we want to
form, the type of man or woman into which we must be changed, and towards which the
generations succeeding us must be encouraged to develop, if we and they are to serve this
evangelical ideal of justice.

The first line of reflection begins with the Synod of Bishops of 1971, and its opening
statement on "Justice in the World:"

Gathered from the whole world, in communion with all who believe in Christ and with the
entire human family, and opening our hearts to the Spirit who is making the whole of
creation new, we have questioned ourselves about the mission of the People of God to
further justice in the world.

Scrutinizing the “signs of the times” and seeking to detect the meaning of emerging
history… we have listened to the Word of God that we might be converted to the fulfilling of
the divine plan for the salvation of the world…

We have… been able to perceive the serious injustices which are building around the world
of men and women a network of domination, oppression and abuses which stifle freedom
and which keep the greater part of humanity from sharing in the building up and
enjoyment of a more just and more fraternal world.

At the same time we have noted the inmost stirring moving the world in its depths. There
are facts constituting a contribution to the furthering of justice. In associations of men and
women and among peoples there is arising a new awareness which spurs them on to
liberate themselves and to be responsible for their own destiny.

The call of the church

Please note that these words are not a mere repetition of what the Church has traditionally
taught. They are not a refinement of doctrine at the level of abstract theory. They are the
resonance of an imperious call of the living God asking his Church and all men of good will
to adopt certain attitudes and undertake certain types of action which will enable them
effectively to come to the aid of mankind oppressed and in agony.

This interpretation of the signs of the times did not originate with the Synod. It began with
the Second Vatican Council; its application to the problem of justice was made with
considerable vigor in Populorum Progressio; and spreading outward from this center to the
ends of the earth, it was taken up in 1968 by the Latin American Bishops at Medellin, in
1969 by the African Bishops at Kampala, in 1970 by the Asian Bishops in Manila. In 1971,
Pope Paul VI gathered all these voices together in the great call to action of Octogesima
Adveniens.

Action for justice

The Bishops of the Synod took it one step further, and in words of the utmost clarity
said: “Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully
appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or, in other words,
of the Church’s mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every
oppressive situation.” We cannot, then, separate action for justice and liberation from
oppression from the proclamation of the Word of God.

Differences on what to do

This is plain speech indeed. However, it did not prevent doubts, questionings, even
tensions from arising within the Church itself. It would be naïve not to recognize this
fact. Contradictions, or at least dichotomies, have emerged regarding the actual
implementation of this call to action, and our task now is to try to harmonize these
dichotomies if we can. This would be in the spirit of the Holy Year that is coming, which is
the spirit of reconciliation.

To begin with, let us note that these dichotomies are differences of stress rather than
contradictions of ideas. In view of the present call to justice and liberation, where should
we put our stress – in our attitudes, our activities, our life style:

1. Justice among persons, or justice before God?

2. Love of God, or love of the neighbor?

3. Christian charity or human justice?

4. Personal conversion or social reform?

5. Liberation in this life or salvation in the life to come?

6. Development through the inculcation of Christian values, or development through the

application of scientific technologies and social ideologies?

Justice and the Church

1. Quite clearly, the mission of the Church is not coextensive with the furthering of justice
on this planet. Still, the furthering of justice is a constitutive element of that mission, as the
Synod teaches. Recall the Old Testament: that First Alliance, the pact of Yahweh with his
chosen people, was basically concerned with the carrying out of justice, to such a degree
that the violation of justice as it concerns people implies a rupture of the Alliance with
God. Turn, now, to the New Testament, and see how Jesus has received from his Father the
mission to bring the Good News to the poor, liberation to the oppressed, and to make
justice triumph. “Blessed are the poor” - why? Because the Kingdom has already come;
the Liberator is at hand.

Love of neighbor
2. We are commanded to love God and to love our neighbor. But note what Jesus says: the
second commandment is like unto the first; they fuse together into one compendium of the
Law. And in his vision of the Last Judgment, what does the Judge say? “As long as you did
this for one of the least of my brothers, you did it for me.”3

As Father Alfaro says:

Inclusion in or expulsion from the Kingdom proclaimed by Jesus depends on our attitude
toward the poor and oppressed; toward those who are identified in Isaiah 58,1-2 as the
victims of human injustice and in whose regard God wills to realize his justice. What is
strikingly new here is that Jesus makes these despised and marginalized folk
his brothers. He identifies himself with the poor and the powerless, with all who are
hungry and miserable. Every person in this condition is Christ’s brother or sister; that is
why what is done for them is done for Christ himself. Whoever comes effectively to the aid
of these brothers and sisters of Jesus belongs to his Kingdom; whoever abandons them to
their misery excludes himself or herself from that Kingdom.4
Love and justice meet

3. Just as love of God, in the Christian view, fuses with love of neighbor, to the point that
they cannot possibly be separated, so, too, charity and justice meet together and in practice
are identical. How can you love someone and treat him or her unjustly? Take justice away
from love and you destroy love. You do not have love if the beloved is not seen as a person
whose dignity must be respected, with all that that implies. And even if you take the
Roman notion of justice as giving to each his due, what is owing to him, Christians must say
that we owe love to all people, enemies not excepted.

Just as we are never sure that we love God unless we love others, so we are never sure that
we have love at all unless our love issues in works of justice. And I do not mean works of
justice in a merely individualistic sense. I mean three things:

Works of justice

First, a basic attitude of respect for all people which forbids us ever to use them as
instruments for our own profit.

Second, a firm resolve never to profit from, or allow ourselves to be suborned by, positions
of power deriving from privilege, for to do so, even passively, is equivalent to active
oppression. To be drugged by the comforts of privilege is to become contributors to
injustice as silent beneficiaries of the fruits of injustice.

Third, an attitude not simply of refusal but of counterattack against injustice; a decision to
work with others toward the dismantling of unjust social structures so that the weak, the
oppressed, the marginalized of this world may be set free.

Personal inclination to evil

4. Sin is not only an act, a personal act, which makes us personally guilty. Over and above
this, sin reaches out to what we may call the periphery of ourselves, vitiating our habits,
customs, spontaneous reactions, criteria and patterns of thought, imagination, will. And it
is not only ourselves who influence our "periphery." It is shaped by all who have helped to
form us, by all who form part of our world.

We thus have a congenital inclination toward evil. In theological language this is called
"concupiscence," which is, concretely, a combination in us of the sin of Adam and all the
sins in history - including our own.

When we are converted, when God effects in us the marvel of justification, we turns to God
and our brothers and sisters in our innermost selves, and as a consequence sin in the strict
sense is washed away from us. However, the effects of sin continue their powerful
domination over our "periphery," and this, quite often, in a way that we are not even aware
of.

Now, Christ did not come merely to free us from sin and flood the center of our person with
his grace. He came to win our entire self for God - including what I have called our
"periphery." Christ came to do away not only with sin, but with its effects, even in this life;
not only to give us his grace, but to show forth the power of his grace.

From personal to social structure

Let us see the meaning of this as it pertains to the relationship between personal
conversion and structural reform. If "personal conversion" is understood in the narrow
sense of justification operative only at the very core of our person, it does not adequately
represent the truth of the matter, for such justification is only the root, the beginning of a
renewal, a reform of the structures at the "periphery" of our being, not only personal but
social.

If we agree on this, conclusions fairly tumble forth. For the structures of this world - our
customs; our social, economic, and political systems; our commercial relations; in general,
the institutions we have created for ourselves - insofar as they have injustice built into
them, are the concrete forms in which sin is objectified. They are the consequences of our
sins throughout history, as well as the continuing stimulus and spur for further sin.

Saint John and the "world"

There is a biblical concept for this reality. It is what Saint John calls, in a negative sense, the
"world." The "world" is in the social realm what "concupiscence" is in the personal, for, to
use the classical definition of concupiscence, it "comes from sin and inclines us to it."

Hence, like concupiscence, the "world" as understood in this sense must also be the object
of our efforts at purification. Our new vision of justice must give rise to a new kind of
spirituality, of asceticism; or rather, an expansion of traditional spirituality and asceticism
to include not only the personal but the social. In short, interior conversion is not
enough. God's grace calls us not only to win back our whole selves for God, but to win back
our whole world for God. We cannot separate personal conversion from structural social
reform.

The struggle never ends

5. It follows that this purification, this social asceticism, this earthly liberation is so central
in our Christian attitude toward life that whoever holds himself aloof from the battle for
justice implicitly refuses love for his fellows and consequently for God. The struggle for
justice will never end. Our efforts will never be fully successful in this life. This does not
mean that such efforts are worthless.

God wants such partial successes. They are the first-fruits of the salvation wrought by
Jesus. They are the signs of the coming of his Kingdom, the visible indications of its
mysterious spreading among us. Of course, partial successes imply partial failures; painful
failures; the defeat of many people, many of us, who will be overcome and destroyed in the
fight against this “world.” For this “world” will not take it lying down, as the vivid American
expression has it. It will persecute, it will try to exterminate those who do not belong to it
and stand in opposition to it.

But this defeat is only apparent. It is precisely those who suffer persecution for the sake of
justice who are blessed. It is precisely the crucified who pass through the world “doing
good and healing all.”5

Technologies necessary

6. To point out in very general fashion that there are injustices in the world – something
which everybody knows without being told – that is not enough: agreed. Having stated
principles, we must go to a map of the world and point out the critical points –
geographical, sociological, cultural – where sin and injustice find their logment: also
agreed. To do this, technologies are needed as instruments of analysis and action, and
ideologies are needed to program analysis and action so that they will actually dislodge and
dismantle injustice: by all means agreed.

What role is left, then, for the inculcation of Christian values, for the Christian
ethos? This: we cannot forget that technologies and ideologies, necessary though they are,
derive their origin, historically, from a mixture of good and evil. Injustice of one kind or
another finds in them too a local habitation and a name.

But not enough

Put it this way: they are tools, imperfect tools. And it is the Christian ethos, the Christian
vision of values, that must use these tools while submitting them to judgment and
relativizing their tendency to make absolutes of themselves. Relativizing them, putting
them in their place, as it were, with full realization that the Christian ethos cannot possibly
construct a new world without their assistance.

Forming men and women

With this background, let us now enter upon our second line of reflection, which bears on
the formation of men and women who will reconcile these antitheses and thus advance the
cause of justice in the modern world; their continuing formation, in the case of us “old
timers,” their basic formation, in the case of the youth who will hopefully take up the
struggle when we can do no more.

With regard to continuing education, let me say this: our alumni associations are called
upon, in my opinion, to be a channel par excellence for its realization. Look upon it
as your job, and, with the assistance of our Jesuits in the educational apostolate, work out
concrete plans and programs for it.

Education and conversion

And let us not have too limited an understanding of what continuing education is. It should
not be simply the updating of technical or professional knowledge, or even the re-
education necessary to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world. It should rather be
what is most specific in Christian education: a call to conversion. And that means, today, a
conversion that will prepare us for witnessing to justice as God gives us to see it from the
signs of our times.
 THE MEN AND WOMEN THE CHURCH NEEDS
TODAY
Man or woman for others

What kind of man or woman is needed today by the Church, by the world? One who is a
“man-or woman-for-others.” That is my shorthand description. A man-or-woman-for-
others. But does this not contradict the very nature of the human person? Are we not each
a “being-for-ourselves?” Gifted with intelligence that endows us with power, do we not
tend to control the world, making ourselves its center? Is this not our vocation, our
history?

Yes; gifted with conscience, intelligence and power each of us is indeed a center. But a
center called to go out of ourselves, to give ourself to others in love -- love, which is our
definitive and all-embracing dimension, that which gives meaning to all our other
dimensions. Only the one who loves fully realizes himself or herself as a person. To the
extent that any of us shuts ourselves off from others we do not become more a person; we
becomes less.

Anyone who lives only for his or her own interests not only provides nothing for others. He
or she does worse. They tend to accumulate in exclusive fashion more and more
knowledge, more and more power, more and more wealth; thus denying, inevitably to
those weaker then themselves their proper share of the God-given means for human
development.

Make the world serve other men and women

What is it to humanize the world if not to put it at the service of mankind? But the egoist
not only does not humanize the material creation, he or she dehumanizes others
themselves. They change others into things by dominating them, exploiting them, and
taking to themselves the fruit of their labor.

The tragedy of it all is that by doing this, the egoists dehumanize themselves. They
surrender themselves with the possessions they covet; they become slaves – no longer
persons who are self-possessed but un-persons, things driven by their blind desires and
their objects.

But when we dehumanize, de-personalize ourselves in this way, something stirs within
us. We feel frustrated. In our heart of hearts we know that what we have is nothing
compared with what we are, what we can be, what we would like to be. We would like to
be ourselves. But we dare not break the vicious circle. We think we can overcome our
frustrations by striving to have more, to have more than others, to have ever more and
more. We thus turn our lives into a competitive rat-race without meaning.

Dehumanization

The downward spiral of ambition, competition, and self-destruction twists and expands
unceasingly, with the result that we are chained ever more securely to a progressive, and
progressively frustrating, dehumanization.

Dehumanization of ourselves and dehumanization of others. For by thus making egoism a

way of life, we translate it, we objectify it, in social structures. Starting from our individual
sins of egoism, we become exploiters of others, dehumanizing them and ourselves in the
process, and hardening the process into a structure of society which may rightfully be
called sin objectified. For it becomes hardened in ideas, institutions, impersonal and
depersonalized organisms which now escape our direct control, a tyrannical power of
destruction and self-destruction.

Vicious circle

How escape from this vicious circle? Clearly, the whole process has its root in egoism – in
the denial of love. But to try to live in love and justice in a world whose prevailing climate
is egoism and injustice, where egoism and injustice are built into the very structures of
society – is this not a suicidal, or at least a fruitless undertaking?

Good in an evil world

And yet, it lies at the very core of the Christian message; it is the sum and substance of the
call of Christ. Saint Paul put it in a single sentence: “Do not allow yourself to be overcome
by evil, but rather, overcome evil with good.”6 This teaching, which is identical with the
teaching of Christ about love for the enemy, is the touchstone of Christianity. All of us
would like to be good to others, and most of us would be relatively good in a good
world. What is difficult is to be good in an evil world, where the egoism of others and the
egoism built into the institutions of society attack us and threaten to annihilate us.

Under such conditions, the only possible reaction would seem to be to oppose evil with evil,
egoism with egoism, hate with hate; in short, to annihilate the aggressor with his own
weapons. But is it not precisely thus that evil conquers us most thoroughly? For then, not
only does it damage us exteriorly, it perverts our very heart. We allow ourselves, in the
words of Saint Paul, to be overcome by evil.

Love: the driving force

No; evil is overcome only by good, hate by love, egoism by generosity. It is thus that we
must sow justice in our world. To be just, it is not enough to refrain from injustice. One
must go further and refuse to play its game, substituting love for self-interest as the driving
force of society.

All this sounds very nice, you will say, but isn’t it just a little bit up in the air? Very well, let
us get down to cases. How do we get this principle of justice through love down to the level
of reality, the reality of our daily lives? By cultivating in ourselves three attitudes:

Live more simply

First, a firm determination to live much more simply – as individuals, as families, as social
groups – and in this way to stop short, or at least to slow down, the expanding spiral of
luxurious living and social competition. Let us have men and women who will resolutely
set themselves against the tide of our consumer society. Men and women who, instead of
feeling compelled to acquire everything that their friends have will do away with many of
the luxuries which in their social set have become necessities, but which the majority of
mankind must do without. And if this produces surplus income, well and good; let it be
given to those for whom the necessities of life are still luxuries beyond their reach.

No unjust profit

Second, a firm determination to draw no profit whatever from clearly unjust sources. Not
only that, but going further, to diminish progressively our share in the benefits of an
economic and social system in which the regards of production accrue to those already
rich, while the cost of production lies heavily on the poor. Let there be men and women
who will bend their energies not to strengthen positions of privilege, but, to the extent
possible, reduce privilege in favor of the underprivileged. Please do not conclude too
hastily that this does not pertain to you – that you do not belong to the privileged few in
your society. It touches everyone of a certain social position, even though only in certain
respects, and even if we ourselves may be the victims of unjust discrimination by those
who are even better off than ourselves. In this matter, our basic point of reference must be
the truly poor, the truly marginalized, in our own countries and in the Third World.

Change unjust structures

Third, and most difficult: a firm resolve to be agents of change in society; not merely
resisting unjust structures and arrangements, but actively undertaking to reform
them. For, if we set out to reduce income in so far as it is derived from participation in
unjust structures, we will find out soon enough that we are faced with an impossible task
unless those very structures are changed.

Posts of power

Thus, stepping down from our own posts of power would be too simple a course of
action. In certain circumstances it may be the proper thing to do; but ordinarily it merely
serves to hand over the entire social structure to the exploitation of the egotistical. Here
precisely is where we begin to feel how difficult is the struggle for justice; how necessary it
is to have recourse to technical ideological tools. Here is where cooperation among alumni
and alumni associations becomes not only useful but necessary.

Let us not forget, especially, to bring into our counsels our alumni who belong to the
working class. For in the last analysis, it is the oppressed who must be the principal agents
of change. The role of the privileged is to assist them; to reinforce with pressure from
above the pressure exerted from below on the structures that need to be changed.

Christ, a man for others

Men-and-women-for-others: the paramount objective of Jesuit education – basic, advance,

and continuing – must now be to form such men and women. For if there is any substance
in our reflections, then this is the prolongation into the modern world of our humanist
tradition as derived from the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. Only by being a man-or-
woman-for-others does one become fully human, not only in the merely natural sense, but
in the sense of being the “spiritual” person of Saint Paul. The person filled with the Spirit;
and we know whose Spirit that is: the Spirit of Christ, who gave his life for the salvation of
the world; the God who, by becoming a human person, became, beyond all others, a Man-
for-others, a Woman-for-others.

Footnotes:

1. Synod of Bishops 1971, “Justice in the World,” nn. 6, 37.

2. Ibid. n. 10.

3. Mt 25.40

4. Juan B. Alfaro, S.J. Christianisme et Justice, Commission Pontificale, Justice et Paix,

Cite du Vatican, 1973, pp. 28

5. Acts 10.38

6. Rom 12.21
The Steps of the Examen
Today let’s explore the Examen through the lens of brief reflections
pertaining to each step. The steps in this version of the Examen match what
is presented in A Simple, Life-Changing Prayer by Jim Manney.

Ask God for light.

If we attune ourselves to look and listen, we may find God present within us,
all around us, and speaking to us constantly. But if we don’t bother to look,
it will seem that there is nothing to be seen. Here’s how the nineteenth-
century British poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning wryly described humans,
who so often miss what lies plainly in front of us:

Earth’s crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God;

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes—

The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

The poet is alluding to the Exodus story in which Moses, encountering God in
a burning bush, removes his sandals and hears the call to lead his people
out of slavery and into the Promised Land.…Like Moses, we are first of all
called to recognize that we live and work and stand in a holy place, “a world
charged with the grandeur of God.” We are called, therefore, to the holiness
that Rabbi Kushner earlier defined as “being aware that [we] are in the
presence of God.”

We are called, further, to freedom from whatever shackles us. For Moses’s
people, it was freedom from oppression at the hands of an Egyptian
pharaoh; for us, it may be getting over ourselves by breaking free from
attachment to money, power, greed, fear, alcohol, sex, pride, prejudice, or
any other demons that prevent our becoming our best selves.

—Excerpted from Heroic Living by Chris Lowney

Give thanks.
Our gifts and talents differ, and as a result the harvest produced will differ.
But such differences do not make some people better in the eyes of God.
Whatever talents or gifts we have are just that—gifts. And gratitude is the
only proper response to the reception of gifts.

Gratitude for what we are given runs counter to the competitive nature of
our culture. From infancy, we are taught to compare ourselves with others in
terms of talent or looks. IQ tests, SAT scores, class rankings—all compel us
to compare ourselves with others. In such a culture, the inability to do what
others can do and are applauded for can lead to a sense of inferiority.
Hence, the man from whom the legion of demons was cast out would, in our
culture, tend to think of himself as less valued by Jesus than the apostles
who get to follow him. Under such circumstances, the Christian attitude of
gratitude and acceptance of the gifts one has does not come easily. We need
to pray regularly and often for gratitude to God for who we are.

Perhaps even more important is to pray to know in our bones that we are
the apple of God’s eye just as we are. Once, a retreatant felt that Jesus was
telling him, “I love no one more than I love you, but I don’t love you more
than anyone else.” This was a consoling experience for him and left him
feeling very grateful. Moreover, he had no basis for making comparative
judgments about his worth in the eyes of Jesus. What a great relief and
freedom it would be if we could believe that Jesus makes no comparisons
but loves each of us as we are, and wants the best for each of us.

—Excerpted from God’s Passionate Desire by William A. Barry, SJ

Review the day.
I was once sitting in a little park in the small town of Loyola in Spain. Behind
me was the imposing basilica of St. Ignatius, who was born there. Its edifice
at that time was covered in scaffolding and under renovation. In front of me
was a small kiosk selling newspapers, chocolate, and other small items.

A man came along with his small daughter and their dog. The man bought a
newspaper for himself and a little container of soap bubbles for his daughter
to play with. They sat down beside me. The man was engrossed in his
newspaper. The little girl was delightedly blowing bubbles, clearly entranced
by the magical colored globe that each bubble formed as it caught the
sunlight. The dog jumped up after every bubble and tried to catch it, but as
soon as he seized the bubble with his snout, the bubble burst.

I asked myself, “Which is teaching me more about the kingdom of God—the

mighty basilica with all its scaffolding or this little girl’s joy at the beauty of
the world reflected in her bubbles?” The little dog was a reminder that as
soon as we try to take hold of the mystery and pin it down into our own
categories, words, and meanings, we destroy it.

If we think we have “got” it, we will lose it.

If we think we have “arrived,” we have gone down a cul-de-sac.

—Excerpted from Simple Faith by Margaret Silf

Face your shortcomings.
We have not always made choices that lead us to praise, honor, and serve
God. We have not always acted as if we believe that we are loved. We have
not always treated everything in our lives as a gift.

We come to the humbling awareness that we are sinners, that we have often
been ungrateful and unfaithful. We have failed to respond to God’s offer of
love by failing to love God and love our neighbor. Sin is the failure to bother
to love. Sin is not simply the things we do but also the things we fail to do.
Ignatius traces all this to a lack of gratitude—failure to recognize everything
as a gift to be cherished, fostered, and shared. For Ignatius, ingratitude is
the greatest sin and the root of all sin. It is, in the end, the failure to love as
God has loved us.

This realization leads us to sorrow. Ignatius invites us to pray for sorrow and
shame, for a deep interior knowledge of our sinfulness, of the disorder in our
lives, and of our ingratitude and lack of response to God’s offer of life. This
sorrow leads us to contrition and repentance—a turning toward God, whom
we have offended. We realize that we have distanced ourselves from the one
we most desire.

We are sinners, but we are forgiven. The two are connected. Only when we
claim our sinfulness and stand in sorrow before God can we truly experience
God’s mercy. We are loved sinners. God loves us even when we are sinners.
Only when we know the depth of our sin do we know the depth of God’s
mercy. We are not as good as we thought, but we are much more loved than
we ever imagined.

—Excerpted from Discovering Your Dream by Gerald M. Fagin, SJ

Look toward the day to come.

We need to act wisely, as God would have us act. The question to ask
yourself is “What will I do today?” I have a long to-do list written on a sheet
of paper that lies next to my keyboard. I work in two different offices, and I
carry the list around with me. (I haven’t put it in my phone yet—that’s one
of the items on the list.) My list is a mixture of personal and professional
tasks, small errands and big projects, the urgent and the postponable, the
practical and the dreamy. This list is the future. Most days I go through the
list and select the tasks that I will do today. That’s what we do in the fifth
step of the daily Examen. We narrow things down. The future becomes
today.

Today isn’t going to be what you expect. Your boss will give you a new
project; people who have promised to get back to you won’t do it; someone
you haven’t heard from in months will call or drop in; you’ll open an e-mail
and discover that you have to stop what you’re doing and tend to a problem
immediately; your spouse will be delayed at work, disrupting dinner and the
evening plans; your sister will call, asking for a big favor. You can’t control
this pandemonium, but you do have influence over it. There are some steps
you can take to get more closely aligned to Christ, who is in it all.

—Excerpted from A Simple, Life-Changing Prayer by Jim Manney

The Spiritual Meaning of Balance

When most people refer to balance, they envision a successful juggling act.
A balanced life is one in which, simultaneously, I keep all my projects going
and all my relationships healthy. I achieve this balance by sheer strategy
and willpower.

In Christian spirituality, balance has more to do with temperance, which

means that we allow our deepest principles to hold our passions in check. As
Paula Huston explains in her book By Way of Grace, temperance has been
misconstrued in popular language to mean an unhealthy denial of life’s
pleasures. But from earliest times Christians have valued spiritual balance.

St. Ignatius spoke of people having “disordered affections”—being ruled by

desires rather than free to make wise choices. When we don’t practice
temperance, eventually our affections will become disordered. A temperate
person honors her desires and passions as gifts from God, but she does not
constantly rearrange her life according to the ongoing flux of those desires
and passions.

I’ve discovered that whenever I feel pushed, desperate, or hurried, that’s a

signal that I need to apply some temperance. When I am driven to act—by
my fear, my need to impress, or my own impossible expectations—I allow
my perfectly good passions to run away with me. Passions themselves are
not bad, but they were never meant to be in charge either.

Most of us can relate to Paula’s story; her desire to give her daughter the
perfect wedding led to weeks of frenzy and overwork. One time, when my
sister and brother-in-law were visiting, we’d had a full day of sightseeing
and had returned home to cook a nice dinner. At about 8 p.m., I started
pulling out ingredients to make an apple pie, and my sister stopped me:
“Are you on speed?” she asked, laughing at my insistence on providing a
homemade dessert. I decided that it was more important to relax and watch
a movie with my family than slave over a pie we were too tired to eat
anyway.

As an editor, I have to practice temperance; otherwise I would never finish

making a manuscript “perfect.” As a writer I practice temperance when I
decide that, no, a 16th rewrite of that scene is not necessary.

Parents must practice temperance when it’s time to let go of children, even
though we know we could help them organize their lives or choose their
friends. Our good desire to help those we love must be tempered by
wisdom.

One of the best gifts of temperance is that it frees us to enjoy our loves.
When I write, I can throw myself into it completely. And when temperance
tells me it’s time to stop writing and do something else, I can put down my
work and enter the next thing wholeheartedly.

Identify situations in which you feel pushed, or hurried, or desperate. Can

you describe what’s going on, and how you might apply some temperance?

SOURCE: http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/what-is-ignatian-
spirituality/#getting-started