Spirituality for Everyday Life

I was going to continue my analysis of Catholic eschatology this week, but decided to change my mind. Last week I talked about Hell and logically following that would be a discussion of Purgatory, but there is something new in my spiritual life that I’d like to talk about. After seeing an interview on the Colbert Report about a month ago, I asked for this author’s book for my birthday and my parents got it for me. The book is titled The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything by James Martin, S.J., and it is a discussion of Ignatian Spirituality and how it can be applied to almost anything in life. The S.J. after the author’s name stands for Society of Jesus which is formal name of the brotherhood of the Jesuits. After only reading this book for a week I have already had two distinct positive spiritual events. One happened just a few nights ago while during contemplative prayer I realized how involved in my life God really is and how much more involved in the life of God that I need to be. It was a deeply moving moment laying there in my bed trying to go to sleep late in the night (more like early in the morning). I felt supercharged and highly in tune with my surroundings. I was moved to tears, crying quietly through closed eyes as a smile spread across my face. It was like the first time I realized that God loved me so many years ago as a child. My adult sized spiritual cup, which had been suffering from a lack of filling over the past year or two, was suddenly overflowing. I slept more sound that night than I had in months and over the past few nights since then, have not had the same trouble falling asleep as I had before. My life, my days, have been happier, more peaceful, and more focused than at any other point in my life to this date. After that experience, I felt that I had to share my new found knowledge and understanding with you.

Ignatian spirituality is 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. Like all Catholic spirituality, Ignatian spirituality is based on the Catholic faith and the gospels. It draws most specially from St. Ignatius' "Spiritual Exercises", whose purpose is "to conquer oneself and to regulate one's life in such a way that no decision is made under the influence of any inordinate attachment." In other words, the Exercises are intended, in Ignatius' view, to give the exercitant (the person undertaking them) a greater degree of freedom from his or her own likes, dislikes, comforts, wants, needs, drives, appetites and passions that they may choose based solely on what they discern God's will is for them. In the words of former Jesuit Superior General, Peter Hans Kolvenbach, the Exercises try to "unite two apparently incompatible realities: exercises and spiritual." It invites to "unlimited generosity" in contemplating God, yet going down to the level of many details.

Ignatian spirituality can be described as an active attentiveness united with a prompt responsiveness to God, who is ever active in people's lives. Though it includes many forms of prayer, discernment, and apostolic service, it is the interior dispositions of attentiveness and responsiveness that are ultimately crucial. The result is that Ignatian spirituality has a remarkable 'nowness,' both in its attentiveness to God and in its desire to respond to what God is asking of the person now. The Ignatian ideal has the following characteristics:

God's greater glory: St Ignatius of Loyola stressed that "Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God Our Lord and by this means to save his soul." Ignatius declares: "The goal of our life is to live with God forever. God, who loves us, gave us life. Our own response of love allows God's life to flow into us without limit. Our only desire and our one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better leads to the deepening of God's life in me."

Union with Jesus: Ignatius emphasized an ardent love for the Savior. In his Exercises, he devoted the last weeks to the contemplation of Jesus: from infancy and public ministry, to his passion and lastly his risen life. There is a great emphasis on the emotions in Ignatius' methods, and a call for the person to be very sensitive to the emotional movements that shape them.

Self-awareness: Ignatius recommends the twice-daily examen (examination). This is a guided method of prayerfully reviewing the events of the day, to awaken one's inner sensitivity to one's own actions, desires, and spiritual state, through each moment reviewed. The goals are to see where God is challenging the person to change and to growth, where God is calling the person to deeper reflection, and to where sinful or imperfect attitudes or blind spots are found.

Spiritual direction: Meditation and contemplation are best guided, Ignatius says, by an experienced person. Jesuits, and those following Ignatian spirituality, meet with their spiritual director on a regular basis (weekly or monthly) to discuss the fruits of their prayer life and be offered guidance. Ignatius sees the director as someone who can rein in impulsiveness or excesses, goad the complacent, and keep people honest with themselves.

Effective love: The founder of the Society of Jesus put effective love (love shown in deeds) above affective love (love based on nice feelings). True and perfect love demands sacrifice, the abandonment of tastes and personal preferences, and the perfect renunciation of self.

Detachment: Where St. Francis of Assisi's concept of poverty emphasized the spiritual benefits of simplicity and dependency, Ignatius emphasized detachment, or "indifference." For Ignatius, whether one was rich or poor, healthy or sick, in an assignment one enjoyed or one didn't, was comfortable in a culture or not, etc., should be a matter of spiritual indifference…a modern phrasing might put it as serene acceptance.

Prayers, efforts at self-conquest, and reflection: Jesuits stress the need to take time to reflect and to pray because prayer is at the foundation of Jesus’ life. Prayer, in Ignatian spirituality, does not dispense from "helping oneself", a phrase frequently used by Ignatius. Thus, he also speaks of mortification and of amendment.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart, the Eucharist, and Our Lady: The Society of Jesus has a relationship with the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary in a commitment to spread the devotion to the Sacred Heart. The Jesuits particularly promoted this devotion to emphasize the compassion and overwhelming love of Christ for people. St. Ignatius counseled people to receive the Eucharist more often, and from the order's earliest days the Jesuits were promoters of "frequent communion". It should be noted that it was the custom for many Catholics at this time to receive Holy Communion perhaps once or twice a year, out of what Catholic theologians considered an exaggerated respect for the sacrament; Ignatius and others advocated receiving the sacrament at least monthly, emphasizing Holy Communion not as reward but as spiritual food. Ignatius made his initial commitment to a new way of life by leaving his soldier's weapons (and symbolically, his old values) on an altar before an image of the Christ child seated on the lap of Our Lady of Montserrat. The Jesuits were long promoters of the Sodality of Our Lady, which they used to encourage frequent attendance at Mass, reception of communion, daily recitation of the Rosary, and attendance at retreats in the Ignatian tradition of the Spiritual Exercises.

Zeal for souls: The purpose of the Order, says the Summary of the Constitutions, is "not only to apply one's self to one's own salvation and to perfection with the help of divine grace but to employ all one's strength, for the salvation and perfection of one's neighbor."

Finding God in All Things: The vision that Ignatius places at the beginning of the Exercises keeps sight of the Creator and the creature, the One and the other swept along in the same movement of love. In it, God offers himself to humankind in an absolute way through the Son, and humankind responds in an absolute way by a total self-donation. There is no longer sacred or profane, natural or supernatural, mortification or prayer—because it is one and the same Spirit who brings it about that the Christian will "love God in all things—and all things in God."

Examen of Consciousness: The Examen of Consciousness is a simple prayer directed toward developing a spiritual sensitivity to the special ways God approaches, invites, and calls. Ignatius recommends that the examen be done at least twice, and suggests five points of prayer, however, the person feels free to structure the Examen in a way that is most helpful to them. The basic rule is: Go wherever God draws you. It focuses on one's consciousness of God, not necessarily one's conscience regarding sins and mistakes.

Service and humility: Ignatius emphasized the active expression of God's love in life and the need to be self-forgetful in humility. Jesuit educational institutions often adopt mottoes and mission statements that include the idea of making students "men for others", and the like. Jesuit missions have generally included medical clinics, schools and agricultural development projects as ways to serve the poor or needy while preaching the Gospel.

I am slowly beginning my journey into Ignatian spirituality through reading this book and practicing what I learn through my study. I have already begun to change my life through the use of Ignatian forms of prayer. This may not be the path for everyone and I am by no means recommending you run out and try to reform your spirituality. And this is certainly not my announcement of joining the Jesuits. This is just information, which you can take or leave of your own choosing. But know that if you feel like you haven’t been on any path or that the path you are on isn’t taking you where you thought you’d go, then perhaps a little contemplative prayer and discernment would do you good. It has helped me and I have only just begun.