IGNATIAN SPIRITUALITY

     What is the spirituality of St. Ignatius? Ignatian Spirituality is an incarnational and apostolic spirituality of choice at the level of faith. This response is not only complicated but it also calls for much explanation, which is given below in six sections.

1. Who is Ignatius?

     The Spirituality of Ignatius - like that of others [Benedictine, Carmelite, Franciscan, Dominican, etc.] - is based upon his own life experiences. Ignatius experienced a conversion; this conversion was not a change of religions but an interior change of his entire way of living. He previously desired to do great deeds of service for the lady in his imagination; now he would do great deeds of service for Our Lady and for the King, i.e. Christ the King. He previously lived without much attention to God; now he became aware of God in all things and was able to help others to seek and find God even in difficulties.

     In his autobiography, Ignatius states that he lived a dissolute life up until 26. As a soldier, he rallied the Spanish troops to withstand the invading, superior French forces at Pamplona. When he was struck down by a cannonball shot to his leg, the Spanish surrendered. But the French were so impressed by his heroism that they cared for him and treated his leg. But the surgery was not successful. He was brought to his brother's home at Loyola to recuperate. But he was so sick that the doctors feared for his life; as if by a miracle, the fever left him on the feast of St. Peter. Ignatius, then, felt that "the ladies" would not be attracted to such a deformed person; so he opted for a second operation. This too was not successful; and Ignatius walked with a limp for the rest of his life.

     While he was recuperating, he asked his sister-in-law for some romance novels to read. But all they had in the castle were two books: The Life of Christ by Ludolph of Saxony and the Flos Sanctorum, short lives of the saints. As he read, Ignatius noticed that things were happening. When he had read the romances, he was stirred but later felt depressed. But when he read about Christ and the saints, he felt challenged; and then he desired to be like Jesus and to do the difficult tasks which Francis and Dominic did; in fact, he would do those things, and MORE, because he was so stirred. The experience was the beginning of his awareness of the process of discernment and of his constant desire to do what God wanted of him. The reader can now understand that Ignatius will say that sickness is no less a gift from God than health.

     Ignatius found that, when he sifted through the ways in which he was moved either by the evil spirit or by God’s Spirit, he was more free to make choices in accord with God’s desires for him. And so, in the Spiritual Exercises, he could help retreatants to “earnestly desire and deliberately choose what is more conducive to the end for which they have been created.”(#23) The result of choosing in this discerning manner is that the person attains an interior freedom, which is not based upon outward restrictions or pressures but upon a confirmation that this person’s mind, heart, will, and faith are one with God’s mind, heart, will, and faith.

     Ignatius went to the cave at Manresa to do ascetical practices as other saints had done. He dealt with his past sins and present scruples, but also had several visions, including one of Our Lady with her Child and another of the Trinity. He made notes of what was happening during these ten months; and these notes became the little book of the Spiritual Exercises. Some themes or graces which a retreatant will experience in these Exercises are: He or she is made in love; he or she is a loved sinner; he or she can be interiorly free; he or she is called by God to be a companion of God's Son; he or she can chose how he or she will follow Christ; he or she can find God in all things; he or she can be grateful for all that God is doing in his or her life. In the process, the retreatant begins to discern how God is calling him or her and to seek the grace to say “Yes” to that call.
 
     As a layman, Ignatius began to lead other lay people through these Exercises. He quickly aroused the attention of the Inquisition. Why was he, a layman, doing spiritual works? Ignatius gave the inquisitors a copy of his book and asked them to correct it. Since they could find no error, Ignatius still wanted them off his back. So, he decided that he would become a priest; and at the age of 34, he began the study of Latin with 14 year old boys. He also found that God was leading him as a schoolmaster leads his students.

     At the University of Salamanca and later at the University of Alcala, Ignatius continued to give the Exercises to men whom he gathered around himself; but these small communities fell by the wayside as he moved on. When he arrived at the University of Paris, his roommates were Pierre Favre and Francisco Xavier. Ignatius assisted Favre, a Savoyard, through his difficulties with scruples; the result was that Favre became a better director of the Exercises than Ignatius himself. Xavier, however, was a tough nut to crack. He was a scholar and an athlete and planned to excel in both; but when Ignatius finally won him over - after three years - and gave him the Exercises, Xavier too was a changed man; he was free enough to go to India and become a patron of missionaries. Seven other men came under the influence of Ignatius, and these ten men became the first members of the Company or Society of Jesus in 1540. Ignatius insisted that the Order be named after Jesus; he did not want his men to be followers of himself, but to be followers of Jesus.

     Ignatius’ awareness of God’s presence and activity enabled him to be grateful for all that God had done and was doing for him. Thus, for him, ingratitude was the worst of all sins. 

     Ignatius spent the last sixteen years of his life, primarily, in one room in Rome, writing the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, writing 8000 letters for the administration of the early Society and to give counsel to many, experiencing the gift of tears while praying, and helping others to enter into a mysticism of service, i.e. a oneness with God through the serving of others.
 

2.  Incarnational as distinct from Transcendental:

     People who have been to a Byzantine liturgy will note that their liturgy "goes beyond" -- or "transcends" -- this world. When the people enter the church, they leave behind their cares and enter into a heavenly realm symbolized by the style of the church, the ritual, and the singing. This liturgy -- and its spirituality -- reminds the people of their heavenly goal and strives to assist them to attain that goal. This liturgy can also last for a longer time than our Roman Rite. People in many African countries are happy with long liturgies even in the Roman Rite, and their Sunday Mass will last longer than two hours because they have much singing and dancing as well.

     The emphasis of Incarnational spirituality is that Jesus, the Son of God, put on our human flesh, (in = "in,on + caro/carnis = "meat, flesh"). Since God became a human being, it is important to attend to human experiences and human growth. People who grow to become more fully human find that they are becoming more in the image of God. Thus, the emphasis is more on what a person is doing in THIS life as distinct from a direct attention on the after-life. {Please note: both of these spiritualities are approved by the church; individual people or communities will prefer one or the other emphasis.]
 

3. Apostolic as distinct from Monastic or Mendicant:

     In the early days of Christianity, many Christians felt that the world was evil and that they could not live their new Christian religion in such a secular realm. So, they went to deserted places so that they could be alone, [monos is the Greek word for "sole, alone"] pray, strive to have control over their passions, and attain a spiritual knowledge which was only attained by contemplation. (The emphasis behind this flight from the world was certainly a transcendental spirituality.) St. Anthony of Egypt was the model for people who fled into the desert.

     In the fifth century, Benedict of Nursia noticed that all of these monks in the desert were living alone. He thought it would be good if these people could live together. So, he brought them together into community and wrote a RULE for their way of living. They lived a life of prayer, especially the singing of the divine office seven times a day, and a life of work on the grounds of the monastery; they set up stable communities but also sent out missionaries to establish monasteries in other places.

     In the thirteenth century, Francis of Assisi noticed that the monasteries -- because of the hard work of the monks and the reception of many inheritances -- had become rich and lax. He felt that poverty was the way to reform a church which had become wealthy and secular. At the same time, Dominic Guzman noticed that the people's ignorance of the Bible and of the church's teachings meant that they did not have an understanding of their faith. He felt that it was necessary to contemplate the Scriptures and to hand on to others the fruit of one's contemplation.

     In the sixteenth century, Ignatius of Loyola noticed that religious communities had removed themselves from the world. But he felt that the world as good because it is God's creation. He wanted "to help souls" in whatever way possible. So, the common life of this religious community was flexible because the emphasis was on the apostolic work done by the members. The members had to seek a union of minds and hearts with one another even if they were at great distances. The members sought a union with God through their union with their neighbor. They needed to be available and obedient, to have self-knowledge and interior freedom, to discern what God wanted, and to serve others. They needed to find God in all things. (The emphasis behind this involvement in the world is certainly an incarnational spirituality.)

     [Please note: This brief distinction of monastic, mendicant, and apostolic spiritualities is presented in a chronological order. But the church highly approves of each of these spiritualities; again, individuals or communities will choose which spirituality helps them to have a greater union with God and neighbor.]
 

4. Choice:

     We all need to make choices. Our principal choice is to do the will of God. How do we find the will of God? We do this primarily through our conversation with God in prayer. We need to discern what God is saying to us. We need gather all the information we can, to sift through that information, to clarify what is of God and what is not of God, and, thereby, to see more clearly what God is asking of us at this time. Then we need to choose what God is asking us.

     Often, we make choices on the basis of our likes and dislikes. Our own experience tells us that such choices are not always the best; we need to get to the essence of things and to make choices which are interiorly free. The purpose of the Ignatian Exercises is to help a person come to an understanding of God’s will for him or her and then to carry out that will in practice. There is always a struggle to attain detachment from one's egotistical desires and to maintain a close union with Jesus. This struggle requires prayer and God's gift of grace. It also requires the ability to recognize both the deceits which come from outside oneself and the movements of God's Spirit which lead beyond oneself.

     So, how does a person attain this kind of interior freedom? There must be a desire to go into the interior and to know oneself. Several items are most helpful in this process: Focused prayer, the Examen, Discernment, Dreams, and Being under direction. Focused prayer addresses the issue which is the problem rather than asks that God work a miracle. For the Examen, see the next paragraph below. Discernment is the sifting process which was described in the first paragraph of this fifth section. Dreams are "the royal road to the unconscious." Even dreams which are scary are wholesome and holistic because they help us to deal with our interior tendencies, fears, and desires. A spiritual Director does not make decisions for the person under direction; the spiritual director helps that person to clarify and to discern what God is saying to him or her so that that person can freely make the decision which God is presenting to that person.

     The Examen is not the Examination of Conscience which a person does in preparation for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Rather, it is an Examination of Consciousness, that is, the consciousness or the awareness of God's presence and God's activity in one's life. The presentation of this prayer which Fr. Dennis Hamm, S.J. wrote for America magazine for May 14, 1994 is most helpful. In that article (in Links on this page), he explains the five steps very easily:

1. Pray for light, so that we can see things as God sees them and can make some sense out of our messy lives.

2. Review the day in thanksgiving. When we recall what God has been doing in our lives, we can be grateful and experience the virtue of gratitude which Ignatius prized so highly.

3. Review the feelings which surface in the replay of the day. Fr. Hamm is on target here because God speaks to us more clearly through our affect than through our intellect. This helps us to pay greater attention to our feelings and emotions.

4. Choose one of these feelings (positive or negative) and pray from it. When a person prays through a negative feeling which surfaced, that person finds that he or she is more in touch with what God wants to say to him or her.

5. Look toward tomorrow. If something has gone poorly in the day, it will be good to correct it. If something has gone well, it will be good to choose to continue it.
 

5.  At the level of faith:

     It is frequently said that men choose with their heads and women choose with their hearts. But when we made decisions with our head, our heart, and our faith, then there is a great likelihood that God is in that decision. We need to use our heads; we need to gather information and sift through the details and the options. We need to use our hearts; the direction of the decision needs to sit well with our entire being? We also need to use our faith; our religious values will help us to weigh the rights and the wrongs along with the advantages and the disadvantages which would result from the decision.
 

6.  Ignatian Spirituality is lived in two forms.

     The spirituality of Ignatius has traveled two distinct religious paths: the Society of Jesus and those religious congregations which follow the Society's Constitutions, and various lay associations but, especially, Christian Life Community. Historically, Ignatius shared his spiritual approach with lay people at Alcala and Salamanca, but it was not until he gathered a group around him at the University of Paris that a permanent community was formed: as mentioned above, it was this group that later became the original members of the Society of Jesus. These men, in turn, went out, gave the Ignatian Exercises to others, and formed groups of these lay people in this spirituality. In Parma in 1540, three months before the Society of Jesus was established as a religious order, Pierre Favre was working with a group of men: and after he left the city, this group became known as the Congregation of the Holy Name of Jesus. At that time in Europe, there were many confraternities. The early Jesuits modified these confraternities according to their own way of proceeding and called them Marian Congregations or Sodalities. As a result, the Society of Jesus has never had need of a Third Order.

     In 1563, Jan Leunis, a young Belgian priest adapted this way of life for students at the Roman College. Since then, youth and young adults have always been vibrant members of the Sodality and CLC.

     During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these communities had become so important within the life of the Church that, even when the Jesuits were suppressed, the pope desired these groups to continue. The Sodalities were taken from the jurisdiction of the Jesuits and were placed under the jurisdiction of the local bishops. The suppression of the Society of Jesus also deprived the Sodalities of their source of spirituality: the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. The Sodalities gradually changed into groups for women and children with an emphasis on devotion to Mary, especially with the recitation of the Office of Our Lady; and these groups multiplied.

     Sodalities began to return to their primary focus in 1910 when a Jesuit and five of his students in Spain composed the Common Rules. In 1925 the Jesuit General set up a Central Secretariat in Rome to foster this movement throughout the world. In 1948 Pius XII issued the Apostolic Constitution, Bis Seculari. in which he upheld the Sodality as Catholic Action. The movement was further strengthened when scholars such as Hugo Rahner in Germany recognized the dramatic impact the Spiritual Exercises had on the early Sodalists and called their twentieth century counterparts back to this source of Spirituality.

     In 1967, in line with the changes accorded by Vatican II, the World Federation of Sodalities became the World Federation of Christian Life Communities, and the Common Rules were replaced with the General Principles. This change emphasized the characteristics of community, spirituality, and service and soon began to have its effect of pruning the total membership.

     At present, Christian Life Communities are part of an international community of small groups of committed (mostly Roman Catholic) Christians. Members strive to integrate the features of Ignatian Spirituality within a basis community that has as its mission proclaiming the gospel of justice and love. Although CLC is a lay movement, Jesuits and other religious and priests are also members and frequently assist the groups with spiritual direction and the making of the Spiritual Exercises.

For more information, click here