What is 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 five sections.

1.  Who is Ignatius?
2.  Incarnational as distinct from Transcendental
3.  Apostolic as distinct from Monastic or Mendicant
4.  Choice
5.  At the level of faith

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 age 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. The French, impressed by his heroism, cared for him and treated his leg. However, the surgery was not successful. He was brought to his brother's home at Loyola to recuperate.  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; 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 choose 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.  (For more, please refer to the 31 Days with Saint Ignatius.)
        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. 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
        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, relying on 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 was 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
         How do we find the will of God? We do this primarily through our conversation with God in prayer and to discern what God is saying to us. We need to 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 leads 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 more on the Examen, please click here. 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. For more information on Spritual Direction click here: https://sainttherese.net/spiritual-direction

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.