The Wisdom of Ignatius

 The future Christian is either a mystic or nothing at all (Karl Rahner)

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business.  Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you (Jn. 15:15).

Then the Lord said, "Should I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?" ...But Abraham remained standing before the Lord (Gen. 18:19).

When Ignatius of Loyola first underwent his conversion, it was partially triggered by reading the lives of the saints.  As a soldier and a knight in service to his king, Ignatius thought to himself, "If these men can do thus and so, I can do better!"  He set out to "best" the saints, if you will, to outdo their great deeds.  He almost destroyed his health by fasting and acts of penance.  However, it was only when -- and after -- he had given up trying to do great things that God began to reveal Himself and His secrets to Ignatius. 

From his own experience, Ignatius began to keep a journal and to develop his own spirituality, based on that of Francis of Assisi, but rooted in Ignatius' own personality and gifts.  Like Ignatius, most new converts immediately ask, "What does God want me to DO?"  We set out to do great things for God, but soon discover that God wants instead to do great things for us, as Mary verbalized in her Magnificat.

As Ignatius developed his spiritual exercises, the goal of his spirituality was to praise, reverence, and to serve God.  However, he was very clear in his definition of "service."  For Ignatius, service was not "doing things" for others, but to be in companionship with Jesus Christ, Who received all things from His Father.

Ignatian service is being in a relationship with God, as seen from the two Scripture quotations above:  "Should I hide from Abraham (God's friend) what I am about to do?"  God was the One acting, doing, here, not Abraham.  But He was also revealing to Abraham what He was doing.  In the case of Jesus, He was the One "doing," but He was revealing to His apostles what he was doing.

I once heard someone say, "Lord, whatever you are doing today, don't leave me out of it!"  That pretty much sums up the idea of Ignatian "service."  Whatever God is doing, He allows us in on it --- and in fact, makes us part of it, if we are His friends and companions.  He told Abraham, "Walk in my Presence and be perfect."  For Ignatius, that was what is meant by Praise, Reverence, and Service.

The grace of "reverence" for him was the grace to empty oneself to allow God to fill us with the divine Essence so that we can engage in relationship with other people and with all of life/creation.  "Praise" for him meant to find our identity in God, to be lost in Him.  He compared our "doing" or "service" to the rays of the sun, as extensions of the sun -- allowing God to fill us with all that He is, to experience the interconnectedness of all of life.  Our "doing" overflows from our connectedness with God.

If we, like Abraham, remain standing before the Lord, we will be doing what He requires of us --- or rather, He will be doing His work in us and through us!

The Listener

 For who listens to us in all the world, whether he be friend or teacher, brother or father or mother, sister or neighbor, son or ruler or servant?

Does he listen, our advocate, or our husbands or wives, those who are dearest to us?

Do the stars listen, when we turn despairingly away from man, or the great winds, or the seas or the mountains?  To whom can any man say -- Here I am! Behold me in my nakedness, my wounds, my secret grief, my despair, my betrayal, my pain, my tongue which cannot express my sorrow, my terror, my abandonment.

Listen to me for a day -- an hour! -- a moment! lest I expire in my terrible wilderness, my lonely silence! O God, is there no one to listen?

Is there no one to listen? you ask.  Ah yes, there is one who listens, who will always listen.

Hasten to him, my friend. He waits on the hill for you.

For you alone.

-----Seneca

For about a year now, I have been going twice a week to adoration.  For those who are not Catholic, "adoration" refers to our practice of exposing the Blessed Sacrament, which we believe is Jesus' way of remaining with us forever:  God with us!  The consecrated bread  [Take and eat! This is my Body, given up for you!] is placed on the altar in a monstrance.  The faithful believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.  During "adoration," we are invited to spend an hour with Jesus alone -- no religious service, no public prayer, no attention to anything other than a quiet hour alone with the Lord.  Many of us recall Jesus' request in the Garden of Gethsemene: Could you not watch one hour with me? 

Lately, I have been taking a small notebook with me to adoration.  First, I take the practice of St. Ignatius of Loyola:  Before I come to the place of prayer, I pause for the space of one Our Father and think how God is looking at me.  I find this practice most helpful.  Most of us, when we begin to pray imagine ourselves looking at God, but seeing from the other side is a whole new perspective.  It helps us to know that we are not "thinking about God" but rather encountering God in a very real way.

Because Ignatian spirituality is grounded in our deepest desires, praying out of who we really are grounds us in the present, keeping our prayer "real."  When I was a child, I didn't like the word "grace" because I never knew what it was, exactly.  I knew the catechism definition of grace: the unmerited favor of God, but I seriously doubt that any child has ever dissected the meaning of the word "favor" in real life.  As an adult, I understand from experience the "favor" of God -- I now know His loving Presence in every moment, circumstance, condition, happening, person, event, etc. of my life.  I now know that He has never left me alone, even when I wanted to go my own way and do my own thing -- He has been there, a waiting, acting Presence, a Listener, an Advocate, a Helper.

Now, in order to keep my prayer "real" when I go to adoration, I begin by making a list: On My Mind.  Since my list changes not only from week to week but from day to day, I date each list.  I have found it most helpful not to begin praying about things until I have completed the list -- sort of like taking everything out of your junk drawer before you separate the junk, discard the useless things, and re-organize the useful stuff.  So I list in no particular order everything on mind in the order it appears.  And then, once I have emptied the "junk drawer," I begin to look at everything I have written.

It is amazing how much peace this practice has brought to me.  I find that we carry a lot of clutter in our minds continuously.  Some of it is important; some, trivial -- but it is all shoved into the same space.  When I make my list, I find that it contains not only my own concerns, but also those of others.  I constantly hear and think about what is happening in other people's lives; I often tell them I will pray for them, but what that mostly means is that I will keep thinking about them --- and I do.  So it feels wonderful to put their names on my list, "sorting out the items," so to speak.  Then I can look at each one separately, peacefully, without having other concerns crowd out and demand attention away from that one person or concern.

When my knees began giving me trouble for the first time a couple of weeks ago, I was trying to "carry on," as the British would say, as if there were no implications for my way of life.  However, I was not fooling my mind; in the background were a thousand unvoiced and unexpressed concerns:  What if I could no longer garden and take care of the yard?  Would that mean we would have to sell the house and move?  Where would we go?  What about my love for travel?  Does this mean I can longer walk all day long and explore cities like Venice and Singapore?  What about exercise?  I love to walk a mile and half along the beach every day. 

All of these thoughts were filling my "junk drawer" to the point of overflowing.  But the problem is that this was just one category among many in the drawer:  friends, children, parish, other health issues, getting ready for company, etc.  

Now, twice a week, I go to adoration, where I empty out my junk drawer before the Lord, and together we go through each item on the list.  I put the concern before Him and seek His wisdom and guidance systematically.  Often, there are no words, just Presence, just "knowing," just Peace.  But when I wake up the next morning, I know for sure that I have been to the Doctor, so to speak.  I can feel the re-organization of my mind, of my body, of my soul.  I know that I am not alone, that Someone has taken up all the concerns of my life, as Scripture tells us.  

Somewhere in my childhood, I read The Listener by Taylor Caldwell.  Having been encouraged by the nuns to spend a few minutes before the Blessed Sacrament, I assumed that the Listener in her book was Jesus.  Reading reviews of the book today, along with Caldwell's history, I now know that is not necessarily the case.  In fact, I'm planning to re-read the book now from an adult perspective.  However, in my mind, Jesus has indeed become The Listener, and the twice-weekly sessions I have with Him are beyond the price of both pearls and any psychiatrist you can name!

God....is a Verb

 I don't know the origin of a saying that I had posted on my office door at the college, but I would love to know the person who said it:  God, it seems to me, is a Verb.  In my last entry, I suggested that as we reflect on Who God has been for us, on what He has done for us, praise and thanksgiving will flow naturally from our hearts.  He is in our stories!  And as we share those stories with one another, we find Him once again.

Recently, someone told me her story about how difficult it was for her to carry a child full-term because of an auto-immune disorder.  While most miscarriages occur in the first trimester, it would be her second trimester when her body would recognize the infant as a foreign invader and reject it.  At last, she felt that she just could not go through it again and gave up.  Her mother urged her to try again, and she finally agreed to do so.  By this time, the doctors had figured out how to circumvent the problems caused by her disease, and she finally delivered a healthy baby boy.  She said that one day, almost as soon as he started talking in sentences, he said to her, "Mommy, I saw you when I was in heaven."  She was stunned, as she was not someone who had not previously talked about things like this with her child.  And that was not the last time he said it.  She said that on two other occasions, he said the same thing.

Clearly, not only this woman, but anyone who hears her story will be filled with praise and thanksgiving to God.  Without reflection on where God has been for us and what He has done, most of us, I think, vaguely imagine God as "sitting on his throne" in heaven, watching us.  However, the person who observed that God is a 'verb" got it exactly right, if we read the Psalms carefully.  He is Being Itself (a dynamic, not a static, state) -- we might call it Energy Personified.  And in His Being is all power and wisdom at the service of His Love.  If we go through the psalms just looking for what God has done, is doing, will do for His people, we are amazed.  This exercise should not be done quickly or casually, but slowly, meditatively, for the richest experience.  (I may start a list in a future blog.)  Or even better, make notations with dates beside the verses that describe what God has done for you in the past!  He can be found in our stories.

In Psalm 18, David powerfully tells the story of fleeing for his life from Saul's army, pursuing David through the wilderness, forcing him to hide in caves for days without food and water:

The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.                       The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me.                        In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help.                                                                     From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears. 

He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters.                     He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me.                   They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support.                                   He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.  

It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.  He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand upon the heights.  He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You give me your shield of victory, and your right hand sustains me; you stoop down to make me great.  You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not turn.

David's response was that of praise and thanksgiving:  I love you, O Lord, my strength....(read the first verse of Psalm 18.)

This morning, I had just let the cat out for her usual morning walk and then I sat down to read Psalm 107: ....they were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.            Suddenly, there was a loud clap of thunder and a torrential downpour from seemingly nowhere, and I heard a loud wail on the back porch.  I leaped up to rescue the poor cat who does not understand or appreciate such disturbances to her schedule --- and the lesson was not lost on me.  If I, ungodlike that I am, will rush to rescue a cat in distress....if we, dense as we are, will not allow our children to suffer if we can intervene to save them....how much more will our heavenly Father leap to our defense when we are in distress?  And how grateful will we be when He opens the door for us?      

                  

 

 

 

 

The Heart of Biblical Faith

So I kind of painted myself into a corner in the last entry, one that I couldn't seem to find my way out of.  I had promised to write about "learning praise from the psalms," but then the engine stalled, and I couldn't figure out how to get it going again.  Today, I think I found the missing link -- and there you have 3 disconnected metaphors in as many sentences, part of the problem with the way I think. 

It is true that we can learn to praise God from reading and studying the Psalms, but unlike the Israelites who knew why they were praising God, our own motivations may be somewhat more abstract and undefined.  We more easily turn to prayer of petition, or even thanksgiving, than to prayer of praise.  Once we have tapped into the heart of biblical faith, our own reasons for praise may connect us more closely to the Psalms themselves.  

The Bible is not a book of systematic theology or of Greek philosophy.  In fact, the biblical writers seem completely uninterested in this type of discussion.  Rather, the Bible is a recital of the acts of God, together with unending reflection century after century on them.  If we take the year 2000 BCE as a round number for the beginning of biblical history, we find biblical writers 2000 years later (around 300 BCE, just before the period of the New Testament) still reflecting on the Acts of God from the beginning of Israelite history.   The praise we find in the Psalms (c. 1000 BCE) is all based on what God has done for individuals and for the corporate history of the Jews from 2000 to 1000 BCE.

If we want to find a pattern of Biblical theology, we would have to call it a theology of recital or proclamation of the acts of God in human history, together with the inferences drawn from them. The recounting of this history is the central religious act of the worshipping community.  In biblical thought, history is the chief medium of revelation:  the experience, the acts, and the words of individuals are the media of God's revelation of who He is and what He thinks about us as human beings.

The Psalms might be called poetic reflections on the Acts of God -- in creation, in history, in the human heart.  In other words, while it may be difficult for us to praise God for who He is because it is hard for most of us to really penetrate the divine heart and mind, praise comes more easily and naturally to us when we begin to reflect on what God has done for us.  

When I was in charge of faculty development at the college, we hired a researcher on the topic of what makes a teacher "good."  The answer was not what we expected  it to be-- experience.  Some teachers, just as in other professions, simply repeat "experience" over and over, for better or for worse.  Rather, what made the best teachers was the practice of reflection on their experience as their guide to future practice.

And reflection is not a practice encouraged by modern society.  We fail to reflect on the lessons of the past in our own history and in our corporate history.  So on we go, somewhat aimlessly, hoping for a better tomorrow.  In our churches, we dwell on biblical/Hebrew history and draw inferences about how the God who was "there" will be in the same way "here" for us too.  But rarely are we encouraged to seriously reflect on where God has been in our personal lives.  And even when we do remember, most of the time, there is no opportunity for "recital" or "proclamation" of what God has done for us, of where we are in our own salvation history.  And therefore, no real opening for praise and thanksgiving.  

The Bible is a book of stories; our culture does not value our stories.  We tend to be more Greek-minded, in terms of organized thought and presentation.  Yet, we will never "think" our way to God, any more than we can think our way into love or relationship.  We can only experience the Other and reflect upon that experience.  So then, what has been our experience of God?  Who has He been for us?  Where has He been in our lives?  

And that brings us back to church.  As we recite our own histories and experiences, we begin to discern a corporate history: how have we come to this point, this moment?  What is our basis for worship, for praise, for thanksgiving, yes, even for petition?  Perhaps our churches need to become centers where our stories can be told to one another, and in the stories we will find a reason to praise!