Ignatian Spirituality

What if that shadowy mystery beyond the span of our years turns out to be the real country to which our earthly days are just the fragmented signposts? What if the unconscious realms in which our conscious minds are floating turn out to be the embryonic sac that is beckoning us toward a reality far beyond imagination? What if that of my life that seems so total, so final, and so absolute turns out to be the map into the hinterland of my eternal reality?

How reluctant we are to let go of the containing walls and risk a life beyond the circumscription. It seems easier to survive the slavery of Egypt than to venture into Sinai, and we convince ourselves that our slavery is freedom and our helplessness is a proud independence. The map changes radically when our walls come down and the real roads, that were always there, though impassable, are opened up. Then the hinterland becomes the heartland, where real life can really be lived.

Margaret Silf
Inner Compass

• Time Taken Out
• How to Get Unstuck
• If You Lose Your Way In The Fog

When one of his students said she was spiritual but not religious, Jason Brauninger, SJ, decided to explain why was both.  His essay was published on the lively JesuitPost.com site.  His main reason?

It’s this: without religion, without a living community of spiritual friends, I simply have no one to hold me up to any standards. There would be no one with a similar set of values or beliefs that could help me become a better person, challenge me to deepen my relationship with God, or even understand me when I have to beg for help from the depths like the psalmist.

Read the whole thing.

• Why Edgar Allen Poe Liked the Jesuits
• Spiritual and Religious
• Magis 2011

There’s an old saying that we should “pray as if everything depends on God, work as if everything depends on you.”  It’s been attributed to Ignatius (though there’s no evidence that he said it), and many think it captures the Ignatian spirit: turning it all over to God in prayer and then working tirelessly and urgently to do God’s work.  I prefer to reverse it: “pray as if everything depends on you, work as if everything depends on God.”  This means that prayer has to be urgent: God has to do something dramatic if everything depends on me.  It also puts our work in the right perspective: if it depends on God, we can let it go.  We can work hard but leave the outcome up to him.  If God is in charge we can tolerate mixed results and endure failure.

Ignatius writes about work and human effort in a letter to an aristocrat named Jerome Vines, whom I imagine was a busy, hard-charging, Type A character who was getting upset about the fate of his many projects.  A busy man, Ignatius writes, “must make up his mind to do what he can, without afflicting himself if he cannot do all that he wishes. You must have patience and not think that God our Lord requires what man cannot accomplish.”  He concludes with this: “There is no need to wear yourself out, but make a competent and sufficient effort, and leave the rest to him who can do all he pleases.”

• Doing Too Much
• Preparing to Pray
• Better than Your Best?

Something to think about ¦ How do you “know” if you have “found God” in something, in a moment of your day? For me it is like hitting a hard reset on my computer; It is reconnecting to my mission, to that which makes me tick and makes me seek goodness. It is the self-awareness of seeing what is truly important and needed in a situation rather than just what I “want.” It is the moment of gratitude for what is, and the release of the angst for what isn’t. And in those moments, there is a sense of wholeness, of Oneness with Something greater than myself, with another person, or with the world around me. When I step outside of myself enough, at the end of my day or throughout the day, to momentarily name and celebrate that experience of Oneness, that is when I can say I find God in all things.

Lisa Kelly
IgnatianLife.org

• Ministers, not Messiahs
• What Would Ignatius Think about Social Media?
• What’s This All About?

I have a dear friend who has been a Servite sister for many decades.  Last week she mentioned in passing that in her community they have a tradition that she called “Go gracefully.”  It means that before someone goes on a trip she gets everything done ahead of time.  Laundry is done, suitcase packed, driving directions printed off or boarding pass ready.   “Go Gracefully” means that the night before the trip or the morning of the excursion, there is a peaceful readiness about everything and no last-minute panic.

I have thought of that a number of times in the days since I have seen her and pondered what a gentle and sensible tradition that is.  When we are running around excitedly trying to get our last-minute things done, our urgency is imposed on everyone around us.  My panic becomes the prominent emotion in the house.  My problem becomes everyone else’s problem.

It’s bad enough in a family, but if I project that kind of alarming behavior on a whole community of people, I can create quite a disturbance simply because I did not plan ahead.  What a sensible tradition for people who live in community – and for the rest of us!

I even think about workplace panic.  If I have a big meeting that I am procrastinating preparing for, my last minute fear and anxiety will fill the office and disturb my colleagues.  My disquiet will seep into those around me at work or at home.

This is a good time of year for all of us to remember to go gracefully.  It is a special way we can love those around us by remaining at peace and turning our fretting over to our loving God.

“The LORD will guard your coming and going both now and forever.”
Psalm 121

• Tears with an Old Friend
• Work as if Everything Depends on God
• The Examen at Tax Time

Earlier this week I found myself in a phone conversation with someone with over a decade of experience in  church leadership. Yes, we were on the phone talking about social media, which just underscores my perpetual point about choosing communication tools wisely and well. Among other things, she was concerned about  the questionable quality of interaction among Christians that sometimes shows up on social media. “It’s much too snarky, too negative,” she said.  My response? “Please do not blame the tools.”

I pressed for more information.

Was the edginess coming from GenXers or Millennials? If so, they might characterize it as their form of humor.  Was the negativity coming from those in church leadership? If so, they might characterize it as blowing off steam. What happens if you respond with concern, either in public or through a back channel like email or private message? Have you considered offering the option of continuing the conversation by phone or in person?

The question behind my questions: are you willing to view social media as a tool for ministry?

Over the past four years of engagement with social media, I’ve had the privilege of observing people reach out to one another  in response to posts that were raw expressions of pain. I, too, have been the grateful recipient of tender outreach when I’ve jammed my frustration du jour into 140 characters.  And I prayerfully hope I’ve provided such comfort for others, especially those for whom gallows humor is a coping mechanism for living a life of faith these days.

On social media, as in daily life offline, we choose the lens that informs our vision. When it comes to social media, I suggest choosing to look through the lens of ministry and then answering the invitation to love one another.

• Blog-alogue Fourth Question: What Tools Should We Use?
• Social Media Blog-alogue: First Question
• Blog-alogue Third Question: What Would Ignatius Do?

This is a guest post by Dawn Eden, author and blogger at The Dawn Patrol.

Dawn Eden

In St. Ignatius Loyola’s Suscipe, the prayer for perfect charity that appears toward the end of his Spiritual Exercises, we find important clues to the nature of the saint’s own spiritual journey:

“Take, O Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my whole will …”

The first thing Ignatius offers God is his liberty. Wanting to live for God instead of for himself, he gives up his freedom to act, so that he might say with St. Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20).

Then comes the aspect of the Suscipe prayer that is perhaps the most striking. Having given his freedom, Ignatius seeks to give God his mind and heart. What is the first part of his inner self that he offers? It is his memory.

In Ignatius’s understanding of the human mind, the concept of memory refers to more than just particular memories. Memory includes everything that had entered into his consciousness to make him who he was—whether or not he could actually remember it. It forms the foundation of his present identity, including his hopes for his future.

This is an ancient way of understanding memory, dating back at least to St. Augustine, and it makes particular sense for one who has survived trauma—as Ignatius had, having been wounded during his military days. Often in trauma survivors (and this holds regardless of whether the trauma was the result of sexual abuse or military combat) the brain attempts to protect itself by consigning painful swaths of the past to areas where memory’s tendrils cannot reach them. Yet the memories of traumatic events, whether present to us or not, remain part of us.

That is why there is something very beautiful about St. Ignatius offering his memory to God. The saint acknowledges there are things he cannot change—the events of his past—and at the same time displays the bold hope that his Maker will accept him as he is now, with everything he did and everything that was done to him. Such is true abandonment to divine providence—joyfully accepting in your own life the truth encapsulated in the old proverb, “God writes straight with crooked lines.”

The fathers of the Second Vatican Council, writing of Christ’s Passion, said that “the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery.” Ignatius discovered in his own life that the Holy Spirit was able to use all the experiences that had shaped him—all the traumas he endured, as well as the mistakes he made along the way—to bring him to the love of Christ.

Excerpted from My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints by Dawn Eden. Copyright 2012. Ave Maria Press Notre Dame, IN. All rights reserved.

• Was Ignatius a Trauma Survivor?
• Adopting Again
• Prayer of All Things

At our parish on Mother’s Day, we have a tradition of honoring all women, whether they biologically have children or not. I am always deeply moved by this tradition, because it allows us to honor women who “mother” even if they do not have children of their own.

As all women stand in our parish, I can barely hold back the tears as I survey the room and the beautiful array of women who stand with pride. This tradition allows us to honor the religious sisters of our parish, who nurture people by tending to their needs and faith lives. It allows us to honor the women who were never able to have children or who chose not to have children, yet still have profound impacts on the lives of others. They, too, are mothers in my eyes!

When I stand up, I most certainly stand with a full heart of love for having the opportunity to love my two children. As I stand, though, I cannot help but think of all the other women in my life that make me the woman I am today: my own mom, my grandmothers, my sisters-in-law, my aunts, my cousins, my friends, colleagues, my mom’s friends who are like second moms, women at our parish, some very dear religious sisters, and on and on. These women create a circle of support that provides strength and courage in my own mothering.

St. Ignatius says, “Love ought to show itself in deeds more than in words, and love consists in sharing what one has and who one is with those one loves.” The act of mothering allows us to do this every day. This Mother’s Day, I invite us to be thankful for all the women in our lives who have shown us the meaning of St. Ignatius’s words.

• Women of Goodness
• A Mother's Day Prayer
• Venerable Mary Ward

Michael Rossmann, SJ, took up spinning to keep in shape during the winter.  He lists 11 lessons he relearned while he rode his stationary bike.  Number 3:

It’s important to push through to the very end. . . . Ignatius instructs those going through the Exercises to pray for an hour at a time and to make sure we spend the full hour in prayer.  He even goes out of his way to note that “the enemy of our human nature” will tempt us to shorten the time we had set aside for prayer.  It’s the same in spin.  It is tempting to relax during the bit of silence between the end of one song and the start of another, but instructors push us to keep up the intensity of the workout and in so doing they keep us moving through the lulls to the very end.

• How to Pray
• The Powers in Created Things
• Final Week of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure

The Ignatian man ought to be a saint and he ought to live in complete activity. Previous spirituality opposed these two aspects. Activity seemed to be an obstacle to holiness which was conceived as contemplation. The revolution accomplished by St. Ignatius showed that that which appeared to be an obstacle could become a means. To the heart filled with God, all things speak of Him.

Jean Danielou, SJ

• A Heart Hollowed Out
• Ignatius Loyola: Saint at a Desk
• Ignatian Optimism

In a recent article in America, Adam Hincks, SJ, says that cosmologists don’t have definitive answers to the two questions most people have about the universe: when did it begin? and how big is it?  Scientists don’t even know what most of the universe is made of.  Hincks has a doctorate in cosmology from Princeton, and he’ll likely carry on the great tradition of Jesuit science.

Astronomers all over the world, professional and amateur alike, are getting ready to observe the rare transit of Venus on June 6.  They’ll see the planet of Venus cross the face of the sun, something that won’t happen again until 2117.  It turns out that the Jesuits have a long history of observing these transits.

• Daniel Berrigan at 90
• Ancient Roots of Spiritual Exercises
• Congressman Cao’s Discernment

My kids know I’m a big Bruce Springsteen fan, so I was pleased when my daughter Laura gave me his latest album, “Wrecking Ball.”  It’s terrific.  Several songs fortify the Boss’s reputation as the greatest Catholic poet of our time.  My favorite is “We Are Alive.”

We are alive
Oh, and though we lie alone here in the dark
Our souls will rise to carry the fire and light the spark
To fight shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart.

I couldn’t find a video of a live performance that I could recommend, so we’ll have to settle for the sound track with a poster.  Lyrics here.  Click here to watch it on YouTube.

• Best Ignatian Songs: After the Storm
• Ash Wednesday and Lent in Two Minutes
• Examen Video

Something to think about ¦ A Latin proverb adds a spiritual dimension to the point: non multa sed multum, or “not many things but much.” Jesuits didn’t coin that phrase, though I’ve heard it attributed to them, probably because its spirit so closely aligns with other Jesuit ideals.

The quality with which a work is done—the “muchness” of it—can be more important than the sheer quantity of tasks a person completes. What value, for example, that a social worker counsels fifty people a day if each feels like a processed can rolling through an assembly line? Or what value is there in people parroting hundreds of prayers without real conscious engagement? We earlier quoted Archbishop Oscar Romero’s take on this theme: “We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something and do it very well.” Or as Mother Teresa put it: “We cannot do great things on this earth; we can only do little things with great love.”

Chris Lowney
Heroic Living

• Is God at Work?
• The Examen: Alive In The Present Moment
• Free to Risk Failure

Mary Ward was an amazing woman whose vision for an active religious community of women was realized in the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary–the BVM sisters.  She modeled the BVMs on the Jesuits.   I was one of the horde of boomer Catholic children whom they taught in the Midwest in the post-war years.

Tim Muldoon wrote about Mary Ward a few years ago.  Lisa Kelly has an appreciation  here.

• Venerable Mary Ward
• Mary with a Russian Flavor
• Jesus Appears to Mary, His Mother

Andy Otto has a fine piece in America about his experiences as a hospital chaplain.  He quotes the Jesuit spiritual writer Daniel Lord, SJ, on suffering: “Perhaps sorrow is not the horrible evil that men have thought it. Perhaps it has some beautiful and deep significance that can be read only by eyes that have looked into the blood-red sun behind Calvary’s hill.” Writes Otto:

“Reeling broken into the arms of God,” writes Father Lord, signals a thirst deep within us that arises frequently from an experience of pain. It is the “I-know-not-what” of St. John of the Cross for which we ache. There is a deep need to fill the emptiness created in sorrow and brokenness. It may begin with a loved one’s embrace or word, but it ends with the mystery of God.

• Negative Thoughts
• St. Ignatius and Psychology
• “I want, I want”

Mark your calendars for what looks like an excellent conference: Finding God in Unsettled Times, June 29 to July 1, on the campus of Loyola University Maryland.  The conference is sponsored by the Jesuit Collaborative, a consortium of the Jesuit provinces on the East Coast.  Browse a list of 33 workshops here.

• Ignatian Ministry Update
• How Jesuit Schools Rank
• Why Make the Spiritual Exercises?

Meredith,

Alas, it’s time to bring our blog-alogue about social media to a close.  I think it’s been entertaining and thoroughly informative, and many followers of this blog feel the same way, judging by the many comments we’ve had to these posts.  We’re not finished with the subject by any means; you’ll be posting about social media here in the future.  But I’m going to end the blog-alogue part of it with one final question.

First, a summary.  In the past couple of months, we’ve talked about a vision for social media, its Ignatian character, giving it up for Lent, social media tools, and models.  My last question is one that’s been lurking in my mind all along, and I’ll bet it’s occurred to many readers as well: where do I find the time to do all this?

Time is precious.  I can’t keep up with the blogs I want to follow.  I don’t look at my Facebook page very often. I neglect Twitter.  So — how can I fit social media into my life?

Jim

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jim,

Is there a sentient person alive today who doesn’t wish for more time? Given how calibrated time is a human fabrication, you’d think our forebears would have granted us more than 24 hours in a day.  Alas, they did not.  And what, pray tell, would we do with that “extra” time? Me? I’d probably get more sleep or deep clean my bathroom, thus raising the issue of priorities.

Once again, I’m going to say discernment is at the core of deciding how and when to fit social media into daily life.  Social media certainly seem to require an overwhelming amount of time. In addition to the growing number of tools, technology has changed the way we deal with time.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how “real time” isn’t even real time as I’ve experienced it in the past. I’ve been pondering how asynchronous communication, such as that which (allegedly) occurs in the digital world, can actually feel synchronous.

Digital technology has also re-shaped expectations about response rate.

Post something on Twitter or Facebook and anyone paying attention in that moment  may respond immediately.  As a result, communication feels faster than fast.  More present. More real.  Real presence? But post a blog comment or send e-mail, and you might get a response hours or a day later. Behold a new source of social anxiety: What? You didn’t respond instantly to my post or e-mail?  What does that mean? Are you ignoring me?

What to do?  You can reduce anxiety by knowing why you want to use social media and then choosing platforms (i.e., tools) accordingly.

If, for example, you decide to use Twitter or Facebook lists as news feeds, then scan what’s there as frequently as you might read a daily print newspaper.

If, for example, you want to have conversations with like-hearted folks, then you’ll need to cultivate a consistent presence. Remember: whatever happens in “real” community will happen in a virtual community.  You cannot wander in and mostly out of a community and expect to be viewed as a member — not in the physical world and not online, although online community tends to be more forgiving of wanderers.

In either event, whether you want to use social media to retrieve content or engage in conversation, you can reduce time pressure by integrating it into the way you routinely engage with the world.  You’ve already done this with the telephone and with e-mail, so you know how to do this.  Don’t make social media into something different, separate, or special.

And here are some practical solutions to social media time management:

• Use Tweetdeck or HootSuite to manage content from and post content to all your social media accounts.  My Tweetdeck is configured into 14 columns, one of which is exclusively devoted to accounts delivering secular and religion news.  It’s also set up so I can post from four different Twitter accounts and LinkedIn.

• Use Google Reader to feed blogs you want to read into a desktop reader rather than cluttering your e-mail box. Periodically review and unsubscribe to blogs you never read.

• Sort Facebook friends into groups and reconfigure your news feed so you see only what you want to read. My news feed is configured so I get news/posts from organizations and publications only.  Posts from people about their puppies, gardens, and Jesus show up in groups.

• Either delete or don’t stress about accounts you never or rarely look at.  No one is taking attendance!

• Set up and stick to a schedule for reading and commenting on blogs, Facebook posts, or tweets. You don’t even have to do this every day. I’m only on social media all day and much of the night because church communications is my ministry and I love it. What blesses me beyond measure may seem  like your worst nightmare.

• Build social media Sabbaths and sabbaticals into your use, but if you’ve developed a presence, don’t disappear. Just as you’d record an “on vacation” message on voice mail, let people know when you’re taking a break.

These are some practical ways to fit social media into your life, but only if you want it to be there at all. Unless you’re a digital strategist, a community manager,  or love using social media to connect, you do not have do any of this.

That’s right — you don’t have to use social media. Go ahead and delete your Twitter and Facebook accounts.  No one’s salvation is jeopardized by opting out of social media, except possibly mine?!?

Meredith

• Blog-alogue Fourth Question: What Tools Should We Use?
• Blog-alogue Third Question: What Would Ignatius Do?
• Social Media Blog-alogue: First Question

I found myself this morning reflecting on an experience that occurred last year during a Charis retreat. It was a Friday night last March, and I stepped outside the chapel into the cool air during a period of sacred silence. As the doors of the chapel closed behind me, I caught a glimpse again of the 30 young adults who were in total silence and prayer.

The silence came with me as I took a few deep breaths outside. As I did, I noticed the world alive around me. Across our church’s parking lot, a young woman along with her family and friends celebrated her Quinceañera in our main building. The pounding of the music and the laughter of the people inside drifted outside as the doors opened and closed. I breathed in the joy of the moment.

In the near distance, I heard the crack of a baseball bat and the cheering of the fans at the University of Georgia baseball game. I smiled at the cheers, knowing that something good had happened. I breathed in the excitement of the community.

Suddenly, I looked up because of the increasingly loud sounds of a helicopter. The helicopters were flying low and moving quickly with their lights frantically scanning. I breathed in the sadness of their search, for I knew they were looking for a young man who had shot and killed a police officer in our community days earlier.

Turning back to the young adults breathing deeply in the silence and in their time with God, I found myself overcome with the understanding that God was somehow in all of these moments at the same time: God speaking to each young adult uniquely in their silent prayer, God celebrating within the joy of the party, God savoring the experience of community at the baseball game, and somehow, at the same time, God was in the search for the young man, comforting the family and friends of the fallen police officer and comforting the family of the man on the run, and offering wisdom during the decisions of both the man and the officers who sought him.

I was overwhelmed with the clarity that night of God in all things. This night was not unique in the multitude of life’s events of both joy and pain and the fact that God was in all of them somehow. This night was unique because I noticed God’s infinite presence in our lives, and I noticed it because of the gift of silence that night.

• Getting Unplugged
• Shared Silence
• Young Adult and Layman

I’ve long maintained that anyone can pray the daily examen at any time–even at awkward, stressful times, like sitting in traffic jam or standing in a long checkout line at the grocery store.  Now comes Richard Kaufmann to prove my point.  He did the examen while doing his taxes:

Using the examen prayer as a template for thinking about taxes gave me a different perspective on that dreaded task and deadline. I had to think about where God was in my life last year–or, better still, where I was in relation to God. As with the examen prayer, I thought too about the rest of this year. I wondered what experiences will enter my reflections next year.

Read the whole thing.

Image by 401k under Creative Commons license.

• When We Can’t Have What We Want
• Here’s a Good Idea
• The Examen and Other Prayers

If you have an interest in young adult work, take a look at this video about Charis, an Ignatian ministry that is expanding rapidly.  Becky Eldredge, a dotMagis blogger and a leader of Charis, appears on it. (Click here to watch it on YouTube.)

• What Do You Like about Ignatian Spirituality?
• Examen Video
• Just Havin’ Some Fun