This Ignatian Life

I got a new suit when I took vows as a Jesuit. I want to say that it was not that big of a deal, but it was. See, when we entered the novitiate, we received a small stipend once a month and we had to keep track of all our expenses on this little piece of paper. At the end of the month that little piece of paper would be handed in to the Minister, along with whatever money we had left over, and we would receive another stipend. Our superiors always told us that we were to keep track of our expenditures so that we could become better “stewards of resources.” In my mind, though, I was always a little convinced that I was being tested. There was this little blank space on the last line of our expense sheet that asked how much money the novice would be returning that month. That was the test. A seemingly innocuous little line was devised to reveal whether or not I was truly attuned to the practice of poverty. Since I usually spent all of my money, I often felt that I had been tested and found lacking in this particular virtue. Regardless, despite my shortcomings, by the end of the novitiate I was “approved” for vows. This approval was underlined by the fact that I was entrusted with the money I would need to buy a black suit. I made a mental note that when I bought that suit, I would buy something that was good quality, but also relatively inexpensive. I wanted something that would last, that would show how much I knew about what would be required of this life.

Since I planned on having this suit until I was ordained, for a good ten years, I was careful about choosing a “classic” cut. This idea was placed in my mind by something I had heard an older scholastic say while commenting on life as a Regent. He said that his own vow suit still fit, almost. Unfortunately, he had spent a little too much time eating things he shouldn’t and even a little more time sitting in front of the TV to relax after a 14 hour day, rather than going to the gym to work out. As a result, he had recently experienced more than a little difficulty securing various buttons. Nevertheless, he would work these pounds off at some point and, by the time ordination rolled around, he would be back in the same condition he was when he took first vows. This struck me because I had gained about thirty pounds since entering the novitiate (all within the first three months). What would happen once I took vows? Would I fit the garment that was being cut for me? I wanted this suit to last because that would prove something. I would make a good choice. I would show that I could be a good steward. I would prove that I was worthy of the suit.

Over the next six years I began to live life as a vowed religious. As time wore on, I carried my Jesuit suit with me from place to place, taking it out now and again when duty called. The thing is, while I was very active in various ministerial roles, there was seldom any need to wear the suit I had taken such care to purchase. Soon, I started to realize that while the suit was in decent condition, it was cut in a style that no longer seemed appropriate. This was especially disappointing because, when I bought it, I had not realized that even seemingly “classic” suits might tend to become a little thinner here, and a little wider there. So, while I had thought at one point that the suit was the perfect cut, my ideas about the ideal suit had changed. Then something else happened: I tried on the suit one day and it no longer fit. It was not a weight issue because, first of all, I weighed only a few pounds more than I had as a novice and, second, the real problem was that the suit had become too baggy in the waist and smaller in the shoulders. Again, the suit did not change, it was in great shape, but I was in better shape. Somehow, as I lived my life as a Jesuit, the garment that I bought and believed would accompany me for years, no longer fit.

Light-hearted comments about novitiate expenditures and black garments aside, my understanding of what it is to live as a companion of Jesus is something like that suit. At some point I made a choice to put on my life in Christ. I had an idea of what that life should look like, and I gave myself to it, allowing myself to be formed by the choices and desires that would allow me to wear it well. It was an ideal, cut from my desire to become a good man, shaped by my shortcomings, and held together by my hope in Christ. In the back of my mind I was always measuring myself against that ideal, but even though the basic idea of what it is to live that life never really changed (I still long to be a kind, creative, caring person), my appreciation for how it all fits together failed to remain the same. In Christ I continue to outgrow old ways of thinking. In Jesus, I find that the ideas I have about how to live as a Christian are constantly being replaced, pushed aside in favor of more appropriate ways to live out that call. In this way, the thing I thought was ideal becomes a strangely limited expression of my desire to live, love, and serve as an agent of God, and I find that every day becomes an opportunity to put on a new life in Christ.

All you elementary school teachers out there will understand me when I say how hard it is to throw away the handmade birthday cards, the valentines, the glue-crusted, glittery pictures and the first handwritten letters that a kid ever scrawled onto paper.  (Parents too can probably identify.)  My reluctance to get rid of reminders like these has resulted in my bedroom becoming overrun with mementos, photos, knickknacks and snippets.  Every couple years or so, I reassess the importance of the tiny keepsakes that are sprinkling my room.  Some of the more poignant items are so saturated with memory that they stay put, while others find a new home in a cardboard box before being shoved into the closet or underneath the bed.  And then there is the third category—those that I force myself to say goodbye to.  This third category has by far the fewest participants and I always feel a twinge of pain for every little object that I send sailing into the garbage pile.  It has only been a year since I last completed this slow and painful process, but the size of my current apartment and the dreary, rainy weekend that we New Yorkers have been handed has pushed me over the edge to once again walk down Memory Lane:

1. Item: Sympathy card and picture that a third student at Red Cloud Indian School drew for me when my chickens—“Samantha” and “Ignatius”— were eaten by my dog, Daisy.

Verdict: cardboard box.

Reason: The story behind the card is somewhat hilarious and its message is bittersweet, reminding me of the genuine sensitivity all young kids have, but the startling real world knowledge a 9 year-old from the reservation has about death.

2. Item: The list of Walt Disney World Guest Service Guidelines that all Disney employees, (or cast members as they are officially called), are to adhere to.  (I worked at Magic Kingdom in Orlando, FL for four months nine years ago.)

Verdict: toss.

Reason: While the list is novel to have and is printed on snazzy Tinkerbell paper, by this point in my life I have incorporated all the points that jive with my day-to-day lifestyle. (“Cast members will seek out opportunities to help guests” sounds a little bit like “Actively and intentionally find ways to be men and women for others.” Perhaps Walt Disney and St. Ignatius Loyola had a bit more in common than we thought! ) And as for the rest of the list, I don’t think I’ll ever work for the Walt Disney Company again.

3. Item: Little metal horse that belonged to a friend, mentor and Jesuit priest that I used to work with.

Verdict: It stays put—right on top of my printer.

Reason: I am fond of this horse because it reminds me of my friendship with Fr. Bill Pauly, whom I  loved dearly.  He used to keep it on his desk in his room and when he passed away the Jesuits at Red Cloud didn’t know what to do with yet another knickknack.  I appreciate that my friend Pauly had a little bit of clutter in his life too and I’ve gladly welcomed his trinket onto my desk.  The horse stays put.

4. Item—cue cards

Verdict—box

Reason—Elton John used them

5. Item—Rockettes ticket stub

Verdict—box

Reason—friends from Nebraska

6. Item—Bolivian Ministry of Health certificate

Verdict—toss

Reason—still a good story even without the paper

7.  Item—rock

Verdict—stays

Reason—I said so (too much to explain)

8. Item— 2006 birthday card

Verdict—move to fridge**

Reason—message warrants daily reminding
**Did I just create a new category?

9. Item—angel

Verdict—stays

Reason—sister’s wedding favor

10. Item—starfish  & poem

Verdict—stays

Reason—sometimes cliché is okay

When I go through this spring cleaning process I am forced to confront the fact that I cannot fairly refer to myself as a person who has few possessions.  I do not own a car.  I do not own a house.  I do not have many physical objects outside the contents that I have managed to cram into my bedroom.  But, I am a person that relies on knickknacks.  I need these little reminders of the past.  Why do I need them?  Because they remind me of relationship.  And relationships energize me, challenge me, cause me to reflect, push me to be a better me.  It is also true that I need to be careful to not become too clingy to these objects in and of themselves.  (This is why we have cardboard boxes and garbage cans!)  Mementos are reminders of the relationship not the relationship in and of itself.  In her novel, Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson describes the function that household items have on our memories:

“There is so little to remember of anyone - an anecdote, a conversation at a table.
But every memory is turned over and over again, every word, however chance,
written in the heart in the hope that memory will fulfill itself, and become flesh,
and that the wanderers will find a way home, and the perished, whose lack we
always feel, will step through the door finally and stroke our hair with dreaming
habitual fondness not having meant to keep us waiting long.”

Objects afford us memories, a sense of connectedness and even hope.  This is what religious symbols do for us too.  The reason I have a crucifix hanging above my bed is because I want to be reminded, daily, that I am part of the Church community.  On a more personal level, I am reminded of my individual friendship with Christ.  The cross isn’t the friendship, but it reminds me of the friendship.  It isn’t enough to simply surround myself with religious symbolism and call myself a Christian.  I need to validate the cross on my wall by living my life in an intentional, prayerful way.
Similarly, I look around my newly organized room at the trinkets that are staying put—the horse, the rock, the angel, the starfish and poem.  Each serves as a reminder to me of a relationship in my life.  But I do not cling to the reminder or the physical representation of that reminder.  I am driven by these objects, by these memories to be a loving friend, to live as a caring sister, to work as a compassionate servant.

I suspect that Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier had mementos of their friendship hidden somewhere in their bedrooms too, although, they may have gone through the cleaning-out-process more regularly than some of us.

I often find myself in a state of mourning, emotionally affected by the violence, corruption, poverty and racism, not to mention many other ills, that surround all of us. Because I have opted to live close to excluded people, these realities are undisguised and easy to see from my perspective. But, since I’m not marginalized or impoverished myself, I am very rarely a victim of violence or injustice – on the contrary, I live in a country where Catholic clergy are privileged and treated with great respect. So, sometimes I feel scruples over how much I let certain situations affect me. When a neighbor who I didn’t know very well is murdered by the police, for example, I’m not always sure to what extent my emotional reaction is a compassionate and “blessed” refusal to be indifferent, or a way of unconsciously appropriating the suffering of another to feed my ego, a way of feeling like I am living a “hard core” experience which in fact I’m very protected from.

When, and to what extent, is my mourning blessed? How can I tell if it comes from the good spirit or the evil one? I have found a helpful criterion for discernment in Pope Benedict XVI’s book, Jesus of Nazareth, in his discussion of the Sermon on the Mount:

Is it good to mourn and to declare mourning blessed? There are two kinds of mourning. The first is the kind that has lost hope, that has become mistrustful of love and of truth, and that therefore eats away and destroys man from within. But there is also the mourning occasioned by the shattering encounter with truth, which leads man to undergo conversion and to resist evil. This mourning heals, because it teaches man to hope and to love again. (….) At the foot of Jesus’ Cross we understand better than anywhere else what it means to say “blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Those who do not harden their hearts to the pain and need of others, who do not give evil entry to their souls, but suffer under its power and so acknowledge the truth of God – they are the ones who open the windows of the world to let the light in.

This key helps me to sift through my emotions in my Examens and prayer, asking for the grace to feel with those around me in a way that de-centers and opens me to communion, and points to the day in which we will all be comforted.

Photo: “LeRiche Mourn” by “christophe dune” from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)