Now that I’m faced with making a significant decision about my time commitments in the upcoming year, my gut seems to be failing me.  Stuck in this place of indecision and confusion, I went back to the second week of the Spiritual Exercises to recall how Ignatius explains his ways for making a “sound and good” election.  Ignatius’ suggestions initially seem a bit banal; for example, the retreatant should create a pro/con list, he urges, and make her decision based on the relative reasonableness of each choice.  Simple, right?  Alone, this seems unrelated to faith in God, but when I re-looked at the whole of Ignatius’ system, I found myself amazed at his simple profundity.

First and foremost, Ignatius reminds the retreatant that she was created to praise and serve God and to save her soul.  In other words, whenever she makes a decision, she must ask how the outcome will affect her capacity for and ability to love and serve God and others.  At that point, placing herself in a place of balance, she invites God to move her will.  If a decision is not made immediately obvious, she may go to the pro/con list, imagine the advice she would give to a stranger in the same scenario, ask herself what choice she would prefer if she were facing death, and/or ask herself how she would answer to Christ, her “judge,” if he were evaluating her decision.  These concrete steps all must be tied back to that prelude: how will any decision she makes affect her praise and love for God and others?

The beauty of Ignatian spirituality is that it neither floats into esoteric reflection nor deteriorates into mechanistic rubrics.  Ignatius offers meditative insight coupled with practical techniques – the perfect combination when making a tough decision.  I haven’t made my choice yet, but going back to the Second Week has equipped me as I continue to discern.

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I’ve been quite impatient lately. Well, let me restate that: I’m a perpetually impatient person who has been feeling a particularly severe pull towards impatience lately.  These last few weeks I’ve been impatient for spring break to arrive, and then Easter, and then the summer, and then another year.  Another year when I will be stronger, more disciplined, more diligent, more prepared, more focused.  Impatient for settledness. Impatient for meaning. Impatient for healing. I’m always waiting for that time to arrive…But someone in my life recently reminded me that we can only live in the moment.  Trite and cliche, I know.  Something I’ve heard countless times.  But the way she said it to me struck me profoundly, because she reminded me that each moment I spend “living” in the future is a moment I’ve failed to experience the now.  I cannot live in some imagined time when things will be better. I think in the fatigue and anxiety that seems to be plaguing me lately, I particularly need to be reminded to be in the present.  In that spirit, I will share a prayer that I recently rediscovered that I think is apt as I commit myself to living in the present, particularly during this Lenten season, when it is so very easy to grow tired of the waiting.Above all, trust in the slow work of GodWe are quite naturally impatient in everythingto reach the end without delay.We should like to skip the intermediate stages.We are impatient of being on the way to somethingunknown, something new.And yet it is the law of all progressthat it is made by passing throughsome stages of instability –and that it may take a very long time.And so I think it is with you.your ideas mature gradually – let them grow,let them shape themselves, without undue haste.Don’t try to force them on,as though you could be today what time(that is to say, grace and circumstancesacting on your own good will)will make of you tomorrow.Only God could say what this new spiritgradually forming you will be.Give Our Lord the benefit of believingthat his hand is leading you,and accept the anxiety of feeling yourselfin suspense and incomplete.Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ(printed in Hearts on Fire: Praying with Jesuits, Ed. Michael Harter, SJ, The Institute of Jesuit Sources, St. Louis, 1993)
Photo: “Impatience“by mdezemery from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

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When Lent approaches, the question always begins: “What are you giving up this year?”  Not having grown up Catholic, I always vaguely envied my friends who got to whine and sulk for forty days while they went without their vice of choice.  Of course, the vices of fifth graders are quite tame; my friends always seemed to be giving up relatively mundane things like eating Skittles, watching television, or being mean to a little brother.  When I became Catholic, I have to admit I was secretly excited to be a part of this Lenten club – what would I give up?  I thought about it for weeks.  Giving up foods held a strange conflict for me – I didn’t want Lent to be a diet plan (and God knows I’m always trying to lose weight).  I figured I could give up television, or wine, or lattes… but none of those things seem to regularly get in the way of my relationship with God.  What might I give up that would truly draw me into a deeper and more life giving relationship with God?  As I was praying about this last year, the Holy Spirit gave me a remarkable revelation.  Why not give up fear?Now, I’m not a timid or frightful person, but last year I began to realize how many of my actions came out of places of deep fear – fear of being hurt, fear of being rejected, fear of looking stupid, fear of being judged, fear of being alone, fear of failing.  I have to admit, my steps towards giving up fear last year weren’t horribly profound.  I went to a concert alone – something I never wanted to do in the past because I felt like people would think of me as a loser.  I tried a new weight machine at the gym, one I had always avoided thinking the meatheads would laugh at my ineptitude.  I initiated a conversation with someone I admired and had been afraid to talk to, thinking he would find me uninteresting.  These tiny steps revealed to me that much of my fear is irrational and the bits that are not irrational are not healthy.  So what if someone laughs at me?  So what if someone doesn’t like me?  So what if someone judges me?  A failure to act beyond those fears was preventing me (and still prevents me, I know) from living the abundant, loving life God is calling me to experience.So, where does Ignatian spirituality fit into all of this?  Inspired by Ignatius, this year for Lent, I’m going a step further.  For the next forty days, I’m going to attempt to fast not only from fear, but from insecurity, anxiety, and self-doubt.  Ignatius reminds us that these feelings are very rarely from God.  As Ignatius points out in the Spiritual Exercises, the enemy “uses discouragement and deception… dissatisfaction… [and] doubts and anxieties” to detract us from our attempts to “pursue the lead of God in our life.” (Paragraph 315, David Fleming translation). Giving up chocolate or beer will not likely help me follow Christ more dearly, but starving my fears will undoubtedly enable me to be cognizant of the areas of unfreedom in my life.  This Lent, I pray for the grace to experience the satiated feeling that comes from feeding my soul with the truth of God rather than the temporary fix that comes when I binge on the lies of the enemy.
Photo: “The Self Doubting Second Guessing Demon“by trixi from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

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I teach sophomore high school Church History. Not an easy task, I suppose. The text we use begins with an introduction to the word church and the various models of church that one can think about when trying to understand what we mean when we use that oft-loaded word. In an attempt to discover a unique way to approach this somewhat complex topic, I created a quiz for my students to take: “What is your model of church?” It’s admittedly unscientific and intentionally absolutist, but I still think it is an interesting excercise to introduce the notion of models of church.

This got me thinking: what is the Ignatian model of church? If Ignatius were to take my silly little quiz, what would he score? While I’ve not read much of Ignatius’ correspondance and can certainly not claim to be an expert in his thought, I reflected on what I do know about the first Jesuit. Clearly Ignatius had no strong aversions to the institutional church; he willingly entered formation for the priesthood when it became clear that would be the conducive route for his ministry and his Society pledged absolute loyalty to the Pope. He was undoubtedly a disciple of Christ willing to live counterculturally – how else can you explain his time at Manresa or his extensive work among the sick in Paris? His emphasis on the church as Body of Christ is evident in his depth of insight into the ways his directees and companions had so many different gifts and talents to contribute. Sacramentality was a core component of Ignatius’ vision also – in the Exercises he stresses the importance of the Eucharist and Reconciliation explicitly. A more implicit sacramentality is found in his recognition of the movements of the Spirit in the world. The Society of Jesus was (and remains today) a missionary organization, so Ignatius’ desire to perpetuate the “Herald” aspect of the church can not be disputed. There is no clear “model of church” that Ignatius seemed to favor.

This left me thinking Ignatius would probably come to the same conclusion that I have: any models of church we attempt to create are ultimately deficient. At the end of the day, the church is both all and absolutely none of these models. These frameworks help us understand various aspects of the church, but also tend to trivialize the interdependency of these assorted functions of the Church. The Church ultimately is a complete mystery. A beautiful, glorious mystery I am thrilled to be a part of…

Photo: “The Mystery Light“by att21 from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

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I do an Examen of Conscience with my students each week. In fact, the method I follow is directly out of the Spiritual Exercises: make thanksgiving, ask for God’s grace, examine experiences of consolation and desolation, confess sinfulness, & resolve to change with God’s assistance. That final step typically involves me inviting my students to ask God to reveal to them how they can “do more for God” in the upcoming week, and inviting them to ask God to aid them as they attempt to grow in becoming “men for others.”

The magis, we Ignatian types call it, the more. Magis doesn’t seem to be a word that Ignatius himself used much, but the colloquy of “What have I done for God, what am I doing for God, and what more can I do for God?” is embedded in the Exercises and plays a core role in Ignatian life.

This gets me to why I’m posting this today. I was planning to post to the blog last Monday… but it didn’t happen. Between lesson planning, writing end of the semester review guides for my students, grading papers, chaperoning a freshman dance, going to a couple basketball games where my students were playing, hosting a holiday party for my girlfriends, writing a paper for my graduate class, fulfilling some duties for a committee that I co-chair, and those silly things we all have to do (pay bills, wash dishes, cook, clean, do laundry), I’ve felt swamped. Is this the magis to which my God is calling me through Ignatian spirituality?

I do believe these are almost all things for God: teaching my students means showing them my love outside of the classroom, and I am a teacher because God has called me to use my talents in this particular way. The love I have been given from God is meant to be shared, so spending time with my friends and family is certainly “for God.” Growing in my capacity as an educator through graduate school is helping me to develop and understand my vocation, as given from God. And educating my students through well-prepared lessons is at the heart of my calling. I am doing the magis. Or so I tell myself.

But when I find myself sleeping four hours a night, and am too tired and distracted to truly be present to anyone in my life, I begin to question whether this is the magis that Ignatius (and Christ) would have me pursue. Striving for the magis surely can’t mean filling my days with more work. I don’t know what the magis is quite yet, but I’m starting to feel like it means being more grounded, more focused, more loving, more hopeful, and more grace-filled. It doesn’t mean beating myself up when the test I wrote ends up having a bad question. It doesn’t mean saying “yes” to every invitation, professional or social. It doesn’t mean I have to be perfect. But maybe it means I have to strive for perfect surrender to the will of God, a will that I can’t imagine wants me to feel so overwhelmed.
Photo: “Graceful“by Bepple K from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

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Do you ever feel down? Just a sort of dimness, a lethargy of spirit that you can’t seem to shake? That’s desolation, in my mind, and I’ve been a bit stuck in a state of it the last few days. For those of you who might not be as familiar with Ignatian terminology, consolation and desolation are the two terms that Ignatius uses to describe the movements of the spiritual life. Consolation is the movement towards God, which typically, but not always, is experienced as joy or peace. Desolation is the converse – the absence of God or movement away from God - which typically (though not always) is experienced as sorrow or anxiety. I have plenty of reasons to be experiencing desolation, I suppose – the days are growing shorter, the work continues to pile up, the weather is colder, continued busy-ness at work leaves me feeling increasingly alienated from loved ones, and I’m “in between” parishes, so I feel like I’m floundering a bit without a community.

To try to get through this time, I turned to Ignatius for wisdom. In his rules for the discernment of spirits in the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius tells the retreatant that there are three reasons that one experiences desolation: as the consequence of spiritual laziness, as a test, and/or as a gift from God. The first two I get – no problem – but the third seems a little more difficult to stomach. Ignatius writes that desolation can be a time when we gain “true acquaintance and knowledge, that we may interiorly feel that it is not ours to get or keep great devotion, intense love, tears, or any other spiritual consolation, but that all is the gift and grace of God our Lord, and that we may not build a nest in a thing not ours, raising our intellect into some pride or vainglory, attributing to us devotion or the other things of the spiritual consolation” (Spiritual Exercises, sect. 322).

It’s hard to see that in the depths of desolation, though. It’s hard to trust that God’s love is so magnificent that he won’t allow us to become the victimized addicts of our own highs. He, for our benefit, reminds us that consolation comes not because we are good, or because we are talented, or because we are accomplished, but because he loves us and desires us to have abundant life. When our consolations become fodder for self-congratulation, it is for our growth that desolation arrives. It’s not fun. It’s not pretty. But, praise God that He loves us enough to let us hurt.

Photo: ”Sign at Valley of Desolation“ from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

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But let me back up.  Five years ago, I was a senior in college studying Government, settling into a re-found Christianity, clueless as to what I might like to do with my life, let alone what God might like me to do.  I had thought for years that I was destined to be Important.  Yes, Important, with a capital I (and that not-so-subtle verbal play on my egocentrism is completely intentional).  I thought I would be Famous.  And I definitely thought I’d be Rich.  I’d spend a few years working for one of the consulting firms that line K Street or Wall Street, use my political connections to get into a killer law school, then scope out a congressional district that wouldn’t find a woman like me too intimidating and settle in for a few years before running for Congress (only so I’d not be accused of the sort of Chappaqua carpetbagging that another strong woman had just endured).

Yet, my single-minded pursuit of that perfectly constructed dream unexpectedly brought anger, self-loathing, alienation, and a stifling lack of motivation.  I suppose I knew intuitively that my spiritual hollowness didn’t help matters.  My long abandoned Lutheranism didn’t offer much hope, and while the occasional Sunday at the college church was a lovely lesson in Homiletics, that middling New England religiosity failed to stir my heart.  A crush on a boy in my Philosophy section got me into a FourSquare Gospel church and there I found love.  Not from him… but from a group of men and women that inexplicably loved me, even though my self was too oft obscured by volatile clouds of angst, bitterness, and envy. 

This conversion story could go pages if I let it, so I’ll rein it in quickly.  In that place, I would never have expected to find life in the words and actions of Ignatius of Loyola.  Many of the most influential players in my journey back to Christ were Calvinst, many Anglican, many Evangelical, but hardly any were Catholic.  Many in this band of believers remain fond of declaring their theology to be summarized in four words: “low anthropology, high Christology.”  I find immense truth in that statement.  The depravity of humanity is wide and deep.  Constantly I miss the mark, while the grace of Christ is remarkably transcendent.  Yet, that phrase began to leave me a bit unsettled.  I began to feel that it wasn’t completely accurate.

I found myself (completely providentially, of course) in a Master’s program in Christian Spirituality at a Jesuit University… and I found a way to hold the paradox.  I am sinful… and yet capable of hearing God’s voice.  God is completely other than myself… and yet desires to be in an intimate relationship with me.  In the Spiritual Exercises, I found a compromise that didn’t feel compromising.  I’m just beginning to realize what a gift this has been to me and how God has placed me in this place, in this time, to engage this particular means by which to know Him more deeply.  I’m not sure where it will lead… but I’m elated to be where I am.

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