This Ignatian Life

Ignatian Spirituality in real time
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What Wasn’t Said

February 22, 2010 By: Lisa Category: Ignatian Spirituality, Lisa's Posts 2 Comments →

As a writer, I find lovely little consolations in grasping just the right words to convey an experience. So when one of the most articulate teachers I’ve ever had told me I needed to listen for what wasn’t said, I was very perplexed. How could I possibly know what wasn’t said?  Any of 10,000 things could have NOT been said.  What’s important to me is what WAS said, the words, the tone, the intention.  But alas, today, I came to understand the ways in which my teacher was exactly in line with Ignatius in the need to listen for and be aware of what wasn’t said.

In contemplation with the senses, Ignatius encourages prayer that puts oneself into the passage from scripture.  You may find yourself an invisible observer in the room of the last supper, hearing the clink of the cups, or you may find yourself one of the characters in the scene, the one being healed, one of the apostles, or even seeing the situation from the perspective of Jesus himself.  But when I utilize that prayer, I am instructed to use all my senses, hearing, sight, smell, touch, even taste, and imagine all that would be evoked within me. I am also instructed to contemplate what wasn’t said, that is, what  wasn’t written in the Gospels. What would I have said?  What side conversations may be going on? What would Jesus have said to me had I been there?  Ignatius asks that I allow the Spirit to speak to me more clearly through what wasn’t said.  Listen for what wasn’t said then, but is being said to you now.  In this is the message you need to hear.

In my relationships with others as well, my Examen is making me painfully aware of what wasn’t said, for good and for bad.  I notice the efforts my teenager makes NOT to argue (I try to reinforce those!)  I notice as well when invitations are not extended my way.  Most importantly, though, I am aware of myself and what I won’t say. What do I really want to say, but just can’t? Where do we hold ourselves back from saying what we truly believe? What could one of us have said, but didn’t?  When I take time to recognize what wasn’t said, I often find the places I most need to grow.

But in both my prayer and my relationships, there is a definite, glorious consolation that comes in recognizing what wasn’t said within those times when nothing can be said, when words defy us, when we are in the space of the ineffable, when the sentiment between the pray-er and the Praised are One and known by each, when we are in total solidarity with another.    To recognize those moments when our verbal capacities fail us, is to recognize that there is One greater than us.

As Jesus stood before Pilate, waiting to be sentenced, Pilate challenged him verbally: “What is truth?” and “Where are you from?”  And the Gospel of John says, “Jesus chose not to answer.”  Perhaps the greatest teacher in history knew, like my teacher knew, like Ignatius knew, that what wasn’t said can be the most powerful message of all.

Photo: "I will whisper hidden secrets in your ear" by HAMED MASOUMI from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

Jesus between 12 and 30

September 06, 2009 By: plickteig Category: Paul's Posts Comments Off

At 12, when his parents find him at the Temple, Jesus shows that he knows he’s the Son of God.

At 30, when he is baptized in the Jordan, Jesus also knows that he’s the brother of all humanity, and he’s ready to face profound temptations.

I like to contemplate, with my imagination, the span of Jesus’ life between those two key moments.  Something happened during that time which can explain the difference between Jesus’ first Passover feast in Jerusalem (in the Temple among the doctors, provoking admiration with his intelligence) and his last one (washing the feet of his disciples like a servant, and transforming the ritual meal into a saving gift of self… and about to be crucified outside the city walls).  It seems that during that time, Jesus grew in his inner “downward mobility”; he advanced on his path of humility which is punctuated by the Incarnation and the Cross.  Surely, the walk back home to Nazareth, after the embarrassment of being scolded by his parents in front of the Temple doctors he’d been talking to, was an important part of this path of humility for the young Messiah.  Jesus may have been of “legal age” as an adult in his time, but Mary and Joseph knew he still had a lot of growing up to do (“in wisdom, in stature and in grace”).  Clearly, Jesus’ understanding of his own identity and vocation deepens during these years.  Perhaps the most important difference, for us at least, is that he identifies with the Messianic identity not of the political king, but of the servant who suffers in solidarity, from Deutero-Isaiah.  Jesus identifies with us, with the humanity that we share with him.  This is the Jesus who tells his disciples “You give them something to eat,” because all and any people in the crowd are “our” people and we can’t just send them away to fend for themselves.  This is the Jesus whose invitation to grow in holiness is at once an invitation to accept fully my humanity.  This is the Jesus who makes genuine friendships with different kinds of people, the Jesus who feels compassion for sinners and who lets himself be surprised by a Syro-Phoenician woman.  This is the Jesus who saves.

I have long been anxious to “do my part” for the world, to finally be able to work and give and teach and serve, no-holds-barred.  But God is showing me, in these long years of Jesuit formation, that I still have a lot of growing up to do.  I still have a lot of inner “downward mobility” to do if I want to keep following the humble Lord who makes himself a servant and a brother to all.  And so as I move on now to theology studies, my next stage of formation, I will keep asking our Lord to grant me inner knowledge of him, that I may better love and serve him.


Photo: “Baptism of Christ (Detail)” by “Sacred Destinations” from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

Just Words

May 22, 2009 By: plickteig Category: Paul's Posts Comments Off

A number of years ago I came to believe in an absolute kind of way that God Is and that all things exist through Him. Prior to this time, I had believed in a God, sort of.  I was somewhat conscientious and observant of my own selective moral code.  That is, while I sometimes did the things that I considered morally relevant in the Church’s teaching, I usually did what I thought I could get away with. I went to Church and I said the words. I knew the prayers well enough that I could occupy my eyes and mind with other things.  I mouthed them like magical incantations that would somehow bring good things to me as long as I said them like I meant them. While I would sometimes reflect on the esoteric bits of terminology in the mass, more often than not, I would tune them out. They were just words. However, in one moment I came to believe in the God of Judeo-Christian history, the God professed by my parents, the God of a faith that I was sometimes at odds with and confused by (with rules that I found nearly impossible to observe), and everything changed. From that day on, I began to search for meaning in the words, for evidence, first in arguments, then in stories, then in practices of prayer and various spiritual traditions. It was this movement, finding the Spirit that scripture pointed to, that allowed me to understand there was more to our faith than just words.

Words have often been a stumbling block in my understanding of the Faith. For instance, I am not sure when I decided that it was OK for me to talk about Jesus, but it took a while. I am also not sure how I came to the point where I was willing to identify myself as a Christian without being embarrassed to say the word out loud. Even today I am still not one to talk about “my own personal Jesus” or claim that Jesus has “saved” and “delivered” me. Claiming that I know the person of Jesus, not to mention what he would do in a particular situation, makes me nervous. As for being “saved” and “delivered,” well, while I have hope in salvation, I do not have certitude. I mean, while I am certainly not the person I was before I began practicing Christianity in earnest, I find that my tendency to choose to do things that are short-sighted and self-serving still persists. I still need deliverance. Truly, to paraphrase a well-known quote, I am a sinner called to serve. I claim Jesus because I desire to follow, know and love the Christ, not because I have suddenly become a saint. I desire the good, because I recognize in myself a tendency to do otherwise. I live in hope of the resurrection. I live in hope of salvation.  These things, they are all bigger than the words we use to describe them.  Words alone do not do the Truth justice.

I have known fools, braggarts, drunks, philanderers, liars, thieves, drug-dealers and prostitutes, and I have seen grace in them as they have been transformed, learning to live, and love, in other ways. I have known people who chose to act with kindness and gentleness when they had every “right” to choose anger and vindictive deeds as their way of life. What’s more, others have known me as a failure, and they have still offered me kindness.  I have hurt those who I claimed to love, and been amazed by their forgiveness. When I have said harsh things, I have been shown gentleness by complete strangers, and the times when my own belligerence might have been on display, I have been gently corrected. In these interactions, I have been taught another way of living with and loving the people who enter my life. In this way, the message of Christ had less to do with mere words, and more to do with the living witness to the Gospel of compassion and grace. Sometimes words were the tools people used to convey their experience of God, but more often than not it was the way they followed their mighty words with even mightier deeds that revealed their belief and trust in the faith they professed.

Why do I claim Christ?  Is it because I choose to believe in the words of scripture like a child does a fairy tale?  No.  It is because in other’s deeds I have witnessed the graces that the words we profess attempt to describe.  These deeds, in turn, have given me the hope and desire to live my own life in a new way.  The longer I claim to follow Christ, the more I recognize that it is not what I say, but what I do that matters more. Over time, the words of scripture slowly changed me by changing the way I lived my life. As my familiarity with the words of scripture grows, so does my passion for living them out. I can imagine myself living in them.  I can sense the Spirit dwelling in me.  Christ was the Word made flesh, and the words that passed through history to change my mind that fateful day so many years ago were not mere syllables to be repeated in endless recitations of prayers in mass.  Rather, those words (revelations of the true Word) allowed me to glimpse a way of life that could only truly be witnessed by becoming flesh in me. I know the arguments and I can philosophize all I want, but unless I love, do acts of mercy, and forgive others when I feel wronged, then there is little good words can do. The Word must live in me. By allowing the Spirit of God, sent by Christ, into my heart to enliven my own deeds, I allow Love to speak more loudly than words alone ever could.

Photo: “Just Words” by dbwalker from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

The Son of Man

April 23, 2009 By: plickteig Category: Paul's Posts Comments Off


In contemplation, I was sitting at the last supper.  I was Judas and I was angry.  I turned to Jesus and began a conversation.

“Where is the kingdom you speak of?  We are supposed to have a change of heart?  Well, I have changed my life for you, but I am still the same man that I was.  I still need food to eat and money to spend.  I am still looking for detachment from the things of “this world” and trying to store up my other treasure in the place where dust and moth don’t corrode, but when I go to make a withdrawal there is nothing there.  In truth, the only really “amazing” thing that you have done is to talk more than it seems is humanly possible.”

“Judas, look around you.  Do you see your friends eating?  Do you remember where they came from?  Do you remember what they had to give up?  Do you remember that they had families and jobs?  I have told you that they will be rewarded.  They will enter the Kingdom of God.  But it is not just about what you do, it is about having a change of heart.  It is about being reborn!”

“How?  With what?  All you do is talk about the kingdom.  Well we are still oppressed and we still have to scrape for our meals, but not you.  You have friends who will sacrifice because they hope that what you offer is the good.  You have people who believe in you!  So, you might live without a roof, but you have a home wherever you go because the people you “shepherd” are stupidly willing to bear hardship out of their hope in deliverance of some kind.  You promise deliverance, but the recipients are few and we still feel pain.  Jesus, I have begged for you, I have been mocked because of you, and I have served you and your ministry!  I share meals and money with my brothers and I wait for you to show us what this special surprise you have in store for us is.  Where is the revelation of the promise you have made?  ‘It will come when it comes,’ you say.  ‘Things must happen before that happens.’”

At this point Jesus looked at me and I realized that I felt shame.  I was ashamed to be Judas, even in contemplation, and I was ashamed to feel anger at Him, the one I should love.  I was so concerned about the appearance of things.  On the surface, the stories as I was reading them failed to address the simple fact that living with other people brings pain.  So what if the Bible appears to indicate that Jesus is the triumph of the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of God.  We say that he is always present, now, and always offering the goodness of God to us.  How could that be taken seriously?  How could we believe that all of these “deep” scriptural truths matter when the reality of suffering is still so present in the World?  Even then, the pain of existence could not be explained away with a couple of stories about miraculous healings and, these days, the resurrection sounds just like any number of other stories I have read over the years.  Is Jesus different?  How so?  How can I claim to follow what I cannot explain?  How can I care for others when it does not seem that I have been wholly healed?  I want to see the kingdom, but I see suffering in the world and I am often unable to give as much as I feel I need to.  I want something hard and concrete that I can point to.  I do not want stories of a resurrection and healing miracles.  I want a lived experience of the power of the Spirit to astound the Pharisees (or those who I think are like them).  In some ways I want to be a Pharisee, to prove my allegiance and wear my godliness on my sleeve where everyone who doubts can see.

Even though I was ashamed to be Judas, I had started to understand something about myself through him.  My contemplation continued, but this time I watched as the events began to unfold.  When Judas came with the guards, he walked up to Jesus and kissed him.  As Jesus asked his question, Judas recognized the tone.  It was the voice that Jesus used when he was about to reveal some magnificent lesson.  Judas wanted Jesus to do just that.  Jesus had promised the kingdom, and would now have to act.  Judas had Jesus right where he wanted him.  Proof would be forth coming.

Judas failed to recognize the nature of the life he had been given.  Judas desired the physical promises of the Kingdom but, because he only saw the flesh of the man and his human limitations, he could not experience the Spirit of the Christ.  The deeds of Jesus did not measure up against the wayward disciple’s expectation of the messiah and, as a result, Judas did not understand how he was being called to repentance and transformation.  Since he could not recognize the Spirit of the Christ, rather than merely betraying one man, Judas rejected both the possibility that he was being called to share in the life of his teacher as well as the possibility that all things can be made new.  He would not find life beyond his current suffering and he would not live to see the resurrection.

In these thoughts, I came to realize that what I was choosing to believe was not a myth about miracles and magnificent words, but rather a hope in transformation and trust that I would learn to be a man of patient compassion.  It is not so much that I know for a fact that Jesus did anything, but that I believe, through our faith in him, that people are given the opportunity to experience a grace that transforms, strengthens, heals, and inspires us with love and wisdom.  More importantly, I remember that I am not a Christian because I am prone to kindness, patience, and all those other holy things.  Rather, I am like Judas.  I want proof and when Jesus fails to be the kind of Messiah I expect, I am suddenly ready to betray him.  But unlike the man who hung himself in despair all those years ago, I have found myself near the foot of the cross and come to understand something else.  I have trusted that God’s grace is present even when I do not understand how.  I have lived through suffering and doubt and come to see the resurrection.  In the resurrection, I have found hope in transformation, and come to believe that, indeed, all things will be made new.


Photo: “Kiss of Judas * Giotto di Bondone” by Carla 216 from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

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