Have you ever walked into a room full of people and felt instantly at home—I mean enough to say to yourself, “I’m home”?  Have you ever met someone for the first time and within ten minutes been able to tell them about your experience of God and where you feel most empty?  Have you ever recognized that the Church is an movement more than an institution?  That is what I experienced last week as almost 100 Ignatian Associates gathered for their annual retreat.

My truest reflection on that weekend is to hear a voice within me say simply, “I live.”  At first I was not sure if that was my voice, feeling recommitted to a group of lay people who individually and as couples from all walks of life have promised simplicity of life, apostolic availability, and fidelity to the Gospels and the community.  They are people whose stories inspire me to live differently, to feel I can join with them and actually change the world and live for the greater glory of God.  They enable me to step out of the culture of consumerism and image and live a real life.

But then I gently smile and am humbled in the same moment, for it is not my mental voice that lives.  It is the voice of Another.  The voice not of the people I laughed with, but of the bond between them.  He lives. In a time where the institutional Church is in an ideological tail spin, He lives. Through people who, without title or official bond, practice the faith that does justice in Haiti and Africa and Latin America and Omaha and Milwaukee and St. Paul, He lives.

The hierarchical Church doesn’t quite know what to do with us.  We are not bound by vows to an order, though we are supported by and share the practices of the Jesuits.  We are not housed in any one parish or diocese, so lack control by any one bishop.  I think we are exactly where Ignatius taught us to be, in the tension between the human and the Divine. 

I am so truly graced to be an Ignatian Associate.

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