The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything

by James Martin

  That passage is often interpreted to mean the only way to get to heaven is to sell all you own. “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” says Jesus in Mark. Consequently, this is a hard passage for many people to hear. A friend of mine once said, “I hate that story!” He felt that Jesus was making a ridiculous demand. “Who can do that?” he asked.

  But as I see it, Jesus is not saying that one cannot own anything at all in order to be a good person. As St. Thomas Aquinas noted, “Possession of a few goods is important for a well-ordered life.” Everyone outside of monasteries and religious orders needs some possessions in order to live.

  Beyond the emphasis on a simple life, Jesus is showing his intuitive understanding of what was preventing the young man from growing closer to God. He has put his finger on what Ignatius would call the man’s “disordered attachment.” To another person Jesus might have said, “Give up your status.” To another, “Give up your desires for success.” Jesus was not simply inviting the young man to a simple life; he was identifying an unfreedom, and saying, “Get rid of anything that prevents you from following God.”

  As I unburdened myself that summer, I felt lighthearted. Now, as you can probably tell, there was some spiritual pride involved. (Spiritual pride is when you think, Look how holy I am.) But the joy had less to do with pride and more with the newfound feeling of being less burdened and more open to God.

  Of course, I had to bring some things to the novitiate: I didn’t appear naked at the front door. The day after “the call,” the novice director phoned with a list of what items to pack: enough underwear and clothes for two years, a black clerical shirt, black pants, black shoes, and a few books if I wished. So it would be false to say that I gave away everything.

  But the novitiate was a dramatically simpler lifestyle than the one I had been leading. Moving in with just a few clothes and a few books felt, well, simple. It’s similar to what you may feel when you go on vacation with just one or two suitcases. You find yourself surprised that you can live with so little. You think, Why can’t I live like this all the time? (As David would say, “Pay attention to that feeling.”)

  Few people can, or want to, live like members of a religious order. You have to clothe yourself, house yourself, and probably need a car to drive to work. If you have children, you need even more in order to care for and nurture them. The point is not that you have to give everything away, but this: the more you stop buying stuff you don’t need, and the more you get rid of items you don’t use, the more you can simplify your life. And the more you simplify, the freer you will feel, and be.

  There are a few reasons for this.

  First, possessions cost not only money but time. Consider the time you spend worrying about what you wear. You have to think about it, shop for it, buy it, clean it, repair it, store it, replace it. The same goes for your house, your car, your furniture, your television, your appliances, your computer, and your other electronic gadgets. The less you decide to buy, the more time you have for the things that matter more.

  The second reason is less obvious. Our consumerist culture runs on comparisons. When I was working at General Electric, we employees were often told that clothes were an important part of our careers. “Dress for the job you want, not the one you have,” my manager said. “Spend one week’s salary on your shoes,” said a friend. “Never wear a patterned tie with a patterned shirt,” said a consultant at our annual Dress for Success seminar. The time spent comparing my wardrobe to those of my managers was considerable. So was the time spent comparing cars, apartments, furniture, and stereos. The less you buy, the less time you will spend comparing your stuff to your neighbor’s stuff.

  While visiting my sister and her family recently, I wore an old plaid short-sleeve shirt. My nine-year-old nephew said, “Uncle Jim, that shirt was twenty years out of fashion twenty years ago!” I laughed and asked him where he had got that expression. He said he heard it on a cartoon. The impulse to buy, possess, and compare is inculcated early.

  Third, the more things that society produces, the more we will want, or be encouraged to want, and the more unhappy we will be. In his book The Progress Paradox, Gregg Easterbrook sums it up nicely: “As ever more material things become available and fail to make us happy, material abundance may even have the perverse effect of instilling unhappiness—because it will never be possible to have everything that economics can create.” Freeing yourself from the need to have more and more means that you may, paradoxically, be more satisfied.

  Unrelieved Competition

  John Kavanaugh, a Jesuit moral theologian who writes frequently on questions of the consumerist culture, has this to say about the corrosive impact it has on us and, specifically, on families, in his book Following Christ in a Consumer Society:

  In my own discussions with parents and their children concerning the problem of family stress and fragmentation, I know of no other force so pervasive, so strong, and so seductive as the consumer ideology of capitalism and its fascination for endless accumulation, extended working hours, the drumming up of novel need fulfillments, the theologizing of the mall, the touting of economic comparison, the craving for legitimacy through money and possessions, and unrelieved competition at every level of life.

  THE LADDER

  One of the best short analyses of the consumerist world in which we live is an article by Dean Brackley, S.J., that appeared in the journal Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits in 1988. It was one of the first things I read in the novitiate. Father Brackley was uniquely qualified to write on the topic, having lived and worked with the poor in the South Bronx. A few years later he would move to El Salvador to replace one of the Jesuit priests assassinated as a result of their work with the poor in that country.

  His article was called “Downward Mobility,” a phrase borrowed from the Dutch priest Henri Nouwen. Brackley compares the way of the world, which can be summarized as “upward mobility,” to the vision of Ignatius in the Spiritual Exercises, which invites us to detachment and freedom.

  This drive to acquire, this constant striving toward “upward mobility,” is at first driven by something healthy: our longings.

  All of us have a natural longing for God. But, as Brackley notes, the consumer culture often tells us that we can satisfy this longing through money, status, and possessions. Sound crazy? Just think of the television commercials that promise happiness if you only buy one more thing.

  How does the process work? Here is a summary of Brackley’s twelve steps, with some added comments of my own. See if any resonate with your own experiences.

  The consumer culture is primarily individualistic, with people pursuing private goals over more communal ones. In a competitive environment, it’s everyone for himself or herself.

  This does not mean that personal goals are negative per se. Individual pursuit is the basis of the capitalist system, arguably the most efficient economic system for the production and distribution of goods. The danger, however, is becoming interested solely in your own well-being, unconcerned with those outside of your family, friends, and local community.

  People are tempted to alleviate feelings of insecurity by having or consuming. We try to fill our emptiness with things, rather than with God or with loving relationships. Without this impulse the advertising industry would probably collapse: it exists to manufacture the desire for things.

  This individualism and consumerism leads to the ladder as the dominant model for the culture—with some people higher up than others. Some are on the top, others on the bottom.

  Individuals show their status through certain social symbols— job titles, possessions, credentials, and so on. One’s personal worth depends on one’s wealth or job.

  That’s why discussing salary is perhaps the biggest taboo in social settings: it’s the quickest way of ranking people and is society’s prime measure of our worth. Finding out someone else’s salary instantly makes you see the person in a certain light. If
the other person makes less than you, you may see him as “less than.” If he makes more, you may be jealous and see yourself as “less than.” Most other conversational topics are welcomed among friends—family problems, illness, death—but, even there, salary is taboo, because of its inherent power.

  Gradually, you interiorize these external measures. You judge yourself on your job, your salary, on what you “produce.”

  Now, all of us are called to act, to do, to work. But when you judge yourself solely by these measures, you become a “human doing” rather than a “human being.”

  Also, if you’re not higher on the ladder or moving up that ladder, you feel inferior to others. In your desire to belong, the climb up the ladder becomes even more urgent.

  At the top of the ladder is the mythical figure—the celebrity, the rich man or woman, the model. At the bottom is the “loser”— the unemployed, the refugee, the homeless.

  It becomes easier, therefore, to ignore the poor. They are an implicit threat to the system, since they remind us that the ladder does not work perfectly. We think, What if that were me? That thought gives more urgency to the climb away from the “losers.”

  Under these conditions competition becomes the guiding force of social life. Your security is not enhanced, but threatened, by others’ success. As Gore Vidal once wrote, “It is not enough that I succeed. Others must fail.”

  One’s security depends on climbing. As Brackley notes, not everyone intent on upward mobility is arrogant or power hungry. But even the compassionate are forced to confront the dangers and risks of the ladder. You are tempted to ask not “Is this right?” but “Is this best for me?”

  The social model is therefore not simply a ladder but a pyramid, in which whole groups band together against threats from above or below. Divisions are formed not just between persons but between groups.

  Not everyone can be on top. So those on top work to maintain their positions and keep those on the bottom in place. Power often is exercised to keep the lower groups dependent or disorganized or ignorant.

  Social class, race, gender, sexual orientation, education, physical appearance, and other factors help to define the pyramid. This leads to further divisions.

  Finally, competition between the groups breeds not trust and cooperation but fear, mistrust, and, I would add, loneliness.

  You may not agree with all of those factors. But, overall, Brackley’s model well describes the consumerist world in which many of us live.

  The constant drive for upward mobility, to maintain our positions, takes time and energy. So why not set at least some of this aside and be free of it? This is what Ignatius meant when he said that poverty, a kind of simple lifestyle, a “downward mobility,” a setting aside of some of those values described above, “is the cause of great delight” for those who embrace it. Simple living is not a punishment, but a move toward greater freedom. So let’s see what the way of Ignatius can teach us about simple living.

  SENSIBLE SIMPLICITY

  Here is how Ignatius begins his treatment of poverty in the Constitutions: “Poverty, as the strong wall of the religious institute, should be loved and preserved in its integrity, as far as this is possible with God’s grace.” It’s essential.

  Ignatius’s outlook on simple living was formed by his own experience. After his conversion experience in the family castle, one of his first acts was to lay down his knightly armor before a statue of Mary and divest himself, as far as possible, of all his worldly goods at the Benedictine monastery of Montserrat.

  On the Eve of the feast of Our Lady, in March, at night, in the year 1522, he went as secretly as he could to a beggar—and stripping off all his garments, he gave them to the beggar; he dressed himself in his chosen attire and went to kneel before the altar of Our Lady.

  This is a wholehearted response to Jesus’ invitation to the rich young man in the Gospels. For Ignatius this was a clear way to follow Christ. His response also patterned itself on the practices of other religious orders, especially the one founded by his hero, St. Francis of Assisi. As John O’Malley notes in The First Jesuits, “The Franciscan influence upon him, direct or indirect, is nowhere more palpable than in this emphasis on the surrender of material goods.”

  Later, in a touching scene, a man races up to report to Ignatius what later happened to the same beggar:

  As he was gone about a league from Montserrat, a man who had been hurrying after him, caught up to him and asked if he had given some clothes to a beggar, as the beggar affirmed. Answering that he had, tears flowed from his eyes in compassion for the beggar to whom he had given the clothing—in compassion, for he realized they were harassing him, thinking that he had stolen them.

  Afterward, Ignatius spent almost a year in seclusion in the small town of Manresa, where he prayed, begged for alms, and fasted. His poverty was extreme.

  He begged alms at Manresa every day. He did not eat meat nor drink wine, even though they were offered to him. . . . Because he was very fastidious in taking care of his hair as was the fashion of that time (and his was very handsome), he decided to let it go its way according to nature without combing or cutting it.

  He even decided to follow the example of a saint, unnamed, who went for days without food in order to obtain a particular favor from God. Ignatius does this and finds himself “at the extreme limit, so that he would die if he did not eat.” He grows despondent, even suicidal.

  Gradually he realizes such severities would not only endanger his health but also prevent him from doing the work he wanted to do. As O’Malley writes, “Ignatius’s personal experience fairly early persuaded him that too severe an understanding of ‘actual poverty’ hindered his attempts ‘to help souls,’ and later he and his colleagues in the Society saw even more clearly the impracticability of such an understanding for the institution they were founding.”

  Years later, for example, Ignatius insisted that the Jesuits in training take adequate care of their health in order that they might be able to carry on their work. “A proper concern with the preservation of one’s health and bodily strength for the divine service,” he writes in the Constitutions, “is praiseworthy and should be exercised by all.”

  This is why the Ignatian approach to a simple life has been helpful to so many. It does not ask you to become a half-naked, twig-eating, cave-dwelling hermit. It simply invites you to live simply. It is a sensible simplicity. A moderate ascetism. A healthy poverty.

  For Ignatius, poverty was not an end in itself. It was: first, a means of identifying with the “poor Christ”; second, a way of freeing oneself up to follow God more easily; and third, a way of identifying with the poor, whom Jesus loved. Overall, poverty was “apostolic,” making Ignatius available for God’s work.

  All these things combined to make poverty a critical part of his spirituality and, ultimately, a powerfully life-giving force for him and his followers. As André de Jaer, a Belgian Jesuit and spiritual director, notes in his book Together for Mission, “Beginning as a search for ascetical feats, it quickly matured into a desire to place complete confidence in God alone. When he began to compose the Spiritual Exercises . . . he relied on his own experience to write what might be helpful to others.”

  RICHES TO HONORS TO PRIDE

  The other reason that Ignatius valued poverty is that he noticed the subtle way that the climb up the ladder can lead you away from God.

  In the Second Week of the Spiritual Exercises comes one of the central images in Ignatian spirituality. It is called the Two Standards. Here Ignatius asks us to imagine two “armies” arrayed for battle under two different flags or “standards.” On the one side is that of Satan; on the other, that of Christ. In this meditation the influence of Ignatius’s career as a soldier is seen quite clearly.

  The purpose of this meditation is to help us understand the workings of human nature. Through vivid imagery that may be foreign to some modern sensibilities, Ignatius offers a way to appreciate what most of us do not find fo
reign at all—the battle within ourselves to do the right thing.

  From as early as his conversion, Ignatius was able to recognize what moved him toward God (the consolation he felt when he thought of serving God) and what moved him away (the dry feelings that attended his plans to seek fame). The discerning person, Ignatius believed, could distinguish between those two forces and make the right choices. In Ignatian spirituality this is called “discernment of spirits.”

  Battle, therefore, is a key metaphor for Ignatius. He believed in the presence of evil in the world, and not simply as a vague impersonal force, but as a personified entity—Satan, who is always at work trying to move us away from God. The Exercises refer to whatever moves us toward God as the “good spirit,” and what pulls us away as “the enemy” or “the enemy of human nature.”

  Lately I’ve been suggesting to people J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy—either the books or the films—as a way of understanding what Ignatius had in mind: on one side, the army of the evil wizard Saruman and his awful Orcs; on the other that of the noble Frodo and his trusty Hobbit, human, and elvish companions. The Harry Potter series—again, either the books or the films—is another contemporary illustration of this kind of battle: on the one side, Voldemort and his evil minions; on the other, Harry and his stalwart friends.

  But you need not understand things precisely as Ignatius did to profit from Ignatian spirituality. In his book The Discernment of Spirits, Timothy Gallagher, O.M.V., helpfully sums up the concept of the “enemy” as “those interior movements that would pull us away from God.”

  More important than this battle imagery is understanding the way that the two sides operate. In the Two Standards, Ignatius asks us to imagine Christ calling people to his side, to a simple life, renouncing the desire for honors, and desiring a life of humility. In other words, Christ invites us, as he did with the rich young man, to enjoy a life free of attachments.