The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything

by James Martin

  In the end, we learn that Ignatian compassion is essentially our loving presence. There is nothing we can do. There is little we can say. But we can be there.

  And remember the simple technique of the “colloquy,” in which you speak to God in prayer “as one friend speaks to another”? When meditating on the Passion, retreatants often feel moved to speak with Jesus about their own suffering. “Seeing” Jesus’ suffering is a reminder that, for the Christian, we are accompanied by a God who, even if he does not—for whatever mysterious reason—take away our pain, understands it, since he lived as a human being. During the times of the worst anguish in my life it has been this prayer that has most consoled me: speaking with the Jesus who knows suffering.

  Let me give you a brief example from my own experiences with the Exercises, as a way of illustrating our discussion, not because my experience is normative or even important, but because talking about suffering demands, I believe, a personal narrative. It’s also a chance to share how Ignatian contemplation can often help you meet God in ways that are personal, intimate, and surprising.

  JESUS OF LOS ANGELES

  Recently, I made my second thirty-day retreat at a Jesuit house in Los Angeles. It would be only the second (and maybe the final) time that I would make the full Spiritual Exercises. Even though I was guarding against too many expectations, I was still worried about “performing” and producing amazing results in prayer, placing upon myself expectations about what I needed to “do” in prayer, rather than leaving it up to God.

  If you’re thinking to yourself, After twenty years, you should have known better, you’re right!

  The Long Retreat was part of the final stage of Jesuit formation, coming almost twenty years after I first entered, and I would be making the retreat with some old friends from novitiate, philosophy, and theology studies.

  It seemed easy to enter into the First Week of the Exercises, with its emphasis on being “loved sinners,” and more so into the Second Week, which focuses on the earthly ministry of Jesus. Since the Pacific Ocean was not far from the house, I took to running on the beach every other day. Entering into the Gospel passages where Jesus called his disciples by the seashore was a breeze: I had been there just a few hours earlier.

  As I approached the Third Week and began to meditate on the last days of Jesus, prayer continued to go smoothly. Insights, memories, emotions, feelings, and desires came during each meditation.

  Meditating on Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, for example, opened up new insights about acceptance, obedience, and what types of temptations Jesus might have faced. When confronted with the possibility of rejection, Jesus may have felt the temptation not to offend anyone with his preaching and thereby avoid his fate. That is what you might call the temptation to accommodation. When faced with opposition, he may have experienced the temptation simply to wipe out his opponents—either through human means (like encouraging his disciples to rise up in furious rebellion) or through divine means (which may be what his followers expected): the temptation for annihilation. Finally Jesus may have felt tempted simply to leave his ministry behind and avoid the path that God was laying out, in favor of a more conventional life: the temptation for abandonment.

  Accommodation, annihilation, and abandonment. How often are we tempted to avoid suffering like this? We can accommodate by not fully accepting the reality of suffering—for example, by not entering into the lives of loved ones in pain, but staying safely on the sidelines. We can annihilate by destroying the invitations into the suffering of friends and families—by casting out anyone from our lives who brings us face-to-face with pain. We can abandon by ignoring our responsibilities in the face of suffering.

  Yet Jesus accepts the “reality of the situation.”

  Finally I saw Jesus jailed in Pilate’s dank cell, weeping. In my imagination Jesus wept not simply for himself and his upcoming physical torment, but because of something else: the loss of his great project. How many times have you hoped for some great thing, dreamed wonderful dreams, or planned for something joyful, only to have those plans completely dashed?

  In my prayer, Jesus remembered all the times he had preached, all the people he healed, all those who had gathered around him— ready to start something new, ready to make great changes, ready to bring joy to the world. As he sat in his cell, all that now seemed lost. His great work, on which he had spent years, seemed over. His friends, on whom he had lavished his love, had deserted him. His project had, seemingly, failed.

  More Than Ever

  Pedro Arrupe wrote this prayer after a stroke and in the wake of some struggles with the Vatican. It was part of his farewell address to the Jesuits at the General Congregation who had gathered to elect his successor as superior general, in 1983. By this point Arrupe was unable to speak. These words had to be read aloud for him.

  More than ever I find myself in the hands of God. This is what I have wanted all my life, from my youth. But now there is a difference; the initiative is entirely with God. It is indeed a profound spiritual experience to know and feel myself so totally in God’s hands.

  Jesus believed in his course and trusted in his Father, but how could he not be sad? Perhaps in his dark moments—or so I imagined in prayer—he may have wondered if it was all worth it. So Jesus wept.

  For Christians, these are points of entry into the life of Jesus: in times of sadness and loneliness and dejection in your own life, you can connect with the human experience of Jesus and, perhaps more important, Jesus can connect with you.

  Now let me share with you something quite personal, and quite explicit, as a way of illustrating what can sometimes happen in these Third Week meditations, while contemplating suffering.

  Curiously, all the meditations I just mentioned came and went with little feeling. “Very unemotional,” I wrote in my journal. When I recounted this to my retreat director, an elderly Jesuit named Paul, it was also with scant feeling. Paul, an experienced spiritual director, listened intently. Then he said, “I think you’re blocking something.”

  “I’m not blocking anything,” I told Paul. “I’ve told you everything I’ve experienced.”

  Paul was surprised that so little feeling surrounded these meditations, and he encouraged me to return to Jesus’ Passion. This time, he said, sit in the tomb where Jesus has been laid. Ask for the grace to be free of anything that keeps you from being closer to God. Is there anything of you that needs to “die” in that tomb?

  When I grudgingly returned to prayer the next day, something surprising happened. Imagining myself sitting in the tomb, I saw Mary, dressed from head to toe in black, sitting silently beside me. And I asked God to free me of whatever was burdening me.

  All at once I was aware of the burdens in life that I wanted to set down in that tomb. All the things I had unconsciously kept bottled inside during the previous few weeks—things I didn’t want to examine since they might disturb the equanimity of the retreat, things I didn’t want to take out of the “box,” as David Donovan would say— poured out. Loneliness for one. Not the loneliness of being friendless, but the existential loneliness of religious life: the loneliness of chastity. (Single, divorced, and widowed men and women know this loneliness.) Tiredness for another. Not the tiredness of everyday life, but what seemed like the continuous stress of two, three, or even four jobs at a time. (Parents know this tiredness, too.)

  So I told Jesus: “I am lonely and tired.” Expressing this brought forth what Ignatius called the “gift of tears.”

  Immediately I saw myself at the foot of the cross in as vivid a prayer experience as I’ve ever had. Just that day I had finished a book called The Day Christ Died, by Jim Bishop. In it, Bishop notes that Roman crucifixes were probably elevated not far off the ground, and here in my mind’s eye was the base of the cross—squarish, boxy, rough. At eye level were Jesus’ feet nailed to the cross.

  I imagined looking up at Jesus’ face. And he said deliberately, “This is your cross. Can you accept it?”r />
  I knew what I was being asked to accept. Loneliness and tiredness are the lot of most people, not just Jesuits. But both are still “crosses.” Could I accept the “reality of the situation”? Could I surrender to the future that God had in store for me?

  “Can you accept it?” I imagined Jesus saying.

  I knew what the answer should be, but I wanted to be honest.

  “I don’t know,” I said with many tears.

  “Do you want to follow me?” he said.

  “Yes, but show me the rest,” I said.

  After the meditation ended, I was wrung out. Now, these kinds of intense prayer experiences are not so common to me. (Mostly, my prayer is calm and not quite so vivid. Like most everyone else’s, it is rich at times, dry at others.)

  The next day I returned to the scene and asked Jesus once again to show me the rest: in other words, the Resurrection. And I realized sadly that I would have made a poor martyr—asking for evidence of “new life” before accepting my cross. Though I knew not to compare myself to the Jesuit martyrs, I seemed already to have failed. I felt cast down.

  At noontime I walked into the dining room where someone had put on a CD from the movie Out of Africa. The music transported me back to my years in Kenya. An hour later in the chapel, I was awash in memories of my time in East Africa and pictured myself standing with Mary, still clad in black, on the grassy hillside I loved near the Jesuit Refugee Service office, the place where I had felt great consolation years ago, a place that still symbolized great freedom and joy for me.

  Together Mary and I walked through the places where I had worked during my two years in Nairobi: through the little shop we had started for the refugees, through the dimly lit refugee houses, through the wide grassy paths that I would take returning from work, through the sprawling slums where the refugees lived. I saw their bright faces, I could hear their East African accents, and I could feel their warm affection.

  This is a nice resurrection, I thought. But was this all there was? Was this enough for me?

  Then, all at once, Jesus was standing beside me, radiant and joyful in his dazzling white robe. This was something I hadn’t needed to imagine: it simply appeared in my mind. Jesus reached out his hand and said, “Follow me!” The two of us returned to the same places, one by one, now with him holding my hand. It was a vivid reminder that he had been with me throughout my stay.

  Jesus appeared in the place where I had felt the freest in my life. It was a surprising, personal, and intimate way to experience a resurrection. For, in a flash, it dawned on me that only by accepting the loneliness and tiredness was I able to experience what I had found in Kenya. God seemed to be saying, “Yes, you must accept the loneliness and the tiredness, but here is what awaits you when you do. Here is what happens when you say yes. And you know this from experience. Here is the new life.”

  This experience was a reminder of how helpful Ignatian prayer can be, offering a moment that is at once personal, meaningful, transformative, and even difficult to communicate to others. It was also a reminder of why spiritual direction is helpful—without Paul’s guidance I would have simply avoided entering into this passage.

  Since that time I’ve not feared the loneliness or overwork as much. It is part of what I’m asked to accept about my life. But I also know that acceptance means that I can often see signs of new life. The cross leads to resurrection.

  All this leads back to obedience. God sometimes asks each of us to accept certain things that seem at the time unacceptable. Unbearable. Even impossible. For me it was loneliness and tiredness. For another it might be terrible illness. For another, the loss of a job. For another, the death of a spouse. For another, a stressful family situation.

  This doesn’t mean you court those things or that some things should not be changed. “Don’t work even longer hours because of your retreat!” said my friend Chris after the retreat. Rather, some struggles in life are unavoidable. And, at least in my own life, embracing them may sometimes lead to new ways of finding God.

  This small insight may pale in the face of whatever suffering you are experiencing. But it has helped me in my life, and I wanted to share it with you, and I hope it might help you during tough times.

  The insight goes by many names: accepting the “reality of the situation,” as Walter Ciszek would say; surrendering to “the future that God has in store,” as Sister Janice would say; taking up “your cross daily,” as Jesus would say. Acceptance. Abandonment. Humility. Poverty of spirit. Finding God in all things.

  All of them are talking about the same thing, and all these words and phrases point to one word, a word that may have seemed so strange at the beginning of the chapter and yet which lies at the heart of this life-giving path: obedience.

  Chapter Twelve

  What Should I Do?

  The Ignatian Way of Making Decisions

  PROBABLY THE HARDEST DECISION I’ve ever had to make as a Jesuit was the decision to stay or leave after being delayed for theology studies. I had made a lifelong vow to God, but life somehow seemed to be pulling me away from that original commitment. (The decision seems an easy one now, but like many such choices, it didn’t seem so at the time.) And I knew it would be a life-altering choice. Fortunately, my spiritual director was adept at what we Jesuits call “discernment.”

  Discernment is the overall term for the decision-making practices outlined by Ignatius in the Spiritual Exercises. A Jesuit superior is considered good at discernment not only when he takes seriously the need to pray over each decision, but also when he understands the specific Ignatian techniques of coming to a good decision.

  As I mentioned in the last chapter, Jesuits believe that when decisions are to be made, especially concerning assignments, a good process is essential. We also believe that if the superior and subject are both seeking to hear God’s voice, then we can rely on God’s help in the process itself. Thus, even when Jesuits are sent where they would rather not go, their disappointment is tempered if the discernment has been careful. Likewise, when they find themselves going where they want to go, if the discernment seemed shallow, there may remain a nagging doubt over whether the decision was made properly.

  Our techniques for making decisions come mainly from the practices outlined in the Spiritual Exercises. Ignatius, assuming that those experiencing the Exercises were reaching a turning point in their lives, includes some superb techniques for making good choices, which we will look at in this chapter. The way of Ignatius will help you answer the question, “What should I do?”

  Ignatius’s practical ways of making a choice have proven of great use to millions who have walked along his way. They can seem abstract, so I’ll use some real-life examples to illustrate what Ignatius was talking about.

  INDIFFERENCE

  Before entering the decision-making process, Ignatius asks us to try to be “indifferent.” In other words, try to approach the decision-making process as freely as possible. “I beg of you, my Lord, to remove anything that separates me from you, and you from me,” as Peter Favre wrote.

  “Indifference” is easily misunderstood. When most people hear that word, they think not of being free, but of being bored or uninterested. Several years ago an anguished young man, just engaged, came to me with a problem: he wasn’t sure if he should continue with the wedding as planned; he was torn over whether he was ready to make a lifelong commitment. Obviously a painful dilemma. During our first conversation I said, “Well, first you have to start with indifference.”

  “Indifference!” he said. “This is my life we’re talking about!”

  What Ignatius meant by indifference was freedom. The freedom to approach each decision afresh. The ability to be detached from one’s initial biases and to step back, the willingness to carefully balance the alternatives. An openness to the working of God in one’s life. George E. Ganss, S.J., one of the modern translators of the Spiritual Exercises, wrote that indifference means

  undetermined to one thing o
r option rather than another; impartial; unbiased; with decision suspended until the reasons for a wise choice are learned; still undecided.

  Ganss concludes with what I conveyed, less eloquently, to the young man thinking about postponing his wedding. “In no way does it mean unconcerned or unimportant. It implies interior freedom.”

  Every major decision carries some baggage. The question, “Should I marry this person?” or “Should I go on with my wedding plans?” may have in the background your fiancé(e) or your parents or your best friend pressuring you to get married. Or not to change your plans.

  But while advice from friends and family can help us arrive at a good decision, Ignatius asks us to begin the decision-making process as impartially as possible. That bit of common sense is often forgotten.

  To use a famous Ignatian image, one should try to be like the “pointer of a balance.” If you’ve ever seen an old metal scale, like the ones used in old-time butcher shops for weighing meats, you’ll remember a metal arrow that points straight up—to zero—when the scale is empty and perfectly at rest. There’s nothing weighing on either side.

  This is what Ignatius means. When we begin to make a decision, we should emulate that metal pointer—not leaning in one way or another. You don’t want to imitate the unscrupulous butcher who sticks his thumb on the scale to fudge the weight. That’s cheating. Starting off by assuming that you should decide one way or the other is cheating yourself out of a good choice.