The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything

by James Martin

  Third, accept your desires, skills, and talents as things given to you by God for your happiness and for others. These are gifts from the Creator.

  Fourth, avoid the temptation to compare yourself to others and denigrate or undervalue yourself. Remember: compare and despair.

  Fifth, move away from actions that are sinful or that keep you from being compassionate, loving, and free. And move toward actions that make you more compassionate, loving, and free. Think of the meditation on the Two Standards from the Exercises to help you with this.

  Sixth, trust that God will help you because God desires for you to become who you are meant to be. And pray for God’s help.

  Seventh, recognize that the process of becoming the person you are meant to be is a longprocess and can take time.

  IT WILL TAKE SOME time before you are able to integrate your insights fully, and longer before they translate into action, and still longer before you find that you have changed inside and outside.

  Remember the story of Ignatius if you doubt this.

  Five years after I entered the Jesuits, I returned to Campion Center, in Weston, Massachusetts, where I had made my very first retreat. My director that year was a light-hearted Jesuit named Harry, who had lived with us as a spiritual father in the novitiate. It was almost impossible to be sad around him: he was consistently joyful and funny. When one of the three original members in our novitiate class decided to leave, leaving only two behind, he instantly coined a motto for our little class, taken from a Greek phrase: Oupolla, allapollou. Not many, but much.

  During that summertime retreat, I lamented to Harry that I didn’t seem to be changing quickly enough. I knew the kind of person I wanted to be: free, open, relaxed, loose, compassionate, patient, mature, generous. But my imperfections held me back. How would God change me? When would I change? Why wasn’t it happening faster?

  The Slow Work of God

  Patience is an important companion on the path to discovering your own vocation, to becoming the person you would like to become, and, in fact, to any change. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit paleontologist, who knew about the slow working of time, wrote this in a letter to a friend, on patience:

  Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

  We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.

  We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

  We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

  And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some 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 circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.

  Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be.

  Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

  Harry smiled and looked out the window to the grounds of the retreat house. “You see that tree over there?” he said.

  I glanced at a large maple tree on a knoll, which I passed frequently as I wandered through the woods. “It’s green now, but in a few months it will become a beautiful red.” Then he paused. “And no one will see it change,” he said.

  THE SALT DOLL

  Ultimately we find our identity and our vocation in God. Our desires come from God and lead to God.

  To wrap up our discussion about vocation, let’s end with one of my favorite stories from Anthony de Mello, which beautifully illustrates this concept. It’s called “The Salt Doll,” and is about, well, a doll made of salt.

  A salt doll journeyed for thousands of miles over land, until it finally came to the sea.

  It was fascinated by this strange moving mass, quite unlike anything it had ever seen before.

  “Who are you?” said the salt doll to the sea.

  The sea smilingly replied, “Come in and see.”

  So the doll waded in. The farther it walked into the sea the more it dissolved, until there was only very little of it left. Before that last bit dissolved, the doll exclaimed in wonder, “Now I know what I am!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Contemplative in Action

  Our Way of Proceeding

  ONE OF MY FAVORITE moments in film is from a foreign movie, first released in 2006, called Paris, Je T’Aime, a series of twenty vignettes by a group of international directors. Each story takes place in Paris. One depicts a love affair; another a meeting between a father and daughter; another a violent and bloody murder. In one vignette, Alexander Payne, the director of the film Sideways, offers the story of Carol, a mail carrier from Denver, who has saved her money for a dream vacation to Paris. She’s even taken French language lessons for the past two years in preparation for her big trip.

  Carol, played by Margo Martindale, seems a good soul, a middle-aged woman who lives with her two dogs, and who has traveled to Paris alone. Though she describes herself as happy and speaks about her friends, an element of loneliness suffuses her wanderings. Her tale, which takes the form of an oral report to her French class back home, is told in a voiceover. Carol’s thoughts are conveyed in very simple words—since those are the only ones she knows in French.

  Toward the end of a long day of sightseeing and sampling local restaurants, Carol wanders into a sunlit park and sits on a wooden bench. During the morning, she was surprised to find herself so pensive—about her work, her friends, her two dogs, her lost love, and her mother, who has recently died from cancer. As she sits silently, Carol sees signs of life all around her: couples talking animatedly, children in a playground, a woman resting on the green grass. A breeze gently stirs her brown hair. Then something extraordinary happens.

  In her halting French, translated for the viewer in the English subtitles, Carol says this:

  Sitting there, alone in a foreign country, far from my job and everyone I know, a feeling came over me.

  It was like remembering something I’d never known before or had always been waiting for, but I didn’t know what. Maybe it was something I had forgotten or something I’ve been missing all my life.

  All I can say is that I felt, at the same time, joy and sadness. But not too much sadness.

  Because I felt alive.

  Yes, alive.

  As she says this, a look of peace washes over her tired features.

  I’m not sure if the filmmaker intended to portray a spiritual epiphany (though Alexander Payne went to a Jesuit high school). And I’m not sure if Carol, who is the star of, after all, a five-minute movie, was intended to be a spiritual person. But in simple words, she not only expresses what we spoke about in an earlier chapter as an “uncommon longing,” but opens a window onto one of the goals of the way of Ignatius: to be alive.

  YES, ALIVE

  In these pages we’ve traveled together along the way of Ignatius. Now you have a right to ask: Where does that way lead? What’s our destination?

  In our first chapter, we talked about how five hypothetical Jesuits would define the way of Ignatius. Four answers were suggested: being a contemplative in action; finding God in all things; looking at the world in an incarnational way; and seeking freedom and detachment. These are all goals for the traveler along the way of Ignatius.

  The first goal is illustrated by the fictional Carol, who feels, perhaps for the first time in her life, alive. She notices. She is aware. As she sits on that Parisian park bench, she discovers a connection. Significantly, the next words in her voiceover are: “That was the moment I fell in love with Paris. And I felt Paris fall in love with me.” Awareness moves her to love.

  In real life, Carol would have a choice to make—beyond simply deciding whether to change her hotel reservations and stay a few more days in F
rance. Or even beyond deciding that Paris is now her favorite city. She can accept her experiences as just “feelings,” or she can wonder if they might have another source.

  The contemplative in action, according to St. Ignatius Loyola, not only contemplates the active world and sees wonderful things, but also sees in those wonderful things signs of God’s presence and activity. The contemplative in action is deeply aware of God’s presence even in the midst of a busy life. It is a stance of awareness. Awareness of God.

  That leads us to a second goal: finding God in all things. By now you’ve seen how everything can be a way to experience God. In the past chapters, we’ve talked about encountering God in prayer, worship, family, love, music, nature, decision making, working, living simply, friendship, even during times of suffering. In all things. And in all people. And we’ve talked about an easy way to jump-start that awareness, to help you find God in everything: the examen. The contemplative in action seeks God and seeks to find God in action.

  That means that he or she sees the world in an incarnational way, a third definition. God dwells in real things, real places, and real people. Not just “up there” but “all around.” (Though I’m not denying that God is also “up there” in heaven, wherever or however that is.) For Christians, Jesus is the incarnation of God, but you don’t have to be Christian to have an incarnational worldview. The more you travel along the way of Ignatius, the more you see the incarnational God.

  And the more you travel along the Ignatian way, the more you will want to go further. The more you experience God, the more you will want to experience God more. The more you know God, the more you will want to know God more.

  To do this, you need to maintain a measure of detachment and freedom, a fourth goal. You desire freedom from anything that prevents you from following along the way. You want to free yourself from any excess baggage. You want, as Ignatius said, to be free of “disordered attachments.” And you have to be careful not to start down paths that will lead you away from God. As Ignatius would say, you have to “discern.”

  So tying it all together, you could say this: Contemplatives in action seek to find God in all things by looking at the world in an incarnational way, and, in their quest, they realize their desire for freedom and detachment, which helps them move even closer to God. That’s probably a fair summary of Ignatian spirituality.

  That’s been my experience, too.

  In the past few chapters, I’ve offered some personal examples of God’s activity in my life, not because my life is more important than anyone else’s, or more spiritual, or even normative. Rather, it’s to show you that anyone can experience God if he or she moves along the path of Ignatius.

  When I entered the Jesuit novitiate at twenty-seven, I had little experience of prayer. I couldn’t imagine that I would ever have a “personal relationship” with God. I couldn’t imagine that I would be free of some of the unhealthy patterns that had been with me since childhood. I couldn’t imagine walking along a new path. I couldn’t imagine a new path at all. I couldn’t imagine, in a word, change.

  But God had already imagined it.

  The path of Ignatius has invited me to continual growth, freedom, and movement toward becoming more aware, more loving, more authentic, and, “yes, alive,” to quote Carol. I’ve tried to show how this happened in ways that are personal, because that’s where God is usually most alive, in our most intimate selves, intimior intimo meo, nearer to me than I am to myself. If we allow it to happen, God can work that way in all of our lives, which is why I include some real-life stories from the Jesuit saints, Jesuits I’ve known (some of whom seemed like saints), and many other friends and companions, both men and women, whom I’ve met along the way of Ignatius.

  But those qualities—growth, freedom, movement, love, authenticity, even feeling alive—are not the final goals. The goal of the Ignatian way is not a quality, but something else.

  THE ROAD IS OUR HOME

  The goal is God.

  I’ve tried to write this book in a welcoming way so that as many readers as possible will be able to use it—from the doubtful seeker to the devout believer. Ignatian spirituality is a resource for a wide variety of people, not just Jesuits, not just Catholics, and not just Christians. Just as there are insights from Zen Buddhism that are useful to me as a Christian, so there are practices and techniques from Ignatian spirituality that can help the Zen Buddhist. And the person who is Jewish or Muslim, too. Anyone can use these practices to better his or her life.

  But to understand fully the end of the journey, you have to understand the destination. For Ignatian spirituality is meaningless without God. The end is not a place. It’s God.

  Remember the analogy I used about the Spiritual Exercises at the beginning of the book? The Exercises are not meant to be read, they’re meant to be experienced. It is similar to an instruction book about dancing. It wouldn’t do you much good if you just read the book; you have to dance before you can understand it.

  Well, there’s a partner in that dance: God. It’s a cheesy image, I know. (At this point you might be imagining yourself dancing with an old man with a long white beard—or if you weren’t, maybe you are now!) But it’s a reminder that the goal of the path is a relationship with God, who wants to be in relationship with you. Who wants to dance with you.

  For me, Ignatian spirituality has been the primary way through which I’ve met God in my life. It’s been my path to God. And to Jesus Christ. Ignatius’s practices and insights have enriched my appreciation for my religious tradition, for Scripture, for community, for prayer, for . . . almost everything. The way of Ignatius has helped to lead me into relationship with God, something I would have thought impossible at age twenty-seven.

  But no one, in this lifetime, reaches the end of the journey. After our deaths, I believe, we shall meet God “face to face,” as St. Paul says. But on this earth we will always be pilgrims along the way.

  That’s why the image of the path has been the dominant image that I’ve used for Ignatian spirituality. That’s also why I like what Jerónimo Nadal, one of Ignatius’s early companions, said: “The road is our home.” He meant that Jesuits were always traveling, always en route to some new mission, always open to move.

  But Nadal’s comment carries another meaning, too. It means that we are always on the road to God, and the more we come to understand the destination, the more we feel at home on that road.

  God is the goal. So is our offering of ourselves to God. That’s part of the friendship. In any real friendship, there is, as Ignatius says, an exchange of gifts. “Each shares with the other.” God offers himself (or herself) to us, and we offer ourselves to God. So that’s why I would like to end this book with a challenging prayer, taken from—what else?—the Spiritual Exercises. It’s about giving something to God.

  Yourself.

  TAKE, LORD, RECEIVE

  Throughout these past chapters, we’ve mentioned the four weeks of the Spiritual Exercises. As we moved along, I introduced you to selected aspects about each week as they related to the topics we were discussing. The First Week invites you to look at gratitude for God’s gifts in your life, and then your own sinfulness. You’re led to a grateful awareness of yourself as a loved sinner. In the Second Week, you imagine yourself accompanying Jesus of Nazareth in his earthly ministry of preaching and healing. The Third Week takes you, imaginatively, into the story of Jesus’ passion and death, which gives you new perspectives on suffering.

  But there’s one more week we haven’t yet talked about: the Fourth Week, which focuses on the Resurrection.

  By the end of the Spiritual Exercises, most retreatants are delighted to be able to meditate on the joyful stories of the Resurrection: Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene and the disciples, Jesus forgiving Peter for his betrayal, and Jesus feeding his disciples by the Sea of Galilee. And in a burst of pious enthusiasm Ignatius even added something to the New Testament: a scene of Jesus meeting his mother after the Resurrect
ion. “Although this is not stated in Scripture,” he writes, “still it is considered as understood by the statement that he appeared to many others.”

  At the close of the Fourth Week Ignatius invites us into a wonderful contemplation, which is often rushed through by people anxious to wrap up their retreats. (People on retreats are human too!) It’s called the Contemplation to Attain Divine Love.

  Said differently, it’s a contemplation designed to help us understand God’s love for us. To help us do so, Ignatius offers us one thought exercise and then a variety of typically rich metaphors.

  First, he suggests, remember “with deep affection how much God our Lord has done for me” and “how much he has given me of what he possesses.” This is similar to the type of gratitude included in the examination of conscience.

  Second, says Ignatius, think about the way that God “dwells” in all his creatures. In the elements, God gives them existence. In the plants, life. In the animals, sensation. In human beings, intelligence. And in yourself, in whom God dwells, “giving me existence, life, sensation, and intelligence; and even further, making me his temple, since I am created as a likeness and image of the Divine Majesty.” How does God “dwell” in you?

  Third, consider how God labors in all of creation. That’s always been a powerful image for me. God labors on our behalf and on behalf of all creatures, “giving them their existence, conserving them,” helping them to grow and be themselves.

  Finally, think of how all these gifts—and others, like justice, goodness, piety, and mercy—descend from God “as the rays come down from the sun, or the rains from their source.” God is at work, with you, and for you.

  All these images are beautiful invitations to think about and experience God’s love for you.