Ignatian Spirituality - Charles J. Jackson, S.J. - [5]

Examination of Consciousness

The Examination of Consciousness is a simple form of prayer directed toward developing a spiritual sensitivity to the special ways God approaches, invites and calls.

It should be done at the end of each day, though it can be done more frequently, as the person feels drawn to it. The more frequently he does it, however, the more natural it becomes for him. Thus it becomesa way of consciousness, a way of growing into an ever-closer relationshipwith God. It can take anywhere between five and fifteen minutes. It really doesn’t matter how long one spends; the important thing is that he opens himself to recognizing and responding to God’s movements within him.

St. Ignatius suggests five steps to the Examination of Consciousness. It is important, however, that the person feels free to structure the Examination in a way that is most helpful to him. There is no right way to do it; nor is there a need to go through all of the five points each time. A person might, for instance, find himself spending the entire time on only one or two points. The basic rule is: Go wherever God draws you. And this touches upon an important point: the Examination of Consciousness is primarily a time of prayer; it is a ‘being with God.’

The five points Ignatius proposes are:

• Recall that you are in the presence of God: You are before God who loves you and welcomes you, who enlightens and guides you. Embrace the God who dwells in you, the God ever at work in you.
• Give thanks to God for his many gifts: Give thanks to God for what he has allowed you to do this day and for what you have received this day, the pleasant and the difficult, for the word of encouragement and the generous gesture, for your family and friends, for all those who challenge you to grow.
• Examine how you have lived this day: What has happened to you in your life and relationships? How has God been at work in you? What has he asked of you? And how have you responded: with generosity or self-centeredness, honesty or deceit?
• Ask for forgiveness: Ask pardon for your failures to understand or respond to others in their difficulties and pain. Ask pardon for not loving God in every part of your life.
• Offer a prayer of hope-filled re-commitment: I am aware of my weakness, yet am confident in God’s strength. I renew my commitment to follow the path that God offers me to be a source of light for all creation. ‘If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old has passed away. See, everything has become new.’ (2 Cor. 2:17)

Ignatian Spirituality - Charles J. Jackson, S.J. - [4]

Discernment

Discernment is rooted in the understanding that God is ever at work in our lives – inviting, directing, guiding and drawing us into the fullness of life. Its central action is reflection on the ordinary events of our lives. It seeks to discover God’s presence in these moments and to follow the direction and guidance he gives us through his grace. It is not the events themselves that are of interest, but rather the affective responses they evoke in us - feelings of joy, sorrow, peace, anxiety and all the indefinable ‘somethings’ that arise and stir within us. It is precisely here that through faith we can discover God’s direction and guidance in our lives.

Discernment presupposes an ability to reflect on the ordinary events of one’s life, a habit of personal prayer, self-knowledge, knowledge of one’s deepest desires and openness to God’s direction and guidance. Discernment is a prayerful ‘pondering’ or ‘mulling over’ the choices a person wishes to consider. In his discernment, the person’s focus should be on a quiet attentiveness to God and sensing rather than thinking. His goal is to understand the choices in his heart: to see them, as it were, as God might see them. In one sense, there is no limit to how long he might wish to continue in this. Discernment is a repetitive process, yet as the person continues, some choices should of their own accord fall by the wayside while others should gain clarity and focus. It is a processthat should move inexorably toward a decision.

St. Ignatius observed that the Spirit of God works to encourage and give joy and inner peace to the person who is trying to respond generously to God’s love; the spirit of evil, on the other hand, interjects discouragement, anxiety and fear. In other words, the person honestly seeking God can discover God’s direction and guidance by being sensitive to the affective responses his considerations evoke in him. Does one option evoke a sense of peace? Perhaps God is affirming it. Does another leave him unsettled? Then perhaps God is directing him elsewhere. In all this, he must be sensitive to where he experiences peace and joy, inspiration and hope. It needs to be pointed out, however, that his finding himself affirmed or unsettled in his considerations does not necessarily mean that God is affirming or negating anything. Discernment is a conver-gence of many factors, all of which need to be weighed and evaluated in prayer. A person’s mind may offer sage advice, but discernment ultimately happens in the heart.

Ignatian Spirituality - Charles J. Jackson, S.J. - [3]

Ignatian Spirituality

We have already observed that a spirituality possesses an internal cohesion, and this is certainly true for Ignatian spirituality. But we might well ask ourselves: Just what is the nature of this internal cohesion? What is the glue or, more precisely, the understanding or interior vision that gives Ignatian spirituality its cohesion? Although Ignatius never spoke in such terms, his realization at Loyola that God was actively at work in his life and, as his experience at Manresa revealed, that God was similarly at work in the lives of all people provided the grounding for what became his spirituality. This insight became the premise underlying his Spiritual Exercises and found expression in the fifteenth of its preliminary notes: ‘it is the nature of the Creator to deal directly with the creature, embracing it with love and praise, and disposing it for how it might serve him.’ It is this understanding of God – that God is an ‘active God,’ ever at work in people’s lives, inviting, directing, guiding, disposing them for how they might serve him – that animates Ignatian spirituality and gives it its internal cohesion.


Spiritual Exercises

Ignatian spirituality began in the religious experience of Ignatius Loyola, but it only took shape and form as he gave it written expression in his Spiritual Exercises. It is beyond the scope of this brochure to do justice to the rich complexity of the Spiritual Exercises. A few comments, however, are in order.

The Spiritual Exercises owes its origin to Ignatius’ reflections on his how God had been at work in his own life and his experiences of guiding others in the spiritual life. It is not a treatise on the spiritual life nor, for that matter, is it even meant to be read. It is a set of guidelines, somewhat like a teacher’s notes, intended for a person guiding another in ‘making’ the Exercises. The Spiritual Exercises describes a process directed toward developing attentiveness to God, openness to God and ultimately responsiveness to God. All this is based on the premises (1) that God deals directly with the individual person and (2)that the person can discern to what God is inviting him.

The Spiritual Exercises is meant to draw a person into a dynamic that progresses from his awareness that he is a sinner yet forgiven to his free and total offering of himself to God. Central to this dynamic and acting almost as a thread running through it is the person of Jesus. Yet Jesus is not simply a model to be imitated; rather as the glorified Christ, he is always God with us, laboring with us and for us, drawing us into the Father’s love. At its deepest level, the Spiritual Exercises is meant to draw the person into a deep and personal relationship with Jesus.

In one manner or another, all of Ignatian spirituality is expressed in the Spiritual Exercises. However, since it has been described as active attentiveness and prompt responsiveness to God, it seems appropriate to highlight two facets that give clear expression of this: discernment and the examination of consciousness
Ignatian spirituality can thus be described as an active attentiveness to God joined with a prompt responsiveness to God, who is ever active in our lives. Although it includes many forms of prayer, discernment and apostolic service, it is the interior dispositions of attentiveness and responsiveness that are ultimately crucial. The result is that Ignatian spirituality has a remarkable ‘nowness,’ both in its attentiveness to God and in its desire to respond to what God is asking of the person now.

Ignatian Spirituality - Charles J. Jackson, S.J. - [2]

St. Ignatius Loyola

Almost five hundred years ago, Ignatius Loyola, a Basque courtier-soldier lay on his sickbed recovering from wounds that had almost ended his life. Looking for something to help pass the time, he began to read: not the romantic novels he desired, but the only books available – a life of Christ and the lives of the saints. From time to time, he set aside his book and allowed his thoughts to wander – imagining himself a valiant knight in the service of a great lady. His thoughts also turned to what he had read, and he imagined himself imitating the heroic deeds of the saints in serving God.

He began to notice, however, that his thoughts evoked different reactions in him. Thoughts of himself as a valiant knight, though delightful while they lasted, ultimately left him feeling empty and sad. On the other hand, thoughts of imitating the heroic deeds of the saints brought him a joy that lasted even after these thoughts had ended. Then, as he later described it, ‘one day his eyes opened a little, and he began to wonder at this difference and reflect upon it.’ It dawned on him that one set of thoughts was directed toward God and presumably had its origin in God, whereas the other was not. Two contrary spirits, he sensed, were actively at work in him: the Spirit of God and the spirit of evil. He realized that God was communicating not in mountaintop experiences, but in his affective responses to the ordinary events of his life.

During the long months of his recuperation, Ignatius read and re-read the two books, reflected on Jesus’ life and the examples of the saints, and made more than a few resolutions. What was ultimately pivotal, however, was not anything that he did during this time but rather something that was happening to him. God, he realized, was actively at work in him – inviting, directing, guiding and actively disposing him for the way in which he might best serve him.

Ignatian Spirituality - Charles J. Jackson, S.J. - [1]

Spirituality

Spirituality is a word that lacks a concise definition. Although it includes prayer, piety and the so-called interior life, it is ultimately a way of living and acting. For the Christian, spirituality can be defined as life in accord with the Spirit of God, a life that ‘makes us sons and daughters of God’ (Rom. 8:9,14).

This is not to say, however, that there is but one Christian spirituality. There are, in fact, many. By way of example, each of the four Gospels in the New Testament can be said to reflect a distinct spirituality, each faithful to the gospel Jesus preached yet viewed through the prism of its writer. As Christianity developed, however, so too did other spiritualities, each rooted in a particular historical and cultural setting and in some manner expressing its ideals and aspirations. Each was grounded in a specific understanding about God, about God’s relationship with the world and about the human person in that world. And it was from this understanding that the spirituality – a way of living and acting – developed and grew.

A word of caution, however, is in order: a spirituality is not simply a collection of spiritual ideals and practices, a smorgasbord – as it were – from which one can pick and choose. It possesses an internal cohesion. Its elements, in fact, display a remarkable interrelatedness in which each flows from and gives expression to the worldview from which the spirituality sprang.

Each spirituality is identified by the specific historical, cultural or religious tradition from which it sprang – 17thcentury French, Pauline, Carmelite, Celtic and Methodist spiritualities, to name but a few. This brochure will focus on Ignatian spirituality, the spirituality of the 16th-century Basque, St. Ignatius Loyola. It will single out some of the more important traits of this spirituality, describe each, underscore their interrelatedness and attempt to show how each flows from and gives expression to Ignatius’ integral worldview. In order to do this, however, it seems best to begin not with the spirituality of St. Ignatius but with the man himself.

Dynamics of the Spiritual Exercises

The essential dynamics of the Spiritual Exercises are discussed from the different perspectives of Fathers John O’Malley, George Aschenbrenner, John Padberg, Joseph Tetlow and William Barry in  the first of a series of video on the Spiritual Exercises produced by Georgetown University.

Link:
http://explore.georgetown.edu/documents/48499/

Ignatius of Loyola — Model for Lay Spirituality

Pat Carter
Harvest - Summer 2006

While Ignatius is most often thought of as the founder of the Jesuits, he spent a good part of his life as a lay person. It was as a lay person that he began developing the Spiritual Exercises and guiding others through them. During his recuperation in Loyola in 1522, the first pages of the Exercises were written and the bulk of the book was in place by 1524. He continued to refine his work until 1540, and the book was published in 1548. Ignatius was ordained in June of 1537 (although he didn’t say his first Mass until Christmas of 1538) and took vows as a Jesuit along with others of the Company on April 22, 1541, the official beginning of the Jesuits.

Ignatius was a person of his time. He was born a year before Columbus arrived in the Americas in his attempt to prove that the world was round, not flat. In that same year, Muslims and Jews are expelled from Southern Spain after almost eight hundred years of Muslim rule. Spain conquered the Aztec Empire in Central America in 1521 and the Incan Empire in South America in 1533. In 1522 the first ship, the only one of Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition to survive, circumnavigates the globe under the command of a Basque captain, Juan Sebastián Elcano. The Protestant Reformation is taking hold in several countries in Northern Europe. In 1543 Copernicus publishes his theory that the Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun.

The Catholic Church itself was in crises. Its priests were often ignorant of the Gospels and Sacraments and some openly disregarded their vow of celibacy. One of Ignatius’ own brothers who was a priest lived with the mother of his three children. Another of his brothers who was married had a concubine who visited him regularly — another common practice of the time. The newly discovered facts that the earth was round and that it was not the center of the solar system challenged long-held theological beliefs and cosmic views. And in Spain, the Inquisition was in full swing.

Into this milieu, Ignatius was born: a Basque, a soldier, a person of a noble, but poor, family, a person of passion and loyalty, a romantic, a visionary and a mystic. He had the gift of tears, struggled with scruples and suffered from chronic illness. After his conversion, the same passion that he had for romancing and fine clothes and being a great soldier was focused on Jesus and God’s Kingdom. He fell in love with God and had a special devotion to the Trinity and Eucharist. His personality was not changed, but his whole being was now focused on doing great things for God.

So what can we, as lay people, learn from Ignatius? In my own reflection on Ignatius’ life, several themes seemed to appear.

Fr. Joseph Tetlow on Spiritual Direction and Prayer

On Personal Care in Ignatian Spirituality

by Father David L. Fleming
JESUIT BULLETIN - Fall 2009
Missouri Province

Jesuits used to be the only ones who would talk about their relationship to their superiors in terms of the Latin phrase cura personalis. Cura personalis is translated as “personal care” or “care for the person.” Today we speak of this “care for the person” as an intrinsic part of an Ignatian spirituality, even if Ignatius himself never used the term. Although the phrase is not an Ignatian expression, Jesuits found the concept in the thinking about spiritual governance outlined by Ignatius in the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. Personal care is a priority for every superior dealing with the men in his community. From the superior general to the provincial to the local superior, care of the person is to mark their way of governing in the Society of Jesus. In the constitutions such care is insisted upon, for example, in the formation of the Jesuit in the novitiate and in studies, in the acceptance and the dismissal of candidates to the Society, and in the interaction we Jesuits would have with students in our schools and the people with whom we worked in pastoral situations.

COMMON APOSTOLIC DISCERNMENT

Adolfo Nicolás, S.J.
Superior General of the Society of Jesus

Why does the working of the apostolic body need a permanent common discernment? Why is it that the personal discernment of superiors, leaders, and so on, is not enough, and that the whole apostolic body of the community has to be involved?

Link:
http://www.sjweb.info/documents/cis/pdfenglish/200912202en.pdf

THOUGHTS ON YOUTH AND THE IGNATIAN METHOD

SPIRITUAL EXERCISES FOR LIFE CHOICES
Review of Ignatian Spirituality - Number 117

Nathan Stone, S.J.
Director of SpEx; Hispanic Ministry
Monserrat Retreat House
Lake Dallas, Tx, USA

An open invitation

After many years working in schools and youth ministry, I came to mission at a Jesuit retreat house. It’s a good one. Many people make yearly retreats here. But I found it curious that the average age for retreatants is about sixty-two. Many are considerably older. I thought perhaps this was only because there are a lot of satisfied customers who come back year after year, and they have gotten older, as people tend to do. But there are photos of the first retreats, from long ago, and there is no one under fifty in those pictures, either.

I had rarely given the Exercises to anyone much older than about twenty-six, so I had to recalibrate my scope for the local crowd. But it occurred to me that our house could offer at least one retreat especially for young men and women. It was taken as a very novel idea. Not that the younger crowd were ever unwelcome, but they were the exception: someone already on their way to religious life, or the son or grandson of one of  “the regulars”.

In Chile, where I received my formation, Father Alberto Hurtado gave the Exercises to large groups of university students. It was considered unorthodox, but then, he was el Padre Hurtado. Father Edwin Hodgson quietly gave them to high school students. This would have raised eyebrows, except that no one ever realized that he was doing it, until after his death, when several of them entered the Society. They discovered that he had started them all on their quest to serve the Lord with the Exercises.

Despite these experiences, something in the conventional wisdom today says that the Exercises are not for everyone, that you have to be mature, educated and settled before you can delve into their mystery. They are also expensive. So, with the exception of Jesuit novices, only a privileged minority, proven over the years, and therefore, older, ever get the opportunity. The Exercises have become a specialty, given by experts, to those seemingly predestined few, with special talents, from whom we expect greatness.

How has this happened? What does it mean? What was the original target group for the Exercises? Who would get the most out of them? In this essay, we will explore some of these questions, and see how we might get back to the original intention of Ignatius: a process of vocational discernment for young men and women.

“EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE SPIRIT OF THE EXERCISES”

This phrase summarizes a new approach to living religiously that draws on Ignatian spirituality as a creative source of renewal and conversion. Nine Jesuits came to the Curia in Rome for a consultation in November 2003 to reflect on their considerable experience in communicating faith and consider what more we might do.

In recent years we began to speak of “giving the Exercises in everyday life.” Now we focus on the next step: everyday life in the spirit of the Exercises:

What do we suggest to or provide for people after the retreat is over? What can they do on a regular basis to lead an authentic religious life as they deal with their families and jobs and communities?

We are speaking about a way of understanding religion that is creative and tied into conversion; even those who have not made the Exercises can profit from the kind of faith that develops from them.

An important note: this question touches not just individuals but communities as well because what people do to express their religious quest involves rites and devotions, prayers and practices that form communities.

The sponsors of the meeting were Joe Tetlow, Secretary for Ignatian Spirituality, and Tom Rochford, Secretary for Communication. Tetlow: “To the early companions, defending the faith meant a comprehensive Catholic way of life. I hope that we will find in Ignatian spirituality a way of creating such a comprehensive Catholic way of life in our times.”

Rochford’s hope was that the Society of Jesus would eagerly turn to the communications specialists to play a key role in collaboration with other Jesuit experts if the Society as a body undertook a broader role in renewing religious practice in the church.

IGNATIUS CHALLENGES YOUNG PEOPLE

Christine Rossi

Pastoral Minisry
Chaplaincy -University of Malta

▪ ▪ ▪

A young adult has two main tasks to live through. One is the need to share one’s life with others and form meaningful relationships. The second is the need to be productive in some significant way usually through work or parenthood. In the realm of faith, young adulthood is also a crucial stage. It is the stage in life when most people start to question their faith seriously, return to it, or strive to deepen and integrate it with the rest of their life. Indeed St. Ignatius’ most dramatic breakthrough in his spiritual life was in his young adulthood. It was only the start of a longer journey to deepen his relationship with God but surely a critical time which laid the foundation for his later insights.

This article is a personal reflection on some elements in Ignatian Spirituality which have inspired me, as a young adult, and in my pastoral contact with other people at our University Chaplaincy and within the Christian Life Communities. It has also been inspired by the wisdom of Jesuits working at our Chaplaincy who have shared what they consider invaluable in guiding young people. The article shall first look at certain central principles in Ignatian spirituality: finding God in all things; meeting the person of Jesus Christ, discernment, and a faith that does justice. Then it shall explore certain elements in Ignatian prayer and spirituality: unique methods of prayer, silence, spiritual accompaniment and the personal-communitarian dynamic.

On Personal Care in Ignatian Spirituality

by Father David L. Fleming

Jesuits used to be the only ones who would talk about their relationship to their superiors in terms of the Latin phrase cura personalis. Cura personalis is translated as “personal care” or “care for the person.” Today we speak of this “care for the person” as an intrinsic part of an Ignatian spirituality, even if Ignatius himself never used the term. Although the phrase is not an Ignatian expression, Jesuits found the concept in the thinking about spiritual governance outlined by Ignatius in the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. Personal care is a priority for every superior dealing with the men in his community. From the superior general to the provincial to the local superior, care of the person is to mark their way of governing in the Society of Jesus. In the constitutions such care is insisted upon, for example, in the formation of the Jesuit in the novitiate and in studies, in the acceptance and the dismissal of candidates to the Society, and in the interaction we Jesuits would have with students in our schools and the people with whom we worked in pastoral situations.

The phrase is first noted in the Instruction of Father General Ledochowski concerning Jesuit education in the United States, dated August 15, 1934. The Instruction was written in Latin and was identified as “for Ours only,” which was the custom of such Jesuit documents in those days. So the words cura personalis became Jesuit Latin lingo more internal to religious life as described the Jesuit Constitutions, even when dealing with our schools, students, and faculties.

We know that Ignatius thought similarly in setting forth the relationship between the retreat director and the retreatant in his book Spiritual Exercises. In the introductory notes Ignatius describes in various ways the interaction of the director and the retreatant. He encapsulates this care in words like "giving" and "receiving,"
"the one who gives" and the one who receives. "Listening," "wanting to be of help," "being accommodating," "always allowing God to act directly," "giving the better interpretation to another’s statements" or "giving someone the benefit of the doubt," and "being compassionate," were all ways of exercising this care within the retreat.

How was Ignatius inspired to emphasize this kind of “care of the person”? He had experienced this kind of care from God. Just as he constructed the last prayer exercise in the Spiritual Exercises as the contemplation on the way that God loves so that we might be graced to love similarly, so he realized that essential to this way of loving was the care that God employs in relating to each one of us. If we want to love as God loves, then this kind of personal care must be part of our way of interacting with one another.

Ignatius’s experience of God was just that — personal care. From God’s creative act, Ignatius had a sense of God’s taking great care to make himself known to each person through his creation and to enable each person to have the happy choice of responding to this God of loving gifts. From his contemplation on the life of Christ, Ignatius heard again clearly the call that Jesus makes to every man, woman, and child to be with him and to work with him to make the Kingdom more present in our world. Jesus’ call is a personal one — to be heard and recognized in the depths of one’s being.

For Ignatius, it is necessary for us to learn how to listen to God’s way of speaking. I learn to recognize God’s desires in and for me by the deep desires I find within myself. This language — often wordlessly spoken between two lovers’ hearts — is the essence of finding the direction we want our lives to take. For Ignatius, taking the time to discern was all a part of the process of my receiving from God and my giving back to God a loving response of “doing God’s will.”

The giving and receiving of human interaction is a mirror of our relationship with God, a giving and receiving. As we focus on Jesus giving himself over during the Third Week of the Spiritual Exercises, the week of Christ’s Passion, we have the prime example of the human reciprocal relation to God. We often don’t think of God as waiting to receive anything. After all, God is God and doesn’t need anything. But God, in his personal care for each one of us and in God’s desire to share eternal life with us, waits to receive our human response of the total gift of self back to God. And so, as Ignatius showed us, God, the giver of all good gifts, waits to receive our gift of love, our expression of “personal care.” In every Eucharist, we are invited by Jesus to act out how God and we are in a giving and receiving relationship. In every Eucharist, we are sent forth to respond in a cura personalis way-of-acting in every human relationship.

God also experiences our personal care in the way that we treat one another. What we do for the littlest one we do for God. For Ignatius, then, the second half of the great commandment is to have and express love for our neighbor in personal care. If there is truth in the reputation that Jesuits have had as good confessors and effective teachers and practical preachers, it finds its roots in the Ignatian emphasis on God’s relationship to us as cura personalis.

Today in the study and spread of Ignatian spirituality, a phrase that seemed so internal to Jesuit religious life has given expression to an essential part of the Ignatian way of living our Christian life. We receive now a renewed appreciation of God’s personal care for us, and we are inspired to exercise our own way of loving care of the persons that God puts into our lives.

Jesuit Bulletin
Fall 2009

Walking Together in Faith

by Fr. Dominic Maruca, S.J.
Ignatian Imprints - Summer 09

For more than 45 years the mission entrusted to me by the Society of Jesus has been one of caring for persons seeking some kind of spiritual help. In carrying out this mission I’ve responded to requests to minister throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, the South Pacific and South America. The assistance people were seeking covered a wide range of relationships that cannot be placed neatly into tidy boxes. The terms “guidance, counseling, psychotherapy, spiritual direction, spiritual conversation” are used by many interchangeably; they can at times overlap. I have learned over a long span of years how important it is to establish contractual clarity. I asked, quite simply: “What precisely is it you’re seeking in coming for help? Am I the best person to assist you as you seek to satisfy this need?” This eliminated misunderstanding, frustration, anger, and disappointment. Let me indicate how I learned to arrive at such clarity.

Asking questions
I took my cue from the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber: he observed that God regularly began a conversation by asking a question: Of Adam: “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). Of Elijah: “Why are you here?” (1 Kings 19:10). Jesus of Nazareth asked Andrew and John: “What are you looking for?” (John 1:38).

I usually asked these three questions to persons who came to me for some kind of assistance. After they had spent some time in prayerful reflection, I listened to what they had to say. Depending on where persons saw themselves, we would decide together whether I should be the one to guide and accompany them on the stage of life’s journey they had reached.

At times we decided that it would be advisable for them to consult someone better qualified than I to meet their needs and expectations. For example, a person suffering from some deep disorder or psychic conflict clearly would sense they would be best helped by someone trained in a specialized program, professionally supervised and formally certified. They needed frequent meetings scheduled at regular intervals with clearly defined roles and boundaries. They of course expected to pay a fee and saw themselves as patients. I regularly referred them to professionally trained therapists for treatment.

Fellow pilgrims
Most persons who came to me, however, seemed to be looking for spiritual companionship, accompaniment or direction. They didn’t want counseling or psychotherapy. They were more comfortable with an atmosphere of friendly exchange; of intimate personal sharing that could have profound spiritual significance.

In such circumstances, I preferred to be viewed as a fellow pilgrim on life’s journey. Like them, I was walking in faith, as God gradually illumined the path ahead of me. I insisted that I too had to take one step at a time. Like them, I was in the lengthy process of growing in intimate communion with God. Such interaction is characterized by some as spiritual conversation rather than as spiritual direction. Terminology was not my concern if the relationship was authentic and clearly beneficial.

My purpose in relating this experience is to raise, perhaps, a question in your mind. Has God provided you with the right qualities, the necessary disposition to minister to others as a companion? How can you know whether you’re called to this ministry to others?

Well, ask yourself: “Have I been trying to live my baptismal commitment faithfully over the years? Have I reflected prayerfully over my experience? Have I been praying over the daily liturgical readings? Have I faithfully participated in the Church’s worship celebrations? Have I availed myself of retreats and workshops and tried to clarify my lived experience through guided reading and consultation?”

If your answers to these and similar questions are humbly affirmative, perhaps God is calling you to become a spiritual companion for others.

I personally acknowledge that you as a layperson – single or married, separated, divorced or widowed – may be better qualified than I as a priest and a consecrated religious to accompany persons who are searching for God as you are searching.

The fabric of faith is fashioned by the interweaving of many strands of life. Is God perhaps inviting you to serve as an instrument for guiding and encouraging others? They may find themselves disoriented and discouraged, but they’re trying to discern how to walk with God. Perhaps what you are struggling with or have suffered can have salvific significance for someone else. Is God inviting you to share with others the gifts entrusted to you?

Emmaus experience
By way of conclusion, allow me to dwell on what is called the Emmaus experience, after the way in which Jesus ministered to his disoriented disciples when they were walking away from Jerusalem (cf. Luke 24:13-36) . This scene is one of my favorite stories because over the years, I’ve found that walking, talking and dining together can be a most pleasant human experience!

May I suggest that when someone isn’t in need of professional psychotherapy – and let’s presume that there isn’t always such a need! – could it be that what that person may really need is a friendly invitation to go for a walk with you? As you walk along, you may begin to talk about what both of you find deep in your hearts. As you walk along and talk, perhaps a Third Presence will emerge from the shadows and fall into step with you. After listening patiently to you, that Presence may enter into your conversation. Perhaps as you hear again the story of his life and suffering, things begin to fall into place. Perhaps your hearts will begin to burn within you. Like the two disciples, you will recognize that everyone who is anointed by the Spirit of God must follow the path pioneered by Jesus Christ.

As you observe that the evening shadows in your life are lengthening, you may invite this mysterious Presence to abide with you and dine with you. Perhaps as you are breaking bread, recognition will dawn on you. Instead of being disoriented and discouraged, you may find yourselves able to make sense of your own life and suffering.

With the light of faith, you may recognize that all of us are called to live through the Paschal Mystery: to die and rise with Jesus as was symbolized in our baptism. The two disciples became ecstatic –which doesn’t mean a loss of consciousness, but a loss of absorbing, depressing self-consciousness. They found it easy to return joyfully to Jerusalem, which is the living Church. After walking and talking and dining together, you may feel like doing the same!

If you’re attracted by this prospect of walking along the way to Emmaus together with others, look around. Is there someone to whom you might reach out? Someone you can call? Is there someone you would like to invite to go for a walk with you? St. Ignatius Loyola, after spending some years as a solitary adventurer, found it more enjoyable to go through life arm in arm with companions; that is how the Company of Jesus came to be. Ask St. Ignatius Loyola to help you discern whether God is calling you to embark on a similar mission.

Fr. Maruca is professor emeritus of the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome.
He is currently engaged in conducting retreats and giving spiritual direction.

Fr Faricy, SJ - Growing in discernment

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