We’re reflecting on freedom in this first week of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure. Ignatius has a radical view of spiritual freedom. He says that to be truly free, we shouldn’t worry about whether we are healthy or sick, rich or poor. It shouldn’t even matter whether we have a long life or a short one.
Is that possible? Here’s a video with my thoughts about it.
If you’re receiving this through e-mail, click through to watch the video Becoming Free.
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
I love this! I am listening to it a second time and then will listen to it yet again! Thank you!
Thank you for answering one of the questions that has been on my mind lately – how to live a detached life.
May God be very present to each of us during this season of Lent.
It’s great. Detachment is. Especially when it extends to living free of excess furniture, junk, shopping trips, etc etc etc. Love it. Love it. Love it.
A fabulous presentation. Thank you.
Thanks, Jim, for sharing in such an accessible way St. Ignatius’s great wisdom. Freedom is more than “just another word for nothing left to lose.” It’s living into who God dreams us to be. Happy Fat Tuesday!
Thanks everybody. I’m pretty new at video. I’m glad you like it. More videos are coming.
Thanks, Jim. What a profound spiritual principle! So simple and yet so amazingly difficult to live out. I used to think of disordered attachments as the enemy, but I’ve come to see that they are generally a good that got waylaid. What I love about Ignatian spirituality is that it trusts the human and yet is not in any way naive. The other thing I have learned about disordered attachments is that for the biggies, I need the grace of God to help me move to freedom. I’m woefully inadequate prying my own hands from these security blankets. Lent couldn’t be coming at a better time!
I think I’ve watched it 12 times by now.
Great job! Disordered attachment…it certainly goes with praying for the grace of an increase in personal love and trust in God. I truly love this. Most of all I love how it all comes together so seamlessly. Thanks
Genie
First of all, thanks a lot for the web/resource/site. I started with the adventure 3 days ago and I feel I have discovered a treasure.
The video is great! Thanks to all the team that is developing all of this.
Let me transmit one doubt and ask for some help. In the reflection of the 3rd day of the first week, it says People who are spiritually free know who they are—with all of their gifts and limitations—and are comfortable with who they are
What does it mean? Do we have to be ‘comfortable’ (as a synonimous of happy, accepting, conform…) with our limitations? Do not we have to fight (may be it is a too strong word) to overcome them? For instance, if I recognize that one of my limitations is lazyness (or a person with prejudices, resentments,fears …) does ‘spirtually free’ mean that I have to be comfortable with that instead of trying to become diligent? How should I understand that of ‘being comfortable with owns limitations’?
Thank you for any answer
While I haven’t watched the video I recognize that sentence to mean accept yourself for who you are warts and all. It means we can be only as perfect as a mortal can be and that the negative spirits (of which resentment is my favourite apparently, fears, etc will always pull at us to pay attention to them and follow along the wrong-path. We don’t fight to overcome, we recognize that we can do nothing without God (that is how the twelve steps got started)– we ask God to help us and then we continue on as if he is working on us which He is of course.
Now if I could only practise what I preach. I managed to remember all of that for a whole ten minutes today….
Thanks! I think you did a great job with video and am looking forward to more.
Pilgrim — Thanks for your question. It’s a good one.
A spiritual director I know says that Ignatius hoped that people would come out of the First Week of the Spiritual Exercises with the feeling that we are “beloved sinners.” That is, we come to know how serious sin is, but we also know that God loves us, and has done what’s necessary to redeem us from sin.
I think that’s what the Week 1, Day 3 reflection is getting at: People who are spiritually free know who they are—with all of their gifts and limitations—and are comfortable with who they are. We come to know ourselves, including our “disordered attachments,” but we don’t despair. God loves us and will free us. Of course becoming truly free requires a lot of work on our part too.
Not sure where to post this comment – but you might be interested in knowing that the Ignatian Prayer Adventure is highlighted on the RevGalBlogPals list of resources today (http://revgalblogpals.blogspot.com/2012/02/wednesday-festival-ash-wednesday-and.html) — looks like several of us are following you.
Thanks for letting us know, Robin!