The Ignatian song this week is “In the Presence of the Lord,” a bluesy-rock number written by Eric Clapton, the undisputed master of bluesy-rock. The lyrics are the singer’s simple declaration that “I have finally found a way to live . . . In the presence of the Lord.” The tune is the kind that [...]
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Van Morrison says that his song “Have I Told You Lately that I Love You” is a prayer to God. It’s an Ignatian song: its style is conversational, it’s full of gratitude, and the lyrics echo the Contemplation on the Love of God at the end of the Spiritual Exercises: There’s a love that’s divine [...]
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Optimism is a distinctive note of Ignatian spirituality. We trust the goodness of God, who is at work in his creation. As Billy Preston put it: All things are God given And they have all been blessed That’s the way God planned it That’s the way God wants it to be Preston was one of [...]
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I recently read an article in which the author argues that suffering is often a necessary part of Ignatian discernment. A painful situation spurs us on to make a change. Achieving the spiritual freedom necessary to choose well can be a wrenching and lengthy process. That’s the theme of the song “Anthem,” written by Leonard [...]
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My Ignatian song pick this week pays homage to one of the greatest songwriters. He’s Bob Dylan, and the song is the haunting and enigmatic classic “All Along the Watchtower.” Dylan wrote it and performed it in the sixties, and it’s been covered by Jimi Hendrix, U2, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and other rockers. The [...]
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Ignatius Loyola experienced a profound mystical vision on the banks of the Cardoner river in northern Spain. He did not describe it any detail. He merely remarked in his autobiography that he learned more about God in the brief moments of this vision than he did in years of study and prayer. The vision seems [...]
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Christ is at the center of Ignatian spirituality. Much of the Spiritual Exercises consists of meditations on the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus. The first of these is a meditation on Jesus’ birth. In David Fleming’s paraphrase: To be able to enter into the deep-down stillness of this night, to be able to [...]
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“My City of Ruins” became both an elegy of grief and an anthem of hope in the months following the terror attacks on 9/11. It was the final song on Bruce Springsteen’s album “The Rising,” which was released not long after the attacks. The album, and especially “My City of Ruins,” spoke to pain of [...]
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“We should not fix our desires on health or sickness, wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or a short one,” writes Ignatius Loyola at the beginning of the Spiritual Exercises. Our one desire should be to “choose what better leads to God’s deepening life in me.” That’s the basic idea of “The [...]
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Some years ago NASA was building a planetary probe that would eventually sail out of the solar system into the vastness of interstellar space. The thought occurred that a space-faring alien civilization might possibly find the little satellite some day. NASA decided to pack it with samples of the greatest works of human culture so [...]
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