What if that shadowy mystery beyond the span of our years turns out to be the real country to which our earthly days are just the fragmented signposts? What if the unconscious realms in which our conscious minds are floating turn out to be the embryonic sac that is beckoning us toward a reality far beyond imagination? What if that of my life that seems so total, so final, and so absolute turns out to be the map into the hinterland of my eternal reality?

How reluctant we are to let go of the containing walls and risk a life beyond the circumscription. It seems easier to survive the slavery of Egypt than to venture into Sinai, and we convince ourselves that our slavery is freedom and our helplessness is a proud independence. The map changes radically when our walls come down and the real roads, that were always there, though impassable, are opened up. Then the hinterland becomes the heartland, where real life can really be lived.

Margaret Silf
Inner Compass

When one of his students said she was spiritual but not religious, Jason Brauninger, SJ, decided to explain why was both.  His essay was published on the lively JesuitPost.com site.  His main reason?

It’s this: without religion, without a living community of spiritual friends, I simply have no one to hold me up to any standards. There would be no one with a similar set of values or beliefs that could help me become a better person, challenge me to deepen my relationship with God, or even understand me when I have to beg for help from the depths like the psalmist.

Read the whole thing.

The Ignatian man ought to be a saint and he ought to live in complete activity. Previous spirituality opposed these two aspects. Activity seemed to be an obstacle to holiness which was conceived as contemplation. The revolution accomplished by St. Ignatius showed that that which appeared to be an obstacle could become a means. To the heart filled with God, all things speak of Him.

Jean Danielou, SJ

Andy Otto has a fine piece in America about his experiences as a hospital chaplain.  He quotes the Jesuit spiritual writer Daniel Lord, SJ, on suffering: “Perhaps sorrow is not the horrible evil that men have thought it. Perhaps it has some beautiful and deep significance that can be read only by eyes that have looked into the blood-red sun behind Calvary’s hill.” Writes Otto:

“Reeling broken into the arms of God,” writes Father Lord, signals a thirst deep within us that arises frequently from an experience of pain. It is the “I-know-not-what” of St. John of the Cross for which we ache. There is a deep need to fill the emptiness created in sorrow and brokenness. It may begin with a loved one’s embrace or word, but it ends with the mystery of God.

William Barry, SJ, in his book, A Friendship Like No Other, invites us to be aware of our “thin places,” those moments where we easily find God. Barry’s challenge to name for ourselves our “thin places” was a challenge I took to heart, and I have come to two conclusions.

First, there are “thin places” that occur in my life that are unique, special places that I do not get to visit very often, but when I do the felt presence of God is almost overwhelming. Many of mine are places in nature, such as the beach, my grandparents’ farm, and being in the North Georgia Mountains, and they invite me to understand the vastness and creative power of our creator. As I stand and soak in the beauty of nature these places offer, I also find that I understand that my mere presence in life is but one piece of God’s magnificent, ongoing creative work.

Second, as Barry’s question of “thin places” remained on my heart, I found myself pondering it often during my Examen. Over time, I began to realize that there are some very basic rhythms and routines of my life that allowed me to readily and easily find God: snuggling my daughter, Abby, while sipping my morning coffee; sitting down to lunch with my kids after preschool to hear about their day; reading to my kids and our night time ritual of prayer; and savoring the few quieter moments with my hubby after the last door of my kids’ room was closed. I was surprised to find that the rhythms of my life are spotted with moments that easily allow me to find God. Without realizing it, these moments are checkpoints to see how the ones I love are doing and even more importantly “still points” that allow me to savor the gifts in my life and to deepen my awareness of God in all things.

I am sure as I continue to ponder my “thin places,” I will be surprised, yet again, as to where God routinely pops up in my day.

Lisa Kelly looks at the transcendent moments of enlightenment experienced by Ignatius, Mother Teresa, Einstein, and a few others.  These visions can’t really be described, but these mystics speak of similar insights, which she calls “habits of the heart.”  Here’s one:

Get outside yourself—Stop judging and start observing, observing, observing. Be aware of what is going on inside. Ignatius taught his companion to just name what was going on inside and let it be what it is rather than trying to stomp it out or avoid it. He suggested seeing situations from multiple points of view—others in the scene, open to what insights may come from any vantage point, knowing God is in all of them. We are seeking what we don’t know or can’t see rather than reaffirming what we already think.

Many people want to know, and it’s not an easy question to answer.  Here are some things that help.  The late David Fleming, SJ, wrote an excellent small book by that title.  We have a whole section of this website devoted to it.  I like this “top ten” list by Paul Campbell, SJ. Jim Martin, SJ, recently published an essay about Ignatian spirituality in Catholic Digest magazine.

As I enter into an annual silent retreat with students, I am mindful of how great is the gift of silence.  We think too much; we speak too much.  We argue about concepts of God, we use limiting words for God.  To slightly modify a famous phrase from Meister Eckhart: I pray that God would rid us of all these words and thoughts about God!

Thinking is really a pretty terrible way of encountering God.  Words are even worse.  I come around again and again to a deep intuition of Ignatius: sensing, savoring God is what we’re after.  We must taste the bread of the Eucharist.  We must feel the scabbed hands of the leper, smell the deep fresh odor of the baby’s skin, listen to the wind through the trees, be awestruck by the sight of the kingfisher.

Words and thoughts are for helping others experience God, clearing away their obstacles to God.  Too often we pat ourselves on the back for our words and thoughts, though: we give grades, degrees, honors to those who use words well.  We get used to thinking of our intellects as hammers which make everything into a nail, including God.  (That is why atheism is a modern phenomenon, because only in modernity did people start conceiving of their intellects in such a disordered way.)

Words and thoughts are gifts, artful productions.  We must consider them more as something we do in love, rather than as objects we produce.  Today, we use words and thoughts to conquer the world.  We must rather use them to serve the world, to offer them to the world in love.  When I conceive of a thought, I rejoice that God has given me a mind.  When I speak a word, I rejoice that through speaking this word I might draw another to the truth.

“O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.” (Ps 51:15)

Michael Leach, author of Why Stay Catholic, offers five ways to remember the truth “that we all wear the face of Christ in a unique way and that what we do unto anyone else we literally do unto ourselves.”  Here’s the first one:

When standing in line at the checkout I remind myself that the individual in front of me is the Christ and that the injunction to love her as I love myself is literally true. A little miracle happens: I not only love her but like her, and if her credit card is no good or her kohlrabi doesn’t register, I don’t get mad. By the time it is my turn to chat with the dark-eyed checkout girl from Nicaragua I am madly in love.

Read the whole thing.

“What makes us human is precisely our experience of the infinite, the fact that we are never satisfied. We are the subjects of unlimited longing, finding infinity not outside ourselves but within. We ask questions about totality and ultimate meaning, and by so doing find that we are asking the question about God. God and humanity are not rivals. One does not love God less by loving someone more; in reaching out to love another person, we are reaching out for God. To speak about love for God and love for human beings is to speak of the same reality. And in the experience of ourselves as mystery, we experience the absolute mystery that is God.”

Ron Modras
Ignatian Humanism