Saturday is a big day in the Ignatian calendar–it’s the Feast of St. Ignatius Loyola.  To mark the day, we’re giving away five copies of the book Compass Points by Margaret Silf.  To have a chance to win, just leave a comment here on this post before midnight on Saturday, July 31.  We’ll pick five winners with a random drawing.

You can say anything you want in your comment.  But, if you would care to, you might say something about St. Ignatius.  How has he inspired you?  What is your favorite story about him?

You might know Margaret Silf as the author of Inner Compass, a fine introduction to Ignatian spirituality.  She is a columnist for America magazine and a well-known spiritual director.  Compass Points is her latest book.

You can increase your chances of winning a book by entering an identical contest at People for Others, our sister blog, maintained by Paul Campbell SJ.

Something to think about | Ignatius felt that the ironic and satirical writings of people such as Erasmus undermined the morale of the Church, the Community. So his Tenth Guideline [362] advises the retreatant to be more inclined to praise than to blame and to deal privately with those able to address the problem in the Community. In today’s world, this inclination to praise rather than blame and always assume the person is operating out of sincere motives, is sorely needed. It seems that not only in the Church, but in all of society, we are quick to find fault and blame. We hardly take the time to really listen to what a person is saying before we are already preparing rebuttals. We seem to have forgotten that we are all part of the Great Work, that all persons are an expression of God’s loving presence — even those whose opinions are totally different than ours. They are still expressing some truth. And we need to look for the truth and build together on that foundation rather than focus on differences and tear each other apart.

Pat Carter
Ignatius of Loyola: Model for Lay Spirituality

It’s July, the month of high summer (in the Northern Hemisphere) and the month of St. Ignatius Loyola, whose spiritual ideas we celebrate here at IgnatianSpirituality.com.  Ignatius’s feast day is July 31.  Loyola Press has assembled a collection of reflections, insights, prayers, blog posts, and article excerpts for every day of the month.

Here is the list. Today’s good idea is an invitation to browse the “What Is Ignatian Spirituality?” section of this website.

The Wall Street Journal admires the Cristo Rey network of schools.

A blog you should check out: Days of Deepening Friendship.  They’re discussing Tim Muldoon’s book, Longing to Love over there.

What happens when Jesuit colleges play each other in basketball.

The Jesuits open seldom-seen houses in Rome, including rooms where Ignatius lived.

A business guru on the takaways from Ignatius (“Be open-minded, form your organization with a purpose, and don’t be afraid to redefine that purpose.”)

Holly Schapker is a young artist in Cincinnati whose paintings inspired by the life of Ignatius Loyola are currently on exhibit at Xavier University.  The painting above is titled “Epiphany Outside Manresa.”  It depicts Ignatius’s vision where “he understood and perceived many things.”  Read an article about the paintings here and a video narrated by Schapker here.

A psychologist named William van Ornum will be writing regularly on America Magazine’s “In All Things” blog about the intersection of Christian faith and psychology.  In his initial post he writes that one common denominator is Ignatius’s exhortation to gratitude: “I will call back into my memory the gifts I have received–my creation, redemption, and other gifts particular to myself. I will ponder with deep affection how much Our Lord God has done for me, and how much he has given of me of what he possesses.”  Van Ornum comments:

The Saint travelled from near suicidal despondency to reach this happier way of thinking, and countless Jesuits over centuries have brought the Lord to those who undertake the exercises. Finally in this 21st century, many in the profession of psychology have finally caught up with Ignatius, offering “positive therapy” or “cognitive psychology” in which we learn how to change our feelings by changing our thoughts.

He asks readers to suggest topics to write about.  Read the whole post and the fascinating suggestions from readers in the comments.

Today is the anniversary of the canonization of Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier in 1622.  Teresa of Avila and Philip Neri were also canonized on that day, making March 12, 1622, possibly the greatest day in the history of canonizations.

The painting above by the Jesuit Andrea Pozzo depicts Ignatius sending Xavier to the missions in the Far East.  They never saw each other again, but their love for each other remained strong.  Xavier once wrote this to Ignatius:

God our Lord knows how much my soul was consoled on receiving news of your life and health, which I cherish so highly…Your Holy Charity has written to me that you have a great desire to see me before you leave this life. God knows what an impression these words of great love made upon my soul, and how many tears they have cost me whenever I recall them; and it seems to me that I shall have this consolation since nothing is impossible to holy obedience.

Ignatius Loyola strides through the snow at the Jesuit Retreat House in Wernersville, Pennsylvania.  Photo by the Law and Gospel blogger.  Go here for more on Ignatian retreats.

Consider this my “overthinking the Super Bowl” post.  (Wait till I get to the Olympics!)

First things first: I’ve always loved sports, and I’ve always enjoyed the Super Bowl.  I just love the pure fun of competition, and at least during my adult life I’ve thought that sport reveals something about the human condition and the human psyche.  (Especially the male psyche; I say this having coached rowing for a number of years, both men and women of all ages.)

As I get older, though, I’m more fascinated by the expression of desire in sport.  Why do we want to win?  Why will the Dwight Freeneys of the world submit themselves to pain just for the chance to play and win?  Why do athletes embrace ascetic practices (askesis comes from the Greek, meaning to exercise) for the sake of glory?

The answer is in Homer’s Iliad.  Describing the soldiers’ anticipation of the war, he describes them “rejoicing,” as if to suggest that the war itself is the place where they will fulfill what their lives are for.  Later, after the death of a key figure, Patroclus, the Greeks pause in the midst of war and celebrate the fallen warrior’s life with Olympic-style games.  War and games are the proving grounds, the arenas within which each man proves his mettle, shows his excellence.  War and games are the place where a man shows his deepest desire: to be worthy of life.

Ignatius knew this.  He was a soldier, and his conversion to a life following Christ was hard precisely because over time he came to understand that he had to re-train his desire.  His early post-conversion life was still rooted in seeking excellence; in his autobiography, for example,  he describes the awkward scene when he was ready to kill a man who had disparaged the Blessed Virgin.  The will to win was still embedded in his psyche, and if it were not for the fact that he let the donkey he was riding on decide which way to go at a fork in the road, he would have committed murder.

Ignatius learned to let go of the desire to win by embracing more and more Christ’s invitation to serve him.  A new form of askesis emerged, a form rooted in Saint Paul’s model of straining for the high calling in Christ Jesus (see Philippians 3:14)–a calling that paradoxically involved letting go of competition.

There is something deeply rooted in the psyche of males, young and old.  Boys wrestle and fight and compete; men want to one-up each other.  War and games are two sides of the same coin of competition for the sake of glory.  What Paul and Ignatius teach us is that the desire to compete is rooted in an even deeper desire.  Underneath the desire to be worthy of life is a desire to know and be known by the author of life, to find radical freedom in the radical obedience to the author of my life.  And that deeper desire cannot be satisfied with competition.  (Achilles, the unsurpassed hero of the Greeks, was miserable.)  It can be satisfied, Ignatius realized, only in a life founded upon the praise, reverence, and service of God, so radically that everything else in life serves that single end.  It culminates not in competition, but in love–not in the attitude of overcoming one’s enemies, but in the sacrifice of self that enables enemies to become friends.  In short, in the imitation of Christ.

I’m three weeks into a new semester of teaching a course on Ignatian Spirituality at Boston College.  It’s an absolute delight, both for the subject matter and the smart students with whom I share it.  I’ll be posting some reflections on our conversations as time goes on.

This week, what sticks with me from last evening’s class is Ignatius’ absolute confidence that God is acting at all times, in so many ways, to get our attention and to move us, through grace, to remove the barriers which keep us from truly knowing God.  We were reading one of Ignatius’ letters (of which there are over six thousand extant; and no, we are not reading them all) in which he was reassuring a woman named Inés Pascual who had lost a friend.  His manner was direct, saying in essence that she had a tough road ahead and that in her sorrow she was vulnerable to losing focus on the end to which God was still calling her.

Ignatius’ tone in the letter suggested a need to keep moving; I suggested an image from his own days as a soldier, in which the experience of a comrade’s death on the battlefield cannot be an excuse for losing sight of the mission.  It’s a somewhat arresting tone to modern ears, accustomed to the well intentioned but often vacuous pieties like “so sorry… God’s taking care of her…know that I’m praying for you….”  Ignatius reminds her that the work of the spiritual life does not stop because we are sad; in fact, it become harder, precisely because sadness may distract us from recognizing the always-present action of God’s grace.

My students raised poignant questions. What did he mean about grief?  About suffering?  Was he denying the reality of suffering?  (Thoughts of Haiti were lurking in the background there.)  Answers, in short: grief is real, but God’s grace is greater.  Suffering is real, but God burrows through to our hearts in the midst of it.  God is always acting.  We may be saddened; grieved; broken; but God seeks to offer comfort, shelter, hope.  Of this Ignatius is absolutely certain.  He wanted Inés to share that confidence and maintain her commitment to God in her time of difficulty.

I find that attitude compelling.  Grief can slide into a kind of selfishness; one uses the experience of pain to draw attention to oneself and elicit from others shows of sympathy.  Ignatius’ counsel is to maintain a focus on God, a focus rooted in the First Principle and Foundation– that God has created us for a purpose, and that grief must not get in the way of our seeking it if we are to find freedom and joy.

Great example: Dan Jansen.  You’ve probably seen the Visa commercial recalling his awesome story: favored to win gold at the Olympics; sister’s death just hours before the race; a tragic fall in the race; trying again in the next games, falling again; trying a third time and winning gold with a world record.  I nearly cry every time I hear his name.  But what an example of keeping focus in spite of grief.  What a compelling analogy for considering the contours of the spiritual life.  God is acting; we must let nothing get in the way of our responding; that is our joy.