There’s an old saying that we should “pray as if everything depends on God, work as if everything depends on you.”  It’s been attributed to Ignatius (though there’s no evidence that he said it), and many think it captures the Ignatian spirit: turning it all over to God in prayer and then working tirelessly and urgently to do God’s work.  I prefer to reverse it: “pray as if everything depends on you, work as if everything depends on God.”  This means that prayer has to be urgent: God has to do something dramatic if everything depends on me.  It also puts our work in the right perspective: if it depends on God, we can let it go.  We can work hard but leave the outcome up to him.  If God is in charge we can tolerate mixed results and endure failure.

Ignatius writes about work and human effort in a letter to an aristocrat named Jerome Vines, whom I imagine was a busy, hard-charging, Type A character who was getting upset about the fate of his many projects.  A busy man, Ignatius writes, “must make up his mind to do what he can, without afflicting himself if he cannot do all that he wishes. You must have patience and not think that God our Lord requires what man cannot accomplish.”  He concludes with this: “There is no need to wear yourself out, but make a competent and sufficient effort, and leave the rest to him who can do all he pleases.”

This is a guest post by Dawn Eden, author and blogger at The Dawn Patrol.

Dawn Eden

In St. Ignatius Loyola’s Suscipe, the prayer for perfect charity that appears toward the end of his Spiritual Exercises, we find important clues to the nature of the saint’s own spiritual journey:

“Take, O Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my whole will …”

The first thing Ignatius offers God is his liberty. Wanting to live for God instead of for himself, he gives up his freedom to act, so that he might say with St. Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20).

Then comes the aspect of the Suscipe prayer that is perhaps the most striking. Having given his freedom, Ignatius seeks to give God his mind and heart. What is the first part of his inner self that he offers? It is his memory.

In Ignatius’s understanding of the human mind, the concept of memory refers to more than just particular memories. Memory includes everything that had entered into his consciousness to make him who he was—whether or not he could actually remember it. It forms the foundation of his present identity, including his hopes for his future.

This is an ancient way of understanding memory, dating back at least to St. Augustine, and it makes particular sense for one who has survived trauma—as Ignatius had, having been wounded during his military days. Often in trauma survivors (and this holds regardless of whether the trauma was the result of sexual abuse or military combat) the brain attempts to protect itself by consigning painful swaths of the past to areas where memory’s tendrils cannot reach them. Yet the memories of traumatic events, whether present to us or not, remain part of us.

That is why there is something very beautiful about St. Ignatius offering his memory to God. The saint acknowledges there are things he cannot change—the events of his past—and at the same time displays the bold hope that his Maker will accept him as he is now, with everything he did and everything that was done to him. Such is true abandonment to divine providence—joyfully accepting in your own life the truth encapsulated in the old proverb, “God writes straight with crooked lines.”

The fathers of the Second Vatican Council, writing of Christ’s Passion, said that “the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery.” Ignatius discovered in his own life that the Holy Spirit was able to use all the experiences that had shaped him—all the traumas he endured, as well as the mistakes he made along the way—to bring him to the love of Christ.

Excerpted from My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints by Dawn Eden. Copyright 2012. Ave Maria Press Notre Dame, IN. All rights reserved.

Every time the story of Ignatius Loyola is told, the teller of the tale mentions that he was a soldier and that he was wounded in battle.  But then the speaker hurries on to what happens next–his conversion during his year-long recovery from terrible battle wounds.

Writer Dawn Eden thinks we should pause a moment and reflect on what Ignatius experienced as a soldier.  She suggests that he was a trauma survivor. Fighting was often hand-to-hand.  Men killed other men with swords, pikes, axes, and knives.  Ignatius must have experienced intense terror and witnessed horrific carnage. Such things cause deep emotional and spiritual wounds.  This is something that was always known but seldom talked about, and to our knowledge, Ignatius never talked about it.

I wonder how Ignatius’s battle experiences affected him.  Trauma survivors often feel responsible for the horrific things they experienced.  Could this be a factor in the bouts of morbid scrupulosity Ignatius suffered?  Survivors are often tormented by memories.  Ignatius was careful to include his memories in the things he gave back to God (“Take, O Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my whole will.”)  Those who heal from trauma have a profound sense of having come a long way from a very dark place.  Can we detect this in Ignatius’s deep sense of gratitude to God?

Possibly so.  In the Spiritual Exercises Ignatius strives to help us understand that we are sinners who are redeemed and loved by God.  He may have been able to do this because he experienced it in a place where most of us don’t go.

Image by Arutemu under Creative Commons License.

A while back, I felt deflated when I discovered that the wonderful Prayer of St. Francis (“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace”) wasn’t written by Francis at all.  It was written in 1912 by a writer for a small French Catholic magazine.  My disappointment wasn’t on the level of discovering the truth about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, but it stung a bit.  I wish Francis had written it in the 13th century.

So imagine how I felt when I found out that something similar is likely true of St. Ignatius’s wonderful prayer for generosity.  You know it, I’m sure:

Lord, teach me to be generous,
to serve you as you deserve,
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to look for any reward,
save that of knowing that I do your holy will.

Turns out that no one can find any reference to this prayer before 1897.  The oldest publication of it dates from 1910, where it appeared as “The Scout’s Prayer” in a French Boy Scout manual.  The author is unknown, but no one who has looked into the matter thinks that it was Ignatius.  British Jesuit Jack Mahoney has all the details on the website ThinkingFaith.org.

I’ve prayed the Prayer for Generosity many times, thinking that Ignatius wrote it.  Does it matter that he didn’t?

I don’t think so.  It’s a great prayer. It expresses wholehearted commitment, a desire to imitate Christ, a generous spirit, and a readiness to work hard–all sentiments associated with Ignatian spirituality and the Spiritual Exercises.  They fit Ignatius perfectly.  You feel like he could have written that prayer, just as St. Francis could have written the prayer attributed to him.

Maybe Ignatius didn’t write the Prayer for Generosity in the sixteenth century.  But the spiritual movement he started was healthy enough in the twentieth century to produce a prayer that sounds just like him.  That’s impressive.

Image by elyse under Creative Commons license.

The radical change in Ignatius’s conversion story—his stark change from military man to extreme follower of Christ—intrigues young adults. I cannot count the number of times that a retreatant has approached me on a Charis retreat to find out more about this part of Ignatius’s story. As I share it with them, I often find us laughing at the length that Ignatius went to try to follow Christ and imitate St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic.

One of my favorite stories to share, because of the response young adults have to it, is the story of Ignatius on the donkey and the Moor, who “bad-mouthed” the Virgin Mary. It is in this story that we understand the depth of Ignatius’s pride and at times, what seems now, an almost foolish trust in God. Who would really allow a donkey to decide if a person should live or die?

While we may laugh at parts of Ignatius’s conversion story, there is much within his story to teach us about following Christ. Most often I find us savoring the reality that God called a layman of intense vanity and pride to be one of his followers. Ignatius, sinful like us, impacted people not only of his time, but continually impacts people today with his legacy of the Exercises and his profound relationship with Christ. Ignatius inspires confidence in me and young adults to follow Christ, despite our flaws.

How is Christ calling us today, as graced sinners, to follow him?

One of my greatest joys in life is journeying with those in their 20s and 30s in my work with Charis Ministries, and even more specifically, sharing with them the gifts and joys of Ignatian spirituality. At the beginning of every Charis retreat, we take the time to share St. Ignatius’s story. I am always amazed at how much his story speaks to the young adults and how much they find encouragement and inspiration in Ignatius’s story.

To begin with, Ignatius’s conversion happened when he was a young adult and a layman. Instantly, this opens up the reality that we are invited, as Ignatius was, into a relationship with God right now as we are in our 20s and 30s. His conversion story did not happen after years of theological training or years of religious education; rather, it happened in the prime of his military career. What does that say to young adults? God wants us now, and if Ignatius could make the radical change as a young adult to follow Christ, then we can also right now. Caitlin, a 22-year-old college student, captures this reality when she says:

What inspires me the most about Ignatius is the humanness of his story. The humanness and the humility that his conversion story ends with are inspiring. It seems that if he can overcome the life he was living to find Christ, our journey can’t be that far.

The question that Ignatius’s story invites all of us, not just young adults, to consider is, “Am I aware of the depth of God’s desire for a relationship with me right now?”

In 1534, Ignatius and his companions went to the church of Sainte Pierre in the village of Montmartre north of Paris, and  took vows to work together as a company.  It was an important moment because this band of brothers soon became the first Jesuits.  When my wife and I went to Paris a couple of weeks ago to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary, I was eager to visit this spot.

On the day we visited, Sainte Pierre didn’t look much like the church in the painting by Maurice Utrillo above.  Trucks and cars were parked in front and the small courtyard was filled with booths for a street fair.  We were stunned when we walked inside.  An experimental video with some disturbing imagery was playing on a screen in front of the altar, accompanied by a loud and harsh sound track.  The video was part of an arts festival.  Either the pastor or a friend of his had created it; our French wasn’t good enough to fully understand the explanation from a somewhat chagrined church secretary.

This wasn’t what I was expecting.  I was disappointed and a little angry. But then Ignatius and his companions didn’t get what they were expecting either when they made their vows.  They thought that God would send them to serve in the Holy Land.  They implemented Plan B — putting themselves at the disposal of the pope — when travel to the Holy Land proved impossible.

Things change.  Montmartre was a quiet village on a hill overlooking Paris when the companions made their vows in 1534.  No doubt they wanted a quiet place to pray and reflect.  Today Montmartre is a lively, noisy place with throngs of Parisians and tourists enjoying the restaurants, cafes, and art galleries.  It’s a place well-suited to the Ignatian spirit.

We went back to Sainte Pierre a few days later when the arts festival was over.  The video was gone.  The church was quiet.  The light was soft. (At the left is stained glass window depicting St. Ignatius.)  It was a good time to thank God for what happened here in 1534.

A group of lay people and Jesuits have set up a new pilgrimage route in Spain that should appeal to walkers and cyclists with an Ignatian bent.  It’s called the Camino Ignaciano (the Ignatian “way” or “road”). It’s the route St. Ignatius walked in 1522 after his conversion.  It begins at his family’s home in Loyola and ends in the town of Manresa, where he began to put together the book that would become the Spiritual Exercises.

The route is about 340 miles long.  The pilgrimage team (which includes my friend Chris Lowney) has mapped the route, divided it into 27 daily walking segments, and cataloged hostels and services along the way. All this information can be found in five languages at the website caminoignaciano.org.

Anyone who walks the route for five consecutive days in the next two years will be enrolled as a “pioneer” pilgrim.

Ten years ago I traveled this route by bus when I made an Ignatian pilgrimage.  The countryside in this part of Spain is gorgeous and diverse–mountains, fertile land, rivers, even a desert.  2022 will be the 500th anniversary of Ignatius’s trek.  By then the team expects the Camino Ignaciano to be well-established.

Human life has meaning. We are not aimless beings, without a goal or purpose. We have been created by a God who loves us. We are called to build the Kingdom of God by knowing, loving and serving God and other people and thus entering life everlasting.

While some people view “the world”  as a religious desert, Ignatius was convinced that the world is filled with the Spirit of God,  and that the Risen One has conquered the world which was hostile to God.

God calls each and every one of us to share in a great enterprise. The lay person has a vocation, just as the religious and the priest has. The one thing that matters is to recognize our calling and respond to it faithfully. This is not something theoretical. It means rather that our lives should be centered on a person – the person of Christ.

Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, SJ

Ignatius Loyola, writing to a friend who said that lies that are being circulated about him:

I am not at all surprised at this, not even if it were worse than it is.  For just as soon as you determined to bend every effort to secure the praise, honor, and service of God our Lord, you declared war against the world. You our Lord, you declared war against the world. . . .

If we wish absolutely to live in honor and to be he in esteem by our neighbors, we can never be solidly rooted in God our Lord, and it will be impossible for us to remain unscathed when we meet their affronts.

My prayer for you is that you accept these affronts with patience and constancy. Remember the insults that Christ our Lord suffered for us.

I would rather fix my attention on one fault that I had committed than on all the evil that might be said of me.