The Audacity of Desire

Editor’s note: Throughout July, we’re hosting 31 Days with St. Ignatius, a month-long celebration of Ignatian spirituality. In addition to the calendar of Ignatian articles found here, posts on dotMagis this month will explore the theme of “The Audacity of Ignatian Spirituality.”

In the Ignatian view, desire is the engine that drives the train. Without desire we would never get up in the morning. We would never learn anything or build a relationship. We would never love God or anyone else. Love happens in the heart, not the mind, and the key to the heart is desire. I should “ask for what I want,” says St. Ignatius in the Spiritual Exercises. For him, growing in the spiritual life is a matter of cultivating desires.

That’s a pretty audacious idea. Most religious traditions view desire with deep suspicion. For Buddhists, desire is the source of suffering. Stoics, both ancient and modern, shun desire. Christian moralists shake a stern finger at desire, especially sexual desires. But Ignatius thought that we should not suppress our desires but bring them into the light of awareness where they could be understood, mastered, and, if need be, healed.

Often, we need to dig into our desires to find out what they really mean. Consider Rick Blaine, the cynical proprietor of Rick’s Café Americain in the movie Casablanca. Rick loves Ilsa Lund. He thinks love means that he is to have her for his own; he discovers that truly loving her means giving her up. Or take Ebenezer Scrooge, the bitter miser in A Christmas Carol, who desires peace of mind. He thinks this means being left alone, without the nuisance and pain of relationships; the three ghosts show him that the peace he desires is to be found in human warmth and affection.

The great Jesuit psychologist William Barry writes, “Scratch any of these desires a little, even the seemingly most self-centered and materialistic, and we will find that we want to know something about God and his relationship to us.”

Desire is at the center of Ignatian discernment. Ignatius says that our deepest desires have been put into our hearts by God. When we know what they are, and when we know what we really want, we know what God wants.

Discovering what we truly desire is the work of discernment. It forces us to wade into a great swamp of needs, expectations, demands, fears, yearnings, and moods. In the Ignatian view, desires are not good or bad, unworthy or worthy, harmful or helpful. They are ordered or disordered. They are in the right place, or they are out of place.

It’s a simple distinction that’s hard to put into practice. What’s the place of money in your life? You need to make money. How much do you need? How much effort should you spend to get it? Good health is important. How important? How much time should you spent on fitness? On healthy food? On avoiding infections?

A rule of thumb is to look at the direction the desire takes us. A desire is disordered when it turns inward. Some of our desires are to possess things: the nice home, the big job, the well-deserved vacation. Other desires lead us out of ourselves. We desire to share our life with another person, to create something that doesn’t yet exist, to make a home, or to help others satisfy their desires. These are the deeper desires—to give, not possess; to share, not to hold.

To get the most out of your desires, reflect on them regularly. On the micro level: Which of the things you desire are needs, and which are wants? Which take too much time? Which are satisfying, and which are not? On the macro level: What great desires are you pursuing? What’s the purpose of your work? What needs to be done in your family? What do you want to do to make your community a better place?

A genie appears and invites you to ask for anything you want. What would you say? For what would you sacrifice everything? What do you really want? That’s what God wants.

Photo by Alexis Fauvet on Unsplash.

Today in 31 Days with St. Ignatius, explore Three Ways to Pray Ignatian by Vinita Hampton Wright. Have you been enjoying this series? Share with #31DayswithIgnatius on social media.