The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [141]
To use a famous Ignatian image, one should try to be like the “pointer of a balance.” If you’ve ever seen an old metal scale, like the ones used in old-time butcher shops for weighing meats, you’ll remember a metal arrow that points straight up—to zero—when the scale is empty and perfectly at rest. There’s nothing weighing on either side.
This is what Ignatius means. When we begin to make a decision, we should emulate that metal pointer—not leaning in one way or another. You don’t want to imitate the unscrupulous butcher who sticks his thumb on the scale to fudge the weight. That’s cheating. Starting off by assuming that you should decide one way or the other is cheating yourself out of a good choice.
Indifference in decision making is hard to achieve. The fellow planning his marriage found himself in the midst of a serious emotional crisis where indifference seemed nearly impossible. But it is an important goal. Like all things in the spiritual life, while you try to move toward it and strive to be as free as possible, indifference is a result of God’s grace.
IGNATIUS GETS A HAIRCUT
Many of Ignatius’s famous practices for making good decisions came from his own life. The earliest example, as I mentioned, was the insight he received when he was reading the life of Christ and the lives of the saints. After Ignatius thought about emulating the saints, he was filled with peace. When he thought about doing more worldly things (impressing “a certain lady”), he felt dry. Slowly he came to see that this was one way that God was leading him.
Ignatius realized that if you act in accord with God’s desires for you, you will naturally feel a sense of peace. That insight—that following God’s invitation leads to peace—is a central part of Ignatian discernment. If you are in accord with God’s presence within you, you will feel a sense of rightness, of peace, what Ignatius called “consolation.” It is an indication that you’re on the right path.
Conversely, feelings of spiritual “desolation,” which Ignatius describes as movements to “disquiet from various agitations and temptations,” signal that you’re on the wrong path. The thoughts and feelings that spring from consolation and from desolation are contrary to one another. One leads you to the right path, the right action, right relationship with God; the other in the opposite direction.
From the Spiritual Exercises
Since spiritual consolation and desolation are central to Ignatian discernment, let’s look at Ignatius’s original definitions. By consolation he means not only feelings that cause a soul to be “inflamed with love” for God, and even shed tears for the love of God, but also
every increase in hope, faith, and charity, and every interior joy which calls and attracts one toward heavenly things and to the salvation of one’s soul, by bringing it tranquility and peace in its Creator and Lord.
By desolation, Ignatius means feelings that are “contrary” to consolation, that is
obtuseness of soul, turmoil within it, an impulsive motion toward low and earthly things, or disquiet from various agitations and temptations. These move one toward lack of faith and leave one without hope and without love. One is completely listless, tepid, and unhappy, and feels separated from our Creator and Lord.
These feelings, which Ignatius knew from his initial conversion, as well as from years of prayer afterward and his spiritual direction of countless persons, enable us to discern which choices will help lead us closer to God.
This basic element of Ignatian discernment is rooted in the experiences of Ignatius, as well as his observations about how God worked in the lives of others. David Lonsdale, who teaches spirituality at Heythrop College in London, addresses discernment in his book Eyes to See, Ears to Hear. Discernment, says Lonsdale, is about the “spiritual interpretation and evaluation of feelings,