The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [2]
But there’s one question that would elicit a similar answer from those five hypothetical Jesuits. If asked to define Ignatian spirituality, the first thing out of their mouths would most likely be finding God in all things.
That deceptively simple phrase was once considered revolutionary. It means that nothing is considered outside the purview of the spiritual life. Ignatian spirituality is not confined within the walls of a church. It’s not a spirituality that considers only “religious” topics, like prayer and sacred texts, as part of a person’s spiritual life.
Most of all, it’s not a spirituality that says, “Well, that—whether it’s work, money, sexuality, depression, sickness—is something to avoid when talking about the spiritual life.”
Ignatian spirituality considers everything an important element of your life. That includes religious services, sacred Scriptures, prayer, and charitable works, to be sure, but it also includes friends, family, work, relationships, sex, suffering, and joy, as well as nature, music, and pop culture.
Here’s a story to illustrate this point; it comes from a Jesuit priest named David Donovan, who will be a frequent guest in this book. David served as a parish priest in Boston before he entered the Jesuits at the age of thirty-nine. He was a proud Bostonian “by birth and by choice,” as he liked to say.
After entering the Jesuits, David spent decades studying the spiritual traditions of Ignatius Loyola and, for many years, was responsible for the training of young Jesuits. A tall man who later in life sported a snow-white beard, David was also a trained spiritual director, someone who helps others with their prayer lives and relationships with God.
We first met on the day I entered the Jesuit novitiate in Boston. Over the next two years David served as my own spiritual director, guiding me along the path to God in discussions that were often filled with both laughter and tears.
Because of his extensive training, David was always in demand at retreat houses, seminaries, parishes, and convents across the world. After working in the Jesuit novitiate, he spent four years as spiritual director at the prestigious North American College, the residence where promising American diocesan priests live during their theology studies in Rome. Just a few years ago David died suddenly, from a heart attack, at age sixty-five. At the time of his death, David’s sister estimated he was seeing roughly sixty people for spiritual direction. Much of what I learned about prayer I learned from him.
One afternoon I was struggling with the news of some family problems. But I was assiduously avoiding the topic since it had nothing to do with my “spiritual life.” David sat in his rocking chair, sipping his ever-present mug of coffee, and listened attentively. After a few minutes, he set his mug down and said, “Is there something that you’re not telling me?”
Sheepishly, I told him how worried I was about my family. But wasn’t I supposed to be talking about spiritual things?
“Jim,” he said. “It’s all part of your spiritual life. You can’t put part of your life in a box, stick it on a shelf, and pretend it’s not there. You have to open that box up and trust that God will help you look at what’s inside.”
David’s image always stuck with me. In Ignatian spirituality there is nothing that you have to put in a box and hide. Nothing has to be feared. Nothing has to be hidden away. Everything can be opened up before God.
That’s why this book is called The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything. It’s not a guide to understanding everything about everything (thus the Almost). Rather, it’s a guide to discovering how God can be found in every dimension of your life. How God can be found in everything. And everyone, too.
Here are the kinds of questions that are proper to Ignatian spirituality, which we’ll discuss in the coming chapters:
How do I know what I’m supposed to do in life?
How do I know who I’m supposed to be?
How do I make good