The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [60]
Five or ten years have gone by without my thinking of Cletus at all, and then something reminds me of him. . . . And suddenly there he is, coming toward me in the corridor of that enormous high school, and I wince at the memory of how I didn’t speak to him. . . . But it isn’t only my failure that I think about. I also wonder about him, about what happened to him.
Feelings are also important. Besides recognizable emotions— like joy and sorrow—more indistinct feelings, like a sense of peace or communion with God, can be signs of God’s voice. You may feel strongly connected with God in a way that may be incommunicable to others but deeply meaningful to you. You experience a strange desire for, coupled with a strange fear of, “I know not what.” Trust those moments, even though they are difficult to explain or, sometimes, understand.
Ignatius himself sometimes found what happened in prayer difficult to communicate. The fragments of his diary for 1544 include phrases like “with flashes of understanding too great to be written down,” “an experiencing . . . that cannot be explained,” and “a wonderful depth of reverence that I find impossible to explain.” Just because you can’t explain it or put it into words, doesn’t mean it’s not real.
Pay attention to physical feelings as well. Recently, I chatted with Matt, a young Jesuit in training, who had just directed a retreat for a group of young adults and spoke with them about how to listen to God. In addition to feelings of peace and comfort, and even inexplicable and incommunicable feelings, Matt added bodily feelings, another indication of God’s presence.
Let’s say you’re reading Psalm 23, which talks about God’s leading you through “green pastures” and “still waters,” and you feel your body relaxing physically. Pay attention. Or you come upon a passage in Scripture that you feel is inviting you to do something that you would rather avoid (like forgive someone) and you start feeling fidgety. What’s going on? Is God speaking to you through your physical reaction? Listen to your body, where God dwells.
Finally—as if we have to mention them again!—come desires. They arise in prayer frequently. There is the desire for God, which makes itself known in the ways we’ve discussed: the desire for holiness, the desire for change and growth in life, and all the desires we described in the past few chapters. Prayer is a key time for holy desires to arise.
In each of these cases it’s helpful to remember the story of Elijah, in the First Book of Kings, who patiently waits in a cave for the manifestation of God. First he hears a great wind, but God is not there. Then an earthquake, but God is not there. Then he sees a fire. But God is not there. Finally there is, as one translator has it, a “still small voice,” and Elijah covers his face, because he understands this as one way God communicates (1 Kings 19:12).
In such “still small” ways as emotions, insights, memories, feelings, and desires, God speaks to us in prayer.
But don’t forget to pay attention to what is going on in your daily life. That’s why the examen is so critical: it helps you listen to your day. Everyday events are perhaps the easiest part of your life to overlook; especially if you’ve been praying for some time you may inadvertently start privileging the contemplative over the active.
Reflecting on our daily lives is also an important way to discover how prayers are answered. Frequently we pray for something that we need and don’t receive what we had asked for. (That should be clear from anyone’s life.) But often we have to listen carefully for God’s response, to that “still small” voice.
We may also ask for something and fail to recognize that God is answering our prayer in a hidden or unexpected way. On that retreat, for example, I asked for an end to loneliness. In God’s response, I received