The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [79]
GOD COMMUNICATES WITH US in many ways. But prayer is a special time when God’s voice is often heard most clearly because we are giving God our undivided attention. Whether in Ignatian contemplation, lectio divina, the colloquy, the examen, or any other practice, the “still small” voice can be heard with a clarity that can delight, astonish, and surprise you.
So when you pray, however you pray, and feel that God is speaking to you—pay attention.
Chapter Eight
The Simple Life
The Surprising Freedom of Downward Mobility
THAT’S PLENTY ABOUT PRAYER for now. I don’t want you to think that the way of Ignatius is about nothing but hours and hours of prayer. Remember that one of Ignatius’s ideals was the contemplative in action.
So after all that praying, let’s stretch our legs a bit. Let’s talk about how the way of Ignatius will affect your active life, your walking-around life.
And let’s start with three ideas at the heart of the Ignatian vision that strike terror into the hearts of many readers: Poverty. Chastity. Obedience. It would be hard to find three more threatening words.
Everyone wants to avoid poverty, it would seem. Who wants to be poor? Doesn’t everyone want to be as rich, or financially secure, as possible? Work hard and get ahead, right? That’s the motivating force behind capitalism—Adam Smith’s insight that by following self-interest the common good can be best served. The Protestant work ethic and the notion that God will bless those who work diligently with financial success are parts of the warp and woof of American culture. Poverty in this framework is not only something to be avoided, it is shameful.
Voluntary poverty, therefore, sounds absurd, almost un-American to many people.
And chastity? Who doesn’t want sex? Sex is an extraordinary expression of love, and part of a healthy emotional life for most adults. But we inhabit a culture where everything seems to be about having sex, preparing to have sex, or trying to get more sex: prime-time television, magazine ads, popular music, movies, and the Internet. You don’t have to be a prude to admit that we live in a hypersexualized culture. In such an environment chastity is seen as a joke. Or just plain sick.
And obedience? It’s seen almost as “ridiculous” as chastity. In a culture where people rightly celebrate the freedom to do, say, and be what they want, obedience is seen as mind control or, worse, slavery. As Kathleen Norris, author of The Cloister Walk, has written, obedience is viewed by many people as “desirable in dogs but suspect in people.” Why would you let anyone tell you what to do or say or think? And if “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” lies at the foundation of our political system, then obedience also seems un-American to many.
In a culture that celebrates money, sex, and freedom, a religious life of poverty, chastity, and obedience is not only irrelevant but a threat—to the economy, the social fabric, our political system, and an individual’s well-being. All three should be soundly rejected, combated even, by any healthy adult. Right?
Well, not so fast.
Because those are precisely the values that St. Ignatius Loyola and the first Jesuits sought to embrace in the form of a lifelong vow to God.
Why would Ignatius do that? Why do Jesuits still do that?
WHY?
Ignatius did not invent the idea of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The “vowed life” was the longstanding tradition of Catholic religious orders like the Benedictines, Dominicans, and Franciscans centuries before the birth of Ignatius. (All Catholic priests and bishops are expected to live simply, but technically, only members of religious orders take formal vows of poverty.)
Why do members of religious orders do this? Let me give you just two reasons: one theological, the other logistical.
The theological reason is that members of religious orders are trying to emulate Jesus of Nazareth. While Jesus was probably born into the lower middle class, he lived