The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [8]
—Jerónimo Nadal, S.J., one of the early Jesuits
The founder of the Society of Jesus was ambitious, hardworking, and practical. “Saint Ignatius was a mystic,” wrote William James, the American philosopher, “but his mysticism made him one of the most powerfully practical human engines that ever lived.” At every juncture, he fought for the Society of Jesus. But he was also flexible. Thanks to his spiritual practices, Ignatius enjoyed remarkable interior freedom: he considered himself “detached” about even the Jesuit Order. He once said that if the pope ever ordered the Jesuits to disband, he would need only fifteen minutes in prayer to compose himself and be on his way.
Still, it was probably a good thing that he wasn’t around in 1773, when the Holy See did disband the Jesuits. A welter of European political powers forced the pope to suppress the Society, mainly because they thought its universality and devotion to the papacy impinged upon their own sovereignty. Pope Clement XIV formally issued a document of “suppression,” abolishing the Society of Jesus. (The empress Catherine the Great, no fan of Clement, refused to promulgate the decree in Russia, thus legally keeping the Jesuits alive.)
After four decades, the political winds changed, and the Jesuits, many of whom had kept in close touch with one another in the intervening years, were officially “restored” in 1814. Not everyone was happy about the restoration of the Society of Jesus. Two years later, John Adams wrote breathlessly to Thomas Jefferson. “I do not like the late resurrection of the Jesuits,” he wrote, “shall we not have swarms of them here, in as many shapes and disguises as ever a king of gypsies . . . himself assumed?”
THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES AND THE CONSTITUTIONS
While he was busy writing the Constitutions, Ignatius was also putting the finishing touches on his classic text, The Spiritual Exercises, his manual for a four-week period of meditation on the life of Jesus, first published in 1548. And to understand what follows in this book, you have to know something about the Spiritual Exercises, the primary gift of Ignatius to the world. (Hereafter, references to the text of The Spiritual Exercises will be italicized; references to overall experience of the Spiritual Exercises will be left in plain text.)
The Spiritual Exercises
The Exercises are organized into four separate sections, which Ignatius calls “weeks.” One version calls for a person to withdraw from daily life for four weeks of meditation, with four or five prayer periods daily. Today this version is usually done in a retreat house, where the retreatant is guided by a spiritual director. So the Spiritual Exercises are usually made over the course of a full month. (Often you’ll hear Jesuits refer to the Thirty-Day Retreat or the Long Retreat.)
But Ignatius wanted as many people as possible to enjoy the Exercises, so he included several notes, or annotations, in his text for the sake of flexibility. Some people might not be ready for the whole Exercises, he wrote, so they could complete them only in part. Others might profit from having the insights of the Exercises taught to them. In his nineteenth annotation, he suggests that those involved in “public affairs or pressing occupations” could do the Exercises over a longer period while continuing with their daily responsibilities. Rather than praying for one month straight, you might pray for one hour a day and stretch the retreat over several months. Today this is called the 19th Annotation Retreat or the Spiritual Exercises in Daily Life.
As John W. O’Malley, the eminent Jesuit historian, wrote in his study of the early years of the Society, The First Jesuits, “Ignatius’s most fundamental teaching was that individuals had to find the way that suited them best.”
The Exercises follows a careful plan, which is based on