The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [85]
Afterward, Ignatius spent almost a year in seclusion in the small town of Manresa, where he prayed, begged for alms, and fasted. His poverty was extreme.
He begged alms at Manresa every day. He did not eat meat nor drink wine, even though they were offered to him. . . . Because he was very fastidious in taking care of his hair as was the fashion of that time (and his was very handsome), he decided to let it go its way according to nature without combing or cutting it.
He even decided to follow the example of a saint, unnamed, who went for days without food in order to obtain a particular favor from God. Ignatius does this and finds himself “at the extreme limit, so that he would die if he did not eat.” He grows despondent, even suicidal.
Gradually he realizes such severities would not only endanger his health but also prevent him from doing the work he wanted to do. As O’Malley writes, “Ignatius’s personal experience fairly early persuaded him that too severe an understanding of ‘actual poverty’ hindered his attempts ‘to help souls,’ and later he and his colleagues in the Society saw even more clearly the impracticability of such an understanding for the institution they were founding.”
Years later, for example, Ignatius insisted that the Jesuits in training take adequate care of their health in order that they might be able to carry on their work. “A proper concern with the preservation of one’s health and bodily strength for the divine service,” he writes in the Constitutions, “is praiseworthy and should be exercised by all.”
This is why the Ignatian approach to a simple life has been helpful to so many. It does not ask you to become a half-naked, twig-eating, cave-dwelling hermit. It simply invites you to live simply. It is a sensible simplicity. A moderate ascetism. A healthy poverty.
For Ignatius, poverty was not an end in itself. It was: first, a means of identifying with the “poor Christ”; second, a way of freeing oneself up to follow God more easily; and third, a way of identifying with the poor, whom Jesus loved. Overall, poverty was “apostolic,” making Ignatius available for God’s work.
All these things combined to make poverty a critical part of his spirituality and, ultimately, a powerfully life-giving force for him and his followers. As André de Jaer, a Belgian Jesuit and spiritual director, notes in his book Together for Mission, “Beginning as a search for ascetical feats, it quickly matured into a desire to place complete confidence in God alone. When he began to compose the Spiritual Exercises . . . he relied on his own experience to write what might be helpful to others.”
RICHES TO HONORS TO PRIDE
The other reason that Ignatius valued poverty is that he noticed the subtle way that the climb up the ladder can lead you away from God.
In the Second Week of the Spiritual Exercises comes one of the central images in Ignatian spirituality. It is called the Two Standards. Here Ignatius asks us to imagine two “armies” arrayed for battle under two different flags or “standards.” On the one side is that of Satan; on the other, that of Christ. In this meditation the influence of Ignatius’s career as a soldier is seen quite clearly.
The purpose of this meditation is to help us understand the workings of human nature. Through vivid imagery that may be foreign to some modern sensibilities, Ignatius offers a way to appreciate what most of us do not find foreign at all—the battle within ourselves to do the right thing.
From as early as his conversion, Ignatius was able to recognize what moved him toward God (the consolation he felt when he thought of serving God) and what moved him away (the dry feelings that attended his plans to seek fame). The discerning person, Ignatius believed, could distinguish between those two forces and make the right choices. In Ignatian spirituality this is called “discernment of spirits.”
Battle, therefore, is a key metaphor for Ignatius. He believed in the presence of evil in the world,