Many spiritual writers of Ignatius’s day spoke of desires as obstacles to God’s will. A person was supposed to suppress his desires—to eliminate them whenever possible. But Ignatius held the radical notion that God dwells within our desires. Not only are desires not evil, but they are also one of God’s primary instruments of communicating to us. God inflames the heart with holy desires and with attractions toward a life of greater divine praise and service. Unlike many of his religious contemporaries of the sixteenth century, Ignatius did not seek to quash desires but to tap into the deepest
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