The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life

by James Martin

Instead of seeing the spiritual life as one that can exist only if it is enclosed by the walls of a monastery, Ignatius asks you to see the world as your monastery.

That’s why Ignatius counseled people to avoid disordered affections. They block the path to detachment, to growing more in freedom, growing as a person, and growing closer to God. If that sounds surprisingly Buddhist, it is: that particular goal has long been a part of many spiritual traditions.

But Ignatian spirituality is so capacious that even an introduction will touch upon a broad spectrum of topics: making good choices, finding meaningful work, being a good friend, living simply, wondering about suffering, deepening your prayer, striving to be a better person, and learning to love.

But Ignatius knew that God meets people where they are. We’re all at different points on our paths to God. And on different paths, too. Ignatius himself traversed a circuitous route, and he recognized that God’s activity cannot be limited to people who consider themselves “religious.” So Ignatian spirituality naturally embraces everyone from the devout believer to the tentative seeker. To use one of Ignatius’s favorite expressions, his path is “a way of proceeding” along the way to God.

Isaac Hecker was a nineteenth-century convert to Catholicism who became a priest and founded the American religious order known as the Paulists. He may have summed it up best. Religion, said Hecker, helps you to “connect and correct.” You are invited into a community to connect with one another and with a tradition. At the same time, you are corrected when you need to be. And you may be called to correct your own community— though a special kind of discernment and humility is required in those cases.

Desire is a primary way that God leads people to discover who they are and what they are meant to do.

In reply, Ignatius would ask, “Do you have the desire for this desire?” Even if you don’t want it, do you want to want it? Do you wish that you were the kind of person that wanted this? Even this can be seen as an invitation from God. It is a way of glimpsing God’s invitation even in the faintest traces of desire.

And prayer is not simply the relationship itself, but also the way that the relationship is expressed. Perhaps you could say that prayer is the conversation that happens in a personal relationship with God.

Detachment, freedom, and a sense of humor are signposts on the road to holiness.

Overall, learning about God—through other people’s experiences of God, through Scripture, through holy men and women—is part of nourishing your spiritual life, because learning about God is part of being in relationship with God.

People are tempted to alleviate feelings of insecurity by having or consuming. We try to fill our emptiness with things, rather than with God or with loving relationships. Without this impulse the advertising industry would probably collapse: it exists to manufacture the desire for things.

Let me have too deep a sense of humor ever to be proud. Let me know my absurdity before I act absurdly. Let me realize that when I am humble I am most human, most truthful, and most worthy of your serious consideration. —Daniel Lord, S.J. (1888–1955)

Ignatius realized that if you act in accord with God’s desires for you, you will naturally feel a sense of peace. That insight—that following God’s invitation leads to peace—is a central part of Ignatian discernment. If you are in accord with God’s presence within you, you will feel a sense of rightness, of peace, what Ignatius called “consolation.” It is an indication that you’re on the right path.

Can you imagine your best self, the person you hope to become one day? As you consider your decision, ask yourself: What would my best self do? Sometimes the insight will come all at once—you think, if I were a freer and more loving person, I would obviously choose this option.

God’s “pulls,” on the other hand—gentle invitations that beckon in love—feel different. Sometimes an obligation is an obligation, and you need to do it in order to be a good and moral person. But be careful your life is not simply one in which you only respond to shoulds or pushes that may not be coming from God.

“The enemy characteristically weakens, loses courage, and flees with his temptations when the person engaged in spiritual endeavors stands bold and unyielding.”

It’s always difficult to avoid comparison with others and to think not only that they have it easier, but that they are somehow holier than you are. So you need to maintain a healthy tension between acceptance and desire. On the one hand, you honor the person God made—with your background, personality, talents, skills, and strengths. On the other, you allow God to move you in new directions, to change, to grow, and to discover who you are meant to be. God has created something wonderful in you, but God is still creating.