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

by James Martin

St. Thomas Aquinas said that one can only know that God is, not what God is.

The best known writer on this stance is the (still anonymous) author of the fourteenth-century work The Cloud of Unknowing, who speaks more of what God is not, rather than what God is.

And Aquinas—now arguing for the opposing side—says that although God is ultimately unknowable, we can seek God through the things that are “known to us.”

Centering prayer, a practice that seeks to find God at the center of one’s being without the intentional use of images, is closer to the content-free way. In a recent conversation, Father Egan said plainly, “Centering prayer is apophatic.” As a result, centering prayer is not often associated with Ignatian spirituality. Instead most people align it with Zen Buddhism or yoga. But there are clear echoes of centering prayer in the Spiritual Exercises.

The three men most responsible for introducing centering prayer into contemporary Christian circles in the English-speaking world are John Main, M. Basil Pennington, and Thomas Keating.

Pennington and Keating wrote a brief book called Finding Grace at the Center along with Thomas E. Clarke, S.J.

Unrelieved Competition John Kavanaugh, a Jesuit moral theologian who writes frequently on questions of the consumerist culture, has this to say about the corrosive impact it has on us and, specifically, on families, in his book Following Christ in a Consumer Society: In my own discussions with parents and their children concerning the problem of family stress and fragmentation, I know of no other force so pervasive, so strong, and so seductive as the consumer ideology of capitalism and its fascination for endless accumulation, extended working hours, the drumming up of novel need fulfillments, the theologizing of the mall, the touting of economic comparison, the craving for legitimacy through money and possessions, and unrelieved competition at every level of life.

Learning About Poverty Pedro Arrupe, the Jesuit superior general from 1965 to 1981, had a sense of humor even about serious topics. Two young American Jesuits once showed up at the Jesuit headquarters in Rome. Father Arrupe asked what assignment had brought them there. They explained that they were on their way to India to work with the poor, as part of their training. Afterward Arrupe said to an assistant, “It certainly costs us a lot of money to teach our men about poverty!”

“We are all creatures plagued by unending doubts and restless, unsatisfied hearts.”

Poverty of spirit is another way of speaking of humility. Without it, we resist admitting our reliance on God, are tempted to try to make it on our own, and are more likely to despair when we fail. And since spiritual poverty recognizes our fundamental reliance on God, it lies at the heart of the spiritual life.

One of the main goals of chastity is to love as many people as possible as deeply as possible.

Chastity also frees you to serve people more readily.

So chastity is about both love and freedom.

Chastity is also a reminder that it is possible to love well without being in an exclusive relationship and without being sexually active.

That’s another lesson of chastity: love cannot be owned.

What happens when a member of a religious order falls in love? He must choose. Either he finds that he cannot live his vows and must leave the order, or he must reaffirm his commitment to his vows. This is somewhat similar to the situation for a married person who falls in love with someone other than his or her spouse, said David. In both cases, you remind yourself of your commitment and take the right steps to honor it.

“You do believe in all that Ignatian stuff, don’t you?”

The key is understanding your governing desire, as well as honoring your original commitment.

Chastity is not easy. The more loving you are, the more likely it is that you will fall in love, and the more likely it is that others will fall in love with you.

“I know who I am.” It’s about integrity and commitment.

Religious chastity means that you love people outside the context of a romantic relationship. And, if you think about it, that covers most people in your own life. If you’re single, widowed, or divorced, it covers everyone; if you’re in a committed relationship (married, engaged, etc.), it covers all but one person. So the insights of chaste love are more relevant to your life than you might at first think.

five brief ways based on Ignatius’s dictum that love shows itself more in deeds.

First, listen compassionately.

Second, be present.

Third, do something practical.

Fourth, love freely.

Fifth, forgive.

Forgiveness releases the other from the trap of guilt and can also help to release you from your own anger. It is never easy, but in the end it is an act of love that heals both the forgiver and forgiven.

Sixth, pray. Ask God to help those you love. Ask God to be close to them. Most of all, ask God to allow you to see others the way God does.

And when loving becomes hard, it helps to know that God desires for you to be loving and is always with you as you do so.

Instead of preparing for war, you can set aside your armor.

other clerks liked her. My mother remembered something her own mother had told her, another version of the Presupposition: “Be kind to everyone, because you never know what problems they have at home.”

Part of friendship is also giving the other person the freedom to grow and change. The desire for friendship should not overshadow the friend. But, as Father Barry noted in a conversation, there is another side to that desire for freedom. “The danger is that because people will move, or leave, or even die, you are tempted not to give your heart to people.”

Ignatius had a talent for friendship because he had a talent for charity, honesty, reason, love, and detachment.

Listening is a lost art. We want to listen, we want to think we’re listening, but we are often so busy planning what we’re going to say in response or what advice we’re going to give, that we fail to pay attention.

In these simple ways you will deepen your relationships, your conversations, and your compassion for your friends, and you’ll begin to develop real intimacy, where, as St. Francis de Sales says, “Heart speaks to heart.”

“But at the end,” Paul said, “even with all the work that is involved, even if you only find one friend in your whole life, it’s worth it.”

[God’s] will for us was the twenty-four hours of each day: the people, the places, the circumstances he set before us in that time. Those were the things God knew were important to him and to us at that moment, and those were the things upon which he wanted us to act, not out of any abstract principle or out of any subjective desire to “do the will of God.” No, these things, the twenty-four hours of this day, were his will; we had to learn to recognize his will in the reality of the situation.

The plain and simple truth is that his will is what he actually wills to send us each day, in the way of circumstances, places, people, and problems. The trick is to learn to see that—not just in theory, or not just occasionally in a flash of insight granted by God’s grace, but every day. Each of us has no need to wonder about what God’s will must be for us; his will for us is clearly revealed in every situation of every day, if only we could learn to view all things as he sees them and sends them to us.

Nonetheless, Ciszek understood that God invites us to accept the inescapable realities placed in front of us. We can either turn away from that acceptance of life and continue on our own, or we can plunge into the “reality of the situation” and try to find God there in new ways. Obedience in this case means accepting reality.

Those who have abandoned themselves to God always lead mysterious lives and receive from God exceptional and miraculous gifts by means of the most ordinary, natural and chance experiences in which there appears to be nothing unusual. The simplest sermon, the most banal conversations, the least erudite books become the source of knowledge and wisdom to these souls by virtue of God’s purpose. This is why they carefully pick up the crumbs which clever minds tread underfoot, for to them everything is precious and a source of enrichment. —Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J. (1675–1751), The Sacrament of the Present Moment

The immense question, Why do we suffer? or the “problem of evil,” has bedeviled theologians, saints, mystics—all believers—for thousands of years. How could a good God allow suffering? First, we have to admit that no one answer can completely satisfy us when we face real suffering—our own or that of others. The best answer may be, “We don’t know.” Second, we may have to admit that we believe in a God whose ways remain mysterious. In an article in America magazine, Rabbi Daniel Polish, author of Talking About God, put it succinctly. “I do not believe in a God whose will or motives are crystal clear to me. And as a person of faith, I find myself deeply suspicious of those who claim such insight.” Polish goes on to quote Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: “To the pious man knowledge of God is not a thought within his grasp.” This is the greatest challenge of faith, says Polish, “to live with a God we cannot fully understand, whose actions we explain at our own peril.” Third, while there are no definitive answers to the question of suffering, and while we may never fully understand it, there are some time-honored perspectives offered by the Jewish and Christian traditions, which have helped believers as they move through periods of suffering and pain.

Moreover, my suffering is not yours. Nor is my own perspective of suffering. Just as every believer must find a personal path to God, so must he or she find a personal perspective on suffering. And while the collective wisdom of the religious community is a great resource, the platitudes and bromides offered by otherwise well-meaning believers as quick-fix answers are often unhelpful. Sometimes those easy answers short-circuit the process of deeper individual reflection.

Richard takes a dim view of those who offer glib answers. “Some of the most appalling and frightening letters,” he writes, came from “some of the best Christians I knew.” Tracey must have done something to offend God, some said. Others suggested that her suffering was a “glorious building block . . . for her mansion [in heaven] when she dies.” Others wrote that his family was truly “blessed,” because “God only sends crosses to those who can bear them.” Or, more simply, that it is all a “mystery” that simply needed to be accepted, almost unthinkingly. Richard rejected these answers in favor of a hard look at the reality of suffering, one that only comes with the long struggle to engage in an “intelligent discussion about the complexities of where and how the Divine presence fits into our fragile and human world.”

Suffering is a mystery for most believers, but it is one that we should engage with all our minds, hearts, and souls.

Moreover, by entering into the scene, you often gain a highly personal perspective on suffering, one that even the greatest theologians cannot offer.

Our third week meditations also teach us how difficult acceptance is. When we cannot change a situation, we are tempted to walk away from it. We might literally walk away; we are too busy to sit with a suffering friend. Or we walk away emotionally; we harden ourselves and maintain an emotional distance. We might react to the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ passion and death this way. They describe something terrible and horribly painful, yet we might shield ourselves from the pain. We know the story of the Passion. Ignatius wants us to experience it as something fresh and immediate. We learn to suffer with Jesus, and thus learn to suffer with the people in our lives.

In the end, we learn that Ignatian compassion is essentially our loving presence. There is nothing we can do. There is little we can say. But we can be there.

Pedro Arrupe wrote this prayer after a stroke and in the wake of some struggles with the Vatican. It was part of his farewell address to the Jesuits at the General Congregation who had gathered to elect his successor as superior general, in 1983. By this point Arrupe was unable to speak. These words had to be read aloud for him. More than ever I find myself in the hands of God. This is what I have wanted all my life, from my youth. But now there is a difference; the initiative is entirely with God. It is indeed a profound spiritual experience to know and feel myself so totally in God’s hands.

Could I accept the “reality of the situation”? Could I surrender to the future that God had in store for me?