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

by James Martin

Jesus appeared in the place where I had felt the freest in my life. It was a surprising, personal, and intimate way to experience a resurrection. For, in a flash, it dawned on me that only by accepting the loneliness and tiredness was I able to experience what I had found in Kenya. God seemed to be saying, “Yes, you must accept the loneliness and the tiredness, but here is what awaits you when you do. Here is what happens when you say yes. And you know this from experience. Here is the new life.”

The insight goes by many names: accepting the “reality of the situation,” as Walter Ciszek would say; surrendering to “the future that God has in store,” as Sister Janice would say; taking up “your cross daily,” as Jesus would say. Acceptance. Abandonment. Humility. Poverty of spirit. Finding God in all things. All of them are talking about the same thing, and all these words and phrases point to one word, a word that may have seemed so strange at the beginning of the chapter and yet which lies at the heart of this life-giving path: obedience.

Some matters aren’t up for grabs. If you’ve already made an “unchangeable” decision, according to Ignatius, you should stick with it. Commitments are honored. And if you’ve made a “changeable” decision for good reasons and you’re comfortable with it and there’s no reason to change things, don’t bother making a new decision.

For the deepest vocation is to become who you are, to become your “true self,” the person whom God created and calls you to be.

That God loves us as we are.

The Exercises are not meant to be read, they’re meant to be experienced. It is similar to an instruction book about dancing. It wouldn’t do you much good if you just read the book; you have to dance before you can understand it.