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

by James Martin

St. Augustine, the fourth-century theologian, said that if you can comprehend it, then “it” cannot be God, because God is incomprehensible.

Ultimately, faith is a gift from God. But faith isn’t something that you just have. Perhaps a better metaphor is that faith is like a garden: while you may already have the basics— soil, seeds, water—you have to cultivate and nourish it. Like a garden, faith takes patience, persistence, and even work.

One pitfall for those on the path of belief is an inability to understand people on other paths and a temptation to judge them for their doubt or disbelief.

There is a more subtle danger for this group: a complacency that makes one’s relationship with God stagnate. Some people cling to ways of understanding their faith learned in childhood that might not work for an adult. For example, you might cling to a childhood notion of a God who will never let anything bad happen.

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.

This is one way that God can call you to holiness—through a heartfelt attraction to holy men and women and a real desire to emulate their lives.

But in general, we do not turn to God in suffering because we suddenly become irrational. Rather, God is able to reach us because our defenses are lowered. The barriers that we erected to keep out God—whether from pride or fear or lack of interest—are set aside, whether intentionally or unintentionally. We are not less rational. We are more open.

Do you find joy through nature? Look for God in the sea, the sky, the woods, and the fields and streams. Do you engage the world through action? Look for God in your work. Do you enjoy the arts? Go to a museum, or to a concert, or to the movies, and seek God there.

Father Keenan observed that, in the New Testament, when Jesus condemns people for sinful behavior, he typically does not condemn weak people who are trying to do better, that is, public sinners struggling to make amends. Time and again Jesus reaches out to people who are ready to change and invites them to conversion. More often, Jesus condemns the “strong” who could help if they wanted, but don’t bother to do so. In the famous parable of the Good Samaritan, those who pass by the poor man along the road are fully able to help him, but simply don’t bother. Sin, in Father Keenan’s words, is often a “failure to bother.”

Here is how I like to do the examen. It’s only slightly modified from what St. Ignatius suggests in the Exercises. Before you begin, as in all prayer, remind yourself that you’re in God’s presence, and ask God to help you with your prayer. Gratitude: Recall anything from the day for which you are especially grateful, and give thanks. Review: Recall the events of the day, from start to finish, noticing where you felt God’s presence, and where you accepted or turned away from any invitations to grow in love. Sorrow: Recall any actions for which you are sorry. Forgiveness: Ask for God’s forgiveness. Decide whether you want to reconcile with anyone you have hurt. Grace: Ask God for the grace you need for the next day and an ability to see God’s presence more clearly.

even to Moses in the Book of Exodus (33:19–20) God said, “You cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.” God says that Moses will see his back as he passed by him. “Thus,” Father Kolvenbach wrote, “looking back over the length and breadth of his life the abbot could see for himself the passage of God.”

The examen helps you to “realize” the presence of God. For me, it transcends any proofs for the existence of God by asking you to notice where God already exists in your life, where your yesterdays were beautiful. With that awareness you will begin to notice God’s presence more and more in your day.

Some believers say, “God is the most important thing in my life!” But when you ask how much time they spend with God in an intentional way, they will admit that it’s not much.

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.

Barry believes that the “relationship between an adult child and his or her parent is a better image of the relationship God wants with us as adults.”

the more time you spend with God, even in complete silence, when it feels that nothing is happening, the more you will grow, because being in the divine presence is always transformative.

not being controlled by possessions is a step to spiritual freedom, the kind of freedom that most people say they want.

Jesus is showing his intuitive understanding of what was preventing the young man from growing closer to God. He has put his finger on what Ignatius would call the man’s “disordered attachment.” To another person Jesus might have said, “Give up your status.” To another, “Give up your desires for success.” Jesus was not simply inviting the young man to a simple life; he was identifying an unfreedom, and saying, “Get rid of anything that prevents you from following God.”

In all these things, trust that God will help you along this path, because it’s a path to freedom, which God desires for you.

Whenever I hear that stereotype of the cold priest, I always wish I could introduce people to all the loving priests, brothers, and sisters I’ve known, men and women who lead lives of loving chastity and who radiate love.

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

Chastity also helps other people feel safe. People know that you’ve made a commitment to love them in a way that precludes using them, or manipulating them, or spending time with them simply as a means to an end.

One of the hardest parts of love is this: allowing the other to love you as he or she can, not as you want to be loved.

“Take care, take care never to shut your heart against anyone.”

Perhaps one thing I could suggest is to remain open to the possibility of meeting new friends and not move to despair, trusting, as much as you can, that God wants you someday to find a friend. The very desire for friendship is an invitation from God to reach out to others. Trust that God desires community for you, though that goal may seem far away.

And having spent six years working in corporate America, I can say that in the Jesuits you have more say in these matters than in the corporate world. Your religious superior believes that your own desires, insights, and conclusions are valuable, whereas with management in the business world this is sometimes not the case.

It is imagining living with each choice for a set period of time and seeing which choice gives you a greater sense of peace. For a few days, act as if you were going to choose one alternative. Though you’ve not made the choice, imagine that you have, and move through your day as if you had made the decision already. Try the decision on, like a new sweater. How does it make you feel? Do you feel at peace or agitated? Then, for the next few days take the opposite tack. How does that make you feel?

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?

First, the enemy conducts himself like a spoiled child.

Second, the enemy acts like a false lover. Essentially, the enemy would prefer that temptations, doubts, and despairs be kept secret, which only makes things worse for the person.

How often this happens in spiritual direction! Someone seems to be dancing around some uncomfortable topic, something he is afraid of revealing, precisely because he knows that once it’s out in the open he will be challenged to recognize how unhealthy it is.

Self-acceptance is the first step to holiness. But for many the path to self-acceptance can be arduous. Men, women, and children in ethnic or social minorities, with physical disabilities, with dysfunctional family backgrounds, with addictions, or those who feel unattractive, uneducated or undesirable may struggle for many years before accepting themselves as beloved children of God. But the journey is essential. Many gay men and lesbians, for example, have told me that the real beginning of their spiritual path was accepting themselves as gay men and women—that is, the way that God has made them. Coming to see themselves in this way, and, more important, allowing God to love them as they are, not as society might want them to be, or think they should be, is an important step in their relationship with God.

Much of my own journey to self-acceptance involved letting go of the need to be somebody else. Nobody in particular, just a feeling that I needed to be different. Early in the novitiate, I thought that being holy meant a suppressing of my personality, rather than building on it. Eradicating my natural desires and inclinations, rather than asking God to sanctify them.

It is dangerous to make everyone go forward by the same road, and worse to measure others by yourself. —St. Ignatius Loyola