Kindle Notes & Highlights
As I begin my presentation of rule 5, I beg those present never to forget this rule. I tell them that rule 5 will bring us safely through almost any darkness we may encounter in the spiritual life.
Determination, for Ignatius, expresses a “firm resolution,” “an explicitly stated decision,” and “decisions that call for a commitment.”
The thoughts that arise from spiritual consolation are of the good spirit; those that arise from spiritual desolation are of the bad spirit. Any thoughts, therefore, that arise from—are born directly out of—spiritual consolation are of the good spirit.16 Any thoughts that arise from—are born directly out of—spiritual desolation are of the bad spirit. The simplicity and clarity of this teaching allows us to apply rule 5 without hesitation: all we need to know is that we are in spiritual desolation, and then we know with certitude that any changes to our spiritual proposals that arise out of
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In Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, when Frodo is on the verge of the darkest part of his journey, he encounters Lady Galadriel. She is a figure of great wisdom, goodness, and nobility. Lady Galadriel gives Frodo a small crystal phial, filled with white light, and tells him that it will be a light for him in the dark when every other light goes out.19 A light in the dark when every other light goes out: that is what rule 5 can be for us.
Then, in all this anxiety and confusion, I would remember rule 5. I would say to myself, “No, this is no time for you to make any changes to what you planned for this retreat. You stay exactly with what you planned.” And it would always work out well.
we do not change (the transitive verb mudar) our proposals (rule 5), but we do change ourselves (the reflexive verb mudarse) (rule 6).
we can and should strive actively to reject the desolation itself
Some years ago, I met a wonderful woman religious then in her seventies and now with the Lord. She told me that when she got into a “low”—in Ignatian terms, a time of desolation—she would turn to the Lord and say, “You’ve carried me for fifty-five years of religious life. You won’t drop me in this little thing either.” It was a perfect application of rule 6: a reflection, in time of desolation, on God’s past fidelity that strengthens the person to resist present desolation.
I think of Jesus faced with the tempter in the desert (Mt 4:1–11). He immediately responds to the tactics of the enemy with the Word of God, and the enemy is defeated. To call to mind pertinent passages from Scripture—to meditate on them—in time of desolation greatly encourages the one in desolation.
Ignatius counsels us to do just the opposite: instead of fleeing, examine what is happening.
What am I feeling? And, how did this get started? Both questions are of great help to me. First, what am I feeling? Simply to recognize that “I’m in desolation” is very freeing.
The difference is enormous: we cannot deal with an overwhelming burden, but we can deal with a specific spiritual experience. Just to examine what I’m feeling and reach the point in which I can recognize it as spiritual desolation is already a beginning of liberation.
Often enough, we also realize that before that moment, we were at peace, perhaps even in consolation.
Francis Bacon affirms that “reading makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”
Journal journaling
Writing what we experience may, in fact, help us to grasp it more exactly.
What helped was the choice to do the small, concrete things that I could do.
While this may not be precisely what Ignatius intends by “suitable penance,” I believe it is very much the dynamic he intends: in time of spiritual desolation, rather than flee into diversion and gratification, we stand our ground with suitable gestures of penitential courage. I have come to believe, too, that no such gesture is too small. Experience will teach us which gestures are suitable for us, and it will teach us their power as well.
Suitable Penance could just be doing the things that we are supposed to do
Laura at 3:00 p.m., if both, with trust in God’s grace, turn to God with a heartfelt prayer of petition, asking for the help they so much need; call to mind and meditate on the truths of faith, scriptural verses, and memories of God’s fidelity in the past that assure them of his help in this darkness as well; examine what they are feeling and how this got started, gaining new insight into the present heaviness; and rather than reach for the smartphone or remote control, make suitable gestures of penitential courage, breaking the discouraging descent into diversion?
What will not happen is a helpless and prolonged surrender to the desolation. What will happen, as God’s grace blesses our efforts, is that the desolation will weigh less and will be less likely to endure: captives are beginning to be set free. Rule 6 is a great gift for the journey.
At times, psychiatrists, psychologists, or counselors are present when I teach the rules. A number have noted the parallel between Ignatius’s procedure in the rules—inviting us to adopt certain ways of thinking as a help to overcoming spiritual desolation—and their own use of cognitive behavioral therapy in helping persons surmount emotional struggles. In each case, the choice to adopt thoughts that better reflect the truth of the situation significantly relieves the burden. Five hundred years ago, Ignatius applied this principle to the spiritual life.
Psychology
Intense grace and sufficient grace: these are experiential terms.2 Intense grace is the perceptible, uplifting grace of spiritual consolation; sufficient grace is largely unfelt—“though he does not clearly feel it”—but very real, and supplies all the strength the person needs to resist the desolation.
enemies.” I find it best to avoid the confusing phrase “hard consolation” and to adhere to Ignatius’s own vocabulary: though God does at times take away the intense (felt) grace of spiritual consolation, he never takes away the (largely unfelt but real) sufficient grace that permits us to resist desolation.
grace will always be sufficient.
But when suffering acquires meaning, it can be borne. This is the first thought to consider right in the time of desolation: This difficult experience is not meaningless. It lies within God’s providence in my life. It is a trial that the Lord is permitting (Acts 14:22).
“Since He Can Resist” This is one of the most hopeful statements in the entire set of rules! There is what I call “the litany of spiritual desolation.”
when in desolation everything in us cries out that we can’t, Ignatius urges us to consider that we can,
“I am not alone, because the Father is with me” (Jn 16:32).8 I never saw the second part of this verse before, “because the Father is with me.”
The word “patience” derives from the Latin verb patior, which means to bear, to suffer, to endure.
virtue of the person who will not give up, who will not surrender to the vexations of the desolation, but who will stand firm, working to be in patience, resisting, while God permits the desolation to endure. “Patience,” writes Gagliardi, “is directly opposed to desolation and is the only antidote to it.”
Caryll Houselander describes a difficult time, and writes, “My heart is cold, my thoughts are cold, my soul is cold, but my will is on fire; in that fire I will forge a sword of service.”
The first is a thought to be considered in time of desolation: that we will soon be consoled. This thought comprises three elements: that the present desolation will pass, that consolation will return, and that it will return much sooner than the desolation is telling us. The adverb “soon” is powerful here.
in time of desolation, she consciously adverted to the fact that the desolation lasts only for a time:
I learn that I can resist desolation not only by combating it directly but also by remembering past consolation.
prayer of petition, meditation on truths that can sustain us in desolation, much examination of how the desolation began and developed, and suitable gestures of penitential courage.
spiritual movements: spiritual consolation will last for a time, and eventually spiritual desolation will return. That desolation, too, will last only for a time—less than the desolation would have us believe—and then spiritual consolation will return. These alternations are normal in the spiritual life.
Often, when I present rule 8 and speak of these alternations as normal, I sense the relief in the hearers: “I’m normal!”
Jesuit Thomas Green writes matter-of-factly, “Desolations will come; they are, in fact, as normal a part of human life as are rainy days.”
With regard to the proportion of spiritual consolation relative to spiritual desolation, no universal rule can be given. Each person’s experience is individual and lies within God’s loving providence in that person’s life. Our part is to dispose ourselves—through prayer and living the Word of Christ—to receive spiritual consolation and to accept it when God gives it, and likewise to resist and reject spiritual desolation when God permits the enemy to bring us this trial. When we do this with our imperfect but sincere best, we may leave the proportion of spiritual consolation and desolation to
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“It is better for you that I go” (Jn 16:7): I cited these words of Jesus in my earlier book when introducing rule 9.1 Since then I have repeated them many times when presenting rule 9, and my appreciation of their richness has grown. It is Holy Thursday night, and Jesus has told his disciples, “Now I am going to the one who sent me.” He knows that the intimation of his impending departure saddens his disciples and so continues, “Because I told you this, grief has filled your hearts.” Then Jesus adds, “But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate
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In rule 1, the regression involves the total direction of the person’s spiritual life (moving away from God), and in rule 9, it involves smaller areas (within a life generally progressing toward God). In both, however, the dynamic is the same.
“The second, to try us and see how much we are and how much we extend ourselves in his service without so much payment of consolations and increased graces.” To try us: as in rule 7, Ignatius presents spiritual desolation as a trial. From this trial, something is learned, something is gained: to try us and see.
In 1538, Doctor Pedro Ortiz made the Spiritual Exercises under the direction of Ignatius. Ortiz kept notes of these Exercises, and in them he writes, “Divine consolation may be lost in two manners: one is because of our own culpability through sin . . . and in the second manner, we may lose divine consolation of the soul without fault, since divine providence at times freely withdraws it from the soul, because of the many advantages and benefits of this, as will be said.”
Teresa of Avila writes, “God never sends a trial without immediately compensating for it by some favor.”13
the Lord had left in me those goads, which never let me remain lukewarm.”14
God permits these trials as “goads, which never let me remain lukewarm.”
interiorly feel that it is not ours to attain or maintain increased devotion, intense love, tears or any other spiritual consolation, but that all is the gift and grace of God our Lord; and so that we may not build a nest in something belonging to another, raising our mind in some pride or vainglory, attributing to ourselves the devotion or the other parts of the spiritual consolation.”
I'm pretty certain of this. But maybe I really haven't learned and that's why I continue to experience desolation
God’s third reason for permitting spiritual desolation, Ignatius writes, is to give us “true recognition and understanding so that we may interiorly feel.” In permitting the desolation, God desires to give us a gift on both the cognitive (“true recognition and understanding”) and affective (“interiorly feel”) levels—on the levels of both head and heart.
Heart and head knowledge of our inability
“some pride or vainglory” when consolation is present.
Look at me; I'm a big shot. I know how to have and hold onto consolation
Ignatius tells us, to heal us from areas of regression in our spiritual lives (first reason), to provide opportunities for growth (second reason), and to save us from a possible pitfall (third reason).20 Understood in the light of God’s loving providence, spiritual desolation grows easier to resist.
Each rule (rules 5–6: the changes we should not and should make; rule 7: a trial that we can resist; rule 8: patience, and awareness that consolation will return soon; rule 9: the fruits that God wants to give in permitting desolation) equips us to resist desolation when we are in a time of desolation.
