Ignatius of Loyola was raised to question everything. He was born in the Basque Region of northern Spain in 1491 and one of his older brothers accompanied that first discovery voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas. His upbringing was a front row seat to the advent reality that the world was actually much bigger than they had thought it was, the understanding of what is possible came into question daily as family dinner conversations were steeped in imaginations, stories, and the occasional updates from what to them was a new world. At his own coming of age, Ignatius, in typical dramatic form, handed his sword and armor over to God to follow in the footsteps of Francis of Assisi and the other saints who chose poverty over riches, humility over pride, and community over self-importance. He would go on to undergo a lifelong transformation that led him to found the Society of Jesus, known today as the Jesuits. His lasting gifts to the universal church include the Spiritual Exercises, countless schools and universities across the globe, international and local social justice and advocacy centers that serve immigrant, refugee, and asylum communities, and a worldview that is committed to finding God in all things.
At the heart of his spirituality is an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, in which one speaks to Jesus as one friend speaks to another, heart to heart. Ignatius arrives at this intimacy by integrating our faith with our reality. He weaves together the God that we encounter in the scriptures with the God that we encounter on our commute to work in the morning. And he tells us that this same God, the Living God, the Holy One, can only be found in reality. God is not present with us in the world that we wish existed. God is with us in the world as it is. In our days as they are. In us as we are.
Jesuit institutions joke that when someone truly enters into this stance or this way of seeing God and the world, they are ruined for life. Ruined because it is no longer sufficient to accept the status quo or to settle for how we have always done things. Fully trusting that God is with us in reality compels us to dream and work for a greater reality, one that does not settle for anything but love. Many who have followed this way have done great things in the name of love.
Saint Peter Faber, one of Ignatius’ college roommates at the University of Paris, along with Saint Francis Xavier, devoted his life to mending relationships during the volatile years following the Reformation. When many professional churchmen wanted to draw lines in the sand and prove that they were right, Peter set out to repair friendships and remind people that though they disagreed, they still belonged to one another, they were still friends, neighbors, and family. They were still the Body of Christ.
Saint Peter Claver, after being told time and again that he didn’t fit in within the community, devoted the majority of his adult life to caring for men and women who were being shipped into the Americas to be sold as slaves. Though he could not end slavery alone, he did what he could to make sure that these people knew that they were loved and that they were still human beings, though they were being treated in horrifically inhumane ways. Perhaps one of the earliest community organizers in the Americas, he did what he could to build relationships and give voice to people who were experiencing one of the worst atrocities ever.
Blessed Rutilio Grande Garcia came to believe in and dedicate his life to spreading “a Gospel that has little feet.” He is known for articulating liberation theology within the context of the poor in his home country of El Salvador. Personal friend and precursor of sorts to Oscar Romero, Rutilio was transformed by his relationships with those who were poor, farmers, laborers, men, women, and children alike. He saw God alive in them and remaining with them in their struggle for gaining a voice and freedom from oppression. Rutilio ultimately gave his life entirely to a movement that continues to kindle political reform and growth towards justice in El Salvador and across the world.
The prayer that animated these people in their work of building community and striving for justice was a prayer that integrates the God that we encounter in the scriptures with the God that we encounter in our daily lives. This is Ignatian Prayer and it is prayer that resides outside the box, animating its practitioners to be contemplatives in action.
A small group of us have begun practicing this form of prayer on Thursday mornings, at 8:00 in the chapel. We sit with the Gospel reading for the coming Sunday and in silence compose the place, imagining where it is that this story either took place in history or where it would take place today in the context of our lives. We imagine this place: what does it smell like; how does it feel; what do you see and hear; what does it taste like to be there? We then imagine as the scene unfolds. Sometimes staying on the sidelines as a bystander, other times entering into the story as one of the main characters. If drawn, we speak with Jesus or someone else who was there. Entering into the sacred story, we make it our own. Then we turn to the Table where we reenact the gathering of friends at the Last Supper, we share Eucharist, and we invite God into our lives here and now. After this, we share what happened in our prayer and together we paint an image of this experience that is full of color, meaning, and depth.
There is much that this way of prayer can offer us in any time, but maybe particularly now. In time we may have more opportunities to practice Ignatian Prayer, but for now I want to personally invite you to join us on Thursday mornings at 8:00 in the chapel. Following in this centuries-old way of prayer, we integrate the God that we encounter in scripture with the God that we encounter in our daily lives and this grounds and animates us to bring the love, community, and justice that we see in God to become more fully the love, community, and justice that we see and experience around us in our world today.