A Spirituality of Spiritual Freedom - 1 -

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1 SEPTEMBER 2010 RECOLLECTION GUIDE Theme: PRAYING THE IGNATIAN SPIRITUALITY ITUALITY Sub-Theme: A SPIRITUALITY OF SPIRITUAL FREEDOM Theme: PRAYING THE IGNATIAN SPIRITUALITY Prayer Exercises Take time to quiet down before the Lord. Behold him beholding you with much love. When ready, beg repeatedly for The Grace I Desire and Seek. The Grace I Desire and Seek I beg for a heart that is free and detached, so that I can let go of all my disordered affections and order my life well and live for the Lord alone. Prayerfully read the Background and Basic Meaning of Spiritual Freedom. BACKGROUND Apostolic spirituality always has insisted that integral to Christian discipleship is going out of our way to seek, find and do God s will in our lives (Lk 22:42; Mt 7:21). The first annotation of the Spiritual Exercises brings up this point of God s will. And it does so in the context of the very purpose of the Exercises. Primarily, the purpose of the Exercises is to prepare and dispose the soul to rid itself of all inordinate attachments, and, after their removal, of seeking and finding the will of God in the disposition of our life for the salvation of our souls (SE no.1). For Ignatius, the ridding of our disordered attachments is most indispensable. This is so because we simply cannot seek, find, and do God s will in our lives if we are not free enough from our disordered tendencies. With much Sub-Theme: A Spirituality of Spiritual Freedom - 1 -

2 unfreedom in us we will never be able to do serious discernment and we will just continue to be at the mercy of our attachments. The Spiritual Exercises uses various terms to refer to this reality of unfreedom in us. Examples of these terms are: disordered affections; (my) sins; defect (SE no. 24); ignorance; weakness; iniquity; wickedness (SE no. 59); sensuality (SE no. 87); carnal and worldly love (SE no. 97) and others. Clearly, Ignatius himself was no stranger to his own disordered affections and the power they had over him which often led him to sin. As he himself admitted, when he was young, he was a man given to worldly vanities having a vain and overpowering desire to gain renown (Auto. no. 1). Once he even told Juan Polanco his secretary that he was particularly careless about gambling, affairs with women, and the use of arms. Through God s grace however, Ignatius slowly was schooled by the Spirit to conquer (himself) and regulate (his) life without determining (himself) through any tendency that is disordered (SE no. 21). This self-conquest which enables a person through grace to regulate his or her life and be adequately free from exaggerated attachments has been called spiritual freedom by some current authors. David Fleming in his work Contemporary Reading of the Spiritual Exercises explains: The structure of these Exercises has the purpose of leading a person to a true spiritual freedom. We grow into this freedom by gradually bringing an order of values into our lives so that we find that at the moment of choice or decision we are not swayed by any disordered love (SE no. 21). BASIC MEANING Spiritual freedom exists (when) I am grasped so completely by the love of Christ that all the desires of my heart and the actions, affects, thoughts and decisions that flow from these desires are oriented to God and his service and praise. From this definition, we see that spiritual freedom is not just about being able to do what we want to do (like having a real fancy for expensive cars and being able to buy almost any car we want). Spiritual freedom is more about being seized much by the love of our Lord such that our lives become more and more oriented radically towards God and his service. To be seized more by Christ and his grace, we should learn to order our lives well. This means that we put God at the center of everything. With our lives genuinely revolving around our Lord then the grace of being grasped much by his love which eventually entails learning to love as Christ loves becomes all the more real for us. So much part of putting order in our lives is not confusing our means with our ends. When we confuse our means with our ends, then we end up making our relative values, absolute and absolute values, relative. Money, material riches, power, career, worldly honors all these are just relative values. As relative values they are only secondary values, simply means to our one true end. Our one true end is God himself, not excluding our loving relationship with him. Now when we put such relative values at the center of our lives, treating them as ends in themselves, we displace God who should be our primary absolute value. In the process of displacing God, we create idols for ourselves. When this happens, unfreedom then begins to dominate, making it most difficult for us to seek truthfully God s will in our lives since our very manner of choosing already has become too biased in favor of these idols we have created for ourselves. On this account, like the Rich Young Man (Mk 10:17-22), we could never learn to discern - 3 -

3 well since discerning well presupposes adequate detachment from our disordered affections. Connected closely with spiritual freedom are the Ignatian ideals of indifference (SE nos. 23, 157, 179) and agere contra (SE nos. 16, 325, 350, 351). Indifference means that we hold ourselves open to whatever God may ask of us, explicitly putting aside our personal preferences, including our attachments, and be as balanced and docile to God s will as possible when doing discernment. Complementing indifference is agere contra which literally means to act against. Here we act against those inclinations and attachments which may hinder us from making the more truthful choice given our discernment situation. Thus, if we are too partial to a particular option, for example too partial to working abroad, as opposed to working locally, then agere contra is asking explicitly for the grace to free ourselves from this exaggerated partiality to working abroad and even beg for the opposite (here working locally) if needed it is God s will. For Ignatius, both indifference and agere contra are excellent ways to test the quality of our spiritual freedom, taming any disordered tendency in us that may hinder our more truthful choosing for God. What points draw your attention? What points do you find significant and inspiring? Take and ponder them in prayer. PRAYER PERIOD I Below is Ignatius First Principle and Foundation (SE no. 23) as paraphrased by David Fleming. The Ignatian ideals of spiritual freedom, indifference, and detachment can be seen here. Read it and prayerfully reflect on it The goal of our life is to live with God forever. God, who loves us, gave us life. Our own response of love allows God s life to flow into us without limit. All things in this world are gifts of God, presented to us so that we can know God more easily and make a return of love more readily. As a result, we appreciate and use all these gifts of God insofar as they help us develop as loving persons. But if any of these gifts become the center of our lives, they displace God and so hinder our growth toward our goal. In everyday life, then, we must hold ourselves in balance before all of these created gifts insofar as we have a choice and are not bound by some obligation. We should not fix our desires on health or sickness, wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or short one. For everything has the potential of calling forth in us a deeper response to our life in God. Our only desire and our one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better lead to God s deepening his life in me. One name Ignatius uses to describe his God is True Life (Letter to Gaspar Berse, February, 1554). Pray over Ps 16. Here the psalmist insists that other gods are worthless (v. 3). In the end, he prays that the Lord shows him the path to life (v. 11). Like Ignatius and the psalmist, how has the Lord been showing you the path to true life? What have been the most significant experiences of your own spiritual journey? - 5 -

4 PRAYER PERIOD II I When our disordered attachments dominate us, often exaggerations emerge. When exaggerations emerge, often we begin to overdo things. We overwork, overworry, overfret, overreact. Right now, what do you consider to be your greatest disordered attachments? What exaggerations have come up in your life because of these disordered attachments? What exaggerations do you see in our world today? How have these exaggerations in our world today affected you and your relationship with your God? The case of Fr. Noel Chabanel ( ) is one fine example of how agere contra can be lived out. Chabanel was a Jesuit missionary to New France (Canada). As a missionary, he found it extremely difficult to learn the Huron language. Also, he found the customs and practices of the Indians so different and even repulsive. It did not take long for Chabanel to develop a loathing for this mission and for the Indians themselves whom he was supposed to serve. His superiors saw his struggles and they were willing to send him back to France. Chabanel refused adamantly to go back. In fact, at one point he even made a private vow. This vow was a vow of perpetual stability, promising to remain in the Huron mission no matter what. In the end, this vow was his daring act of agere contra i.e., to go against his biased inclination to return to France. Convinced deeply that God actually wanted him to stay, he remained in the missions and eventually even died there as a martyr. Reflect on Fr. Noel Chabanel and his experience of agere contra. How has our Jesuit story on Chabanel helped you understand and appreciate more this Ignatian ideal of spiritual freedom? Right now, what disordered inclinations do you feel you need to tame and even explicitly act against so that you can gain greater freedom and equilibrium when doing discernment? PRAYER PERIOD III I Do a contemplation on the healing story of the Centurion s slave (Lk 7:1-10). Imagine Capernaum and enter prayerfully into the Gospel scene, beholding the place with the elders and the crowd there. What do you see? hear? smell? touch? taste? Spend time going into the details of this healing story. Slowly, in the end, focus on the Lord and gaze lovingly at his face. Here in Lk 7:1-10 we see our Lord truly amazed at the deep faith of the centurion which leads him to say, I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith

5 What amazes you about your God? Why these in particular? Below is a prayer well-known to Jesuits. It has been called A Prayer for Spiritual Freedom. Take it and pray it with much fervor. O Spirit of God, we ask you to help orient all our actions by your holy inspirations and carry them on by your gracious assistance, that every prayer, word, and work of ours may always begin from you and through you be happily ended. This we say through Christ our Lord, Amen! Take time to dialogue with the Lord on our points above. End by thanking our Lord and resting in him. Reprinted with permission from the book: Schooled by the Spirit by Fr. Ramon Maria Luza Bautista, SJ - 8 -