Disciples of the spirituality of Saint Ignatius

by Ottavio De Bertolis

A few days ago, on May 20th, the Ignatian year was proclaimed, a time of singular grace, for the whole Church and naturally for the Society of Jesus, the Order founded by Ignatius of Loyola. In fact, we remember a fact that marks what was called his "conversion", which took place 500 years ago: the future saint, rather far from being what he would become, was fighting in Pamplona, ​​Spain, against the French, when he was hit by a cannonball which knocked him down.

We are of little interest here in the historical reconstruction of the fact: what matters is that this man, who had made service to his earthly king the meaning of his life, thus passes to the service of his eternal king, Christ our Lord. That misfortune, a cannon shot that mangled his leg, precisely for him who had always cared about his prowess and his appearance in front of men, could have destroyed him, throwing him into an incurable depression, seeing himself now inevitably deprived of those dreams of human ambition and earthly glory which he had cultivated so much.

But it was not so. In fact, taken to his home, during the period of his convalescence, he began to experience in himself the different interior movements that moved in him when he read the lives of the saints, of Francis and Dominic, and the chivalric poems, the worldly tales, to which he was also fond of it. In fact, he began to notice that the consolation that the examples and consideration of the Saints instilled in him always remained, did not dissipate, but continued to support him, motivate him, comfort him; on the contrary, the apparent liveliness and joy that the worldly stories released consoled him only at the moment, but then left him exhausted and as if emptied of goodness. This was for him the beginning of a journey that he called, in his more mature age, "discernment of spirits", that is, judging from various clues how the soul can be moved by the bad spirit or by the good Spirit, the Holy Spirit ; the one moves to the false love of self and the world, the other to the love of God and of all things in Him, according to his most holy will.

it is therefore beautiful to observe that the beginning of Ignazio's new life was precisely a wound, a setback, a failure; but Jesus, the risen one, found him right there, and raised him up and made sure that he was the bearer for many of that consolation that he himself had experienced from God. In fact, the essence of his entire spiritual experience was condensed by him in a booklet called Spiritual Exercises, which even today are preached to many, and which certainly constitute a very solid and well-tested doctrine for growth in spiritual life and in the service of God.

It is certainly not possible to explain the content of the Exercises here: however, we can remember how in them Ignatius finds and proposes a very personal way of meeting the Lord, and, in this sense, of arriving at a truly profound experience of prayer. In fact, if we can call every way of praying or meditating "spiritual exercises", however those proposed by Ignatius are distinguished by their purpose, which is to seek and find the will of God in one's life, to fulfill it generously. This requires a great ability to question oneself, therefore a great humility to place oneself before God: perhaps this is precisely the "difficulty" they present, not so much and not just some small things, such as prolonged silence or the way of praying that is proposed. But all we can say about them is: "seeing is believing", or, more evangelically, "come and see".

In this sense, although in this year we remember a particular moment, the initial one, so to speak, of the Saint's life, and not the work he accomplished in his maturity, we can nevertheless draw much fruit from it, and not only we Jesuits , but the whole Church. As already to Saint Paul, so the Lord also says to us, exhausted and wounded after this pandemic, which in some way represents the cannonball that hit the whole world: "my power is manifested in your weakness". And so we can learn to listen again to the Word of God, to the Holy Spirit who always guides his Church, to continue our journey, and perhaps also to straighten it, to live the following of the Lord more authentically.