Category Archives: Spirituality

A Stained Cookbook Means Somebody Used It Often

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Sometimes the liturgical calendar delivers punches in such succession that we find it difficult to keep up.  Today is the feast of St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), founder of the Society of Jesus.  And what could be said about the Jesuits that has not already been said? There’s no time to rest, though. Tomorrow is the feast of St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787), founder of the Redemptorists, an order with its own proud history of apostolic work.  It is, after all, a good thing that the Church thinks in centuries, not minutes, days, weeks, and certainly not tweets!  (Pope Francis is, though, an accomplished Twitter user.)  We need the liturgical cycle to bring before us this unceasing stream of saintly exemplars.  We do our best to emulate them, knowing that next year we hope to glean a little more insight from the saints as they become familiar friends.  For me, it’s St. Ignatius Loyola (and St. Alphonsus), but my colleague Carmina Chapp attends instead to Dorothy Day. Somebody else might appreciate  St. Charles Lwanga or a saint known only to a few people and God.

St. Ignatius of Loyola Source; Marquette University

St. Ignatius of Loyola
Source; Marquette University

St. Ignatius ranks among those Catholic greats—St. Augustine of Hippo, Cardinal Newman, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton—who generate such interest that simple internet searches threaten to melt down servers.  Still, Ignatius’ life seems almost operatic, even movie-worthy.  Born to a wealthy family, Ignatius’ military career broke amid cannon fire at Pamplona, Spain.  His wounded leg had to be broken twice in order to set properly.  Bedridden, Ignatius began reading the lives of the saints. St. Ignatius thus understood fully St. Luke’s depiction of Christ’s injunction to treasure God, not earthly things.

But God said to him,
‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’
Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves
but are not rich in what matters to God.”

Providentially, that Gospel reading appears today, St. Ignatius’ feast day. Having endured what he had, earthly possession surely seemed frail indeed.  As one blogger, working with Dom Gueranger, puts it: “It dawned on him that the Church also has her army which, under the orders of the representative of Christ, fights to defend here below the sacred interests of the God of hosts.”  An army for God—in the days of the Reformation, that stirred Ignatius to action.  Ignatius founded the Society of Jesus—the Jesuits—in 1534, headquartered in Rome.  From there Ignatius sent missionaries all over the work:  China, Japan, India, and both North and South America.  As he did, he charged them: “Go, my brothers, Inflame the world and spread everywhere the fire which Jesus Christ came to kindle on the earth.”

There’s an image: setting the world afire for God!  Yet St. Ignatius’ best-known venue to recognizing that same fire in ourselves came through a most prosaic book:  The Spiritual Exercises. Like much of the Catholic tradition I first met St. Ignatius Loyola while studying at Wabash College, led by a host of devout Presbyterian scholars.  They loved the Church and thus they taught its history, even the Catholics who opposed their beloved reformers Calvin and Luther.  William Placher’s description (p. 176) of the Spiritual Exercises always stuck with me:  “Much of it has all the literary eloquence of a cook-book, and a similarly practical intent, designed as it is for spiritual directors to use in guiding people through a religious retreat.”  Bill liked to cite St. Ignatius’ “Rules for Thinking with the Church,” the thirteenth of which requires: “To keep ourselves right in all things, we ought to hold fast to this principle: What I see as white, I will believe to be black if the hierarchical Church thus determines it.”  For Protestants suspicious of Rome, that’s a great line, but it paints a paltry picture of the saint himself.  E.g., Bill rarely mentioned the other rules which extoll a medieval piety of saint veneration or the preceding “Rules for Distributing Alms” (or, more fundamentally, the thoroughly Scriptural foundation for the entire Exercises).  Loyalty to Rome came as part of that inflaming fire the first Jesuits found God had given them through St. Ignatius.  Jesuit identity certainly involves ecclesiastical fidelity, but not only that.

At one level, of course, Placher is right;  cookbooks are meant to be used.  Which is the better cookbook:  the slick production with recipes requiring several odd, rarely used ingredients or the one that bears clear signs of frequent, sustained use?  After all, if stained with sauces and flour, that cookbook has been used.  The recipes work—cooks can follow and make them and, this is important, those consuming like the offerings.  St. Ignatius’ spiritual direction certainly fits this.    It works and has done so over the centuries.  St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises describe a retreat to be taken over thirty-one days.  Jesuits take the entire retreat at least twice during their lives, and today the laity often seeks St. Ignatius’ retreat-director advice episodically—whether seeking insight on prayerful examination of the day or extra encouragement to lose self in order to gain Christ. The Exercises still generate widespread consideration far beyond the Jesuits’ own members.  The Jesuit cookbook still contains much that satisfies.

Like some diets, though, that draw criticism, not everybody likes it.  In Victorian England both Jesuits and Redemptorists—there’s tomorrow’s saint again—particularly stirred up anti-Catholic sentiment among Protestant elites.  Not content with merely advancing popery, the legacies of both St. Ignatius and St. Alphonsus celebrated suspiciously loose spiritualities.  Both seemed willing to contort the Gospel to fit the apostolic situation.  This adaptability, though, should be seen in the context of St. Ignatius’ charge:  ignite the world.   Sometimes, as any camper knows, you need more than one match to start that fire.  St. Ignatius, having lived quite a life before he came to God, developed a reformed Catholic spirituality that provided that ignition.  Through the Exercises’ simple prose have come a plentitude of paths, all through the Church, back to God.

Guest blogger Jeffrey Marlett blogs at Spiritual Diabetes.

 

Today I Met Someone

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working-at-starbucksAs a college theology instructor (mostly online) I don’t have an office. The local coffee shop is my desk, with the music coming from the sound system and hum of conversation around me the ambient noise keeping me from nodding off. On this particular day I worked sluggishly at “my desk,” trying to write my monthly column. The idea was good, but the words were an alphabet soup of nothing all that significant – or coherent. Frustrated at my lack of creativity, I grabbed my tea and browsed the shops to clear my head. In my bag was my husband’s cross on its broken chain. If I couldn’t write, I might at least find a nice anniversary present.

The single sales associate in the store was busy with a customer, but asked what I needed. I told her I’d like to replace the broken chain, and she assured me they carried something that might interest me. She excused herself and went into the back room. Another associate emerged, politely questioning me and examining the chain. She showed me some pieces, and we talked about how expensive gold had become, and how we wished we’d gotten some when it was cheaper. Our chat was pleasant, and she was helpful, but a big purchase like this requires some thought. The woman was polite and not at all pushy. She said that if I returned and she wasn’t there it was because her husband had recently been hit by a car and was in the hospital. “Oh no!” I said. “What happened?” The woman offered her age (61) and said her husband was older but in relatively good shape. He’d been crossing the street downtown at about nine in the evening. The crosswalk was well-lit and the street is known for its activity, especially on summer evenings. The man was struck and lay unconscious and covered in blood. Sometime after a woman stopped to help. She hadn’t witnessed the accident, but noticed that his shoe had landed on the other side of the street, indicating that a car had likely hit him. As she knelt beside him, in one hand her cell phone, and his hand in the other, she watched two cars drive around them and continue on their way. Listening to this part of the story I couldn’t help but recall the parable of the Good Samaritan. Here it was, being told in real life on Main Street, USA.

Eventually the police arrived, along with my jewelry store friend. A twenty-something young woman struck the man and was watching the scene from some distance away, occasionally glancing up as she furiously texted. She’d been delivering a pizza. When the officer approached she simply said, “I hit him.” The man regained consciousness, and after a lengthy hospital stay he’ll have a difficult recovery ahead. I was dismayed by many aspects of this story: the cold response of the driver, the callous disregard with which other cars swerved around the broken, bleeding man, and the indifference of all but one woman who stopped to help. We spoke about her husband’s injuries, his memory loss, and her anxiety over how she’d care for him in their modest home.

We chatted a few minutes more and then I thanked her and told her I’d think a bit more about the chain. She extended her hand and said, “My name is Lauren. What’s yours?” I took her hand, told her my name, and she said, “It’s nice to meet you, Ann. I really don’t talk this much, but I guess I felt comfortable with you.” “I’m glad,” I said. “I don’t know if I’ll end up buying the chain from you, but I’m grateful you shared your story with me. Write down your husband’s name and I’ll pray for him. And you, too.” Lauren’s eyes welled up, and with that I knew I’d better get out of there, or I’d end up bawling myself. She thanked me and we said goodbye.

The column I’d anguished over for hours was okay, but not great. When I left the jewelry store I knew that didn’t matter. I knew that this was the story I needed to tell. For a few moments I encountered another person, and she encountered me. Our world seems to have gone mad. Terrorism and violence in city streets aren’t scenes from a summer blockbuster; they’re shattering lives every day. I can’t stop terrorism, or gang violence, or any number of tragedies happening every day. But I can be with someone when she needs to tell her story. I can stop in the middle of my own busy evening, as one woman did to help the man in the street. I can be Christ to someone by following His lead: by not fearing the encounter with another human being, by meeting that person where they are, and by taking the time to be truly present with them. I can stop worrying about silly things (like whether or not I’ll be praised for a column), and make space for another in my thoughts, my heart, my prayers, and my time. I can do all of these things. And so can you.

Today I met someone named Lauren, whose husband Joel was struck by a car. I promised to pray for them; perhaps you can as well.

Today, I met someone. Maybe you did, too.

Ann Koshute teaches theology for Saint Joseph’s College Online. This article appears in the current issue of Eastern Catholic Life, the official publication of the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic.