Angelus News | August 2-9, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 27

is believing that “prayer flows from our own efforts.”
This is how close God is to us and how strong his longing
is for us to rely on him, trust him, and be strengthened and
healed by him.
That “kiss” Cleveland talks about is in the context of his
book, which draws from both the rigorous spiritual exercises
and the beautiful Song of Songs.
If the latter is too much of a love story for you, remember
that this is what salvation history is: the story of God’s
love for us. While loneliness and even suicide are societal
plagues, the spiritual exercises stand out as a way of leading
people to understand God’s love for all of humanity in the
most intimate of ways.
We’re so confused. These days can be crushing to the
human will. Memories can be clouded or crowded with
pain. Our imaginations can be utterly exhausted. Just like
reading the lives of the saints while convalescing started to
bring Ignatius to new life in Christ, Ignatian spirituality is
meant to kindle the fire
in our souls that God
already put there.
His exercises are
about being who we
are meant to be and
believing in a divine
plan for each one of us.
They’re about uniting
our lives to the will
of the Father for us.
That’s the kiss Cleveland
talks about: God
the Father’s gentle,
eternally rock-solid
love for us. That’s a
game changer for most
of us, living in a world
of such uncertainty.
Speaking of confusion,
there’s that and
ARCHDIOCESE OF DENVER
Father Gregory Cleveland
anger and sadness, even despair. It’s ubiquitous, it seems,
when it comes to politics and culture. Triumphalism, dismissal,
derision — the near universal cynicism people used
to have about politics seems so quaint in comparison.
It’s in the Church, too. People wonder and worry what the
Church will look like in years to come. Will it be there for
their children? Will their children care?
A big part of the answer lies in prayer, in taking it seriously
and being clear and decisive about identifying what
comes from God and what doesn’t, and resting in and
running with the first and always rejecting the latter.
Ignatius talks about consolation and desolation in the soul
and in our lives. One major consolation is the gift of the
first Jesuit pope. I was reminded of this when earlier this
month Pope Francis popped up in my Twitter feed.
A young Jesuit had a selfie video where he showed us with
some astonishment the unexpected visitor he encountered
in his Jesuit residence in Rome. The Holy Father was making
the stop in honor of it being Ignatian memorial month.
In many ways, in his homilies and witness of his pontificate,
Francis is a Jesuit spiritual director to the world
guiding people through spiritual warfare.
In his more than 20 years of experience writing about and
practicing spiritual direction, Father Timothy Gallagher,
OMV (another Oblate of the Virgin Mary), has come to
the conclusion that Ignatius “provides an unparalleled
resource for overcoming what is generally the major
obstacles faithful persons encounter in their efforts to grow
spiritually: discouragement, fear, loss of hope, and other
troubling movements of the heart.”
“I was struck to see how often, at the end of a retreat or
seminar, such persons would say that Ignatius had supplied
them with an invaluable set of spiritual tools for overcoming
discouragement and fear,” writes Gallagher in his book
“Discernment of the Spirits.”
“They sensed that Ignatius had assisted them in the struggles
of the moment and equipped them with the spiritual
means to conquer similar trials in the future. With this
learning came new
hope.”
In his translation and
commentary of the exercises,
Father Joseph
A. Tetlow, SJ, makes
the case that we live in
a time not so different
from that of Ignatius.
“We are anxious.
… We live in an age
when limits have been
broken and boundaries
have been leveled in
every dimension. …
We feel a keen need
for order and for a way
to find some meaning
in human life beyond
the mere consumption
of goods.”
And so, with Ignatius we take up the same gift he gave to
his 16th-century contemporaries who “felt keen concern
for their personal redemption in a world that appeared
dyed deeply with sin.”
With the help of Ignatian spirituality, Tetlow writes, “We
can always know what we are to do for love of God; we can
always know best by imitating Jesus Christ.”
In the midst of headlines and frenzy and fury, God may
just be offering us new hope and tools for renewal, the kind
of renewal work any and each one of us can take up.
Whether Ignatius winds up your go-to saint or not, the
spiritual tools he left us are at minimum a reminder that
God does not leave us alone. They may just be our school
for a new faithfulness — to be contemplatives in the world,
seeing and knowing and showing and loving in union with
the heart of God.
St. Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is a contributing editor to Angelus,
and editor-at-large of National Review Online.
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