Ignatian spirituality is a method of prayer bequeathed to\u00a0the Church by the 16th century Basque saint, Ignatius of Loyola. It is a\u00a0spirituality grounded in the fundamental idea that God labors for us, that He\u00a0is active in the daily life of man and woman. This spirituality is rooted in the Gospel and in the heart of the Catholic Church. This is a radical theological\u00a0concept because, for instance, Muslims think it’s heretical to think that God became\u00a0man (that the Incarnation is a fact) and that\u00a0\u00a0we could (a) know the will of God; (b) that we could have a\u00a0personal relationship with Him (in Jesus & the Holy Spirit) and (c) that God is always present to us. So, what does Ignatius give us? He wants “above all…you to increase the pure\u00a0love of Jesus Christ in the desire of His glory and the salvation of the souls\u00a0which He has redeemed.” This is a spirituality that trains us to “find God in\u00a0all things.”<\/p>\n
Ignatius wrote the\u00a0Spiritual Exercises<\/i>\u00a0as a lay man with the\u00a0singular intention of drawing others to Christ. The\u00a0Exercises<\/i>\u00a0are guideposts, that is, notes for a spiritual director to use in orienting a retreatant on his or her retreat and are not meant to be read as one would read a novel.\u00a0As other spiritualities are,\u00a0the Ignatian way is unique for its constant attention to one’s intimate \u00a0relationship with Jesus and discerning the will of God in each person’s life.\u00a0It is not merely a technique for making good decisions; for that you can seek\u00a0the counsel of your favorite philosopher; it is a personal way of living graces\u00a0given to us God. You may say that Ignatian spirituality is way of acknowledging\u00a0and living the happiness that God’s wills for each of us. I find Ignatius’ method to be a practical spirituality that’s particularly suited to the needs\u00a0and desires of Christians today.<\/p>\n
Ignatian spirituality sees God as actively\u00a0involved in the world and intimately involved with us in every moment and\u00a0place. We therefore say that God is in the center of reality, in the mess of history redeeming humanity. We can say with Saint Ignatius that “God’s love is poured forth lavishly\u00a0like a fountain spilling forth its waters into an unending stream.”Withdrawing\u00a0from the world into a quiet place in order to find God is understandable but withdrawing from the world is not particularly “Ignatian” for the long haul. That is why Ignatius spoke of those who follow the\u00a0Exercises<\/i>\u00a0as living a life\u00a0contemplation in action<\/i>. It is perfectly acceptable to\u00a0spend an 8-day retreat in the quiet of a monastery or a secluded retreat house.\u00a0Nevertheless, the virtue of this type spirituality is that is God encountered everywhere –in\u00a0our work and our relationships, in our family and friends, in our sorrows and\u00a0joys, in the sublime beauty of nature and in the mundane details of our daily\u00a0lives. One caution: our work, relationships, family, friends and any other\u00a0possible detail doesn’t replace our relationship with God,nor does it replace the sacraments, Mass, personal prayer and\u00a0sacrifice. That is, you can’t hold that “my work is my prayer” and think you\u00a0are actually following an authentic spirituality. But it is true that God is\u00a0present to us and we are present to God through all these things (the daily\u00a0grind of our lives) because of the Incarnation.<\/p>\n
From history we know that Loyola\u00a0is the founder, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, of the Society of Jesus,\u00a0a religious order of priests and brothers called to preach Jesus Christ in\u00a0communion with the Pope under the standard of the Cross. Since the 1960s a\u00a0Jesuit defined himself as a sinner redeemed (loved) by Christ. The motto of the\u00a0Jesuits is\u00a0Ad maiorem Dei gloriam<\/i>\u00a0(To the greater glory of God) which is based\u00a0on the Benedictine motto of\u00a0Ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus<\/i>\u00a0(That in all things\u00a0God may be glorified, 1 Peter 4:11): hence, the work of Ignatian spirituality\u00a0is a life spent glorifying God using everything God has given us in order to live in communion with Him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ignatian spirituality is a method of prayer bequeathed to\u00a0the Church by the 16th century Basque saint, Ignatius of Loyola. It is a\u00a0spirituality grounded in the fundamental idea that God labors for us, that He\u00a0is active in the daily life of man and woman. This spirituality is rooted in the Gospel and in the heart of … Continue reading What is Ignatian Spirituality?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[32084],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24779"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24779"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31241,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24779\/revisions\/31241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}