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WISDOM LANGUAGE
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6. Application of this
Spirituality
Ignatian spirituality continues to be extremely modern and
relevant for today. It has an amazing flexibility and
creativity, because it depends very much on how the Spirit of
God is leading us. We sometimes have too many rules, but
Ignatius asks us to go beyond these and see how the Spirit is
guiding us. Each time he wrote to Jesuits in different parts of
the world, he told them to submit everything to discernment. He
gives tremendous freedom to the superiors to discern, based on
the present reality. Ignatian spirituality trains us for
discernment and trains us for action. Discernment must lead to
action, because discernment that ends in itself is futile. You
have surely heard of Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez, the Peruvian
theologian known as the father of liberation theology. He is now
a Dominican priest. In an interview he was asked “What has
happened to liberation theology?” He replied, “As long as there
is poverty in the world, liberation theology will have something
to say. But it has moved in the direction of spirituality. We
need to train people to have a perspective on the world”. The
journalist then asked him which spirituality was the best for
the development of lay persons in the Church. Without hesitation
he replied “Ignatian Spirituality”.
Ignatian spirituality continues to be relevant because it is
rooted in reality …. And it is reality that helps us change,
much more than exhortations and letters from the General. This
spirituality starts from reality and leads us towards what God
wants. The big question is “What does God want from humanity?”
At a seminar on religious life two years ago, a theme that came
up prominently was that “mission is always the mission of God”.
So we now speak about ‘Missio Dei’ and that must become the
focus of our attention.
A book I would highly recommend is ‘The Great Transformation’ by
Karen Armstrong. It studies the development of spirituality and
religion, with attention to what Karl Jaspers calls ‘the Axial
Age’. The book examines this pivotal age during which the
spiritual foundations of humanity were developed in China,
India, Israel and Greece. In all these four different cultures,
they realized that the only thing that can change society is a
change in the human person. It is the inner change, the inner
journey that matters the most. We have seen that communism
without a change in people leads to inhumanity, and capitalism
without change in people leads to selfishness. Unless we have a
change from within, there is no way forward. Ignatian
spirituality aims specifically at this change of the person.
There is an Asian story of a disciple who went to a monastery.
His friends asked him why and he explained that he was going
there because he wanted to contribute to changing the world.
After a year, he met those same friends who asked him why he was
continuing there. He replied that he was learning something –
now he only wished to change a few people around him. One year
later they asked him what he was learning. He replied that he
had learned that the most important thing was to change himself.
This is indeed the insight that the great sages of world
religions have had. St. Ignatius too saw this clearly. And that
is why the Inquisition thought him to be dangerous. They
interrogated him eight times! Not once, but eight times. And
each time they could find nothing wrong because he was very
careful not to waste his time on formulations or doctrines. He
went straight to the heart. The Inquisition felt that this was
dangerous, because this man had a freedom and openness to the
Spirit that could not be controlled. And when things get out of
control, the authorities get nervous.
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