Awakening Love E-Book

Gregory Cleveland

• Herausgeber: anna ruggieri
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius have had a tremendous impact in the history of the Church, while the Song of Songs describes mystical union with God in prayer.
Written following the format of a personal retreat, Awakening Love includes chapters tracing the themes of the Song of Songs as a very Christian prayer and meditation.

Leseprobe

AWAKENING LOVE

An Ignatian Retreat with theSONG of SONGS

By Gregory Cleveland, OMV

Foreword by Kathryn J. Hermes, FSP

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cleveland, Gregory, author.Title: Awakening love : an Ignatian retreat with the Song of songs / Gregory Cleveland, OMV. Description: Boston, MA : Pauline Books & Media, [2017]Identifiers: LCCN 2017020445| ISBN 9780819808578 (pbk.) | ISBN 0819808571 (pbk.) Subjects: LCSH: Ignatius, of Loyola, Saint, 1491-1556. Exercitia spiritualia. | Spiritual exercises. | Bible. Song of songs--Devotional literature. | Spiritual retreats--Catholic Church. Classification: LCC BX2179.L8 C54 2017 | DDC 248.3--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017020445

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Scripture quotations are from Revised Standard Version of the Bible—Second Catholic Edition (Saint Ignatius Edition), copyright © 2006, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpts from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America, copyright © 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc. —Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission.

Excerpts from papal and magisterium texts, copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Excerpts from The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola by Louis J. Puhl, S.J. (Newman Press 1951). Reprinted with permission of Loyola Press. To order copies of this book call 1-800-621-1008 or go to www.loyolapress.com.

Excerpts from Illustrated Sunday Homilies by Mark Link © 1992, RCL Benziger. Used with permission.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyrighted material. The publisher apologizes if there are any errors or omissions in the above list. If any permissions have been inadvertently overlooked, the publisher will be pleased to make the necessary and reasonable arrangements at the first opportunity.

Cover design by Rosana Usselmann

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

“P” and PAULINE are registered trademarks of the Daughters of St. Paul.

Copyright © 2017, Gregory Cleveland, OMV

Published by Pauline Books & Media, 50 Saint Paul’s Avenue, Boston, MA 02130-3491

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Pauline Books & Media is the publishing house of the Daughters of St. Paul, an international congregation of women religious serving the Church with the communications media.

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Contents

Foreword

Introduction

How to Use This Book

CHAPTER 1The Kiss of Life

CHAPTER 2Desire Is Prayer

CHAPTER 3Love’s Right Order

CHAPTER 4Dark But Lovely

CHAPTER 5Stronger in the Broken Places

CHAPTER 6Strength in Our Weakness

CHAPTER 7Love’s Compassionate Gaze

CHAPTER 8Transforming Beauty

CHAPTER 9Love Draws Close

CHAPTER 10Beloved Friend

CHAPTER 11Arise and Come

CHAPTER 12Surely Chosen

CHAPTER 13Called by Name

CHAPTER 14My True Self

CHAPTER 15Spiritual Vigilance

CHAPTER 16The Foxes of Deception

CHAPTER 17The Night of Absence

CHAPTER 18The Love That Suffers

CHAPTER 19Keeping Vigil for the Beloved

CHAPTER 20Dawn of Glory

CHAPTER 21Vibrant Life

CHAPTER 22Soaring Above

CHAPTER 23Love’s Exchange

CHAPTER 24Enduring Love

CHAPTER 25Love’s Descent

CHAPTER 26The Bride’s Theophany

CHAPTER 27Spirit Dance

CHAPTER 28Mesmerizing Maiden

CHAPTER 29Mature in the Spirit

CHAPTER 30Mother and Teacher

CHAPTER 31Surrender in Freedom

CHAPTER 32Image and Seal of the Beloved

Conclusion

APPENDIXTable of Themes

Foreword

In my early twenties I discovered the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. I was especially drawn in those young adult years to Ignatius’ Principle and Foundation: the truth that we come from God our Creator and that our goal is to return to him through the gift of salvation. But even after thirty years of plodding my way through my own spiritual development, using the tools Ignatius provides in his Spiritual Exercises, I have to admit that I have always felt something vital was missing.

Recently at a conference where I was a presenter, a priest approached me and asked with a sincerity that was extremely moving to me, “People have told me that I am too intellectual. I need to learn how to pray from my heart. Can you help me?” I stammered a few suggestions, but I knew that they fell short of what he really needed. My difficulty in responding reminded me of the chasm that can exist between being a person of faith and experiencing the power of God’s love radiating through your life. Though people, for example, find guidance and comfort in my own Surviving Depression: A Catholic Approach, I have found that after reading it some still can experience a sense of separation from God.

So when I was asked to write the foreword for Father Greg Cleveland’s Awakening Love: An Ignatian Retreat and the Song of Songs I didn’t just read the book, but submitted myself completely to an experience of awakening love under the author’s guidance, and I realized that Father Cleveland has put together precisely what we in today’s spiritual environment most need. Awakening Love presents the Spiritual Exercises as a school of prayer through which we prepare ourselves to receive the divine gift of prayer: the kiss of God. This “lover’s kiss,” Father Cleveland explains, is a movement of the spirit felt at a very deep level of our being, close to the center, that bridges any distance and removes any sense of separation. And isn’t this what we all long to know: that we and God are intimately united through God’s overflowing and never-ending tenderness?

Awakening Love integrates the dynamics of Saint Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises with the intensity and tenderness of the lovers’ intimacy recounted in the Song of Songs. Awakening Love speaks to the deepest core of our being through the spiritual experience of God’s thirst for us and his nearness, leading us to dedication and commitment to God’s dream for us in the world.

Awakening Love makes both the Song of Songs and Ignatian spirituality accessible and understandable to people who are searching for God. Beginners will discover the riches of both the retreat experience of the Spiritual Exercises and the mystical content of the Song of Songs. In these past decades, the Spiritual Exercises have become a welcome and familiar landscape when we make retreat. However, some advanced pray-ers can grow weary of making the same Spiritual Exercises and are looking for new approaches and adaptations of the traditional text. Awakening Love will bring fresh insight using the Song of Songs, opening new horizons for the retreat experience.

For those of us who are intent upon growing in the spiritual life, the process takes time. We may feel unsatisfied or empty or insufficient because we feel we are continually collecting pieces of information—as though our spiritual life is a puzzle and we are being given only a few of the pieces. We hear something in a homily here, read something else in a book, treasure a nugget of inspiration shared with us by a friend, and try to understand our spiritual development in this fragmentary light. Even after a lifetime of puzzle pieces, we often don’t understand how things “hang together.” I have always felt that somehow the process of the Spiritual Exercises helped me understand how the few pieces of the puzzle that I had come to understand were a small part of the whole picture. This is one of the gifts that the Spiritual Exercises can give you: a framework for understanding your spiritual experience, one that is robust enough to grow with you as you progress through the years.

Time is a precious commodity in today’s world. That’s why books such as Awakening Love are such a treasure. They can cut the time needed for the reader to find this personal path of growth in the spiritual life in half, and maybe in half again, when the reader surrenders to the process of the “retreat.” Father Cleveland has specialized in preaching and directing the Exercises and concentrated on the study of both the Spiritual Exercises and Christian spirituality in general for the past twenty-five years. As a good retreat master, Father Cleveland has succeeded in writing a book that doesn’t tell us one way to follow in order to discover God’s love, his way, but mentors the reader gradually into surrendering to the way the Lord wants to show us how he loves us personally. Father Cleveland doesn’t give a list of tasks but rather evokes in the reader’s heart a “longing for the beauty and immensity of God.” A good director will help us apply the wisdom of the word and of the spiritual tradition wisely to our own personal situation, by hearing what God says directly to us so that we can find God in everything. That is what this book does so well.

Here one finds a structure that guides the reader to an openness of heart that enables her or him to listen more and more deeply to the Lord of their heart. And we can listen to that Lord everywhere.

With Awakening Love, Father Cleveland brings a splendid integration of Scripture, prayer, the spiritual tradition, the writings of the saints, the legacy of recent popes, and a wholesome understanding of the dynamics of conversion and sanctification to the field of retreat work and spirituality. A great book is like a tree that offers shade to anyone who needs it. Awakening Love is such a tree. I am confident that many people will find their longing for the Lord met by the Lord’s even greater thirst for them—and their soul will be stretched to infinite horizons.

KATHRYN J. HERMES, FSP

Author of Cherished by the Lord: 100 Meditations and Surviving Depression: A Catholic Approach

Introduction

The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius have had a tremendous impact in the history of the Church, while the Song of Songs is the most sublime book of Scripture describing mystical union with God in prayer. Both of these works can awaken in the reader a passionate desire to love and serve the Lord. Both books describe a deeply personal encounter with the living God, and both encapsulate the entire Christian spiritual journey. In my prayer I have long pondered the profound connections between these two masterpieces. As a retreat director, I have often proposed to retreatants texts of the Song of Songs that pertain to the themes of the Spiritual Exercises, and these texts—in tandem with the Exercises—have yielded rich results in their prayer experience. In Awakening Love, I explore the deep correlation between the two books and provide the reader with abundant food for prayer and reflection.

The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius are a systematic way to God that is tailored to the individual. The Exercises have a dynamic methodology, an interior logic and flow. As we pray through the great themes of God’s revelation in and through the sacred Scriptures, we will see a structured system and a dynamic personalism. In the midst of the systematic pattern of prayer, God reveals himself personally and uniquely to the individual. Dialogue with a spiritual director fosters this personal approach within the framework of the retreat.

The twin goals of the Exercises are union with God in prayer and the discernment of God’s will for our lives. Toward the first goal, the retreat experience begins with the Principle and Foundation, a meditation that sets out the conditions for achieving spiritual freedom. At the heart of this freedom is a desire for God and a strong awareness of his personal love, so we focus our prayer on this desire and awareness. The Exercises then progress through “weeks” or phases, during which we contemplate specific themes. In the first week, we meditate on sin and the reality of evil in the world and within ourselves, arriving at repentance and awareness of God’s tremendous mercy. In the second week, we contemplate Christ and the mysteries of his life to gain a more intimate knowledge of him so that we may follow him more closely. We consider the call of Christ more intensely and apply principles of discerning God’s will in our vocations, and so move toward the second goal. In the third week, we journey in greater union with Christ in his passion and death and are confirmed in our call to follow him more closely in suffering. In the fourth week, we rejoice with the risen Christ and are confirmed in the joy of following him.

We emerge from the Spiritual Exercises better attuned to God’s presence and will in all the circumstances of our lives. More conformed to Christ and his call, we can better choose according to his values. The Exercises are therefore geared to the apostolic life of an active person making choices to follow Christ in the Church and in the world.

Building upon the Gospel’s message of service to God and neighbor, the Spiritual Exercises have been described as a service-oriented spirituality. Saint Ignatius seeks to orient us to the service of Christ and others out of gratitude for what God has done for us. We make a self-offering in service to God who has offered himself for us. This beautiful note of self-offering is sounded throughout the retreat, based on a relationship of love and friendship between creature and Creator. In the Exercises, however, Saint Ignatius mentions love only a few times, which some criticize as a deficiency given love’s importance in the Gospels. Saint Ignatius emphasizes that “love ought to manifest itself in deeds rather than in words” (SpEx 230). Still, words are vital to love if love is to convey itself in actions.

In contrast with the service mentality of the Spiritual Exercises, bridal spirituality is a very different approach to prayer. Best exemplified by Carmelite saints such as Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross, and Thérèse of Lisieux, bridal spirituality explicitly emphasizes verbal expressions of love, while orienting love toward service. One of the bridal mystics’ favorite sources for this fervent articulation of love is the Song of Songs, a book of love poetry that speaks deeply of God’s ardent love for us and our loving response. On the surface, the Song of Songs appears merely to be a passionate dialogue between two lovers, a bride and a bridegroom,* that intensifies their union and appreciation of one another. A deeper reading of the Song of Songs, however, reveals the bride’s transformation as she grows in awareness of the bridegroom. This transformation parallels our growth in holiness as we experience the Spiritual Exercises. Awakening Love will show how the bride’s spiritual development parallels the schema of the Spiritual Exercises.

Many are drawn by the beauty of the Song of Songs but may quickly become confused by its content. Because the bridal language can seem foreign to how people experience spiritual reality, they may question the Song’s relevance and wonder how it applies to ordinary Christian life. Through the themes and prayer exercises that follow, I will strive to make the Song of Songs relevant and accessible. For those looking for new approaches and adaptations of the traditional text of the Spiritual Exercises, these subjects will also bring fresh insight and open new horizons for the retreatant.

At first glance the Song of Songs is a book of love poetry describing lovers’ bliss on their wedding day. The import of this expression and “sacrament” of nuptial love that unites a man and a woman should not be understated or lightly skipped over on the way to deeper spiritual meanings. Underscoring the importance of this scriptural nuptial language, John Paul II calls his reflections on the Song of Songs the “crowning” of his teachings on the theology of the body. He notes how the words, movements, and gestures of the spouses correspond to the interior movement of their hearts.1 We can realize the profound expression of love through their declarations and body language.

The rich literal meaning of the Song of Songs includes references to the Temple and Israel’s love and worship of the Lord. It also reveals the Lord as the Bridegroom of Israel, his bride. Other Hebrew Scriptures, such as the Psalms, Isaiah, and Hosea, corroborate this meaning. For example, in Hosea 2:19 the Lord declares to Israel: “And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy.” These passages clearly reveal the Lord as the divine Bridegroom who espouses Israel as his bride. The Song of Songs describes the nature of their love relationship.

The Song of Songs is not limited to this literal understanding of the nature of love but expands to an inexhaustible treasure of wisdom based on a spiritual interpretation. As the Church has always held, the Holy Spirit is the primary author behind the word, ever ready to lead to deeper levels of divine truth those who seek to understand his word in the Spirit of the Church.2

The Scriptures have a literal meaning we can grasp through study. But in prayer we are led to deeper spiritual meanings by the same Spirit who is the divine author of Scripture. Metaphor and analogy often describe our experience of union with God according to this spiritual understanding of God’s word. The Fathers and Mothers of the Church describe the Song of Songs as an expression of the love of God for Israel, of Christ for his Church, and of Christ for the individual Christian—especially, then, for the Blessed Virgin Mary, as she is the perfect disciple and representative of the Church in her holiness and purity.

Given the logic the Church provides for reading and pondering scriptural texts, throughout this book we will primarily consider the spiritual understanding of the Song of Songs by using insights from the great mystics in the Church’s tradition. Sometimes we will also examine the historical circumstances surrounding the text in order to clarify the author’s intention and literal meaning. Finally, we will consider the text’s relation to the Spiritual Exercises.

When reading the Song of Songs, women might easily place themselves in the role of the bride alongside the divine Bridegroom, while men may find that more difficult. But for all of us, Christ is the Bridegroom of our souls. Some virtues that might seem more feminine are common to all of us, male and female. Men and women both must cultivate them in order to be receptive to God’s grace. All Christians, for example, are called to imitate Mary in her receptivity and responsiveness to God. While men excel at giving themselves in a way that is receiving of the other, women excel at receiving the other in a way that is giving to the other. In relating to God, we are all called to first excel at receiving in a giving way, as shown in the instance of Martha and Mary. Mary chose “the better part” (see Lk 10:42); she received Jesus in hospitality by sitting at his feet and listening deeply to his words. As the Lord gave himself to Mary, she simply received him, and in doing so, she also gave him love.

God desires to give himself totally to each one of us. By receiving God, we are giving ourselves back to him. God is pleased to give himself to us and delighted when we receive his gift of self in prayer.

In prayer, we remain primarily in this receptive mode before God. The bridegroom in the Song of Songs delights in his bride’s reception of him, just as God delights when we receive him through prayer, a receptivity that begins primarily in being before doing. We receive our created being as a gift from God before we communicate ourselves to others and act on their behalf. As the only-begotten Son, Christ himself receives his divine being and mission from the Father from eternity. At the moment of the incarnation he received his human nature from his mother through the power of the Holy Spirit. As man, he was then able to give of himself as the incarnate Son of God. Christ calls his disciples to be with him as companions before he sends them out on mission. In the Spiritual Exercises, we are similarly called to be with Christ in contemplation, to receive his divine life and let it flow into our apostolic activity. Saint Ignatius admitted that his way of being led in God’s grace was more passive and receptive than active and controlling.3

How to Use This Book

This book may be used: As a way to pray through the Song of Songs. The Song of Songs is a very attractive yet mysterious book, hard to understand on a spiritual level. Awakening Love provides a key to understanding the profound yet elusive meaning of this mystical Scripture text and helps to apply it in one’s life.

As a way of making the Spiritual Exercises: It is nearly impossible to make the Spiritual Exercises by reading them in their raw form and making the retreat without some explanation and guidance. Awakening Love “fleshes out” the Exercises and offers a spiritual compass to guide you through them. I also recommend that you reflect on your experience of God in prayer with a spiritual director, who can help you make more sense out of what is happening to you.

As a companion to making the Spiritual Exercises: If you are formally undertaking the Exercises with a spiritual director, Awakening Love will help you understand their dynamics and content, fostering greater receptivity to God’s grace. The final seven chapters also make for an excellent transition into daily living at the end of the retreat. The Appendix shows how each chapter of this book corresponds to the relevant theme of the Exercises.

As spiritual reading: In his Spiritual Exercises Saint Ignatius provides a complete spirituality of the Christian life and gives wise advice about practicing our faith. Awakening Love unfolds the great truths of Ignatian spirituality and offers solid spiritual nourishment.

The end of each chapter offers questions for personal reflection and group discussion, prayer exercises based on the reading, and suggested graces to ask for in prayer. Ordinarily I recommend taking one week to digest each chapter and engage in the accompanying prayer material, but the time frame is not fixed. Seven prayer exercises are given, one for each day of the week. You may wish to linger more deeply with certain Scripture passages and themes, without completing all seven exercises in a given week.

Although the full Spiritual Exercises are sometimes referred to as the thirty days’ retreat in a closed setting, I provide thirty-two chapters and themes. There is no magic to a fixed period of thirty days in a closed retreat setting, or thirty weeks adapted to a daily life setting. In both cases, one can complete the Exercises in a longer or shorter time. Saint Ignatius allows for adaptation of the Spiritual Exercises (see SpEx 18–20):

In time, such as over a weekend, or eight days, or a full thirty days, etc.

In space, either in a closed retreat house setting or in daily life in one’s home (over a number of weeks), or even in a parish setting.

In content, according to our desires, needs, and readiness. One may focus on any particular theme, such as desire, mercy, call to mission, suffering, resurrection, finding God in all things, etc.

You can read and pray with the Exercises at your own pace, privately or with the guidance of a director.

CHAPTER 1

The Kiss of Life

[B] — Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! . . .

Draw me after you, let us make haste.

The king has brought me into his chambers.

[D] We will exult and rejoice in you;

we will extol your love more than wine;

rightly do they love you. (Song 1:2, 4)

It is more suitable and much better that the Creator and Lord in person communicate Himself to the devout soul in quest of the divine will, that He inflame it with His love and praise, and dispose it for the way in which it could better serve God in the future. (SpEx 15)

Saint Ignatius invites anyone making the Spiritual Exercises to come to the retreat with great desires. The drama of love in the Song of Songs begins with the bride’s desire for the kiss of her beloved in a quest for union. Through kisses, lovers attempt to give themselves entirely to one another, even to exchange breath, which symbolizes life. If it were possible, they would give the breath of life to each other and become one in a fusion of lives.4 Human beings have a drive toward union, yet fall short of this complete oneness of heart. The quest for union between human beings is a good analogy of our desire for communion with God—our ultimate goal. God created passionate human love to mirror his own passionate desire for us. The image of marital union in the Song of Songs is the best image for the depths of union we experience with God.

God is a Holy Trinity of complete self-giving of persons to one another in perfect knowledge and love. In his desire to share his love with other beings, God chooses to create the universe and fill it with the very gift of himself. The Lord not only creates natural life, he also breathes the supernatural life of the Spirit into us by the grace of our baptism, uniting himself completely to us. The kiss that the bride mentions symbolizes the divine life God imparts to us, which leads us to desire to grow in it. Just as a lover’s desire for greater bonding with the beloved is insatiable, so our desire for God is unquenchable, because God has first desired us with an infinite thirst.

Prayer is simply getting in touch with God’s thirst for us and our longing for him. The founder of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, Venerable Bruno Lanteri, writes that prayer basically begins with desire: “In order to facilitate prayer, it is necessary to know that force, study is not required, but only a word, a sigh, a desire ever so light, a desire in its birth, a desire that we haven’t developed fully in the heart; this same disposition of the heart to pray has already passed into the heart of God.”5 Our desire for God has already passed through the heart of God as his desire for us, just as the bride’s desire for her bridegroom flows from her response to his love.

Because God first desires us and initiates his relationship with us, prayer is God’s initiative, just as the lover takes the initiative in kissing his bride. The Spiritual Exercises are a school of prayer through which we prepare ourselves to receive the divine gift of prayer, the kiss of God. Saint Ignatius offers many forms of prayer exercises as ways to dispose ourselves to receive God’s grace. As we ponder these exercises, a combination of prayer and Scriptures, we use the powers of our soul—the memory, intellect, will, and imagination. God works through our faculties to reveal himself to us in prayer. We might be tempted to believe prayer flows from our own efforts, but we only respond to God’s drawing us—like the bride focusing her entire attention on her bridegroom as the object of her affection.

The kiss between lovers suggests their immediate union. The Song of Songs begins with the bride dreaming of her lover in the third person. In the Hebrew, she expresses her wish as such: “Oh, that he would kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.” Here her lover seems distant. But in the line that immediately follows, she addresses him personally, “Your love is better than wine.” What happened to change her perspective? It was her longing for him. In crying out for the bridegroom she was inviting him to draw close to her. Now she finds him present. In fact, he was never distant at all but was always close.

God is so close that he touches us. Even the notion of adoring the Lord is rooted in the Latin words ad and ora, or “to the mouth,” in the sense of kissing God. Just as the lover’s kiss bridges any distance the bride had previously perceived, so adoration of God in prayer allows God to deal directly with us, removing any sense of separation from him. God is closer to us than our inmost selves. No wonder Saint Ignatius states that “it is much more suitable . . . that the Creator and Lord Himself should impart Himself to His devout soul, embracing her to His love and praise, and disposing her for the way in which she can better hereafter serve Him.”6 The word “embracing” suggests immediate contact of God with the individual soul and has conjugal connotations that resonate with the bridal spirituality of the Song of Songs. The person whom God embraces will be more inflamed with love and desire to serve than if another human being had urged the person to do so. On a related note, Saint Ignatius exhorts the director of the Spiritual Exercises to “permit the Creator to deal directly with the creature, and the creature directly with his Creator and Lord” (SpEx 15). The director does not inspire the retreatant but simply narrates faithfully the events of salvation history, enabling the retreatant to encounter God directly.

Saint Ignatius knew that God dealt with him directly, teaching him just like a schoolmaster teaches a child.7 He had many distinct experiences even as a beginner in the spiritual life while he was staying in a cave near Manresa, Spain. While praying and atoning for his many sins, he had overwhelming experiences of God’s forgiveness and mercy. These led him to an intimate knowledge of the Incarnate Christ, moving him to love and follow Jesus more closely. Saint Ignatius encountered the suffering Christ and sorrowed with him. The risen Lord filled him with joy and consolation, leaving him with a profound awareness of God present in and through all things. He could see with the eyes of Christ and feel with his heart. These experiences in Manresa formed the core of what Saint Ignatius would eventually call his Spiritual Exercises. Just as God dealt directly with Saint Ignatius, in the Spiritual Exercises the Lord deals directly with each person who seeks deeper prayer and spiritual growth.

Saint Ignatius’ prayer experiences did not remain only at the head level but resulted in his deep devotion and conviction to follow the Lord more closely. Although we distinguish between thinking about God and knowing him personally, these two things are not opposed but complementary. Our thinking about God should lead us to love him more deeply, just as when we love another person we seek to know that person better. But our knowing cannot remain at the level of mere intellectual speculation. Saint Ignatius explains early in the Spiritual Exercises that “it is not much knowledge that fills and satisfies the soul, but the intimate understanding and relish of the truth” (SpEx 2). It is easy to fill our heads with book knowledge and remain solely on the level of the intellect, but much more challenging to move to the level of the heart. Real prayer begins when God’s grace touches our hearts, just as the bride in the Song of Songs has been deeply moved by the bridegroom to crave his kiss and embrace.

We have often heard about the Lord from others, and that has led us to believe in him. But now we seek his personal and unique revelation to our individual hearts, just as the bride desires to experience her lover directly in receiving his kiss. Origen, one of the earliest and greatest commentators on the Song, exclaims, “To you I turn, Father of my Spouse . . . send him to me, that he may speak to me no longer through his servants and prophets, but that he himself come, that I may hear him speaking and teaching, and he may kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.”8 We want to hear the Lord directly at the source of our being, where the Spirit of God kisses our human spirit.

Sometimes we might be living more in the context of someone else’s understanding of divine revelation and less our own. We certainly need the witness and teaching of others, but God’s grace is established uniquely in each one of us. Joseph Ratzinger once explained that there are as many ways to God as there are people; even within the same faith, each person’s way is an entirely personal one.9 While certain patterns are common to all of us in the journey to God, spirituality is not “one size fits all.” Each person’s relationship with God is marked by distinctive features, as John Paul II comments: “We all know this moment in which it is no longer sufficient to speak about Jesus by repeating what others have said. You must say what you think, and not quote an opinion.”10

Going Deeper

As important as it is to know and love God, much of this relationship escapes our awareness and remains at the level of our spiritual unconscious. The Carmelite Ruth Burrows explains that the most vital aspects of our being occur at a level beneath our awareness. Thus genuine contemplation in its substance evades our immediate awareness.11 The Gospels themselves show us how little Jesus’ disciples understood his nature and mission. As Christ walked the earth and performed signs and miracles, his followers began to believe in him, but that faith fell woefully short of the truth about who he was. The disciples constantly failed to comprehend Jesus and often reduced his supernatural teaching to a merely natural level. For example, Peter thought Jesus’ washing his feet was merely a matter of hospitality and hygiene, when it was meant to be a cleansing from sin and a share in Jesus’ very life and ministry of service (see Jn 13:6–8). Nicodemus thought that being “born again” meant going back into his mother’s womb, and he didn’t understand it as being born of water and the Spirit (see Jn 3:1–15). Like the disciples, we are limited in our ability to receive much of the fullness of God’s revelation.

Movements of grace occur when the Lord reveals himself in our hearts and minds, allowing us to receive more of his fullness; Saint Ignatius describes this as “spiritual consolation.”12 Saint Ignatius speaks of the touch or “kiss” of God that the bride experiences in these deep encounters, these profound interior movements: “I call it consolation when some interior movement in the soul is caused, through which the soul comes to be inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord; and when it can in consequence love no created thing on the face of the earth in itself, but in the Creator of them all. . . . I call consolation every increase of hope, faith, and charity, and all interior joy which calls and attracts to heavenly things and to the salvation of one’s soul, quieting it and giving it peace in its Creator and Lord” (SpEx 316).

Spiritual consolation is a spike in the ordinary experience of our life of grace. It is a movement of spirit felt at a very deep level of our being, close to the center, where God kisses and embraces us. In moments of consolation, we perceive that we are in a blessed union with God. We have an awareness of being “in tune” with God and his plan. When tuning a radio, we hear static as we move the dial. When we land on our favorite station, the static gives way to the beautiful music we were looking for; now we are clearly connected. In consolation, we experience the beautiful music of being united with God and doing his will. We also feel at peace and most at home with ourselves in God. It is important that we pay attention to these gifts. The Lord often speaks to us in consolation for various reasons: to make us aware of how much he loves us, to give personal meaning to our relationship with him, to make us aware of his call, and to lead us to follow him more closely.

When we receive spiritual consolation, we may often notice it for a moment and then, sadly, quickly forget. Saint Ignatius suggests that we should drink deeply of God’s consolations, savoring their comfort and “storing them up” for difficult times. In the Song of Songs, the King (God) has drawn the bride (us) into his chamber or “wine cellar” (v. 4). He desires that they both drink deeply of the intoxicating love they have for each other. Saint Teresa of Ávila remarks: “It doesn’t seem the King wants to keep anything from her. He wants her to drink in conformity with her desire and become wholly inebriated, drinking of all the wines in God’s storehouse. Let the soul rejoice in these joys. Let it admire God’s grandeurs. Let it not fear to lose its life from drinking so much beyond what its natural weakness can endure.”13 God’s consolations are meant to be savored deeply and permeate our whole being. We ought to drink in his kiss, to yield to his love in our heart, allowing the experience to have its powerful and lasting effects on our being.

This does not, however, lead us to exalt ourselves. Saint Ignatius reminds us that we should humble ourselves (see SpEx 324) in moments of spiritual consolation, realizing they are God’s gift and not our own doing. At the annunciation, Mary accepts God’s proposal and adds, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord” (Lk 1:38). In her Magnificat, Mary rejoices and exults in the Lord’s gift, drinking fully of the moment of consolation and expressing her love and praise to God: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant” (Lk 1:46–48). She is convinced of her own humility and dependence on God for all she is and does. Mary, like the bride, has experienced the kiss of God in the most profound way—in his being conceived in her heart and taking flesh in her womb. As she ponders in her heart that God who is mighty has done great things for her, she becomes more alive in his presence. Like the bride, she is led to rejoicing, to deep communion with her Beloved. The goal of the Spiritual Exercises is to lead us into this same direct union with the Lord.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

Do you perceive God as distant or close? Are you aware of the Lord’s touch or “kiss” to you that bridges any perceived distance? What is it like?

When have you experienced greater awareness of the Lord’s presence? How might this help you to discover those things that might still be unconscious in your relationship with God?

Saint Ignatius described God as a divine schoolmaster who taught him directly. He also learned from other trusted guides in the spiritual life. What have you learned from others about you relationship with God? What have you learned directly from God? What is unique about your religious experience?

Have you ever experienced the divine “kiss” of spiritual consolation? How would you describe it? How did it affect your spirit, soul, and body? What meaning did it have regarding your relationship with God and the direction of your life?

How have you expressed your heart or articulated your thoughts and feelings to the Lord? How did it impact your relationship with God?

Prayer Exercises

Read Venerable Bruno Lanteri’s words about desire and prayer (p. 10). Pray with Song of Songs 1:1, and ask for the grace to desire God more fully.

Pray with Exodus 3:1–6, and ask the grace that God will reveal himself to you personally.

Ponder the comments of John Paul II about knowing God personally (p. 13). Pray with Matthew 16:13–20, and ask for the grace to know and express who Jesus is to you.

Consider the apostles’ lack of understanding of who Jesus was. Pray with Luke 7:11–17 or Matthew 8:14–15, and ask for the grace that what is unconscious in your relationship with the Lord may come to light.

Pray with Song of Songs 1:2–4, and ask for the grace to express yourself to the Lord in prayer.

Ponder Saint Ignatius’ description of spiritual consolation (p. 14). Pray with Luke 1:39–51, and ask for the grace to rejoice in the gifts God has given to you.

Repeat any of the above meditations and return to the experiences of greater insight or deeper feeling.

CHAPTER 2

Desire Is Prayer

[B] Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! . . .

Draw me after you, let us make haste.

The king has brought me into his chambers.

[D] We will exult and rejoice in you;

we will extol your love more than wine;

rightly do they love you. (Song 1:2, 4)

I will ask God our Lord for what I want and desire. (SpEx 48)

Saint Ignatius exhorts anyone beginning the Spiritual Exercises to pray with great desires, namely for the infinite and lovely things of God that lead to our salvation and sanctification. We can emulate the bride in the Song of Songs, whose passionate desire is expressed in the longing for her bridegroom to kiss her “with the kisses of his mouth.” Jesus knows our great yearnings and aspirations. He began his ministry with a question for his first followers, “What are you looking for?” ( Jn 1:38) Other translations are: “What do you seek?” or “What do you desire?” All point to the primacy Jesus gives to desire. We should allow Jesus to ask us this question and, in response, ponder what we seek. At the beginning of the spiritual journey it is crucial to orient our longings, because they indicate the end we are striving for. A ship pointed a few degrees off course at its origin will not reach its destination. Likewise, our perseverance and success in reaching our goal depend on the clarity and intensity of our desires, which keep us on course. The French novelist Antoine de Saint-Exupery once explained that if you want to build a ship, it’s best not to herd people together to collect wood or to perform other tasks; rather you teach them to long for the immensity of the sea.14 In the same way, as we begin to pray, we need to focus not on tasks but on our longing for the beauty and immensity of God.

Since Jesus presumably knew the hearts of his first followers, why did he ask them what they desired? Though he knew the answer to his question, perhaps they didn’t. The disciples had been following John the Baptist, a prophet of the Most High, which certainly indicated their desire for God. John piqued their curiosity by pointing to Jesus, and they began to follow him, leading to his query. They simply responded, “Rabbi . . . where are you staying?” ( Jn 1:38). Since Jewish rabbis often lived with their disciples, this response may have indicated their desire to follow Jesus in a radical way as his disciples, eating and drinking with him and sharing his life while he taught them. The question may also have meant they were simply interested in Jesus. In either case, Jesus invited them to “come and see,” and their lives would never be the same.

As we begin the Exercises, Jesus asks us the same question he asked the disciples, and we can begin to wonder about our own desires. We know we have many, more numerous than the hairs on our heads, as Saint Augustine put it. Some of these desires might frighten us, as they did C. S. Lewis, who looked within himself and discovered the covetousness and hunger for power that had been driving him.15 Like Lewis, we have probably experienced desires pulling us in multiple directions, threatening to derail our fundamental purpose in life. Even if we have only one or two errant desires, their intensity could menace our happiness. The addict painfully experiences the tyranny of one desire that dominates all of life and how its consequences can ruin relationships, work, and health. As substitutes for God, disordered desires become idols in our lives that demand our homage and turn us away from our fundamental desire for God.

Even the good things we desire and pursue may mask our deeper, more fundamental desire, preventing us from seeking it and leaving us dissatisfied. The literary enthusiast enamored of Shakespeare still asks if the playwright’s graceful lines can yield more meaning. The sports fan cheers his team to win the big game, yet finds the victory hollow. The musical devotee attends the great opera but leaves with an insatiable appetite for more beauty. We should also not suppose that our desire for God will be satisfied in this life. The more we have of God, the more we will desire him. Still, we will only have him when we behold him face to face. In her Dialogues, Saint Catherine of Siena echoes this truth as she addresses God, exclaiming that each time she seeks him, she finds him all the more, and each time she finds him, the more she seeks him. In her seeking she can never be satisfied, for what she discovers of him leaves her even more eager to discover, know, and experience.16 When the Lord fills our souls, we crave his presence all the more.

Humans are given to extremes, even in the spiritual life. One extreme is to follow our desires indiscriminately. Many people do just this, looking for God to bless their fundamentally disordered attachments. Such persons take the reins of control of their lives and make decisions without consulting God in prayer. When they do invoke the Lord, it is only to ask God to give them what they want without pondering if their desires are God’s will for them. Desires, instead, have to be discerned in God’s presence. We need to ask God to provide what is best for us and to instill his desires in us, for only he knows what will satisfy us.

Discernment

Saint Ignatius was a man of many desires. Before his religious awakening and return to faith in God, he lived a very worldly life in the court of the Duke of Nájera. Driven by the passion for courtly life with its honors and privileges, Saint Ignatius wanted to distinguish himself on the battlefield, to bask in the glory of a Spanish victory. The opportunity arose when a French force of 10,000 men invaded his Basque territory of northern Spain. Though Saint Ignatius was leading a battalion of only a few hundred, he insisted on defending the fortress at Pamplona against the much larger force. As the fight ensued, a cannonball exploded, shattering his leg, and he was carried off to his home at Loyola for surgery and convalescence. During his recovery, Saint Ignatius asked for his favorite books full of tales of chivalry and errant knights. None were available, only books on the lives of Christ and the saints, so he read those. He began to desire to follow these saintly examples. But at other times Saint Ignatius went back to daydreaming about chivalry and the heroic deeds he would perform in the service of a great and noble lady, seeking to win her hand. As he dwelled on these fantasies, he found himself inflamed with desire, just as he had been when reading about the lives of Christ and the saints. In particular, Saint Ignatius experienced the desire to imitate Saint Francis and Saint Dominic in their lives of prayer, penance, and charity. Which desire and lifestyle would he therefore follow—to serve a noble lady or to serve God?

When Saint Ignatius noted his internal reactions that resulted from pondering each desire, he noticed a key difference. After fantasizing about the noble lady and chivalric deeds, he felt dry and discontented. But after thinking about imitating the saints, he felt inflamed with a lasting love and desire. This observation marked the beginning of his understanding that though he had many desires, only some were deep and satisfying. Once he discovered them, he did in fact follow his truest and most profound desires to love and serve God.

Saint Ignatius illustrates a point known in the field of psychology: all people have certain vital desires. The American psychologist Abraham Maslow devised a six-level hierarchy of motives that, according to his theory, determine human behavior. Maslow ranks human needs as follows: (1) physiological: food, shelter, exercise, etc.; (2) security and safety; (3) love and feelings of belonging; (4) competence, prestige, and esteem; (5) self-fulfillment; and (6) curiosity and the need to understand. God certainly works through these good and healthy desires, which ordinarily should be pursued on a natural and even supernatural level. Mark Laaser, in his book, The Seven Desires of Every Heart, encourages readers to consider their soul’s greatest longing. He explains that the longings of our souls illustrate the desire to be heard and understood; to be affirmed; to be blessed; to be safe; to be touched; to be chosen; and to be included.17 As we seek the Lord in prayer, we realize he wants us to desire these fundamentally good things and wants these desires to be fulfilled. By getting more in touch with these fundamental desires, we will hopefully come to realize that they are leading us to their ultimate fulfillment in God.

Sometimes for various reasons we fail to recognize that we have deep and authentic desires. Perhaps we don’t trust our desires enough to face them. If we were stuck in superficial or sinful desires in the past, we may have learned to uproot all desires and desire nothing at all. A kind of Christian stoicism can lead to this elimination of desire. The Stoics taught that we can attain happiness through an internal calm that comes through repressing all feelings. So they would desire very little until no person or thing was important anymore. This attitude is far removed from Christian anthropology, since as human beings in love with Christ we desire the good as Christ desired it. At the Last Supper Jesus declared, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Lk 23:15), showing that he clearly desired the good of his disciples. Christ’s great desire, his food, as he described it, was to do the Father’s will. In expressing his well-formed desires, Jesus is our model to imitate.

Even as we follow the Lord’s example, we may be unable to voice our desires. Maybe we have been taught to satisfy others’ desires first, so we don’t pay attention to our own. Many people laudably sacrifice themselves for the sake of others, like the mother who always gives to her children. Some people may have been told what to want,18 such as the young person who is expected to follow in his father or mother’s footsteps in a career or relationship. Other people, sadly, have been raised to see their own desires as selfish. They seek to meet others’ needs and don’t know how to accept their own. Yet Jesus still asks us, “What do you desire?”

Attitudes that inhibit us from considering our desires could be frustration, fear, or comfort with mediocrity. Some people are so used to feeling unfulfilled that they may wonder, “What’s the use of even hoping for something different, something more?” Many people reach midlife only to find their dreams unrealized, and they lack the strength to seek yet another dream. Others may observe the popular religious caveat: “Be careful what you ask God for, you might get it!” That saying implies a fear of the changes that fulfilling a desire would demand in one’s life. I could be mired in a relationship that is not really life-giving to me, but fear the pain of leaving it. I might be stuck in a career that doesn’t allow me to use my talents or doesn’t fulfill my dreams, but feel paralyzed over not knowing the next move. I might also feel perfectly comfortable in this mediocrity, this inertia that stifles my willingness to face my true desires and make the changes they might demand. As an example, I pursued an education and career in business because my father and older brothers had done so and I had never considered other career options. I had a certain interest in and penchant for marketing, and I had never pondered anything else. Discovering the call to follow Christ in priest-hood and religious life awakened a great passion in me. By God’s grace, I left my business career behind in order to follow his invitation, breaking away from a choice that sprang from my having followed the status quo.

Other Obstacles

Another great obstacle to discovering our desires is thinking that we don’t even have any that are worthwhile. John Eldridge, a Christian psychologist, describes his counseling process with Ted and Diane, a couple whose marriage was on the rocks because they failed to look at their real issues. They were making good progress until Diane asked Ted about his deepest desires: what did Ted secretly wish Diane would do for him? Certainly any man would love to hear his wife ask him such an intriguing question. The sky was the limit. But did Ted ask for greater intimacy or respect? No, he asked for clean socks! For Ted, life would be better and their marriage would be richer if Diane would keep his drawer filled with clean socks. Eldridge mused that he wanted to throw Ted out the window—not because Ted was bad, shallow, or inconsiderate, but because he didn’t even know what he wanted. His desires for love and adventure were an inaccessible mystery to him.19

Perhaps, like Ted, we’re afraid that if we dig deep, beyond our desire for clean socks, we’ll come up short—that nothing truly valuable will emerge. We may have to pray for the courage to ask that God instill deep desires within us. Saint Paul affirms the truth that God, in his good will toward us, produces in us any measure of desire or achievement (see Phil 2:13). Just as we can ask God to instill desires in us, we can also ask him for the ability to discover even our unconscious desires. When we do, we will likely discover that, first of all, we desire greater intimacy with God. William Barry, a master of the Spiritual Exercises, reminds us that God desired us into being and continues to sustain us, arousing in us a desire for an enigmatic divine totality that we do not know and cannot name.20 At the heart level, God’s desire for us is the foundation for the development of our relationship with God. Our corresponding desire for “I know not what” spurs us on to search for God’s peace and leaves our hearts restless until they rest in God. Our desire for “I know not what” is the first step toward fulfillment in God.

Any desire we have for God is born of his intense desire for us. In commenting on the Gospel passage about the Samaritan woman at the well, Saint Augustine taught that we thirst for God because he has first thirsted for us. Jesus’ dying words on the cross, “I thirst,” express his thirst for each one of us. The Lord’s desire for us engenders our desire for him. God creates holy desires within our hearts. It is important for us to pay attention to our desires, to listen deeply for them, so that we can discern whether or not they are from God. We should notice how God is already in some way fulfilling our deepest desires and be grateful for his generosity.

While all good desires come from God, he may not fulfill them in the way or time frame that we expect. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux desired to be many things, some of which she attained in this life and others only in eternity. One of the things Thérèse wanted to be was a ministerial priest; being a woman, however, she knew God was not calling her to that vocation. So she chose to pray for priests and support them by her letters. Yet today she is the patroness of priests, undoubtedly a great blessing and unexpected fulfillment of her desire. Thérèse also desired to be a martyr, often choosing to dress up and play the part of her heroine, the martyr Saint Joan of Arc. Though Thérèse didn’t suffer martyrdom in the traditional sense, she suffered tremendously and heroically with the tuberculosis that eventually took her life. A final major desire of hers—to be a missionary in foreign lands—was impossible because she was a cloistered nun. Yet she interceded for missionaries throughout her life and is now the patron saint of missionaries. Each of Saint Thérèse’s desires was important, having been placed in her heart by God. None was realized in the way she might have supposed. Still, God, who does not inspire impossible desires, ultimately did fulfill them for Saint Thérèse.

When our desire for God remains only partially fulfilled, our longing for him stretches our soul, giving it the capacity to better accept what God desires to give us. In his greatness, God desires to give us more of himself, so he must increase our capacity to receive him. Even with Mary, always “full of grace,” God worked throughout her lifetime to increase her capacity to receive him and his grace. But why does God need to stretch us? It’s because we often put limits on God’s desires as well as our own. An anecdote will help to illustrate this. Two men—one an experienced fisher and one a novice—went fishing. Every time the experienced fisherman caught a big fish, he put it in his cooler to keep it fresh. Whenever the inexperienced fisherman caught a big fish, he threw it back. The experienced fisherman observed this dynamic all day without comment until finally, tired of seeing this waste of good fish, he exclaimed, “Why do you keep throwing back all the big fish you catch?” The novice replied, “I only have a small frying pan.”

Is the “frying pan” of our desires big enough to hold what God wants us to have of himself? The likely answer is no. Our desire for God, therefore, needs to increase.