One Word at a Time
Posted by Michelle Francl-Donnay in Ignatian Prayer
The interior of the church looked like it had been torn from the pages of Isaiah, “I lay your pavements in carnelians, your foundations in sapphires; I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of jewels, and all your walls of precious stones.” The air was still, heavy with the heat of early summer and anticipation. I settled into my pew, tore my eyes from the distracting beauty that surrounded me to focus on the choral ensemble arrayed across the chancel.
Suddenly the tenors plunged as one voice into the soaring space, “Ave Maria…,” a line echoed by the baritones, then caught up into a complex harmony of overlapping phrases by the sopranos and altos. The music swirled above us and poured down the walls. Eddies of sound spun down the main aisle.
A word or phrase would surface in perfect clarity, then become submerged into the polyphony, only to re-emerge again on the next word. Gratia, grace. Benedicta, blessed. The depths of each phrase of the Hail Mary were sounded by threads of intricate harmony. My ear strained to follow the final note of the final Amen, until it too, was caught into the silence.
As I took the train home late that night, I was struck by how much like my prayer this setting of the Ave Maria had been. I gather myself in stillness to listen, plunge in with a word or two. Adsum. Here I am, Lord. God willing, I hear the music that ever surrounds us, but even with long practice the individual notes elude me.
Words tumble about, caught in the currents of my thoughts. Sometimes, there are flashes of heart-rending clarity. And in the end, the transcendent Trinitarian chorus carries me into silence again, my heart straining to follow their lead.
Perhaps because this particular piece had been composed by a contemporary of St. Ignatius, I thought, too, of his Second Method of Prayer. (SE 252) Gather yourself comfortably before God, he advises, still your gaze, and don’t let it roam about. Take a familiar prayer, like the Our Father, or perhaps the Ave Maria—the Hail Mary. Say the first word, hold onto it, explore it, relish it, turn it about. When you’ve exhausted that word or phrase, go on to the next. Let each word pull you more deeply into the Divine mystery.
This morning, listening again to Robert Parson’s Ave Maria, I realized that this is the rhythm not only of my prayer, but of my life. There are moments when I am blessed with an utter certainty of God’s presence, followed by moments when I am so distracted by the complex cacophony that pervades my daily life I lose track of the underlying melody entirely. I can be befuddled by, entranced with, or simply carried away by the complexity of the sacred tune swirling through the universe. And there are so many times when I strain to hang onto the barest whisper of God’s voice, unsure if it is still there.
Gratia plena, indeed. I pray to be filled with the grace to hear God resounding through time and space, and the courage to follow him into the depths. One word at a time.
Purpose in this Moment
by Lisa Kelly, as she begins An Ignatian Prayer Adventure.
So often in our lives we want that big picture, the clear road map, the understanding of the infinite, whether it is to know what the future will bring, what life’s purpose is, or even where this Ignatian Adventure might lead. But skipping to the end of the book would miss the point. Being human means we can’t know the whole picture. No human in history has clearly seen his or her complete road map, so it isn’t going to start with me.
Faith means taking the journey even though we don’t know how it will end. All I truly have is the present moment, and each and every moment holds a purpose. In each moment I get to make a choice to keep my feet firmly planted in the enormous love of God for me or to let my disordered attachments pull me into actions and worldviews that take me away from reflecting that love.
St. Ignatius recognized in his Principle and Foundation that we can easily be preoccupied with what our lives will be down the road—will I be rich or poor? Will I be sick or healthy? Will I live a long life or a short one? And in that preoccupation we miss the presence of the Spirit in the current moment. How can I “praise, reverence, and serve God” right now? In this moment? In this one little action or gesture? The choices we make within each moment will bring us one step closer or farther from our heart’s desire. Our purpose in life need be no bigger than our purpose in this very moment.
What’s yours?
Care of the Person, Care of the Self
By Tim Muldoon in Spirituality
Care of the person (cura personalis) is one of the common principles of Ignatian spirituality and pedagogy. It is rooted in the faith that God has created me to do some good in the world, and that through discernment I can come to an understanding of how to love the people in my life as Jesus might, awakening in them the same desire to give their lives in loving service to others.
Cura personalis has an eschatological dimension—a fancy theological way of expressing that all the ways we love others are oriented toward building the kingdom of God little by little, allowing God to use us in the workings of a divine symphony.
One implication of this faith that is appropriate during the summer months is that our care for other persons must not neglect the care of that one person whom we will know our entire lives: ourselves. For those who practice care for others, it can be easy to neglect the self. Parenting, I find, can elicit from me patterns of self-giving which are not really sustainable. Losing sleep, always seeking the good of the other, spending time on what the other needs instead of what I need—all these I tend to write off as so many types of sacrificial love that I can offer up to God.
Yet the legal maxim nemo dat quod non habet (no one gives what he does not have) applies to the spiritual life as well. Care of the self is integral to the desire to practice cura personalis. This summer, perhaps it is time to return to the springs of living water that are the Scriptures and the Church’s liturgy.
To use a different approach, consider how care of the self can include such disparate activities as taking long naps, reading a challenging essay, physical exercise, foreign travel, walks in nature, conversation with friends, a glass of wine on a beautiful lanai, or climbing a mountain. Care of the self will include building up my capacities to undertake the mission God has entrusted to me; but it will also mean sometimes simply enjoying the gifts of leisure. In both cases, care of the self is a work of cooperating with God in the eschatological work of building the kingdom.
