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IGNATIUS' VISION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
Ignatian Spirituality Conference
"Companions in the Mission of Christ"
Saint Louis, MO
July 29 - August 1, 1999
Marian Cowan, C.S.J.
Spiritual Life Consultant and Artist
St. Louis, MO
I'll bet you all came to this talk with bated breath, waiting to hear what Ignatius envisions for the 21st century - as if Ignatius, in the 16th century, had a vision in his head about the 21st century! Now, Ignatius did have a few visions, as well as his "illumination" at the Cardoner, but I don't think they included what the 21st century should look like. So let's play with the title of this talk a little bit. We can talk about "An Ignatian Vision for the 21st Century," or 'Ignatian Spirituality as We Move into the New Millennium." We can think about Ignatius and his life, especially as his spirituality is demonstrated in the Spiritual Exercises, and apply what we find to the 21st century. These are all things that I would be more comfortable with. How about you? At any rate, this presentation will undoubtedly end up being what I envision for the 21st Century and what I think Ignatius has to offer to us as we move into it.
In preparation for this talk, besides praying and reading everything I could, I talked with people. I held "spiritual conversations" with folks. I chose to do this in imitation of Ignatius, because that is something about his life that has intrigued me lately. Everyone who knows anything about Ignatius' life is aware that he grew up at court, where he learned the manners of a courtly gentleman. Among the teachings that he imbibed woe the habits of listening attentively and of speaking deliberately. Later, engaging people in spiritual conversations, as he was wont to do, I believe he used these skills of listening attentively and speaking deliberately to draw out of people what was really going on in their lives, and gently leading them to encounter Jesus in new and more intimate ways.
So I asked people, "What is going on in our world now that will have implications for the next century?" 'What are the big changes taking place that need to be facilitated?" "What do you think Ignatius could bring to this movement?" This is what people said:
- Our world view has changed from a static to a dynamic world view. Nothing is fixed and finished, but is always changing. We live in an ever-expanding universe.
- We have come to see creation as holy. No longer do we have dualism between the sacred and the secular. Everything in creation is an expression of God
- We realize that all matter is energy. All creation shares the same energy this original, cosmic energy had to come from God. We are learning to access and use this energy
- Dualisms are being challenged: male vs. female, hierarchy vs. laity, conservatives vs. liberals, Generation X vs. us oldies (Boomers on up)
- Networking is replacing isolation: interfaith dialog, ecumenism, globalization, East-West dialog. Parts of a whole are really patterns in a network of relationships: particles of an atom, human structures, stars and planets within a universe.
- We are beginning to look at the whole in order to understand the parts instead of the other way around. It is another way to look at the one and the many. We look at the whole church, to understand hierarchy AND laity, liberals AND conservatives, women AND men, and the church of the laity. We look at the cosmos, to understand all the universes, our place within the cosmos, human beings in relation to the world, the cosmos, and every generation's giftedness for the rest. We discover that spirituality is bigger than any tradition.
- There is a big push to LIVE as equals - as partners in relationship, in mutuality - women and men, laity and clergy (Ordained and non-ordained), People of God using their gifts.
- We are growing in understanding that language is formative as well as expressive. It can narrow our vision ("The church has a mission."). It can expand our horizons. ("The mission has a church.").
- We are rushing headlong and deep into the Information Age. We experience world tragedy while it is happening. At the same time, we have a new means of evangelization and of networking.
- We are crying out - louder than ever -as a voice for the voiceless: "Stop the violence! Put an end to oppression and to economic imbalance! Claim your dignity as children of God, as expressions of God: unique, unrepeatable and irreplaceable. Live in awareness of belonging to the universe instead of the universe belonging to you."
These answers I received were all phrased in ways that indicate movement. This led me to situate my topic in the context of the paradigm shifts we are experiencing in our day and how they will probably play out in the new millennium. And, of course, I will venture an opinion of what Ignatius would bring to this situation. So here we are, standing on the brink of a new millennium, the third millennium. It is a time of wondering: How will the 21st century be different from the 20th? What will it call forth from us? While there will be no sudden change in the first moment of January 1, 2000, ultimately change will come - profound and universal change. This change will round out the shifts that have already begun. What will it look like?
A useful framework for thinking about our future is that of the paradigm. A paradigm is a common, useful, intellectual/emotional construct that provides a way of seeing and organizing reality. A paradigm shows us what's important and what's not. It points out problems and provides us with rules for solving them. Paradigms establish boundaries, focus our attention, set rules and filter data. As such, paradigms provide us with a kind of comfort zone within which people live, work, love, hate and judge. (Picture the movies we have had these last few years that take place within the Victorian Era or the Elizabethan Era. These are examples of people living within a certain paradigm that dictated rules for all manner of behavior.)
When commonly held, a paradigm is a set of assumptions that go unquestioned, are often unarticulated, are held to be sacred and provide an unconscious basis for behavior. Theologies are built up around the paradigm to support it. When it is called into question, the Church will defend it to the death - somebody's death.
An example would be the Copernican revolution. Before the time of Copernicus, all celestial beings woe seen as rising and setting around the earth. And for most of that time, everyone thought that the earth was flat. This made the earth - and, by extrapolation, human beings - the center of the universe. Philosophy and theology mirrored this belief, which was universal and unquestioned. The Principle and Foundation in the Spiritual Exercises expresses this world-view. "The other things on the face of the earth are created for the human beings, ..."
Copernicus, a contemporary of Ignatius, proposed a new theory: the sun - and not the earth - is the true center of the universe. However, he wrote in academic Latin, so the common people woe largely unaware of this new theory until Galileo came along. Galileo found indisputable proof of the Copernican theory and promulgated it in the vernacular, popularizing the finding that it is not the sun that rises and sets over the earth, but the earth that turns and orbits the sun. Then Galileo added insult to injury when he asserted that the Bible is not meant to be a scientific explanation of things.
Philosophical and theological confusion ensued. Copernicanism was condemned by the Church in the early 17th century, but the reality took hold anyway and new philosophical and theological thought was eventually developed. It took almost 400 years before the Church would at last forgive Galileo his indiscretion of promulgating that the earth does not hold prime position in the cosmos after all. Paradigm shifts take a l-o-n-g time, and the struggles of many generations of people.
A paradigm can be as big as a world view or as small as a room in your house. What's a kitchen for? Is it a place only to prepare food? Is it also a gathering place? What is a chapel for? A church? A convent? A rectory?
A paradigm can be an ethnic perception of reality, as seen in the ethnic cleansing going on in various countries of the world right now. An ethnic paradigm shift that is well on its way has been taking place in South Africa in our very day.
A paradigm can be the perception of a specific religious group, like the Muslims, the Buddhists, the Jews or the Christians or Roman Catholics a religious paradigm becomes most apparent when the religious group is either in power or drained of power. There is evidence of this right now, too, in the countries that are predominantly Muslim.
At this time in our history, as we close the Second Millennium and approach the threshold of the Third, whether we like it or not, we are in the midst of paradigm shifts that are rocking the world. They are shifts in our basic world-view that are of such magnitude as to affect the thinking, the attitudes, the decisions, the behaviors and the theology of human beings across the planet, and will ultimately have repercussions throughout the universe.
There are new ways of looking at the world and the universe scientifically and theologically, anthropologically and cosmologically that shatter past theories and present us with exciting, new possibilities for understanding our origins, evolution, growth, humanity, our universe and God.
We are currently in the throes of a social paradigm shift that is countering beliefs held sacred far too long. It is the decline of patriarchy. Patriarchy has been the prevailing social paradigm for at least 3000 years. Philosophical systems, social systems and political systems have all been developed on a mechanistic understanding of the universe having stable building blocks, making it control-able with all things being fixed and unchanging. Patriarchy has "fathered" artificial hierarchies and boundaries, centralization, colonialism, inequality of persons and resources, "might makes right," "bigger is better," "peace through strength," control by fear, isolation, dualisms, and the most blatant: Man is superior to woman. Consequently men have determined what part women will/will not play in their cultures.
Under this paradigm of patriarchy women have been held in a subservient position in most cultures, by force, by direct pressure, by ritual, by tradition, by law, by language, by customs, by etiquette, by education and by division of labor. Both men and women, operating out of this paradigm, reinforced this subservience.
Patriarchy has been so all-pervasive that it has shaped society's most basic ideas about human nature, about our relation to the universe, about the identity of God and about how to handle relationships between nations and with the "enemy."
We are all acutely aware of the demise of patriarchy and the birth of mutuality this is causing much pain and suffering among us. Movements away from the paradigm of patriarchy, which we will recognize, have been Liberation Theology and its ensuing activity, Feminist Theology and its activity, and the Civil Rights Movement.
A paradigm shift will only occur when the prevailing paradigm doesn't work any more, when it doesn't fit our reality. Because the prevailing paradigm of patriarchy doesn't fit; because we do not have total clarity on what the new will look like, and because we can't pause with life until we get it figured out, the feeling is one of chaos, of anxiety, of being
out of control, of confusion, searching for a way out, of fear that everything nailed down has come loose, as if the rock on which we have stood is crumbling beneath us, and like the loss of all that we hold sacred.
A paradigm shift evokes such a strong emotional reaction that it gets translated into any number of differing behaviors. 1) Some of us refuse to open our minds to the possibility of newness at this profound depth, and we suffer from paradigm paralysis. (Example: We are not even to talk about ordination of women!) 2) Some of us mistrust and persecute those who have a glimmer of the new reality. (Example: Columbus was ridiculed; Galileo was silenced and imprisoned; Jesus was crucified.) 3) Some of us pick and choose - not moving away from the old, but finding some items of the new attractive. (Example: the Second Class of Persons mentioned in the Exercises) 4) Some of us hang in there with the chaos, trusting that there is inherent order within the chaos, which will eventually emerge. When it does, these folk will cry, "That's it!" (Example: Ignatius in his time of conversion) 5) Some of us move things along, living within the paradigm while most others are still living within the old, even when it costs everything. (Example, Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks)
These paradigm shifts - scientific, theological, ecclesial and social - will go with us into the next century. As these shifts take hold more and more, those who cling to the old way of beholding reality, both Divine and created, will become more frightened and resistant to the new - not just new ideas, but also new generations. Those growing up within the new paradigm already know that the whole picture is the context for understanding the parts, that parts are really patterns of relationship within the whole, that networking is essential for life, that change is a constant for us, that all creation expresses God, that energy is shared throughout creation, that many dualisms are artificial, and that sexual and racial and ethnic equality is a given. Just watch them with information technology!
As we move into the next century, tensions will keep rising and arguments will increase. As has already been experienced, there comes a time when conversation around a topic becomes so strained that the conversation itself gets cut off. Anyone who perceives him/herself to be in charge of protecting the way things have been for centuries will batten down the hatches until what is perceived as a passing storm is gone.
This storm will not pass. Eventually, if it is of God, - and I believe it is- it will be accepted. It will require a reorganization of our boundaries from one way of seeing and organizing reality to another way of seeing/organizing reality. It will take a leap of the imagination rather than step-by-step logic. We can choose to go with this paradigm shift or to fight it to our last breath. The choice is ours.
This is where Ignatius comes in. There is much that this 16th Century Basque has to offer us to assist us as we move into the Third Millennium. The first and most obvious gift he offers us is a process of discernment that is tried and true. As a prevailing paradigm is challenged, e.g. patriarchy, we need to look at it fearlessly and see if it really fits us any more. Does the prevailing paradigm bring consolation to all people or just to those who benefit from it? To whom does it bring desolation? What are its fruits? If relinquished, what would life be like? This last question will not have a clear answer. Both the Holy Spirit and the Enemy of our human nature will be at our side as we attempt to envision details. There will be pulls toward and away from the new. Specifics will emerge in our imagination that either bring us consolation or desolation. If emotions run amok, we can always ask ourselves, "If I were on my deathbed, what would I wish I had chosen?"
When we become convinced that a paradigm shift is of God, we can hear within it the Call of the King. No longer is this call nebulous or only stirring us in our prayer corner. We feel within us an urgency to carry forward the divine project, even at great cost. Our efforts will not always be welcomed and we may even be perceived as enemy. We have martyrs in our day whose lives attest to an unbounded following of Christ even in the face of grave danger. The persons who murdered Oscar Romero, or the Jesuits and others in El Salvador, for example, were attempting to maintain the status quo, while the martyrs gave their lives to change it.
The Call of the King is real and clothes the invitation to follow Jesus in a variety of possibilities. How shall I further the change from patriarchy to mutuality? How shall I advance the movement to experience all people as one family instead of separate and unequal ethnic or national groups? How shall I move the Church along the lines of Vatican II? What is appropriate interaction with the rest of creation? Again Ignatius has something to offer. He reminds us that God speaks to us in our desiring. "Ask for that which you desire." It is in the desiring in our hearts that these enormous paradigm shifts become manageable. Where does your heart lead you? Which part/s of the paradigm shift attracts you to stand and be counted?
When the desiring of many hearts leads them to beat in rhythm, progress really takes place. Witness the work of our brother Jeuits in GC34. The documents of GC34 are heartening, especially those on "Cooperation with the Laity in Mission," "on Jesuits and the Situation of Women in the Church and in Society," and on Having a Proper Attitude of Service in the Church." These documents speak of the desires of the hearts of our brother Jesuits. When our desires are strong enough, are stirred up enough by the Spirit of God, we bring them into action. We certainly need the diversity of desire and action among us to make a difference. God will lead us to others of like desire. "Ask for that which you desire!"
Desires can be big, even mammoth - embracing the whole of the paradigm shift. But, if we spend time with them before God, perhaps they will become more specific and manageable. We find ourselves moved to specific activity in forwarding the paradigm shift. Again, discernment is the order of the day. The enemy of our soul will remind us of our weakness and sinfulness in order to distract and deter us. But have we not, in the Spiritual Exercises, experienced ourselves as indeed sinful and also loved beyond measure by God? We must remember this and "draw profit from it." It was not for one time only, but to strengthen us in the following of Christ. God's love is made perfect in weakness, after all.
The Principle and Foundation invites us to keep ends and means straight. The end for which we are created is intimacy with God. This is the bottom line in all our desiring and in all our activity.
In the Spiritual Exercises we found this intimacy deepened and enlivened through contemplating Jesus. Giving ourselves to this exercise worked its magic as we came to know Jesus more intimately and to love him more ardently. Through Jesus we fell in love more deeply with the God of Jesus Christ. It is this love that will sustain us as we live within these times of tension and slow progress. It is this love that will urge us to risk and will be with us in the risk. It is this love that will be manifest as we stand up against oppression and accept the consequences of our action in union with Jesus. It goes without saying that we need to nourish this intimate love.
The Contemplation on Divine Love is also a powerful help for us. Remember the pre-notes: Love proves itself in deeds and love is mutual, the lover and the beloved always wanting to give everything to the other. Now receiving, now giving. What are we always receiving from our good and gracious God? Life and love and all good gifts, including newness. God does not just give us gifts, but is within the gifts, even the difficult gift of paradigm shifts. As we grow in encountering God in all things, we discover God loving
us in all things. Ignatius reminds us that everything of God is within us. Do we need courage? God's courage is there to be tapped. Do we need fortitude? God's steadfastness is within us; we only need to let it flow. Whatever we need is there at our disposal. We only need to discover what blocks the flow: fear? Self-consciousness? Let go of the blocks.
We are truly like the drop of water to the waterfall, or the sunbeam to the sun: God is the waterfall and we are the drops of water. The drop of water is not the waterfall, but everything of the waterfall is contained within it. God is the sun and we are the sunbeam. Just as the sunbeam is not the sun, but contains everything of the sun within it, so we contain everything of God within us. Our "Take, Lord, receive . . ." becomes enfleshed and more real.
We cannot omit the Examen of Consciousness from among the ways the Spiritual Exercises are at our continuous disposal. This simple prayer, prayed daily, is extremely helpful for keeping ends and means straight, as well as calling us to honesty.
These are some ways that the legacy of Ignatius will assist us to handle the tensions of paradigm shifts as we move into the next century. Now - What would Ignatius do if he were alive today? To what would he urge us?
I believe he would address some of the specifics in which we can make a difference:
- I believe Ignatius would instruct us to listen attentively and to speak deliberately and fearlessly. Listen attentively and openly, attend to what we are hearing and to the person who is speaking. Become aware of language and speak deliberately. Learn to use inclusive language. Do you priests and deacons among us use inclusive language
breviaries? Do you Jesuits, when you hold your own meetings, use inclusive language even if women are not present? If not, you are selling yourselves short and remaining within, even reinforcing the paradigm of patriarchy.
If Ignatius were writing the Spiritual Exercises today, we can be sure that he would phrase them in universal language for humans and for God. I believe Ignatius, realizing the control exerted by choice of words, would insist that we speak of God in ways that do not reinforce the notion that God is male (making "male" therefore God). Nor would he tolerate our limiting God to being female. Knowing that we tend toward addressing God in an anthropomorphic fashion, Ignatius would challenge us to let God be God and to find the language for this. He would probably also be easily persuaded to change military metaphors for ones more appropriate to the exercitants of today and tomorrow. In fact, he would urge us to find the right metaphor in any given instance.
- Ignatius, I believe, would have us all read the documents of GC34 that I alluded to earlier. His sons have written clearly about working to overcome the oppression of laity in general and of women in particular, as well as stating in bold new ways what it means to have a proper attitude regarding service in the Church.
"Where they live, worship and work, laity are taking on greater responsibility for the ministry of the Church. Called to be holy and concerned for faith, justice and the poor, they evangelize the structures of society."(GC34, #336) Jesuits are to expect one another to strengthen the laity in their mission, drawing out their gifts, animating and inspiring them. (# 353) Laity are called upon to strengthen one another in this same way. The Laity will become more and more, in reality, partners in Jesuit mission, even, it is hoped, being called upon to assist in Jesuit discernment.
Consciously moving out of the patriarchal paradigm, GC34 "invites all Jesuits to listen carefully and courageously to the experience of women . . . [and] to align themselves in solidarity with women." (#372-373) We women appreciate this. I would put it this way: "Be good brothers to us and let us be good sisters to you." All of us, not only Jesuits, must heed the invitation to solidarity and accept it.
Through GC34 "the Society [of Jesus] renews its fidelity to the teaching of the Church as it discerns and confronts the signs of the times. (#306) Yet it notes that there may be "strong tensions within the Church from which the Society may not stand aloof' and that "there may be times when [Jesuits] feel justified, even obliged, to speak out in ways that may not always win ... general approval and could even lead to sanctions painful to the Society and constituting an impediment to [the Society's] work." (#310) If the Society of Jesus can be so bold, can we not all follow this example?
- I believe, however, that Ignatius would move us to remain in dialog with those with whom we differ. He, himself, was quite skilled in this. He would urge the generations to listen to each other with open and compassionate hearts. He would heartily endorse "Common Ground" as proposed by Cardinal Bernadine, to keep open the discussions between the conservatives and liberals of the Church. The Ignatius of the new millennium might even urge the Vatican to open the door once again to discussion of feminist theology.
- Ignatius would undoubtedly encourage us to support one another in forming more and more Christian Life Communities. It is in these communities that we experience church as Jesus, perhaps, meant it to be. CLCs provide a milieu for helping one another and challenging one another to grow in living the Gospel life in the most real sense of the word.
- I believe that Ignatius would say, "Give the Spiritual Exercises to everyone you can, but especially to those who can make a difference. Take them to CEO's and other executives, to those in the boardrooms of corporations, to politicians and to Bishops, to advertising and movie makers, to our Generation Xers, who are beginning to take over leadership." What would our world be like if world leaders would make the Exercises, or the generals at the Pentagon, or the wealthiest persons in the world, or the executives of World Bank, for instance? What would our Church be like if all the Vatican officials and all the bishops made the Spiritual Exercises? Although we are always aware that the Spiritual Exercises are but one gift that God has to offer to the world, this gift could surely instigate a lot of changes.
- With his conversion, Ignatius left behind the violence that had been a part of is life. He would urge us to do the same. He would lead us to recognize the violence in our behavior and in our language and tell us to relinquish it. This includes relinquishing violence to oneself done in the mistaken notion that it is of God. Violence is not the way of Jesus Christ.
- Ignatius would certainly expect us to become media-literate. As is already being done, he would put the Word on the internet.
- He would also encourage people to find means of good spiritual guidance.
- Lastly, Ignatius would depend on us to live according to the graces we received in making the Spiritual Exercises. We became intimate with Jesus, as true disciples, during that time. We learned to look through His eyes, to hear with His ears, to love with His heart. We were called, we were formed and we have been sent as apostles to carry forward God's loving desires for the world that is very much in need of what we have to give.
Yes, Ignatius has much to offer to our new millennium. He may not have had a vision of what this next century, much less this new 1000 years, would bring. But God has given us through Ignatius a spirituality that spans the centuries. It equips us, not only to weather the paradigm shifts gracefully, but also to work actively to bring them toward their full flowering.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Capra, Fritjof and Steindl-Rast, David, Belonging to the Universe: Explorations on the Frontiers of Science & Spirituality, Harper San Francisco, 1992.
Documents of the Thirty-Fourth General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, The Institute of Jesuit Sources, St. Louis, 1995.
Fagin, Gerald, S.J., Fidelity in the Church - Then and Now, Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits. The Institute of Jesuit Sources, St. Louis, May, 1999.
Ganss, George, S.J., The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: A Translation and Commentary, The Institute of Jesuit Sources, St. Louis MO, 1992.
Hawking, Stephen, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, Bantam Books, NY, 1988.
Kolvenbach, Peter-Hans, S.J., Laity and Women in the Church of the Millennium, Review of Ignatian Spirituality, No.91, 1999.
O'Murchu, Diarmuid, Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics, Crossroad, NY, 1998.
O'Murchu, Diarmuid, Reclaiming Spirituality, Crossroad, NY, 1997.
Sheldrake, Philip, S.J., ed., The Way of Ignatius Loyola: Contemporary Approaches to the Spiritual Exercises, The Institute of Jesuit Sources, St. Louis, 1991.
Starkloff, Carl, S.J., "I'm No Theologian, but . . . (or So . . .)7", The Role of Theology in the Life and Ministry of Jesuits ", Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, The Institute of Jesuit Sources, St. Louis, March, 1998.
Swimme, Brian, The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos: Humanity and the New Story, Orbis, Maryknoll, NY, 1996.
Toohig, Timothy, S.J., Physics Research, a Search for God, Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits. The Institute of Jesuit Sources, St. Louis, March, 1999.
Talks '02: Duckro | Cowan | Fleming
'99: Cowan | Hellwig | Padberg
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