Living as an Ignatian Christian

by Maria Anderson

This post has been in the making for months, and I have been dragging my feet. Today it became apparent to me WHY it has been so hard to write this: Ignatian Christianity is NOT about learning something new in your head. I cannot write a nice essay on it, and point you to additional resources (and there are many) and feel I have contributed ANYTHING. (If you’re interested in that, Google it and master the material. I’m writing to an audience that does that well. Read up on the history and impact and details on Wikipedia or IgnatianSpirituality.com or any of your other hits.)

Ignatian Christianity is truly about following Jesus and worshiping the Triune God, right here and right now. It is taught in the way you teach someone to play baseball, not in the way you teach someone to write an essay about some historical event. I know several people who attempted to buy Ignatian materials and go through them on their own, and found their way later to a group or leader who could guide them through them the right way. Ignatian Christianity requires other people at its very core – people to model and explain the Ignatian way, people to walk the Ignatian way with us, and people to illustrate to us constantly how far we have to go to know anything or live our faith in any real way. Ignatian Christianity comes from and leads to real community.

But the Source of Ignatian Christianity is found in solitude, as we are sent to meet alone with the Triune God. When any person hears of the Ignatian exercises and the life that another is experiencing with God and others as another practices them, they find themselves either repelled by or attracted to the practice. For those who are attracted to the practice, they only need to find someone who has completed the exercises once and has had brief training in leading others in them. Then they need to consider whether they are willing to change their life to devote time (an hour a day is a guideline, but slightly less or a great deal more than that may actually be required as one is led by the Holy Spirit) and whether they are willing to meet weekly with a leader or group that is facilitating the exercises.

For those who find themselves repelled or unwilling or unable to make this time for prayer, they should go on their way in their current endeavors and spiritual commitments without guilt. The exercises require an openness to discovering that reality is not what one thought it was. The exercises are not safe. The exercises may lead you to make big changes in your commitments and lifestyle, and most definitely will not simply add power to your current attempt to live a life as a Christian. The exercises will change your very definition of what that even means.

I have been led through the Ignatian exercises “correctly” twice now, using the material developed around them by Joseph Tetlow and in the loose structure here in Orange County facilitated by the layperson Judge Francisco Firmat of our OC court system. (Before this I did try the exercises on my own, and also spent a year doing them with a group in which no one had been trained in them, although the leader was an ordained minister and also trained in spiritual direction and credentialed as a Spiritual Director. She was also the one that then found us a leader to lead us through them again the right way.) I have been trained by Frank in facilitation of the exercises, and am facilitating someone through them this year. The full exercises are designed to be experienced either in a full month in retreat, or in 35 weeks that are matched to the liturgical calendar, beginning in September and ending in May or early June. There are weeks that should be matched to events in advent and to the Easter week, so the exact schedule is slightly different each year. They consist of specific scripture passages and reading and prayers for each week, with some guidance as specific types of prayer and contemplation are learned and practiced. They are an introduction to real life, and real prayer, and the real Triune God of scripture, and a real response of devotion and obedience and love.

For those interested in learning more, but not ready to take off for a month or to commit themselves to an hour a day and a meeting a week for 35 weeks, there are several variations on “Lightworks” designed by Joseph Tetlow. They involve a similar program, but with a much shorter commitment (of 4 to 14 weeks) and less time each day (starting at 15 minutes daily). These programs give an overview of the concepts and a taste of the practice of them, and may be useful for someone who is attracted to the concept but not sure if it is for them or not. These programs can also be done with a group led by someone who has received training and is rooted in lay or Jesuit structures, or one-on-one with that kind of individual.

St Ignatius himself — and Joseph Tetlow who developed the material and structure that hosts my practice of the exercises – did not attach any importance to great religious commitments or training. He trained laypeople, and commissioned them to do the same. Joseph Tetlow has expressed disdain for our current practice of turning out a new kind of authority in programs to train “Spiritual Directors”, because he says the emphasis becomes a need for a religious guru of some sort, rather than our need to walk out our faith in a community of equals. We are all called to know God intimately and are all called to be of use to God – and we are all capable of that, in God’s grace.

The result of the practice of the exercises of St. Ignatius is a life of prayer and service to others. It is a life of daily repentance for the ways we fail ourselves, God, and others. It is certainty in a very few things. And it is uncertainty in a great many others.

My call to each of you who read this is this: 1) Do that Google search so you fill your mind with the history and impact of Ignatian Christianity. 2) Consider your own life and God’s current calls on you. Is God calling you to something like this right now? And 3) If you believe you are called to the exercises, seek out a “Lightworks” program near you, or find someone who can direct you through the exercises beginning next September and get some guidance for the ways you can prepare yourself now for those 35 weeks.

If you have any problem finding those resources (again, Google works just fine in most places, and there is a nation-wide lay network of people who can guide you through Joseph Tetlow’s materials) feel free to contact me and I will be glad to help. I am “mkettleson” on Twitter, or the editors of this blog can connect us by email.

Image courtesy Anita Coleman, @chariscoleman on Twitter