2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Mersey Leven Catholic Parish

OUR VISION

To be a vibrant Catholic Community 

unified in its commitment 

to growing disciples for Christ 

Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney 
Mob: 0417 279 437 
mike.delaney@aohtas.org.au
Assistant Priest: Fr Paschal Okpon
Mob: 0438 562 731
paschalokpon@yahoo.com
Priest in Residence:  Fr Phil McCormack  
Mob: 0437 521 257
pmccormack43@bigpond.com
Postal Address: PO Box 362, Devonport 7310
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street, Devonport 7310 
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160 
Email: merseyleven@aohtas.org.au
Secretary: Annie Davies
Finance Officer: Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair:  Felicity Sly
Mob: 0418 301 573
fsly@internode.on.net

Mersey Leven Catholic Parish Weekly Newsletter: mlcathparish.blogspot.com.au

Parish Mass times for the Month: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au

Weekly Homily Podcast: mikedelaney.podomatic.com 

Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.

Parish Office re-opens Tuesday 28th January, 2020

         

PLENARY COUNCIL PRAYER

Come, Holy Spirit of Pentecost.
Come, Holy Spirit of the great South Land.
O God, bless and unite all your people in Australia 
and guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another 
and to recognise Jesus, our companion on the road.
Give us the courage to tell our stories and to speak boldly of your truth.
Give us ears to listen humbly to each other 
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future, 
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, bread for the journey from age to age.   
Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us.
St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.

Parish Prayer

Heavenly Father,

We thank you for gathering us together 
and calling us to serve as your disciples.

You have charged us through Your Son, Jesus, with the great mission

  of evangelising and witnessing your love to the world.

Send your Holy Spirit to guide us as we discern your will

 for the spiritual renewal of our parish.

Give us strength, courage, and clear vision 
as we use our gifts to serve you.

We entrust our parish family to the care of Mary, our mother,

and ask for her intercession and guidance 
as we strive to bear witness

 to the Gospel and build an amazing parish.

Amen.

Our Parish Sacramental Life

Baptism: Arrangements are made by contacting Parish Office. Parents attend a Baptismal Preparation Session organised with a Priest.

Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist: Are received following a Family–centred, Parish-based, School-supported Preparation Program.

Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults: prepares adults for reception into the Catholic community.

Marriage: arrangements are made by contacting one of our priests - couples attend a Pre-marriage Program

Anointing of the Sick: please contact one of our priests

Reconciliation:  Ulverstone - Fridays (10am - 10:30am), Devonport - Saturday (5:15pm– 5.45pm)

Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus - in recess until 7th February
Benediction with Adoration Devonport:  First Friday each month - commences at 10am and concludes with Mass - in recess until 7th February

Legion of Mary: Wednesdays 11am Sacred Heart Church Community Room, Ulverstone

Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – Recommences this Mon 13th January. For information: Michael Gaffney 0447 018 068

Weekday Masses 21st - 24th January 2020

Tuesday:         9:30am Penguin 
Wednesday:    9:30am Latrobe
Thursday        12noon Devonport

Friday:           9:30am Ulverstone
                                                                                                                       

Next Weekend 25th - 26th January 2020  

Saturday Vigil:  6:00pm Devonport 
                        6:00pm Penguin
Sunday Mass:    8:30am Port Sorell
                        9:00am Ulverstone
                      10:30am Devonport
                      11:00am Sheffield
                       5:00pm Latrobe

                            

Devonport Friday Adoration:  Recommences 7th February, 2020

Devonport:  Benediction (1st Friday of the Month) - Recommences 7th February, 2020

                             

Parish Office re-open this Tuesday 28th January, 2020

OLOL Piety Shop will be closed for month of January

                          

Readings This Week: 2nd Sunday of the Year (Year A)

First Reading: Isaiah 49: 3, 5-6

Second Reading:  1 Cor 1:1-3

Gospel: John 1:29-34

PREGO REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL:

I allow a sense of internal stillness to emerge by deliberatively slowing down and letting go of my stream of thoughts and feelings. 

I ask the Holy Spirit to come to my aid, to create a space for my encounter with the Lord. When I am ready, I read the Gospel several times over. I note and attend to what draws me from within the passage. 

Like John, I, too, may look at Jesus ... really look, and see him for who he truly is. How would I describe him: a deeply trusted teacher, a friend or…?

Maybe I do not know him well enough or even trust him yet? 

Or – again like John – I may want to ponder my sense of growing faith and the ways in which I recognise Christ in my life today. 

I reflect on who he is for me, in all aspects of my life. 

I beg the Lord that I might see him, love him, and follow him more fully, day by day. 

I spend time in prayerful attention, perhaps pondering my own baptism. 

What might God be asking of me now, as his witness? 

I speak to the Lord from the depths of my heart and mind. 

As we begin 2020, I pray for the Spirit to rest on the whole world, on the baptised and unbaptised; to bring healing, hope and a recognition of Christ in our midst.

Readings Next Week: Third Sunday in

Ordinary Time Year A

First Reading: Isaiah 8: 23 – 9:3

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 1: 10-13, 17

Gospel: Matthew 4: 12-23

                                        

Your prayers are asked for the sick:  Paul Richardson, Elke Cavichiolo, Chris Fielding, Margaret Becker, Erin Kyriazis, Philip Smith, & …

Let us pray for those who have died recently:  Gwen Conn, Michael Nasiukiewicz, Pat Wells, Dennis Kelly, David McManamy, Ray Emmerton, Susan Scharvi, Pat Sainsbury, Marjorie Frampton, Ray Khan, Carmel Leonard, Lope Zenarosa, Marjorie Frampton, David Handyside, Austin Fagan & … 

Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 16^th – 22^nd January

William Richardson, Gustav Schneiders, Heather Hall, Rex Radcliffe, Ray Grant, Kerry Berwick, Brian Matthews, Patricia Lewis, Joan Summers, Jean Von Schill, Josephine Last, Bernard Mack, Barry Lyons, Dorothy Bell, Nicola Tenaglia, Margaret Lockett, Nouhad Wehbe.

May they Rest in Peace

                                    

Weekly Ramblings

It was good to welcome Deacon Steven Smith back to the Parish last weekend. God willing he, and Deacon Chathura Silva, will be ordained to the Priesthood midyear – please continue to pray for them as they continue their journey to service as Priests of the Archdiocese.

Thanks to the Lay Liturgical Leaders who assisted with our Liturgies over the past two weekends, as well as numerous times in the past, – without their gracious assistance we would not be able to gather as a worshipping community on those weekends when there is only one priest available. Again, thank you.

Next weekend, the Australia Day weekend, the Australian Bishops have asked that all Parishes make a special effort to support the victims of the Bushfires by having a Special Collection. I would like to suggest that this be a leaving Collection – I would encourage all of us to be a generous as we can be to support those who are struggling with the immensity of these past few months.

We continue our Prayer for Rain and Relief at the C3 Church, 1 Parker St, on Tuesday, 21^st Jan, at 7pm. Entrance to the Church is either off Parker Street (near the Esplanade) or from North Fenton Street – same entrance as the Big, Big House. Over 40 people have gathered at the Presbyterian Church and at OLOL over the past two weeks from a variety of denominations – this is another opportunity for the Churches in Devonport to show their unity as we pray together for Rain and Relief for all suffering from the Bushfires and Drought.

Take care on the roads and in your homes,

                               

Renewal of Marriage Vows

Masses for the Renewal of Marriage Vows will be celebrated by Archbishop Julian Porteous on Sunday 16th February, 2020 at St Mary’s Cathedral, Hobart at 10.30am and on Sunday 23rd February, 2020 at Church of the Apostles, Launceston at 10.30am.

Couples celebrating Marriage milestones including couples in the early years of marriage (1st, 5th and 10th anniversaries) are invited to RSVP to the Office­ of Life, Marriage and Family by emailing ben.smith@aohtas.org.au or on 6208 6036. Catholic married couples will receive a special acknowledgement from Archbishop Julian on the day.

SILENT RETREAT - SPIRITUAL EXERCISES OF ST IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA

We invite you to experience 5 days of silent retreat to go in a deeper encounter with Jesus within you from 2nd - 7th March 2020. 

During these days will be offered Latin Mass, Rosary, Adoration, Conferences in the Spiritual Exercises, Spiritual Direction, Confession and Way of the Cross. Please contact the Palavra Viva Community at the Emmanuel Centre, Newstead 0418 183 511 or palavravivatasmania@gmail.com

                         

Letter From Rome
The Uncontrollable Consequences Of A Broken Promise

How Benedict XVI found himself embroiled in controversy over a book on celibacy by Robert Mickens, Rome. January 16, 2020

This article is from the La-Croix International website - you can access the site here but complete access is via paid subscription 

It was not supposed to be like this. And, yet, it could have been – and may still become – a lot worse.

Benedict XVI has found himself in the middle of an ugly controversy over his alleged co-authorship of a book strenuously defending priestly celibacy. And it looks suspiciously like an attempt to block Pope Francis from even considering the ordination of married priests.

The other co-author and the initiator of the writing project is African Cardinal Robert Sarah, a longtime Vatican official who has become one of the heroes of traditionalist Catholics opposing Francis.

The book, which is already out in French and soon to be ready in English, is called "From the Depths of Our Hearts". The conservative French daily, Le Figaro, revealed its existence Jan. 12 by publishing excerpts and an interview with the cardinal.

And what a stir it caused! Especially because of its timing.

A warning to Pope Francis

The slim volume appeared just weeks before Francis is expected to release a document in response to proposals from bishops who attended a Synod assembly on the Amazon last October at the Vatican. One of their requests was for the pope to approve the priestly ordination of married men of proven virtue (viri probati).

Many saw the Sarah-Benedict book, given that one of the co-authors is a former pope, as an exerted effort (even a warning) to dissuade Francis from doing so.

But less than 48 hours after news of the book appeared, Benedict's personal secretary – Archbishop Georg Gänswein – said the former pope had never consented to being co-author and demanded his name be removed from the book's cover.

The former pope, he explained, had only submitted an essay to Cardinal Sarah, but had not written anything else. Nor had he seen the book's cover, according to the secretary.

Catholic discussion forums on social media were sizzling with all sorts of speculation -- and bitter fighting – over what had actually happened.

Had Cardinal Sarah manipulated Benedict or tricked him into being a co-author? Or had Archbishop Gänswein given the cardinal permission to cite Benedict's authorship, only to be forced to deny the former pope's involvement when Benedict or others expressed their displeasure?

Just a misunderstanding?

It is still not clear exactly what happened. The archbishop said Benedict never agreed to put his name to a book. But the cardinal had already produced several typed letters, signed by Benedict, that suggest he actually did.

The cardinal – at least for now – has acquiesced, saying Benedict's name will be removed from future editions. However, he insists that the former pope was a contributor and the text would remain unaltered.

"It was a question of misunderstanding, without casting doubt on the good faith of Cardinal Sarah," conceded the archbishop.

Nonetheless, the cardinal did not emerge well from the incident. Some traditionalists who had previously been enamored of him blamed him for trying to manipulate Benedict.

Others say it was all the fault of Gänswein, who then threw Sarah under the bus when this blew up in their faces.

As for the actual substance of the book? Leaving aside Benedict's contribution, the rest of the work grossly misrepresents the Church's doctrine on the connection between the priesthood and celibacy. It also ignores the facts of history.

And, furthermore, it dishonestly suggests that what is at stake is the end of the celibate priesthood. In fact, no one has ever suggested abolishing celibacy, only that the practice of ordaining married men, as well, be resumed throughout the Church – as it was in the beginning.

The badly made arguments in the book are actually of minor importance. The real problem is that a former pope has engaged (or has been enrolled) in an effort to hinder the freedom of his successor to govern the universal Church.

Who's to blame?

There's a lot of blame to cast around.

Archbishop Georg Gänswein certainly must own his share. The 63-year-old German prelate has been Benedict XVI's personal secretary since 2003, two years before Josef Ratzinger's election to the papacy.

Just two months before announcing his resignation as pope (something he'd decided on several months earlier), Benedict made Gänswein prefect of the Papal Household and ordained him bishop.

The new pope, Francis, left him in that recently appointed role. In addition to continuing as prefect, Gänswein remained as Benedict's personal secretary.

The two men, and four consecrated laywomen, live in the same multi-storied residence in the Vatican Gardens. In the nearly seven years since his retirement, Benedict has received visitors almost daily at their home. His secretary is the "gatekeeper," deciding who gets access to him and who does not.

In the past few years, as Benedict has grown frailer, the archbishop's role as guardian and caregiver has become more vital. A documentary that aired earlier this month on Bavarian television showed the former pope in an advanced stage of decline.

And the signature on the letters that he supposedly wrote (or dictated) to give Cardinal Sarah permission to publish his thoughts on celibacy is barely legible.

This suggests that there is at least the possibility that someone – i.e. Benedict's secretary – took the responsibility for negotiating the book project with the cardinal.

Che Sarah Sarah

And what of the cardinal's culpability?

Robert Sarah has worked at the Vatican since 2001 when John Paul II appointed him secretary at the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (Propaganda Fide). The 22 years prior to that he had served as archbishop of his home diocese of Konakry in Guinea, a post he took up at age 34.

During his time at Propaganda, then-Archbishop Sarah was known as a quiet, prayerful man. But the signs of ideological conservatism emerged only later, after Benedict XVI appointed him president of the now-defunct Pontifical Council "Cor Unum" in 2010 and made him a cardinal.

After the election of Pope Francis, the African was part of the first group of cardinals to express displeasure with the new pope's pastoral reforms, especially regarding people in irregular marriage situations. He began to write essays and books that demonstrated a lack of complete trust in Francis.

So it was surprising when the Jesuit pope appointed the cardinal prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments in November 2014.

As reported before, the pope's first choice for the post was Archbishop Piero Marini, the former papal Master of Ceremonies. But people close to Benedict (perhaps at the behest of the retired pope) urged Francis not to make the appointment, warning that it would cause a war with Catholic traditionalists.

At their suggestion, then, the pope appointed Cardinal Sarah. And since then Francis has had to bring the cardinal to heel for trying to sandbag the pope's attempts to promote liturgical reforms such as washing women's feet on Holy Thursday. The pope also had to reprimand him for publicly supporting the traditionalists' call for a further reform (i.e. undoing) of the Vatican II liturgical reform.

Cardinal Sarah is also as guilty as Archbishop Gänswein for whipping up controversy with this new book. Both men are politically conservative and ecclesiastically neo-traditionalist. They are in league with right-wing European politicians, socialites and retrograde movements.

They are both very much aware that these people and groups have long looked to Benedict XVI as a counterweight to Pope Francis, some even to the point of claiming Benedict is the only legitimate pope.

By enlisting the support of the retired pope in their public campaigns – such as this new book project – they deliberately feed opposition to Francis.

The buck stops here

But the person who is most responsible for this latest mess is none other than Benedict himself.

When he relinquished the papacy in 2013 he also forfeited his rights and duties as Bishop of Rome. He made a bold and daring move, doing something no other pope had done in almost 600 years.

But he and his small group of advisors did not consult widely (if at all) to map out how this novel situation would be regulated. There were no established protocols – and there still aren't – for a retired pope. Benedict and his people seemed to make it up on the fly.

However, he certainly seemed to have a clear intuition – indeed, a conviction – that the arrangement would work only if he were to be very careful not to suggest in any way that he still had or shared papal power.

So he promised to adhere to a self-imposed silence, saying he would from now on be "hidden from the world."

It only took Benedict six months before he broke his silence when he entered into a philosophical/theological debate with a scholar who criticized one of the early works of Joseph Ratzinger. The former pope gave permission for their correspondence to be published.

Since then he has written letters of support to numerous groups, mostly of a traditionalist bent. They have, in turn, used his earlier writings and thoughts, often in distorted ways, to wage war against Francis.

He could have put a halt to that by publicly disassociating himself from these voices. It is the one time that breaking his silence would have been justified.

And now, in his frailty, he can no longer defend himself. And those who have the duty to protect him are stupidly and irresponsibly trying to make sure his voice – a voice that should have remained silent – continues to weigh-in on the debates that are shaping the future of the Church.

But, ultimately, this is not their fault. They are only continuing what Benedict XVI started when he began ignoring his self-imposed vow of silence.


What we are now witnessing are the uncontrollable consequences of a broken promise. And if things continue as they are, those consequences could end up being quite damaging and irreversible.

                              

Word Becomes Flesh

This article is taken from the Daily Email sent by Fr Richard Rohr OFM from the Center for Action and Contemplation. You can subscribe to receive the email by clicking here 

I invite you to read these Daily Meditations contemplatively, going deeper than the mental comprehension of words, using words to give answers or solve immediate problems and concerns. Contemplation is waiting patiently. It does not insist on quick closure, pat answers, or simplistic judgments, which have more to do with egoic, personal control than with a loving search for truth.

Try reading the following ideas in a contemplative way:

·    Christ is everywhere.

·    In him every kind of life has a meaning and a solid connection.

·    Every life has an influence on every other kind of life.

    

    Jesus Christ came to earth so that “they all may be one” (John 17:21) and “to reconcile all things in himself, everything in heaven and everything on earth” (Colossians 1:20).

Pick one idea and linger with it. Focus on the words until they engage your body, your heart, your awareness of the physical world around you, and most especially your core connection with a larger field. Sit with the idea and, if need be, read it again until you feel its impact, until you can imagine its larger implications for the world, for history, and for you. (In other words, until “the word becomes flesh”!)

Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe (Convergent Books: 2019), 4, 7, 8.

                               

The Little Way

This article is taken from the archive of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find this article and many others by clicking here 

Most of us have heard of St. Therese of Lisieux, a French mystic who died at age 24 in 1897 and who is perhaps the most popular saint of the last two centuries. She’s famous for many things, not least for a spirituality she called her “little way”.  What’s her “little way”?

Popular thought has often encrusted both Therese and her “little way” within a simple piety which doesn’t do justice to the depth of her person or her spirituality. Too often her “little way” is understood simply to mean that we do little, hidden, humble, acts of charity for others in the name of Jesus, without expecting anything in return. In this popular interpretation we do the laundry, peel potatoes, and smile at unpleasant people to please Jesus. In some ways, of course, this is true; however her “little way” merits a deeper understanding.

Yes, it does ask us to do humble chores and be nice to each other in the name of Jesus but there are deeper dimensions to it. Her “little way” is a path to sanctity based on three things: Littleness, Anonymity, and a Particular Motivation. 

Littleness: For Therese “littleness” does not refer first of all to the littleness of the act that we are doing, like the humble tasks of doing the laundry, peeling potatoes, or giving a simple smile to someone who’s unpleasant.  It refers to our own littleness, to our own radical poverty before God. Before God, we are little. To accept and act out of that constitutes humility. We move towards God and others in her “little way” when we do small acts of charity for others, not out of our strength and the virtue we feel at that moment, but rather out of a poverty, powerlessness, and emptiness that allows God’s grace to work through us so that in doing what we’re doing we’re drawing others to God and not to ourselves.  

As well, our littleness makes us aware that, for the most part, we cannot do the big things that shape world history. But we can change the world more humbly, by sowing a hidden seed, by being a hidden antibiotic of health inside the soul of humanity, and by splitting the atom of love inside our own selves. And yes, too, the “little way” is about doing little, humble, hidden things.

Anonymity: Therese’s “little way” refers to what’s hidden, to what’s done in secret, so that what the Father sees in secret will be rewarded in secret. And what’s hidden is not our act of charity, but we, ourselves, who are doing the act. In Therese’s “little way” our little acts of charity will go mostly unnoticed, will seemingly have no real impact on world history, and won’t bring us any recognition. They’ll remain hidden and unnoticed; but inside the Body of Christ what’s hidden, selfless, unnoticed, self-effacing, and seemingly insignificant and unimportant is the most vital vehicle of all for grace at a deeper level. Just as Jesus did not save us through sensational miracles and headline-making deeds but through selfless obedience to his Father and quiet martyrdom, our deeds too can remain unknown so that our deaths and the spirit we leave behind can become our real fruitfulness.

Finally, her “little way” is predicated on a Particular Motivation. We are invited to act out of our littleness and anonymity and do small acts of love and service to others for a particular reason, that is, to, metaphorically, wipe the face of the suffering Christ. How so?

Therese of Lisieux was an extremely blessed and gifted person. Despite a lot of tragedy in her early life, she was (by her own admission and testimony of others) loved in a way that was so pure, so deep, and so wonderfully affectionate that it leaves most people in envy. She was also a very attractive child and was bathed in love and security inside an extended family within which her every smile and tear were noticed, honored, (and often photographed).  But as she grew in maturity it didn’t take her long to notice that what was true in her life wasn’t true of most others. Their smiles and tears went mostly unnoticed and were not honored. Her “little way” is therefore predicated on this particular motivation. In her own words:  

“One Sunday, looking at a picture of Our Lord on the Cross, I was struck by the blood flowing from one of his divine hands. I felt a pang of great sorrow when thinking this blood was falling on the ground without anyone’s hastening to gather it up. I was resolved to remain in spirit at the foot of the Cross and to receive its dew. …   Oh, I don’t want this precious blood to be lost. I shall spend my life gathering it up for the good of souls. …  To live from love is to dry Your Face.”

To live her “little way” is to notice and honor the unnoticed tears falling from the suffering faces of others.

                          

The Creature And The Sovereign Self

‘Thy will be done’ or ‘follow your bliss’? Writing about ‘the anthropology of the Spiritual Exercises and contemporary spiritual narcissism’ in the latest issue of The Way, Helen Orchard compares St Ignatius Loyola’s approach in the Spiritual Exercises with that of modern spiritualities that can mask a self-indulgent individualism. She is team vicar of St Matthew’s Church in the Wimbledon team ministry.

This article was published in The Way, 59/1 (January 2020).  To find out more about and subscribe to The Way, please visit theway.org.uk. 

This article is taken from the ThinkingFaith.org website where you can find a wide range of articles by clicking here

Human beings are created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by means of doing this to save their souls. The other things on the face of the earth are created for the human beings, to help them in the pursuit of the end for which they are created. (Exx 23)

To recognize oneself as a sovereign being is to acknowledge one’s own total spiritual autonomy and unconditional entitlement to self-determination. It is a primary avowal of oneself as a free and natural human being—not a serf, a subject, a corporate entity, or even a citizen.[1]

Perhaps it is a truism to contend that a text written by a Spanish priest in the sixteenth century can speak to issues relevant to the twenty-first-century Western world, given that the text, the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola, remains a popular classic of Christian spirituality; but the juxtaposition of the two statements above suggests how very pertinent, indeed pointed, that conversation can be. Notwithstanding the demands of a historical context and political worldview very different from those of today, coupled with the challenges of a text which, by the nature of its structure and style, is difficult to read, the Spiritual Exercises nevertheless provides a framework for personal transformation which has endured for centuries.

While it is the framework and method — the exercises themselves — that form the focus of any practical application of the Spiritual Exercises, the theology that underpins the text is also of primary significance. I argue here that the theology of the human person which informs and shapes the Spiritual Exercises is directly antithetical to the anthropology of much popular postmodern spirituality.

Both have an experiential focus, yet while the latter promises enlightenment and fulfilment through ‘practices of authenticity’ and the exercise of spiritual autonomy, the freedom it delivers can turn out to be a superficial veneer covering a self-indulgent narcissism. Conversely, the theology of the Spiritual Exercises might seem to limit the freedom of the individual, designated firmly as a creature serving the Creator, but it is through embracing this identity, as mediated by the practices and disciplines Ignatius prescribes, that genuine freedom can be found.

As the theologian Edouard Pousset contends:

Man’s relationship to the Creator does not entail a dependence which would alienate man from himself, as so many moderns imagine it. On the contrary, this relationship generates life and freedom for every person who abides in life and freedom.[2]

Pousset’s comments about alienation prompt us to remember, at this early stage, that Ignatius’ views of freedom are heavily influenced by Augustine. Augustine’s theology of primal freedom asserts that the fulfilling of God’s will results in true freedom because our de facto natural orientation is towards God. It is impossible for right relationship to result in alienation; rather this is the result of a falling away from right relationship. So, ‘our fall is evil because it is a reversal of the natural order, since it proceeds from the highest level to the lower’.[3] The first evil will of man, which precedes all evil acts, is ‘a falling away from the work of God to his own works’, which results in bondage and the loss of freedom.[4]

The Spirituality Revolution

The ‘spirituality revolution’ — a shift within Western culture from the acceptance of traditional religious expressions to the embrace of diverse and manifold new explorations of spirituality — is well documented.[5] Stemming from the New Age movement of the 1970s, it has been characterized by an explosion of holistic ‘mind–body–spirit’ beliefs and practices promising enlightenment and peace. These have often been denounced by the religious traditions, which point to the danger of ‘spiritual consumerism’ and the fickleness of a ‘pick-and-mix spiritual marketplace’.[6]

That there is plurality in the spiritual arena is simply a fact of life in the twenty-first-century Western world. This is, as David Tacey points out, the era of diversity: a complex and fragmented world in which people find themselves needing to ‘piece together the puzzle of their lives and sacred reality’.[7] Why should inquiring seekers not cast about for that which they find to be personally uplifting and affirming? After all, are we not all precious and unique individuals in the sight of God? But therein lies the problem.

The turn of contemporary spirituality has been inward, resulting in expressions which are often highly individualistic and egotistical. It is doubtless the case that the growth (and attraction) of these has been fed by the major cultural shift described by Charles Taylor as ‘the subjective turn’.[8] The development of consumerism in the West has commodified Romantic expressive individualism:

… the … belief that every person has his own individuality, and that life consists in discovering and realising this authentic and unique identity, rather than in conforming to normative models imposed from without by society, namely from political and religious authorities.[9]

At best this contemporary focus on the individual can result in self-indulgent, if unselfconscious, narcissism; and at worst it traps us in a ‘cocoon’ resulting in ‘despair, depression and frustration’.[10]

The Spiritual Exercises

What, by contrast, does Ignatius have to say about the human person, and what are the implications of his insights for life today? Roger Haight notes that Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises begins by addressing the abiding questions of spiritual seekers in any age: ‘Who am I? Why am I here? Does some larger purpose underlie being itself and human existence? Is it realistically possible in our age to imagine or formulate a comprehensive vision of reality?’[11] In this sense, Ignatius had what many reflective people today do not possess: a sure foundation on which to build.

It is in the Principle and Foundation, indeed, that Ignatius expounds his anthropology most clearly and succinctly, setting out the world-view against which everything else in the Spiritual Exercises should be understood. The official Directory to the Exercises of 1599 refers to it as ‘the basis of the whole moral and spiritual edifice’.[12] The human being, explains Ignatius, is a created thing whose existence only makes sense in relationship with the Creator. It is this relationship that gives the individual meaning and purpose, and provides a way of navigating successfully the relationships that the creature will have with other created things.

It is notable that, in an age when the individual person was of little value and viewed primarily as a member of society or a community, Ignatius affirmed throughout the Spiritual Exercises the importance of the individual’s relationship with God expressed through personal experience: memory, understanding and will; consolation and desolation. However, while the Spiritual Exercises begins with the human person, he or she does not exist in isolation as the centre of a universe around which all else revolves. It is God who is the centre and the one for whose praise and loving service human beings were created.

The Centre of the Universe

Understanding the end for which human beings and the universe exist is sufficiently fundamental to have been called ‘the foundation of the Foundation’.[13] However, while understanding and defining one’s identity in relation to the divine in this way is axiomatic to the Exercises, it is antithetical to much contemporary spirituality. Why not, rather, inhabit a universe of your own making in which you are sovereign and in which other created things praise, reverence and serve your ego?

The idea of spiritual autonomy stems from a notion of complete independence: the self in isolation is the source and end of all things, and sufficient for its own enlightenment and salvation. However, for Ignatius, the human person is always considered within the context of relationships. James Hanvey comments:

We are never allowed to stand outside these relationships on our own; there is no sovereign self, exercising a contemplative grasp of the whole from some vantage point outside the material, historical and existential process of life.[14]

Understanding his or her status as a creature automatically places the individual in right relationship with God. It is the Creator who is sovereign and creatures are able to understand who they are and the ‘end’ for which they exist within this context.

Moreover, it is not simply that human beings have been created by God for a particular purpose in the past; creation is ongoing:

We are being created momently by our God and Lord in all concrete particulars and that we are listening to God’s summons into life when we let ourselves hear our most authentic desires, which rise out of God’s passionate, creative love in us.[15]

This makes it clear that our very existence is completely contingent on God’s love and mercy, from moment to moment. As such, our identity cannot be grounded in the self, but must be found in relationship with the Creator (or, as Paul has said, ‘hidden with Christ in God’; Colossians 3:3).

Once this truth is grasped, the relationship with other created things can fall properly into place; that is, second place, next to the desire to choose what is ‘conducive to the end for which we were created’. The indifference to any other created thing or state of life, so characteristic of Ignatian spirituality, is the natural result of the individual’s profound understanding of who he or she is in relation to God and everything else that God has made. As Harvey Egan reflects, ‘the emphatically theocentric thrust of this meditation renders all created things relative’.[16]

Nevertheless, maintaining a theocentric rather than anthropocentric approach to the Principle and Foundation can be difficult even for experienced interpreters of the Spiritual Exercises, when they find themselves in a society which is inevitably orientated towards the self. In the ‘contemporary reading’ of the first line of Exx 23 given by the well-known Ignatian commentator David Fleming: ‘The goal of our life is to live with God forever. God who loves us gave us life. Our own response of love allows God’s life to flow into us without limit.’[17] Here the centre and focus have shifted from God to the human person. Instead of human beings being created to love and serve God, the point of departure has become ‘our life’. Certainly, it is a life given by God, but there is a sense that we are central, with God considerately flowing into us. Notice, too, that though we love God in this interpretation, the full breadth of that notion, through praise, reverence and (significantly) service has been lost. It is a subtle shift, but not unusual in texts which move too far in paraphrase from Ignatius’ original language.

This point is made purely to emphasize the significance of grasping the relationship between creature and Creator in the Spiritual Exercises, and the extent to which it opposes the contemporary zeitgeist. To moderate or undermine it risks misunderstanding the theology of the human person in Ignatius, which is the first building block of the Spiritual Exercises, upon which all other assumptions, arguments and practices rest. If this is not grasped then his subsequent comments about indifference, humility, freedom and kenosis will not make sense.

Of course, internalising this principle is not the work of a moment, and a number of Ignatius’ exercises assist in driving the point home, specifically the Two Standards (Exx 136), Three Classes of Men (Exx 149) and Three Kinds of Humility (Exx 165). It is not a coincidence that, directly following the meditation on the Principle and Foundation, the exercitant is plunged into the First Week of the Exercises, which focuses on sin. Again, this helps to set the individual in right relationship to God and to society.

Sin is not a subject beloved of contemporary spirituality; indeed in many of its expressions sin does not really exist, all actions are relative and there is no objective good or evil. While Ignatius’ language of Lucifer, Satan and ‘the enemy of human nature’ may be alienating in its medieval tone, the recognition and naming of sin, as a problem to be owned and repented by the creature and dealt with by the Creator, once again emphasizes relationship rather than a narcissistic understanding of the human person, in ‘an engagement with the “mysterium inquitatis” that cannot be reduced to a projection of our own subjective woundedness’.[18]

The Principle and Foundation concludes with the advice that ‘we ought to desire and choose only that which is more conducive to the end for which we are created’, drawing together the key elements of our creation and purpose with the choices made in this life. Ignatius takes for granted that an understanding of who we are before God brings the individual face to face with the question of how to live in the world. For him, life is to be lived after the pattern of Christ and as a companion of Christ, whose own life is explored through the meditations of the Second Week.

Desiring and Choosing

Introduced by the challenge presented in the Call of the King (Exx 91), the Second Week provides the material and moment for a life choice, or election, to be made. Ignatius provides clear direction on when and how this is to be approached (Exx 163); it is a central part of making the Spiritual Exercises which, through the work undertaken on our desires, moves us towards union with God. It is interesting to note the contribution that Ignatius thus makes to a fully rounded understanding of freedom and choice, subjects beloved of postmodern spirituality.

For the freedom of self-determination and the ability to choose according to one’s own desires are key to the self-understanding and modus operandi of the contemporary sovereign self. The same word, freedom, is used to describe completely opposite states of being in Ignatian and New Age spiritualities and, ironically, the means to achieve both is choice. The freedom of individuals to do as they choose (so long as no one else is being harmed) is an inviolable principle in new spiritualities, commodified in the rights of the consumer, but also closely allied to the notion of personal uniqueness: ‘To live “out” one’s unique life, to be “true to oneself”, means finding the freedom, the autonomy, to be oneself, to become oneself, to “turn” into oneself, to live one’s life to the full’.[19]

The Ignatian understanding of freedom is a reversal of this position. At the beginning of the Exercises personal freedom is to be surrendered: the exercitant is advised to offer up his or her ‘entire will and liberty’ (Exx 5) to enable God to work fully in accordance with God’s will. The Principle and Foundation encourages an indifference to created things and states of life in order for the freedom to make a right choice to be cultivated. Now, at the moment of election, the exercitant is reminded again of the connection between choice, freedom and the end for which he or she was created. Any and all choices are governed by this end: the praise and service of God (Exx 169).

It is an outworking of a fundamental truth of the gospel that a life laid down is a life received back; a seed that dies is a seed which fruits to life. Freedom freely relinquished results in life in all its fullness because the freedom that serves the personal ego is subsumed by the freedom that serves the end for which the individual was created. The process of election, then, is a dialogue between our freedom as human beings and God’s freedom. When our choice is for God, our freedom is affirmed and expanded rather than diminished. We receive the gift of a freedom from attachment to any created thing, which is the expansiveness of God’s freedom.

This results in a uniting of wills which is liberating rather than constricting precisely because the creature has chosen to embrace the end for which he or she was created. Experience shows that election cannot happen unless a retreatant has the courage to desire great things and to ask for them; when the election springs forth, it is like the birth of a new freedom. In this freedom, this use of the will, the individual has accepted God’s transforming gift within his or her own will. The person’s freedom has been liberated so as to choose in true freedom, in other words in covenant relationship. It is precisely in the will that he or she is united with God.[20]

Self-Giving Love

In the final meditation, the Contemplatio (Exx 230–237), all these threads — identity, freedom and choice, desire and possession — are drawn together in the prayer of offering, the Suscipe. The very word ‘take’ poses a challenge to a spiritual materialism, which is acquisitive in character. In offering to God memory, liberty, understanding and will, all that is quintessentially ‘me, myself, I’ is let go; I am drawn into an act of kenosis which is, by its very nature, the opposite of narcissism. However, contrary to the fear that the individual will disappear completely, subsumed into God, this radical alignment of wills involves an exchange which subsequently shapes and characterizes the life of the one making the offer: God’s love and grace are received in return. This is a prayer of self-giving that is entirely modelled on the perichoretic relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit — the continual pouring out and receiving of love, one to another. It is for this reason that the Suscipe can be seen to be both the means of Ignatian mystagogy and the basis for engagement with the world. It is a ‘drawing in’ that leads to ‘sending out’: from circumincessio to missio.

This suggests a further, serious critique of many forms of new age spirituality, which are not only self-aggrandising but also self-serving. The focus on the self is the perfect distraction, resulting in an inability to care for others, as all a person’s energy is expended on nurturing his or her own being. Such spiritualities do not have the capacity to reach out to the other; they cannot self-empty because they work by ‘self-filling’ spiritual consumers. Closely allied to this is a reluctance, and a lack of resources, to deal with suffering. David Tacey writes:

True spirituality is not something that makes itself available to our egotistical designs, but rather something that draws us into a larger world and makes us subordinate to a greater will that transcends us on all sides. The credo of true spirituality could be the words of Jesus uttered in despair in the Garden of Gethsemane before the crucifixion, ‘Nevertheless, not my will but thy will be done’ (Matthew 26:39; Luke 22:42) …. Not ‘follow your bliss’, but ‘thy will be done’ is the credo for authentic spirituality. [21]

He argues that those who subscribe to the myth of individualism are often dismayed on discovering that the natural action of the Spirit found within is to lead the person outwards, beyond subjectivity, to engage with the world.

The narcissistic idea of private spirituality becomes shattered by the spirit as soon as it is awakened. Private spirituality is revealed as an illusion or as a transitional stage between a former state of sleep and a future mission of social responsibility and commitment.[22]

This line of thought is entirely congruent with the Ignatian charism which, rather than eschewing suffering, seeks it out as a means of closer connection with Christ. The desire of Ignatius voiced in the prayer to Mary to ‘put him with her Son’ (Autobiography, n.60) is a thread woven through the whole of the Spiritual Exercises. It is a prayer to enter into and share Christ’s life of poverty, insults and humility, set forth in the Two Standards (Exx 136), and to participate in his passion during the Third Week. The exercitant is prepared for this discomfort by the meditations of the First Week, which focus on sin and the individual’s part in the suffering it causes, and the continual praying of the Anima Christi throughout the thirty days as a petition to the crucified Christ, in whose wounds we not only hide but also participate.[23]

Finally, the Contemplatio is rooted, from the outset, in the movement outwards through love of the other as it focuses on the divine outpouring of gifts, life and labour. This is the love that manifests itself ‘more by deeds than by words’, consisting in ‘a mutual communication’ (Exx 230–231); it therefore cannot exist within a cocoon, but must always look outwards, forming the foundation of service. It is, for Ignatius, self-evident that we cannot enjoy the bliss of the Contemplatio without having first endured the pain of the passion, yet even in that bliss we are being poured out for others after the pattern of Christ. The kenosis of the Suscipe is the outworking of the prayer place me with your Son, for in that pouring out we are entirely united with Christ in his act of giving himself for the world. This is the union that Ignatius envisages which, though both mystical and joyful, is a far cry from the triumphant self-fulfilment of the sovereign self.

Tim Muldoon reflects that Ignatian spirituality should naturally speak to the postmodern generation because ‘it is based on a personal imaginative exploration of the gospel, and it invites people to choose freely to deepen their intimacy with God through a deepened understanding of who they themselves are’.[24] Indeed, in many ways undertaking the Spiritual Exercises might be extremely attractive to contemporary spiritual seekers set on a spot of navel gazing: it really is thirty days of thinking ‘all about me’. But here is the irony. In turning inwards to God one finds that one is turned back out again to the world that God created through love. Instead of operating as a solitary sovereign self seeking personal spiritual well-being, the individual joins the community of those who consider themselves companions of Jesus, engaged in his loving and healing work in the world; realising that, in and through this work, they will draw closer to God and find fulfilment in serving the end for which they have been created. Or, as Jesus put it rather more succinctly, ‘those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it’ (Matthew 16:25).

[1] Neil Kramer, The Unfoldment: The Organic Path to Clarity, Power and Transformation (Pompton Plains: Career, 2012), 129.

[2] Edouard Pousset, Life in Faith and Freedom: An Essay Presenting Gaston Fessard’s Analysis of the Dialectic of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius (St Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1980), 17.

[3] Augustine, City of God, 12.8, in The Later Christian Fathers: A Selection from the Writings of the Fathers from St Cyril of Jerusalem to St Leo the Great, edited and translated by Henry Bettenson (London: OUP, 1970), 195.

[4] Augustine, City of God, 14.2.

[5] See David Tacey, The Spirituality Revolution: The Emergence of Contemporary Spirituality (London: Routledge, 2004); Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead, The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion Is Giving Way to Spirituality (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005).

[6] Gregg Lahood, ‘Relational Spirituality, Part 1. Paradise Unbound: Cosmic Hybridity and Spiritual Narcissism in the “One Truth” of New Age Transpersonalism’, International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 29/1 (2010), 31–57, here 40.

[7] Tacey, Spirituality Revolution, 44.

[8]  Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, Ma: Harvard UP, 2003 [1991]), 26.

[9] François Gauthier, Tuomas Martikainen and Linda Woodhead, ‘Acknowledging a Global Shift: A Primer for Thinking about Religion in Consumer Societies’, Implicit Religion, 16/3 (2013), 261–276, here 271.

[10] Tacey, Spirituality Revolution, 148.

[11] Roger Haight, Christian Spirituality for Seekers: Reflections on the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola (New York: Orbis, 2012), 102.

[12] Dir. 12.1.

[13] Michael Ivens, Understanding the Spiritual Exercises (Leominster: Gracewing, 1998), 26.

[14] James Hanvey, ‘Ignatius of Loyola: Theology as a Way of Living’, Thinking Faith (30 July 2010), at http://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20100730_1.htm.

[15] Joseph A. Tetlow, ‘The Fundamentum: Creation in the Principle and Foundation’, Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, 21/4 (1989), 1–53, here 7.

[16] Harvey D. Egan, The Spiritual Exercises and the Ignatian Mystical Horizon (St Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1976), 67.

[17] David L. Fleming, Like the Lightning: The Dynamics of the Ignatian Exercises (St Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2004), 27.

[18] Hanvey, ‘Ignatius of Loyola’.

[19] Paul Heelas, Spiritualities of Life: New Age Romanticism and Consumptive Capitalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), 38.

[20] Sylvie Robert, ‘Union with God in the Ignatian Election’, The Way Supplement, 103 (2002), 100–112, at 107.

[21] Tacey, Spirituality Revolution, 146.

[22] Tacey, Spirituality Revolution, 148.

[23] Not only expected as part of the triple colloquy, but one of the ‘ordinary daily prayers’ (Louis J. Puhl, The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius [Chicago: Loyola, 1951], 162).

[24] Tim Muldoon, ‘Postmodern Spirituality and the Ignatian Fundamentum’, The Way, 44/1 (January 2005), 88–100, here 96.