During the last week (31 July) the Church celebrated the Feast of St Ignatius of Loyola. St Ignatius left an enormous legacy around a spirituality of discernment.  In simple language his spirituality is often expressed as ‘finding God in all things’.  The Society of Jesus (Jesuits), founded by St Ignatius, talks about that spirituality being grounded in the conviction that God is active in our world.  St Ignatius’ spirituality helps to discern God’s presence or to find God in all things, “reaching out to a diverse, grace filled yet imperfect world”. (Society of Jesus)

I was first introduced to the spirituality of St Ignatius when I began my training for the priesthood at Corpus Christi Seminary in the 1980s.  The Jesuits had been the first group of priests to staff the Seminary in Victoria and they brought with them their Ignatian Spirituality.  I can remember learning the ways of prayer.  Before I began that journey into prayer I probably thought that prayer was ‘saying prayers’; that talking to God was kneeling with hands joined and reciting polite words, sentences and thoughts.  I would have prayed by reciting the words of the Scriptures, psalms and other texts.  I would have ‘recited’ the rosary and other prayers.

The introduction to an Ignatian Spirituality invited me into something more.  Prayer is not just about saying things.  I was invited to sit in stillness.  I was invited to become attuned to the feelings of my soul, the stirrings in my heart, the murmurings of my mind. If God was in all things, this God could be moving in or talking to me. I learned that prayer is first of all about giving myself over to a deep stillness. And I learned that prayer is a dialogue. I began to realise that I didn’t have to do all the work.  In fact, if I could put myself in the presence of the Word of God, a Scripture passage or a spiritual reading then there were two people present.  And both would have something to say.  God could talk to me in the feelings, stirring, murmurings, promptings and emotions of the heart and mind.  I could reply.  Is this where you are really leading me?  Do you think that I need to take this course of action? Do I need to right this wrong. Can you help me find out more about myself?  Can you shed light on the world and its sufferings? Did I really hurt that person? Could I or should I have done something differently?  I learned to discern my direction in life and I grew to want that direction to be shaped by the God of life and love that could be discovered in prayer and action.

I learned that my prayer could be extended to the daily life that I was living.  Prayer did not need to become compartmentalised.  I could carry my prayer life and my ongoing search for God in all things, into the wider world where human communities live and love, work and play, collide and clash.  The Ignatian Spirituality invites me to discover God in this wider world.  It therefore invites me into practices that strive to listen, to bring about peace, to dialogue with difference, and to be open to the discovery of the new.

Ignatian Spirituality has brought a great deal to my life and for that I am grateful.  In recent times there has been a renewed interest in the spirituality of discernment and finding God in all things.  The upcoming Second Session of the Synod on Synodality  to be held at the Vatican in October 2024 will also use this method.  In this case it is called spiritual conversations.  The same principles apply.  The members of the Synod are asked to move into stillness, to listen with open hearts and minds to both the Word of God and to each other. The promptings of the Spirit and the human responses of the participants will enter into dialogue.  There is nothing magic about it. God works in the peoples and places, the times and occasions where his created world and its peoples are attuned to his subtle presence.  Prayer and discernment is both an art to be learned and a gift to be received.

I am grateful that St Ignatius shared with the world what he discovered God was doing in and around him.  In some small way I hope I can do the same.  I also hope that the Church, gathered in Synod in October, will be able to discern the good things that God is up to in our Church and world and have the courage to step in that Spirit-led direction.

By Fr Brendan Reed

Published: 2 August 2024