(1)(2) (3) STUDIES IN THE SPIRITUALITY OF JESUITS

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(3) STUDIES IN THE SPIRITUALITY OF JESUITS. TON COLLEGE OCT 29. 1987. PROPERTY OF O'NEILL LIBRARY. Foundational Issues in. Jesuit Spirituality. Roger Haight, SJ.. 19 /4 I. m. SEPTEMBER. 1987.

(4) THE SEMINAR ON JESUIT SPIRITUALITY A. group of Jesuits appointed from. The Seminar. United. studies topics pertaining to the spiritual doctrine. practice of Jesuits, especially results to the. their provinces in the. members. American. Jesuits,. of the provinces. This. States.. and. and communicates the done in the spirit of. is. Vatican IPs recommendation to religious institutes to recapture the. and to adapt it to the circumstances of modern times. The Seminar welcomes reactions or comments in regard to the material which it publishes. original inspiration of their founders. The Seminar Jesuits. focuses. its. of the United States.. Jesuits of other regions,. women. Hence the. direct. The. Studies, while. on the. life. and work of the. may be common also religious, laity, men and/or. issues treated. to other priests,. not exclusively for them. Others. welcome. attention. meant. especially for. who may. find. them. American. to. Jesuits,. are. helpful are cordially. to read them.. CURRENT MEMBERS OF THE SEMINAR John A. Coleman, SJ., teaches Christian of Theology at Berkeley. Philip. C.. Fischer,. Institute. SJ.,. is. social. ethics at the Jesuit School. secretary of the Seminar and an editor at the. of Jesuit Sources.. Roger D. Haight,. SJ.,. teaches systematic theology at Regis College, the. Jesuit school of theology in Toronto.. Frank. Houdek, SJ., teaches historical theology and spirituality at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. Arthur F. McGovern, SJ., teaches philosophy and is director of the Honors J.. Program at the University of Detroit. John J. Mueller, SJ., teaches systematic theology at St. Louis University. John W. Padberg, S.J., is chairman of the Seminar, editor of Studies, and director and editor at the Institute of Jesuit Sources. Michael J. O Sullivan, SJ., teaches psychology at Loyola-Marymount University.. Paul A. Soukup, is. SJ.,. teaches communications at Santa Clara University and. director of studies for juniorate scholastics in the California. Province.. John M. Staudenmaier,. SJ.,. teaches the history of technology at the. University of Detroit.. ©. 1987 and published by The Seminar on Jesuit Spirituality, 63108 (Tel. 314-652-5737) 3700 West Pine Blvd., St. Louis, Copyright. MO.

(5) Roger Haight,. S.J.. FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES IN. JESUIT SPIRITUALITY. Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits. 19/4. September 1987.

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(7) For Your Information. These remarks. .. will. .. .. continue to carry out the promise. earlier issues of Studies "to describe. works and how. how. the Seminar. on. made. in. Jesuit. had briefly told how members of the Seminar are chosen and what happens at a typical Seminar weekend meeting. I would here like to tell where papers for Studies come from, how we carry on a discussion of them and how we decide which ones we shall publish. Spirituality. Don't worry; we ship survey.. it. produces Studies". Previously. shall later report the results of. (One out of every. five recipients. I. our reader-. of Studies, chosen. completely at random, received a questionnaire.). The. tabulations. and analysis have not yet been completed, but we hope for them. in. time for the November issue.. Back. to the papers.. Most. of the prospective issues of Studies. come, as might be expected, from members of the Seminar itself. They arise from our ongoing discussions on Jesuit spirituality and from particular interests and talents of Seminar members. Initially a member proposes a topic. We talk at some length about it. If the topic seems suitable, the member volunteers (or "is volunteered") to write a first draft which goes to all of us for reading and comments, a lot of them, and discussion. The author is always present at and participates in the discussion. If the paper seems. be going somewhere, the author receives every encouragement to proceed with it. to. The paper comes to all of us again as a revised version and again comment and discussion ensue. This may happen several times.. (The record. is. probably four times;. it. took real courage. for the author to persevere with that topic but result in. it. finally did. an issue of Studies.). When. all. of us are satisfied that. everything necessary and helpful,. himself while possibilities:. we. we. we have thought and. said. ask the author to absent. vote on what to do with the paper. There are five. simply to reject the paper; to affirm the topic and. to suggest another try at. it. with a different paper, but.

(8) with no commitment by the Seminar; to accept for publication on condition of certain changes; to accept for publication with suggestions for revision that the author. simply to accept for publication "as. work on consistency of. style,. is". is. free to accept or not;. (with the usual editorial. proofreading, and so forth).. paper comes unsolicited from a non-Seminar-member, a committee of three members gives it a preliminary screening. If If a. the committee. recommends. read the paper. it. goes through. invited to his. If all. we. further consideration,. agree that. it. all. of us then. should be further discussed,. the steps described above, with the author. be present and to participate. in all the discussions of. work.. Do we rewritten,. Even when written, and perhaps by members? Yes. Does every Seminar member always agree reject papers? Yes.. with and subscribe to everything in an accepted paper or in an issue of Studies! not.. No.. Do. you, our readers, always agree?. I. hope. The Seminar members have no monopoly on truth or insight. make available to the readers of Studies. do have*the desire to. essays which provoke thought, nourish the spiritual. provide opportunities for the kind of discussion in. and which we life,. ourselves engage.. John W. Padberg, SJ. Editor Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits. We.

(9) CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION PART. 1. THE PROBLEM: THE NEED FOR NEW. I.. FOUNDATIONS PART. AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF ACTION. II.. One. what one does. is. 14 14. social structure of action. Action can participate in God's action. Three. PART. 19. IGNATIAN PRINCIPLES OF SPIRITUALITY IN THE LIGHT OF ACTION 21. III.. 21. Spirituality. The First Principle and Foundation The Consideration of Sin 25 The Kingdom of God 28 Election and the will of. The Discernment Finding. God. CONCLUSION APPENDIX: Action. God. of Spirits. in action. 23. 32. 35. 39. 43. SOME ASPECTS OF BLONDEL'S ANTHROPOLOGY OF ACTION 46. Knowledge, being, and action. The. 75. 17. levels of intentional action. Possessive knowledge. 12. 13. Action has eternal value. The. 5. relation. between action and. 50. God. 52. 45.

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(11) FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES IN JESUIT SPIRITUALITY by. Roger Haight,. S.J.*. INTRODUCTION. A. Jesuit with. whom. am. I. made a thirty-day retreat time the movement of historical. acquainted. during the middle seventies. At that. research into the sources of Jesuit spirituality was underway and. bearing tutions. the. fruit.. were beginning. and the Exercises intention. initial. from both. added. Jesuits. to. it. to understand both the Consti-. in their context;. we began. to distinguish. and genuine charism of Ignatius as and the layers of. his predecessors. and sometimes distorted. it.. The. distinct. tradition that. had been. original experience,. language, directives, and intentions of Ignatius in fashioning the Exercises controlled the imagination of directors of retreats. more than. in the past.. Moreover, some retreat directors had also. internalized basic principles of. pretation of Scripture. modern. exegesis, so that their inter-. was informed by the. biblical theology of the. synoptic writers or the Johannine community.. a stimulating retreat. But. when asked whether. profitable experience, the. man. sure,". he. said. "I feel like I. in question. was exposed. It. should have. interesting, but not very helpful for. St.. my. made. was ambivalent. "I'm not. to a very solid sixteenth-. life. for. the retreat had been a. century spirituality, coupled with first-century theology.. Author's address: 15. much. It. was. today.". Mary, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. M4Y. 2R5..

(12) HAIGHT. 2. The problem Born. is. a familiar one, and everyone. our. own. of which. terms.. his values. and intentions into. cultural context. This requires interpretation, the intention is. not to change the fundamental principles and values of the. founder, but precisely to preserve them by adjusting them to positions and. making them operative. interpretation, however, interpret,. 1. Because of the differences between. worldview and ours, we must adapt. his. its. however revolutionary he be-. in the fifteenth century, Ignatius,. came, was a medieval person.". knows. is. new. in a. One. sup-. The process. situation.. fraught with difficulties.. new. of. cannot not. because traditional words and phrases take on new ambiguous. meanings; yet no mechanical method particular reinterpretation. is. faithful.. exists to. ensure agreement that a. Moreover, no single. reinterpretation by itself can claim to be final. For the point in. time that marks the beginning of Jesuit spirituality must continually. open up at. to different temporal periods. and. distinct cultural situations. any given time. Like different Christian communities appealing to. the. same New Testament,. cannot not be. What. pluralistic.. follows. is. interpretations of Ignatian spirituality. 3. an essay. at interpretation. It. turate certain Ignatian principles. appear. in the Exercises, into a. framework. As resources. I. and axioms, especially as they. modern. philosophical and theological. shall bring to. bear a philosophy of action,. current theological insight, and an appeal to. The. seeks to incul-. common. experience today.. essay deals primarily with Ignatian spirituality, but insofar as. the Exercises nurture this spirituality,. I will. use key considera-. See Avery Dulles, "The Contemporary Relevance of the Ignatian Vision/ Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, 4/4 (October 1972), 145-154. Ignatius was an innovator, and many of his principles from the Exercises and the Constitutions seem perennial if not modern. But he was not as innovative as the Reformers of the same century. And when we look back to the sixteenth century from our side of the great divide of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and its nineteenth- and twentieth-century aftermath, the sixteenth century including the Reformers appears much more continuous with the middle and late medieval period than is frequently imagined. Ignatius was certainly closer to Francis, Dominic, Aquinas, the Nominalists, and A Kempis. than to us today.. Stephen Sykes, The Identity of Christianity: Theologians and the Essence of Christianity from Schleicrmacher to Earth (London: SPCK, 1984), pp. 11-34..

(13) FOUNDATIONAL tions. from them to. up the areas. set. ISSUES. for reinterpretation.. the First Principle and Foundation, Sin, the. as a kind of synopsis of the Christian spiritual. represent the purpose of existence,. committed. ity,. I. of Christ, the to Attain. Taken together these considerations may be looked. the Love of God.. then,. Kingdom. These are. and the Contemplation. Election, the Discernment of Spirits,. upon. 3. wish not to probe. element. this or that. They. and intentional. sin, salvation,. the Spirit in imitation of Christ.. life in. life.. On. the whole,. in Ignatian spiritual-. but to offer a foundational interpretation of the very meaning. of Christian existence in Ignatian terms.. Two of. foil,. moving. general issues. and. it. may be. lie in. the background of this essay as a kind at the outset. In. to anthropology as a lever for interpretation,. scend a therapeutic interpretation of. mean one which. I. want to tran-. spirituality generally. By. Ignatian spirituality in particular. I. them forward. helpful to bring. and. a therapeutic interpretation. on psychology and seeks. heavily depends. in. one way. or another to cure. Such Christian reflection presupposes that the subject. is. sick,. or in pain, or. somehow. interiorly torn. Spiritual resources are thus brought to bear to help reestablish health, integration, that as long as is. he remains. restored, a person cannot. realistic. upon the. and wholeness.. and unless some. "sick,". and. suffering.. disintegration It is. true. sort of strength. be expected to address. reality in a. way. But in contrast to a prevailing therapeutic tendency. today, the reflections here begin. on the other side of therapy. They. presuppose health and strength.. I. do not by. this call into. when therapy. the value of therapeutic spirituality. is. question. needed; nor. should these remarks impugn the contribution of psychology to an. understanding of. human. existence. But a psychological. itself.. inter-. pretation of spirituality that remains exclusively therapeutic tends to turn the Christian vision of. human. person in a private individualistic way. this analysis in considerations of. how. "wholeness" and the development of. life It. back is. in. not necessary to expand. holiness has. my. upon the human been reduced. to. personality. Psychological an-. thropocentrism gradually undermines the transcendence of God's. will.

(14) HAIGHT. 4. by tending to reduce. seems. this. God's. to the individual's personal needs.. it. alien to the testimony of Scripture. will is precisely. not our. 4. All of. which maintains that. will.. Secondly, the linkage between faith and a concern for social justice also lies in the. background of. from. this essay. It is written. the broad perspective of a liberation theology whose language has. spread far beyond Latin America. This binding of our Christian faith in. God. with a concern for society, especially with a concern for. praxis or action in the world, has. on the. still. level of foundational thinking.. issue lies in spirituality. Until spirituality. not found a proper apology. The. telling point in this. one can establish a viewpoint. where these two concerns can be seen. in. to coincide, the. theological language of faith's intrinsic concern for social justice. never be persuasive.. will. set. up a framework. accomplished way.. I. am. do not claim. to succeed here, but only to. for further discussion.. must be obvious. It. I. that such. an ambitious project can only be. in a short space in the. most schematic and foundational. concerned here with basic principles.. the problems which. some. I. begin by posing. will. Ignatian formulae from the Exercises run up. against today. Then, in the second part of the essay. ments of an anthropology of action. is. introduce ele-. be helpful. that will. the problem areas. This anthropology. I. in resolving. based on an interpretation of. the early thought of Maurice Blondel. Because of the complexity of his categories, however, descriptively his. I. have recast some of Blondel's key distinctions. and presented a. fuller interpretation. langauge in an appendix. The third and. theoretical. how. faithful to. final part of the essay. returns to the issues that were raised in Part interpretation of. more. I. and. offers. an. they might be reconceived in the light of the. framework of Part. II.. James Gustafson, by assuming a rigorously theocentric point of view in from a Theocentric Perspecth'e: I. TJteology and Ethics (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981), has unmasked this "triumph of the. his Ethics. therapeutic" in Christian spirituality. Sec esp. pp.. 19-20..

(15) FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES. PART. THE PROBLEM: THE NEED FOR NEW FOUNDATIONS. I.. While Ignatius was. alive the. Council of Trent never considered a. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the. Modern World. No synod. bishops declared that a concern for social justice. dimension of the gospel. Jesuits. mulated. is. a constitutive. in the sixteenth century never for-. their mission as "the service of faith, of. of justice. is. of. an absolute requirement.". 5. which the promotion. Ignatius did not live in a. period that viewed the reality of the universe and our world in an evolutionary framework. Ignatius did not have a post-Enlightenment historical consciousness that has. between the conditions, earthly time. we do. ideas,. become aware. of the vast differences. and values of groups of peoples across. and space. Ignatius did not experience pluralism the way. today.. As. confusing as. it. inevitably. must be, we. still. have to. admit that pluralism remains not only necessary but also a value. Reality confronts us as so deeply rich and mysterious that no one of conceiving. it. suffices. In a strange. philosophy and theology of his time, Ironically, the. way. knew. Ignatius, along with the far. more than we do. today.. knowledge explosion which expands by geometrical. more humble and modest. His world was more secure. Those suppositions, those. progression has rendered us simpler, his suppositions. basic preconceptions and values, enter into, color, and determine. everything he says.. We. cannot accept. at face value. obvious statements of principle. Let us examine. 32nd General Congregation,. even his most. some of them. 6. par. 48.. Let me clarify the method by which I am raising these issues. First, I not an historian of the Exercises and have not engaged in historical source criticism or exegesis of Ignatian texts. The logic of these questions,. am. therefore, rests on the assumption that as a sixteenth-century figure Ignatius did not have and could not have had a twentieth-century horizon of consciousness. Secondly, however, all Jesuits today in some measure have internalized the Exercises. own and. and drawn from them. their retreatants' current questions.. reinterpreting Ignatius for our. own. time.. insight. In so doing. One. and solution to. their. we. are implicitly cannot avoid reading twentieth-. century meaning into sixteenth-century texts. Thus the method here consists in highlighting the distance between ourselves and Ignatius in order to create the freedom to. way. make. the reappropriation consciously and explicitly.. At some.

(16) HAIGHT. 6. One is. of the most solid pillars supporting the Spiritual Exercises. The human person. the "First Principle and Foundation:. praise, reverence, 7 his or her soul.". and serve God our Lord, and by. At. first. glance, the formula. is. this. created to. is. means. so basic that. to save it. appears to be beyond reproach. But a closer analysis betrays suppositions not universally accepted today. dividualistic;. it. The formula appears. can be construed to view each individual discretely. why we were. as having the task of saving his or her soul. Is that. created?. The means by which we. are to save our soul. reverencing, and serving God, so that these activities. very reason for our existing in this world. Is this the. is. by. praising,. become way we. Christians should conceive our task in the world today? tantly,. in-. means. refers to the salvation that awaits us at the. Week. tions during the First. eternity in opposition to. final salvation;. end of. life.. in hell.. The. salva-. it. The medita-. depict salvation as union with. damnation. as. More impor-. one might question the purely eschatological notion of. tion implied in the formula. Salvation. the. God. First Principle. Foundation. sets the ultimate stakes for the Spiritual Exercises:. eternal. with. life. God. or eternal damnation for. me. that Christian salvation has in. and. and. as an individual.. But today more and more people want to know about. meaning. for. this life. for life in this. and the. world. here and now. Ignatius understood salvation in too limited a framework for our world today.. Having raised these questions, and before continuing with more problems with other. which they come.. I. principles, let. am. me. clarify the point of. view from. assuming that the people making the Exercises. today are Christians, perhaps, like Jesuits, educated Christians.. If. such persons are attuned to our culture and contemporary theology in a. more or. less critical. way, they. may have no sympathy whatever. Ignatius's formulation of the First Principle. and Foundation. Since. may be. overdrawn. But appreciation of the necessity and on a sympathetic entertainment of a cultural sensibility and set of questions.. points this distance. validity of the reinterpretation rests. really. new 7. Tfte Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, trans, by Louis J. Puhl (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1951), 23. The reference is to the standard paragraph numbers of the Exercises.. now. for.

(17) FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES God. they have faith in a. 7. may not worry may rest in. revealed through Jesus, they. excessively about their final salvation; in fact, they. the hope for the salvation of. simply do not to. heaven and. They. sin.. any urgent personal dilemma between the paths. live in hell.. people despite their. all. Their main concern presupposes and transcends the. personal eschatological issue. Their question about salvation narrows in. a. on. bearing on. its. commitment. They. our world and society today. Having made. freedom within. They seek light deeper commitment in the. for. do not experience any exigency reverence, and service of. this entails for the. They seek no. this world.. they are healthy.. meaning. what. in faith, they ask. no anguish, are not torn apart by. feel. crisis;. God. to. exercise of their. life in. guilt. or rent by personal. and. for further vision. now. active lives they. spend their day. to. God; they may. feel that. know what God wants them. do with. to. lead.. They. in direct praise,. God. put them in the. world for something more important in God's eyes than to. therapy.. that;. they want. their lives in such a. way. that. they contribute to other people, society, and the world.. But certainly this.. Indeed,. the people. all. many who approach. who make. the Exercises are not like. the Exercises. may be. just like the. neoconvert Ignatius; and the First Principle and Foundation as he articulates. it. may. and. it. bears a universal relevance;. point,. hit exactly. home.. tion of our personal eschatological. Ignatius's formula does have a. we cannot escape the quesdestiny. Or they may be experien-. cing a fundamental spiritual crisis and need healing. In that case spiritual therapy is in order. If. cises. is. universal,. their audience.. it. Thus. is. I. the. any principle underlying the Exer-. demand. that they should. wish to underline clearly that the questions. and problems raised here may not be universal to individuals any. more than. them. Once and for tions lies. all,. on the other. be adapted to. in their applicability. the reinterpretation that tries to. meet. then, the point of departure for these reflec-. side of therapy.. It. presupposes a healthy and. integrated faith and responds to the question of the Christian. mean-. ing of action in the world.. A ture. second problem with the Spiritual Exercises given. becomes manifest. anxiety his or her sin.. in the. person. The theme. who does. of the First. in. our cul-. not experience with. Week, one on which.

(18) HAIGHT. 8. Ignatius dwells with almost excruciating intensity, unfolds in a. between, on one hand, a sense of horror,. dialectic at. my. personal sin and, on the other hand, God's boundless love and. mercy and God's forgiveness and acceptance of dialectic is. more. me. the sinner.. more. the profit. This dynamic approaches the. core of Luther's interpretation of Paul, and. it. profound. in the history of Christian theology.. true that. many people today do. not. is. one of the most. But. also simply. is. it. live in this tension,. so that,. they approach this First Week, the only confusion they feel. the lack of. shame and confusion over. their personal sin.. challenge this attitude with the charge that "That's the lack of a sense of the intrinsic egoism that. OK, and. easy feeling that "You're. who. those. marks us. One might. sin! "-the. all. and the. OK, and God's OK." But often shame may have a deeply disorient-. a sin of the world, and a social sin from. sin,. which they cannot escape. The world of many people today nice place in which to that. it. is. is. I'm. lack feelings of personal. ing sense of original. way. The. such that the opposing realizations feed each other; the. the intensity, the. when. and confusion. fear,. live,. and they are part of. it.. is. not a. This sin in the. analyzed by current theology escapes the individualism. of a medieval Ignatius. Third, the meditation the. Kingdom. Ignatian consideration, introducing as life. of the Person. who. focuses Christian faith in. the bottom of this consideration,. lies at. Ignatius. had a. another pivotal. God and. 8. Once again, and it becomes. is. was reserved. made. clear that salvation. to those in the. of militancy in which the meditation. Roman is. cast;. the. salvation. evident that. restricted view of the extent of that salvation.. Council of Florence had it. is. does consideration of the. symbol revealing the nature of God.. living. since. it. of Christ. The. was somewhat rare. Church. Recall the themes they hark back to the. crusades and reflect the enormous struggle in which the nascent Jesuit. order would take the lead, namely, to beat back the inroads of the heretics of the Reformation. new worlds. 8. of the infidel.. Exercises, 91-100.. and extend Christian. faith to the vast.

(19) FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES I. put. way. this. it. 9. to underline the degree that the underlying. vision clashes with current sensibility in several crucial ways.. Current christology has taken an historical turn; focuses on the historical Jesus. life. and preaching of. The. divine. it. begins with and. must be found within the. man. But Jesus did not preach himself as. this. king and most probably explicitly rejected the idea. Jesus preached the kingdom of God, and that kingdom, according to Vatican. We. current theology, extends beyond the Christian sphere.. we. the. live in. age of an ecumenical movement, where any projected unity recognition of the values underlying the Reform;. and. II. will include. live in a. mis-. sionary age in which dialogue with other religions presupposes that. we. take them seriously as God-given and God-willed vehicles of salva-. tion.. The theme. of urgency and even militancy in mission carries a. value in the Christian. life,. and. particularly in Jesuit. life,. but. it. needs a new focus than the one the sixteenth-century Ignatius gave Fourth, an election about. how. center of the Spiritual Exercises.. 9. to lead one's life stands at the. According to the interpretation of. Fessard and Pousset, the whole logic of the Exercises turns on point.. 10. The. sin. way. of. and chooses. Absolute Being;. life. that renounces the. life in. in the. God, a person. moment. life.. That. remaining considerations of the passion, death,. with a dynamic way of logic. nonbeing of contingency. seals his or her destiny in. and resurrection of Jesus, one confirms the a. seems indisputably. initial. valid,. question of the meaning of the will of natius does not directly say that. God. but. God. will suggests a. 9. Exercises,. "a vocation. made. in. new. when one. considers the. one also. raises the. for the individual. Ig-. has a special will for each. individual because he addresses choices in. But the language of. decision. that leads through death to. life. subject matter of the election in specific terms,. us.". this. logic concerns the question of being or nonbeing. In the. election of a. and. it.. life. "as far as. from God" and. notion of providence in which. God. depends on. God moving. the. exercises absolute. 169-189.. Edouard Pousset, Life in Faith and Freedom: An Essay Presenting Gaston Fessards Analysis of the Dialectic of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, trans,. and. ed.. by Eugene. Sources, 1980), pp. 20-28.. L.. Donahue. (St.. Louis:. The. Institute. of Jesuit.

(20) HAIGHT. 10. oversight over history and has an intention for each individual in it.. Does God have a. my. specific will or plan for. Some contemporary providence and history,. individual life?. process theology, as well as theologies of. God. question the idea of. call into. world. specific will for the future of this. quently a will for each individual in. it.. and conse-. in this world,. A. having a. new concern. for the value. human freedom and its genuine creativity lends reason to these conceptions. The power of Ignatius's concern seems perennial; it appeals to a universal human desire that one's individual life conform of. with ultimate and transcendent truth. But our require. God's. more than an adjustment. will.. sensibilities. of language in the question of seeking. Reinterpretation at this point will have a subtle but. on the general rhetoric of. real impact. exercise of authority.. We. somewhat. our. Jesuits, especially in. we. should be clear about whose will. how. conveying or obeying, and Fifth,. modern. it. is. are. known.. related to the issue of God's will lies the. question of the process of discerning the. and epistemology underlie the discernment of. 11. What worldview spirits? By what mech-. spirits.. anism should one sort out a proper course of action? Roland Bainton offers the following reflection about Luther that can equally. applied to Ignatius.. parison with our distant. from. so.. might be tempted to think. own time. in. which. God and God's. God. real. that the evil spirits. com-. that, in. appears absent or. at least. myriad interventions into one's. and always. at. employed the. darkness always posed as the angel of this. be. medieval period was blessed by. For Luther and Ignatius believed. demons; they were. was. We. social affairs, the late. the nearness of. Not. 12. in the spirits, angels. And. hand.. life.. and. the terrifying fact. tactic of deceit; the angel of light.. The. only. way. to. win. in. world bordering on the superstitious involved complex rules and. countertactics to. meet the enemy. Today, of course, we psychologize. the demons, but that. may be. may. not be enough for. modern. retreatants.. They. confused by the language and elaborate rules and put off by. Exercises, 313-336.. Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: York: Abingdon Press, 1950), pp. 25-28.. A. Life of Martin Luther (Nashville/New.

(21) FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES Much more. the introspection.. beings could. Sixth. and. know. Holy. last, I. if. it. may not directs human. profoundly, they. lingering supposition that the. human. 11. Spirit. accept the life. or that. the Spirit did.. wish to point to some issues implicit in the. Contemplation to Attain the Love of God, 13 such as the Ignatian axiom of finding vz/5.. 14. The. God. early Society. between prayer and to. and the aphorism. in all things. was torn over the. action, especially in. in actione contemplati-. issue of the relation. terms of the amount of time. be accorded to formal prayer. Ignatius appears as an innovator. here. when we compare. And. orders.. the Society he founded with other religious. the genius that allowed for his. light in the virtualities. new. departures comes to. of such ideas as the use of creatures ac-. cording to God's appointed ends,. 15. finding. God. in creatures,. and. especially the simple yet paradoxical formula of a contemplative in. Yet these notions. action.. never completely resolve the problem. will. of a necessary and inner tension between these two dimensions of Christian and Jesuit. life.. In these latest years the only priority. that Jesuit leadership has stressed for justice. is. renewal in a. life. more. of prayer. Is there a. conceiving these two areas of spiritual. same. level. and. on the same. in dialectical tension. level they sustain. demands, but also produce their relation. be. forcefully than a concern. life. way of. as not simply. which each other?. When. and increase each other by. at times tensions of anxiety. clarified? It. on the. may be. viewed. their. and. mutual. guilt.. Can. that the key here lies in the. axiom of Ignatius taken from the gospels, one which underlies a great deal of the current theology of our response to God, namely, "that love ought to manifest itself in deeds rather than in words." 16. At sion. I. 13. this point let. summarize. this initial stage. of the discus-. have tried to show that the obvious need to adjust the Exer-. Exercises, 230-237.. This axiom. is. templation in Action:. A. sity,. me. 1957). Exercises, 23.. Exercises, 230.. the main theme of the study of Joseph F. Conwell, ConStudy in Ignatian Prayer (Spokane, WA: Gonzaga Univer-.

(22) HAIGHT. 12 cises. and Jesuit. surface issue; six. it. spirituality to. reaches. down. our contemporary situation to foundations. This can. problematic areas in the Exercises which. may be. no. is. be seen. in. considered fun-. damental: the notion of personal and predominantly eschatological. and underlies the. salvation that constitutes their point of departure. whole, the individualistic conception of. sin,. the narrow breadth of. salvation implicit in the historically unauthentic idea that Jesus. was a. king, the questionable notion that. providential will for each individual. implied in the discernment of. between prayer and action. life,. spirits,. God. has a specific. the supernaturalism. and the perennial tension. in the Christian. life.. These are. crucial issues for Jesuit spirituality in our world today.. I. I. believe. put them. forward on the basis of a conviction that Jesuit sources contain powerful resources for a spirituality in our day. The objections raised against the letter of the Exercises touch not the substance of. Ignatian spirituality but the sixteenth-century form of presentation.. The. Jesuit principles age.. point of this questioning, then,. is. its. not to undermine. and axioms, but to reinterpret them anew. for our. But since the questions raised here are foundational, one needs. to bring to bear a consistent. PART. AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF ACTION. II.. In this section. standing of. human. anthropology critical. modern anthropological framework.. will. I. shall describe. some elements. of an under-. existence in terms of a philosophy of action. This. then serve as a framework for reinterpreting the. areas of Ignatian spirituality that have just been consid-. ered. This anthropological interlude, therefore, grounds the under-. standing of the dynamics of Ignatian spirituality put forward in Part III.. These. reflections are inspired. by Maurice Blondel, and a. account of his thought appears in the Appendix. systematic coherence in this presentation. distinctions. which. will. become. I. I. am. fuller. not aiming at. have simply chosen those. operative in adjusting the sixteenth-. century Ignatian language of spirituality to our current context, and I. present them in an order that corresponds to those points of the. Exercises under consideration..

(23) FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES As. a point of departure. me. let. that in different contexts. similar. and. partly different.. action refers to is. used analogously, and. is. has a meaning that. For example,. existence. To. itself.. level too the. action.. Human. term includes affectivity. are action. But action action, so that action. all. is. this. partly. deepest sense,. in its. human person. say that the. human. action highlights the dynamic quality of. deep is. human. it. category of. clarify the central. the discussion, namely, action. Action. means. 13. existence.. dimensions of. human. At. this. Knowing. life.. and feeling insofar as they are responses. may also refer may be used to. to concrete behaviors.. Doing. is. designate specific concrete. actions that people perform. It. should be clear from the beginning then that the discussion of. action that follows. Action with. is. may. not be construed in any reductionist way.. never mere doing. At bottom. human. existence itself in. its. this discussion. most general and. of action deals. at the. same time. most concrete sense. Action embraces within a dynamic realism every aspect of concrete well as what. One. is. we. human. Action. life.. the. is. name. of our existence as. do.. what one does. From. this rich. meaning of. action,. follows that one. it. does. If action refers to dynamic existence. other than a person's action?. Human. action, in the sense of the decisions. perform,. we. On. attitudes through action; ideas. action. is. what. free.. we make and. also fashion ourselves to. constitute themselves by action.. itself,. be. is. what one. is. the self. Thus by our. the actions. this or that.. a practical level,. Human we form. emerge out of responsive. we beings basic. action;. we. we fashion our concrete desires in we forge who we are in relation to the reality Beneath what we think we are and beyond who we. focus our values through action; action; through action. to. which we respond.. say. we. are,. who we. really are. constituted by our action.. We. is. revealed in action because. are what. we. it. is. do. Action then represents. the intentional and dynamic process by which. human. beings constitute. themselves as unique persons. This aspect of action will be relevant to our conception of spirituality..

(24) HAIGHT. 14. Action has eternal value. Action has an eternal value. This thesis affirms several aspects of the value of. human. action. First of. and cannot not have. exists. once posited, action. existed. It has the ontic reality. value that pertains to being their effects.. all,. Secondly, actions continue in. itself.. They cannot be. and. called back, but continue indefinitely. through unknown chains of causality to influence the world irrever-. Our action perdures as long as time itself. But, thirdly, human action has a certain eternal value that transcends time. This sibly.. affirmation of faith stands against the view that finite reality. not really real because possesses. all. that really. God. and. as infinite reality already contains. within God's. is. is. own. self.. Such a view. really. negates the ultimate reality of action because the infinite immensity of God's being swallows up limited and finite. human. action.. human. In reaction to this view of things, the thesis that. has an eternal value begins with a conviction of faith that ted. human freedom. free with a to. be. freedom. creative.. world;. it. for a purpose.. action. is. in. that transcends antecedent causes. Human. fashions. Human. action. God. crea-. some measure and allows. it. action out of itself creates novelty in the. new forms and. structures of being.. These products. human action can have ultimate eternal value through the power the God who creates and sustains human action. God the bestower of. freedom must be seen as the guarantor of. creative. The. logic of this faith can. be demonstrated. The. ultimate value of. God. inferred as implied in faith in. human. action will have a bearing. human. of. eternal value.. Were this not worth of human life. negatively.. the case, neither could one affirm the ultimate in this world.. its. of. action, therefore,. can be. the creator. This quality of. on our construal of the. First. Principle and Foundation of the Exercises.. The. social structure of action. Up. to this point I have. personalist point of view.. the. human person and. I. been addressing human action from a. have considered action as emerging from. entering the world.. perspective that allows reflection on tive. of the world and society.. human. I. now wish. to shift to a. action from the perspec-.

(25) FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES The human person and adequately as an. isolated. his or her action. 15. can never be understood. phenomenon. Personal human action forms. part of the world and thus always interacts with the world.. What. ap-. pears as autonomous action from a personalist point of view appears as. response from the broader perspective of the world and society. The. human person who. is. a free initiator of action. is. by. also fashioned. As long as one holds firmly to the autonomous value of personal human freedom, one cannot exaggerate the determining influence of the world on human action. We are also genuinely constituted by the world and society. The way the objective the world and by society.. social institution of language shapes our. strates the. individual action.. Action then action. is. demon-. to think. degree of influence which the objective social world. upon. exerts. power even. the. may. bond. also. be seen as. which constitutes. that. that holds social reality together.. But. society;. in this. case action refers to patterned behavior, routine actions that have. been developed over the years into. to. which personal human action. form objective is. social structures. absorbed. These social structures. of action range from the most basic and universal to the most. temporary and intentional. Ideas and values. lie. embedded. patterns of speech and they are learned and internalized;. in. human. work. in a. corporation participates in organic patterned behavior to produce. goods and generate the. profit. on which. its. very existence depends. In. both cases structured social action fashions the person whose action fits. into these institutions, even as personally initiated action. helps to fashion the social world in which aspects of. human. it. participates.. action will expand our notion of. These. sin.. Action can participate in God's action. Human it. may. action. action not only coacts in and with the world and society;. also participate in the action of is. God. in the world.. Human. not absolutely autonomous because the infinite power of. God's creating grounds and sustains the very existence of action itself.. But. I. would. like to reflect. beyond the. level of creation. the significance of the doctrine of cooperative grace that has. on. marked.

(26) HAIGHT. 16. the theological tradition from Augustine through Aquinas and has been. so influential in. The existence. Catholic spirituality.. this sin as at least itself. an eradicable egocentrism that entraps. at the. same time an. increment of. self for the. cooperative grace. sin.. so that the expansive reaching out of action. world always includes. world into the. makes sense only. In the Christian view,. way. tendency to. intrinsically infected with a. is. freedom within. sin.. human One may. doctrine of original sin symbolizes our experience that. understand. into the. Roman. if. own. its. effort to. being.. A. is. love at. human. sin so pervades. work within human action. cooperative grace depicts God's Spirit, that. action, the only. God. is,. out of. and into creative loving relationships. itself. This action of. God. explicitly conscious.. same time of God's. as Paul's. Nor need we. as personally. in the world.. Rahner has shown, need not be. think that. is. it. rare.. But. at the. neither does Christian theology merely postulate this idea. power of love. experience. indirectly.. within, as Karl. at. doctrine of. work drawing human freedom. immanent. God's creatures,. power of a. The. itself.. present and. to. doctrine of. in the light of this doctrine of. to account for genuine love in the world lies in the. God who. draw the. The work. at. work within. us. It. of God's Spirit in. does not. human. life. lie. beyond. all. can be experienced. This experience comes to expression in exclamations such. when he. writes that his action for the. good. himself but the grace of Christ within him (Gal 2:20; In this view, then,. human. with God's action in the world.. action. Or. may be. is. due not to. Rm. 7:13. -. 8:17).. action that cooperates. viewing the same coaction from the. God may be considered and through human action. Creative. opposite direction,. as working in the world. within. loving action, action that. intends and builds positive value in the world,. may. thus be called. theandric action or theergy, action that participates in God's saving. power. united with God. This vision of influence. of. human existence itself becomes human action could have a determining. in the world. In this action. on our conception of. God and. our role in. it.. Jesus' central. message of the kingdom.

(27) FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES Three. 17. levels of intentional action. Human. action involves the will, and willing presupposes. of knowledge.. When. human. lining the fact that. human. call. I. awareness undergirds the. action intentional,. am. simply under-. beings do not act blindly. Reflective. will,. and human action always flows. measure from a conscious human. At. intention.. distinguish three levels at which the will can. human. I. some form. this point I. some. in. want to. be seen as structuring. action.. The most obvious action occurs in. level of the operation of the will in. human. human. choice. In the clearest case, this level of. willing involves a decision directed towards a specific object. In. of free. this exercise. human. will,. action. becomes determined by a. concrete object or the specific direction that. may be. seen as. made up. it. nificantly.. momentous. life. of a whole series of such concrete choices.. These encompass the routine choices of an ordinary include the. Human. chooses.. day.. They. also. decisions that will shape the future sig-. Actually every decision shapes our future and the future. of the world. But the point here constitutes merely. one. is. that the exercise of free choice. level of the intentional activity of. human. action.. A human "the. deeper level of willed action can be discovered beneath choices that. dynamic of. make up human. willing. life.. call this level. I. This dynamic of willing. itself.". describes the expansive character of action in. all. the. of the will. itself really. most fundamental. its. why human beings will anything one finds a dynamism beneath every. sense. In response to the question of at. all,. why. they necessarily act,. specific action of the will that inevitably self.. Aquinas recognized. this. goes out of and beyond the. dynamic quality of human action as a. necessary reaching out that ultimately has as. good" or being. itself.. This corresponds to the restlessness that. Augustine spoke of and which finite object.. that. is. will. not be quieted or content with any. This dynamic of willing. constitutive of. human. itself. existence. forms a universal drive. itself.. the intentional quality of this will does not intentionality at this level. constituted by a. implicit object "the. its. is. Unlike. lie in. a determinism. All. dynamism with a necessary. human. our control. The. human. logic,. choice. beings are. namely, an expansive.

(28) HAIGHT. 18. and outgoing whether. willing. "a. known. reflectively. Yet another. and acting. their study of. or not, namely, absolute being. Many. will. itself.. The fundamental option. A. any given point.. encompass. think that one can. fails to. we. in this. one's. self in a. and mystery.. radical depth. its. this self-constitution. fix at. A. any given. the. self,. but. examination of the choices that in. other.. cific. willing itself,. and. is. not. moment. To. it. fact. It. was. is. his or. said. her fun-. like the center of gravity. has taken.. life. can be ferreted out by an. have governed one's. levels of intentional action interrelate with. The fundamental law. dynamic of. to. Here we see. moment. which defines the actual direction which a person's. These three. up. person's concrete choices. damental option. This fundamental option. may be hidden from. life. appreciate both the finite historical. taken as a whole fashion and. It. determined by. understanding. constituted ourselves by our action.. another aspect of. is. freedom never has the. be. Conscious. it. and dispose of the. totally. nature of the person and earlier that. make up. the dynamic. will,. of a person. fundamental option. any single choice, nor could ability to. has been called. moral philosophy or theology. This fundamental option. the whole series of specific choices that at. itself.. are familiar with this distinction from. should not be confused with the deepest law of the of willing. implicit goal,. its. dimension of the human. level or. fundamental option.". that tends towards. life.. each. of dynamic expansive action, that. becomes concrete. in. an actual. life. is,. the. of spe-. choices and decisions. Ideally these concrete choices should be. directed towards the goal of the dynamic of willing. itself.. From. a. point of view of sheer coherence, there should be a correspondence. between one's fundamental option and the dynamic of. willing itself.. Without such a correspondence, a radical division and. conflict. rule a person's. life.. The. self as constituted. by one's fundamental. option would be at odds with the purpose of. dynamic of willing structure of. ing what its.. is. human. itself.. These. would. human. existence. and the. distinctions concerning the inner. action, then, will. be very helpful for understand-. going on in an election and the discernment of the. spir-.

(29) FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES. 19. Possessive knowledge Action,. mediates possessive knowledge. This. finally,. last thesis. concerning action has to do with the quality of knowledge that action. may. generates, Knowledge, conscious awareness of reality,. many. different levels,. presence provided by. from vaguely conscious sight.. exist at. feelings to the vivid. Moreover knowledge may. a variety. exist in. of differentiated forms, from poetic intuition to the abstract clarity of mathematical definition. Possessive knowledge mediated by action. does not relate to an increment of awareness of to possession of. it.. but precisely. reality,. Action negotiates a kind of knowing. that, as. were, internalizes through the body of one's action that which. known. Action causes and. results in a. form of possession of the. action overcomes the separation and unites the. The engagement to possess. it. and be possessed by. it.. still. remain. to the knower,. with. it. in the. whether private or general. The veterans of Viet. and are possessed by the sive. the inside,. it. were. who can. a distance from the object of his or her. at. knowledge. The student of war does not know soldier,. knower with the known.. Action thus becomes as. known. real-. in action;. know something from. of action allows one to. the reality principle that binds the. otherwise. is. known. The knower and the known become wedded. ity that is. it. reality of war.. same way. Nam. as the. possess. This category of the posses-. knowledge mediated by action has everything to do with the union. God. Contemplation. that Ignatius aims at in the exercise of the. for Obtaining Divine Love.. As. a conclusion to this section and before moving to an analysis. of the Ignatian spirituality that. me summarize. is. portrayed in the Exercises,. let. the anthropology of action that will serve as a basis for. reinterpretation. Action offers a viewpoint for understanding. ourselves and realistic its. human. existence itself in a dynamic, existential, and. way. Because of. its. depth and richness on the one hand, and. sheer practicality on the other,. vision of. human. reality. it. binds together a metaphysical. and reflections on concrete behavior. integrated and coherent way.. From. a personal point of view,. beings are centers of action and any given person. is. in. an. human. what he or she. does. Secondly, in an evolutionary and historical world the freedom that intrinsically constitutes action appears as creative.. We. help.

(30) HAIGHT. 20. fashion the world. This necessarily entails responsibility, a responsibility in. and. for the. world that cannot be escaped. In the. light of. the doctrine of an evolutionary creation, one must ask about the. permanent value and the proper use of one's. now. here and tion,. then. free action. If action. has an eternal value, precisely because of final salva-. purpose of. this salvation reorients the. human freedom and. action back towards construction in the world.. when. Thirdly,. action reaches out into the world,. it. appears as. interaction or coaction with the world and others in objective socie-. The horizon. ty.. ly in its. action, especial-. patterned and socially constructed institutions, reappears. as the very stuff of personal existence. relationship, then, personal is. human. of action thus expands so that. human. determined by the world and. simply does not. exist.. and. action. In a dialogic. action fashions society even as. it. society. Purely individual action. Fourthly, within a religious. tradition of the theology of cooperative grace,. framework and the. human. action does not. appear absolutely autonomous. Behavior that overcomes the inherent tendency of. own. human. initiative. action to be incurvata in se cooperates with God's. or action in history.. Fifthly, returning to the personalist perspective,. insofar as. it. is. intentional. is. human. action. highly complex. But the distinctions. between the underlying dynamic of human. willing. itself,. basic. choices of specific objects, and the fundamental option that. is. human fash-. ioned in those very choices help to sort out the logic and goal of the. human phenomenon.. This in turn provides a framework for understanding. the process of decision making.. And. sixthly,. decision and action that. cooperate with God's intention and action in the world bind a person in a symbiotic. These nificant ally. and. sin,. the. and possessive relationship with God.. distinctions. from a philosophy of action. consequences in the reinterpretation of in particular Ignatius's first principle. kingdom of God, the. and finding. God. in all things.. election, the. will. have. sig-. spirituality gener-. and. his notions of. discernment of. spirits,.

(31) FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES. PART. IGNATIAN PRINCIPLES OF SPIRITUALITY IN THE LIGHT OF ACTION. III.. In this third part. wish to take up again the key areas of. I. Jesuit spirituality illustrated. by the Exercises that were mentioned. in the first part of this essay. and which may encounter resistance. some people because they live in a natius. The reinterpretation in each structive natius's. logic will. and. will try to. case will be positive and con-. preserve not what was consciously in Ig-. how. its. might be reappropriated today. In each case the formulation. be fashioned. it. in. different world than that of Ig-. mind, but the question behind each meditation and. tion. I shall. as. 21. language of a philosophy and theology of ac-. in a. begin with a general characterization of spirituality. appears in. framework.. this. Spirituality. In Part. II it. human person that, at. was. bottom, the term. is. uality. All. is. what one does. By action the. that to. this. it. can be shown. way a person. spirituality is properly Christian.. which. it. refers as limited to Chris-. reasonable to think that every. human. From. spirituality refers to the. The term. life.. But rather than view it. one. constitutes himself or herself.. leads his or her. tians,. said that. human being. has a. beings lead their lives in a certain way.. make up. spirit-. The con-. crete. way of. ality.. This conception of things prevents from the outset every notion. life. of individuals and groups. of spirituality that cuts. it. off. from. life in. their spiritu-. the world.. This view of spirituality reaches more deeply than the question of. "lifestyle.". tion,. Since. human. existence. is. intentional. and willed. ac-. a spirituality reaches below the surface of this or that pattern. The multiple deepest commitment of. of action to the fundamental option of a person. actions of a person. person's. will,. being of the. fix. and define the. and ultimately of self. his or her being.. One. through action. In order to assign. specific. that. fashions the. spirituality the.

(32) HAIGHT. 22. profound significance. no better way than. The term levels, the. one. conscious.. On. it. should have in the whole of. to conceive. spirituality. existential. the. first. it. embodied. as. in. can be understood on. and the other. and deepest. human. at least. reflective. and. who he. or she. is;. terms of the ideas,. life in. shape. it.. These two. For example, reality. action. two. spirituality is the. On. make. distinct. the. continuous line of. the second reflective. theory or theoretical vision of. ideals,. itself.. level of action, spirituality is. action that fashions a person's identity. level, spirituality refers to a. is. explicitly. constituted by the conscious decisions and actions that. person to be. there. life,. and ultimate values. human. that should. levels constantly interact in the thinking person.. in Christian spirituality. God and. one has a vision of. mediated through the person of Jesus which supplies the ideas. and values which. in turn. should shape a Christian's. life.. So. too,. various schools of spirituality within the Christian sphere, such as eremitical or Franciscan or Ignatian spirituality, supply variations. and refinements of the Christian Looking. vision.. at spirituality as action. does not result in a limiting. or exclusive definition. Indeed, this approach intends the very opposite. life. Action includes and integrates dimensions of the. lar life in the life.. go overlooked. For example,. that frequently. aspects of secu-. world are drawn into the sphere of one's. Moreover the category of action helps. tionships of. all. some. spiritual. spiritual. to clarify the interrela-. of the elements of spirituality that are often. dealt with separately.. For example,. faith. and. understood reductively to be synonymous.. spirituality. On. can be. the existential level of. personal and subjective appropriation, faith and spirituality are identical. because both refer to the fundamental option and commitment. of a person that. is. actually lived out in his or her action.. theoretical sense of faith, which appears tively as "the faith," coincides. and human or underlies. life in it it.. The more. when one addresses. it. objec-. with the understanding of the world. human action grounded in human. that in turn provides the vision for. Spirituality,. when recognized. as. action, appears as nothing less than the living out of a vision of faith.. Action. is. the actuality of the internalized vision..

(33) FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES The is. issue underlying spirituality, that. union with God. This. in every case. atheist or the. is. 23. which. is. at stake in. it,. true even in the case of the. person not religiously inclined. For just as the ques-. be escaped, neither can the correlative. tion of one's destiny cannot. question of whether or not. my. my. action and hence. being in. this. world. correspond to the ultimate reason of things. The question of whether or not one's action unfolds within the context of the all-encompassing. The "dynamic. truth of reality itself logically cannot be avoided.. human action is rooted in a demand for absolute being. In the. of. willing itself that underlies all. love. of being and an implicit. Christian. vision of things, this desire to. be conformed with. thus affirmed in and by being. itself. personal. God whom. and. reality itself. takes the form of union with the. Jesus called Father. Christian spirituality. is. the. living out of this vision in action.. The. First Principle. With. and Foundation. conception of spirituality as a background,. this. to the issues raised. move. I. pointed to a certain. in-. framework and an eschatological bias underlying the. The formula. natian formula.. being of. us. by the sixteenth-century Spiritual Exercises of. Ignatius. In the first part of this essay dividualistic. let. human. Ig-. characterizes the fundamental reason for. beings predominantly in terms of the final salvation. of each one of us. Reflection on the goal of the salvation of one's soul in the end might be a fitting point of departure for Christians, but life. it. hardly does justice to the. some. demands of the. spiritual. today. Without negating the perennial validity of dimensions. that the Ignatian formula stresses,. spond. it. must be reinterpreted to. to the spiritual questions that are being asked today.. that action has. an eternal value. will. be the key to. re-. The. idea. this reinterpreta-. tion.. Some their own a. tacit. Christians. who come. to the Exercises. personal salvation. This lack of anxiety. may. not stem from. Pelagian pride, but simply a deep internalization once and. for all of the Christian vision of things. Jesus.. do not worry about. The God. mediated by the person of. of the universe, and thus the principle governing the. inner logic of reality. itself. and hence of. my. being,. is. personal,.

(34) HAIGHT. 24. summoning back. benevolent, and dedicated to life all. of creation. Having internalized. into. God's own personal. some may want more. this,. in. a spirituality than the Ignatian groundwork provides. For example, a. much more. vital. question for. many people may concern. of Christian salvation for their lives here and now.. the significance. They want the on. salvation mediated by Jesus Christ to bestow a present value. world, an intrinsic meaning on their action in eschatological salvation.. It is. reason for our being in. this. God". serve. in. simply not apparent today that the. world. God. is. is. and service should be the context. our action. But ninety-nine percent of our active. The. avoidably consists in doing other things. the. way these. and. to "praise, reverence,. the ground of our being and salvation, so. that gratitude, praise, reverence, all. not simply an. any direct fashion. Ignatius's formula correctly cap-. tures the idea that. of. it,. then-. be subsumed. attitudes can. concrete things that. we do. in the world.. issue, then,. into the. Does. un-. lives. concerns. framework of the. the First Principle and. Foundation say anything about the use and value of the freedom and action that Christians invest in the world?. Through what kinds of. action should the praise, reverence, and service of. God. world. in this. be rendered?. The. first. principle. statement concerning nal value of principle. human. and foundation today should include some. human. responsibility to this world. and the. action in this world and for this world.. The. and foundation ought to illumine how human action. now. world even creativity of. my. will last in the. is. saved, and that the exercise of. action count.. Human work my. also. action in. first. in this. freedom and the. can have a validity. end time. The formula should. the question of the ultimate value of. my. eter-. now. that. be made to address. more than. the. purely individual and eschatological terms of the final salvation of. my. soul. It. must. assert that the reason for one's being in this world. includes a responsibility for the world and that the exercise of that responsibility will not. action. is. principle. a. go for nought.. form of being. in the. Human. freedom and. its. creative. world and for the world. The. and foundation should show how. biblical. symbols affirm the. absolute and everlasting value of everything positive, everything. done. in love, that is posited. by human. action.. At. first. this point. an.

(35) FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES. 25. anthropology of action can draw out of the biblical symbolism of creation, covenant, prophetic criticism,. and the. New. Testament's. Law to an identification of the love of God with the neighbor, a much fuller and more adequate statement of the. reduction of the love of. reason of our being and action.. this:. The. first. God. the Creator bestowed. principle. power. as a real. Each person,. to fashion. new. on human beings the being, carries with. gift. freedom. in creative. like. freedom which,. responsibility.. it. therefore, has a God-given responsibility. to exercise that. God's. and foundation might look something. and opportunity. achievement in and for the world.. be patient of what our personal. final or eschatological act will. and corporate freedom presents back. to. God. Our. final salvation, then,. cannot be conceived in abstraction from our creative action in and for the world which. God. has in large measure placed in our corporate and. personal hands. Jesus' parable of the talents, which forms a part of. kingdom of God, points. the explanation of his central message of the to the rationale of creation. within the framework of light of this. and the. human. logic of salvation that unfolds. existence conceived as action. In the. formula, the Ignatian expression "to save one's soul". could be construed as an individualist temptation contrary to the will of. God. if it. elicited. an egocentric desire for. bypassed the responsibility implicit. my. salvation that. God's very creation of human. in. freedom. But the formula could also be reinterpreted as a religious. framework. much fuller consideration of the Christian vision of value of human freedom and action in and for the ongoing. for a. the ultimate. creation of the world.. The Consideration of Sin. How. are. we. to deal with the extensive. amount of time. that Ig-. natius gives over to the consideration of one's personal sin, that. when to. it. which. appears that a retreatant it. appeals?. Would. it. be. what point does the introspection spiritual. masochism, which. narcissism?. Are we. to. may. not have the inward sensibility. right to. awaken. that sensibility?. At. that this entails shade into. ironically. bemoan. is,. becomes. a secret. form of. the contemporary loss of an agonized. sense of personal sin and guilt that underlies the apparent lack of a.

(36) HAIGHT. 26. need. for personal confession? Is there a theology of sin today that. can make sense out of the evident evolution that has taken place in. What. our culture? of our whole. not. It is. is. life in. my. the sin that threatens the very meaningfulness. the world?. intention to respond to. all. these questions ade-. A. quately, but only to point the direction for a certain strategy.. point of departure for understanding a all. new. participate lies in the social structure of. topic developed in Part. forms a part ure corrode life.. is. social. my. we. personal action, a. world of which every individual. constructed of patterns of action that in large meas-. human. Human. The. II.. sense of sin in which. when. values. they do not actually destroy. human. beings cannot avoid participation in these social struc-. tures. Relative to. each person these structures are objective. They. stand over against the individual and defy every individual will that. More than this, they fashion and shape individown image and likeness. No one can escape social. seeks to change them. ual action into their sin. because everyone participates. mechanisms. in the social. that injure. and dehumanize the marginalized victims of society and corrupt the values of. all.. In reality, a sense of sin in the world creasing.. But. it. is. to. not decreasing but in-. not merely personal sin that ultimately dominates. our consciousness, but what. come. is. be known as the. is. symbolized by original sin and has. sin of the world.. This sin. is. constantly. being identified for us in specific social structures of behavior,. and we hate. to hear about. it.. Consciousness of. this sin,. even when. only implicit, does not cause personal confusion and anxiety but a. general disorientation and a sense of entrapment.. It. can lead to. cynicism and through cynicism to the mortal threat to freedom that resides in. boredom or. indifference.. It. saps one's courage and leads. one to doubt the value of good action because. it. is. drawn up. into the. vortex of social systems and their consequences that rob any good that the individual does of. Of. any significant. course the seeds of sin. appear in society were. it. lie in. effect.. each individual; sin would not. not for the innate egoism that. is. part of. the very constitution of everyone's freedom. Surely one must wrestle. with inner concupiscence in the attempt to be open to the power of the.

(37) FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES gracious Spirit that will alone overcome. hidden level of subjective. sin.. The. Sinful patterns of. human. The experience. is. another. does not remain objective.. sin,. action are out-there-real only because they. become. are also introjected and internalized to jectivity.. But there. objective sin of the world, in. concrete manifestations as social. its. it.. 27. part of our. own. sub-. of entrapment thus has both objective and. subjective dimensions; social participation qualifies the very motives. of our action.. world. Our. action merges with the world and society; the. part of us even as. is. we. are part of the world;. which make up our world.. willing participation in the evil structures. We. are consumers in a consumer society;. economic and sexist. and. political foreign policy;. we cannot escape. we. we. tacitly. support aggressive. use a language the carries. racist values.. The examination analysis of the social. of this sin should begin outside the self with an. environment in which we. approached through objective. analysis.. At. the. live;. it. same. can only be. time, however, this. objective analysis includes self-analysis. But this meditation does. not end within the. self; it. We. opens out towards the world.. should. meditate on the dehumanizing effects of the social patterns of our corporate action on concrete groups of people. Self-examination here. way we have unconsciously bought into the cultural systems of sinful disvalue and allowed them to shape our consciousdeals with the. ness.. We. should examine the measure in which. have accepted them. sive death-dealing practices or. from freedom. In. particular,. and ambiguous character of. we cooperate. we have all. to. in aggres-. in a passive. become aware. escape. of the subtlety. our accustomed social behavior. The. real scandal of sin lies here; here too resides the potential to. experience an urgency that sin be resisted. Unless one faces up to this sin, first. one. will. principle. not be able to accept. and foundation,. that. my. critically. and honestly the. action has ultimate value.. In sum, the meditations on sin should be objective.. looks at the world critically cannot not have a sense of is. sin.. But. it. not a sense of sin that crushes the person with personal guilt so. that it. Anyone who. is. he or she. may be. saved by a sheerly personal salvation. Rather. a sense of sin that undermines the. tion of the positive. first. principle. and constructive direction of. my. and founda-. action with a.

(38) HAIGHT. 28 global sense of. futility.. The response. not merely forgiveness.. to this sin. and. its. effects is. Of course one could go nowhere without. forgiveness; the acceptance. God. by. that. of the person precisely as a sinner. provides the very foundation for any further freedom. But after this forgiveness, what? After the healing grace of forgiveness positive direction for one's. new. response to the. freedom and action. sense of sin. one needs a. in the world.. The kingdom. the meditation on the. lies in. of God.. The Kingdom of God. We Kingdom. have seen that Ignatius's casting of the meditation on the of Christ. is. dated on at least two counts. Jesus did not pro-. claim himself as a king.. Jesus acts as a negative. On. What norm. we can know of the historical what we should proclaim about. little. for. means. this basis, Jesus' refusal of this title. ically inappropriate.. that. it. But we may build on the kind of. Ignatius presents us with, for. it. is. no. typical king.. is. Jesus.. theolog-. "king" that. Also the presup-. positions concerning the breadth of salvation that he behind this. meditation no longer correspond to a current theological view. In his first. prelude to the consideration of the Incarnation, Ignatius de-. picts the. "Three Divine Persons" looking down upon the world and. seeing "that. all. are going. down. to hell.". 17. ogical doctrine of Vatican II that grace. and. if. one judges that God's universal. effective,. is. If. one accepts the theol-. universally available,. salvific will. and grace are. then the bias here seems unduly pessimistic about the. ultimate destiny of the race.. One. make. could. distinctions to justify. the Ignatian contemplation as a thought-experiment.. The. point remains,. however, that the whole line of thought misses today's target.. Can. this consideration,. so absolutely central to the logic of Christianity. and Christian. be realigned to confirm the Foundation against. life,. the problem of sin in our. Exercises,. 18. What. is. new. context?. 18. The. thesis that. human. action. 102.. said here will also shed light. dards. Exercises, 136-148.. on the Meditation on Two Stan-.

(39) FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES. 29. can participate in God's action opens up the meaning of the kingdom of. God. in. response to today's experience of. sin.. Jesus himself preached the kingdom of God.. took the form of parable and example.. of that preaching. appeared against a back-. also. It. Much. ground of multiple traditions of interpretation of what the very phrase "kingdom of God" meant. richness and complexity of. As. meaning. a result, the phrase so abounds in that. it. remains impossible to. determine with complete precision exactly what Jesus intended by the. kingdom of God. However, despite these confidence that. difficulties,. one can say with. implies at least the following for our. it. tian imagination: that. God. is. own. sovereign, the transcendent. Chris-. God. of the. human values, is to be among people and nations. universe; that God's will, often at odds with. done. in this world; that. God. in this world, so that the. and now even as tions of the. bear. it. will. wills justice. humanity of people. is. not trampled here. not be in the final reign of God.. Second Week,. if. The medita-. they keep close to the synoptics, will. this out.. This Jesus. who. bears this message. is. the focal point for the im-. agination of the Christian's faith in God. Prescinding from the christological question,. because the issue here. is. prior to. it,. Christian. faith always has Jesus as the center of its relationship to. man,. up. in his teaching. and the way he. lived his. life,. all. God. This. of which. his person, defines for Christians the very revelation of. Therefore, of. all. the possible vehicles in the world that. make. God.. may. lead a. person to God, for the Christian Jesus remains the privileged and normative "way" to God. 19 This basic consideration opens up the essential logic of the rest of the Exercises. What up. formality does a consideration of the. for meditations. 19. which focus on Jesus.. on the. life. of Jesus?. What. kingdom of God open. specific light. does the. The idea that Jesus is the "way" to God is a fundamental theme in the whole christology of Jon Sobrino. See his Christology at the Crossroads: A Latin American Approach, trans, by John Drury (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1978). This same volume contains an application of his christology to the Spiritual Exercises. In this regard, an important contribution is that of J. Peter Schineller, The Newer Approaches to Christology and Their Use in the Spiritual Exercises," Studies in tlie Spirituality of Jesuits, 12/4-5 (September-November 1980)..

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