Ignatius of Loyola

Qu'est-ce que l'Absolu ? Dieu existe-t-il ?

God is Creator and Lord, who deals directly with the creature

Un Dieu personnelIl le dit expressément

Ignatius of Loyola begins, in the Principle and Foundation of the Spiritual Exercises, with a creator God to whom the human being is ordered: created to praise, reverence and serve him. This God is not distant: annotation 15 asks the one giving the exercises to let the Creator deal «immediately» with the creature. In the Contemplation to Attain Love, God dwells in creatures, labours for the human being in them, and descends like the rays of the sun. The Spiritual Diary of 1544 also shows an intense devotion to the three Persons of the Trinity, with tears and visions. The Absolute is for Ignatius a personal Lord who communicates his will and awaits a response.

Qui suis-je ? Existe-t-il un vrai soi ?

I am a creature made to praise and serve, and so save my soul

Une âme créée et immortelleIl le dit expressément

Ignatius of Loyola defines the human being by its end: the Principle and Foundation of the Spiritual Exercises states that it was created to praise, reverence and serve God, and by this means save its soul. The self is not a fixed datum, but a freedom traversed by movements: the Exercises teach one to distinguish within oneself one's own thoughts and those that come from outside, from the good and the evil spirit, and to order disordered affections. To know oneself is to learn to read consolations and desolations. The true self is the one that, indifferent toward created things, chooses what most leads to the end for which it was created.

Pourquoi souffrons-nous ?

Desolation has causes, and in it one makes no change

La séparation d'avec DieuIl le dit expressément

Ignatius of Loyola does not build a theodicy; he offers discernment. In the Spiritual Exercises he calls desolation the darkness, disturbance, restlessness and lack of faith, hope and love in which the soul feels as if separated from its Creator. He assigns it three causes: one's own tepidity and negligence, the testing of one's worth without consolation, and the lesson that consolation is God's gift and not one's own merit. In time of desolation one should never change decisions already made. The first week also meditates on sin and its consequences. Spiritual suffering arises from estrangement and can become a school.

Que se passe-t-il après la mort ?

Decide as if one were at the point of death

Vie éternelle et résurrectionIl le dit expressément

Ignatius of Loyola takes for granted the Christian faith in eternal life, judgement and the possibility of damnation, and puts it at the service of decision-making. The Principle and Foundation directs all of life toward saving the soul; the first week of the Exercises includes the meditation on hell with the five senses. More original is his use of death as a criterion for discernment: in the second way of making an election, he proposes considering what form and measure one would wish to have followed in the present choice if one were at the point of death, and how one will stand on the day of judgement. Death is not speculated upon: it is used to live truthfully.

Comment atteint-on la libération ou le salut ?

Exercise oneself to remove disordered affections and seek God's will

Par une pratique disciplinéeIl le dit expressément

Ignatius of Loyola is, among Christian masters, the great author of a method. The first annotation of the Spiritual Exercises defines them as every way of examining one's conscience, meditating, contemplating and praying, and compares them to bodily exercise: just as walking and running are exercises of the body, these are of the soul, to remove all disordered affections and, once they are removed, to seek and find the divine will. Four weeks, with timetables, additions, examens and rules for discernment, lead to the election. But the method does not produce salvation: in each exercise it asks for the grace desired and lets the Creator act directly with the creature.

Faut-il un maître ?

The giver of the exercises lets the Creator deal with the creature

Utile mais pas indispensableIl le dit expressément

Ignatius of Loyola defines precisely the role of the companion. The Spiritual Exercises are designed for someone to give them to another, and their annotations offer detailed advice: adapt the exercises to the person, do not give more than they can bear, help them discern the movements. But annotation 15 marks the limit: the one giving the exercises must not incline the one receiving them toward one choice or another, but stand in the middle like the pointer of a balance and let the Creator act directly with the creature. The teacher is useful and almost necessary to avoid self-deception, but does not take God's place.

Le monde est-il réel ?

Things are created to help the human being toward its end

Une création bonne et réelleIl le dit expressément

Ignatius of Loyola looks at the world in terms of its purpose. The Principle and Foundation of the Spiritual Exercises states that the other things on the face of the earth are created for the human being, to help him attain the end for which he was created; hence they should be used insofar as they help and set aside insofar as they hinder, becoming indifferent. But the Contemplation to Attain Love adds a deeper gaze: God dwells in the elements, in plants, in animals and in the human being, labours for him in all things, and all goods descend from above like the rays of the sun. The world is good creation and a place where God is found.

Qu'est-ce que l'amour ?

Love is shown more in deeds than in words

L'amour de Dieu et du prochainIl le dit expressément

The Contemplation to Attain Love, which closes the Spiritual Exercises, opens with two notes that define love for Ignatius of Loyola. The first: love ought to be put more into deeds than into words. The second: love consists in mutual communication, in which the lover gives and shares with the beloved what he has and can, and the beloved with the lover. Contemplating how much God has given leads to the offering of self: take, Lord, and receive all my liberty. That love is expressed in service, and the Constitutions extend it to the help of souls and to dealings with one's neighbour, whom the presupposition of the Exercises asks always to interpret in the best sense.

Sommes-nous libres ou tout est-il déterminé ?

Never speak of grace so as to take away freedom

Un libre arbitre réelIl le dit expressément

Ignatius of Loyola builds the Spiritual Exercises around a free choice: the whole method seeks that the person, free of disordered affections, choose what most leads to the end for which they were created. The offering that crowns them begins precisely with freedom: take, Lord, and receive all my liberty. And in the rules for thinking with the Church, written in the midst of the controversy with the Reformation, he warns that one should not speak so much of predestination or insist so much on grace as to give rise to the idea that works and free will are of no use. Freedom is a real gift that is exercised and, in the end, surrendered.

Pourquoi méditer ou prier ?

Speak with God as one friend speaks to another

L'amitié avec DieuIl le dit expressément

The Spiritual Exercises are a repertoire of ways of praying: examination of conscience, meditation with the three faculties, contemplation of Gospel scenes by composition of place, application of the senses, three methods of praying with words. But all lead into the colloquy, which Ignatius of Loyola defines in the first week as speaking exactly as one friend speaks to another, or a servant to his master. The second annotation gives the criterion: it is not much knowledge that fills and satisfies the soul, but feeling and relishing things interiorly. To pray is to deal with someone, and the fruit is an inner knowledge of the Lord, the better to love and follow him.

La raison peut-elle connaître l'ultime ?

Not much knowing, but relishing; and still, study

La foi et la raison s'entraidentIl le dit expressément

Ignatius of Loyola holds two things that complete each other. On the one hand, the second annotation of the Spiritual Exercises warns that it is not much knowledge that fills and satisfies the soul, but feeling and relishing things interiorly; and the Autobiography recounts that by the river Cardoner the eyes of his understanding were opened with such great enlightenment that everything seemed new to him. On the other, in his thirties he sat among children to learn Latin and studied at Alcalá, Salamanca and Paris, and the rules for thinking with the Church command praise of positive and scholastic theology. For him, trained reason serves faith and the help of souls.

Se retirer du monde ou le transformer ?

Seek and find God in all things

La contemplation dans l'actionIl le dit expressément

Ignatius of Loyola began as a hermit at Manresa, but founded an order of active life: the Society of Jesus has no choir and no enclosure, and its members must be available to go to any part of the world where greater service of God is hoped for. The Constitutions ask Jesuits to seek God in all things, removing as far as possible their love from creatures to place it in the Creator. The Contemplation to Attain Love teaches to see God present and labouring in everything. His secretary Jerónimo Nadal coined the formula that sums it up: contemplative in action. Prayer is not opposed to apostolic work: it directs and sustains it.