His Way of Proceeding
James Martin, S.J., is editor at large of America and the author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything. Portions of this article first appeared in The Tablet of London.
How might Jesuit spirituality influence Pope Francis' papacy?
The weeks following the election of Pope Francis, the first Jesuit elected to that office, saw more people asking questions about Jesuits than at perhaps any other time in the last 25 years. Most readers of America already know what a Jesuit is, but another question bears some reflection: How might Jesuit spirituality influence, and how has it already influenced, our new pope?
Jesuit spirituality is based on the life and teachings of St. Ignatius Loyola, the soldier-turned-mystic who founded the Society of Jesus in 1540. Much of that spirituality flows from his classic text, The Spiritual Exercises, a manual for a four-week retreat inviting a person into imaginative meditations on the life of Christ. The Exercises mean more than simply reading the New Testament. Retreatants are urged to imagine themselves, with as much vividness as possible, in the Gospel scenes. As the spiritual writer Joseph Tetlow, S.J., once wrote, the retreatant is not even observing from a distance but is “standing warm in the Temple or ankle-deep in the water of the Jordan.” Through such intense encounters with the Gospel narratives, the person praying enters into a deep, personal relationship with Jesus.
