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Christmas truce of 1914 [ 1st world war]

Christmas Truce of 1914 Comes to Broadway

“Our Friends the Enemy” hopes to rekindle a moment of faithful peace, in a world at war

Pope Francis opened the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome on Tuesday, initiating the Jubilee Year of Mercy. And on Wednesday, in New York, the curtains will rise on an off-Broadway play in New York City telling a tale of a fleeting moment of mercy in the midst of horror.

Our Friends the Enemy, a British play that commemorates the First World War’s “Christmas Truce of 1914” makes its American debut at New York City’s The Lion Theater on Dec. 9.

The Christmas Truce was a moment of shared humanity across enemy lines in the European conflict of 100 years ago, but the spirit of feast was quickly set aside and the mutual killing intensified until an armistice was called five years later.

In this off-Broadway retelling, the audience is brought as close to the fighting as the men of war were to one another. In one scene, the main character, Private James Boyce, describes how the opposing trenches are separated by a narrow strip of wasteland known as No-Man’s Land, snarled with barbed wire and corpses. Boyce knows he is a grenade’s throw away from the German troops fighting the British and their French allies.

Firsthand accounts of the soldiers gleaned from letters home to their loved ones vary as to when the unofficial truce started. On one section of the Western Front, British soldiers said they heard the Germans begin to sing “Stille Nacht.” The British were familiar with the melody, but initially, they did not understand the words. Soon, the British realized that it was “Silent Night,” and all of their voices became one choral exchange, singing hymns that celebrated the birth of Jesus.

Two of the producers of the play, Robert Carreon and David Adkin, said the truce is what Christmas is all about.

“It’s not like they were singing ‘Jingle Bells,’” Carreon said. “If you look at the lyrics in ‘Silent Night,’ they say everything about what the Christmas spirit is.”

By some historians’ estimates, 100,000 troops, who were bent on killing each other, put aside their weapons for a spontaneous Christmas truce.

“In the bleakest of times, in the midst of a world war, a reverence for the human person shines through and is stronger than anything,” Adkin said.

The peace, however, did not last. Pope Benedict XV called for a universal cessation of hostilities, but it went unheeded by the power brokers. The leadership on both sides were concerned that fraternization on this scale was a dangerous threat to the war effort. Soon after Christmas, the combatants used chemical weapons. The result was higher casualties and further dehumanization of the enemy. By war’s end, 17 million soldiers and civilians were dead.

If the soldiers involved in the truce had any say, they may have all gone home.

George Goss writes from New York City.

TRANQULLITY

Tranquillity is a Link to Awakening:

The Tranquillity Link to Awakening (passaddhi-sambojjhanga) has the
characteristic of peace, and the function of stilling, which manifests as
absence of restless trembling. Stillness of feeling, perception and mental
construction is the factor that induces bodily Tranquillity..
Stillness of consciousness itself induces mental Tranquillity...
The proximate cause of Tranquillity is the satisfaction within Joy!
The resulting effect of Tranquillity is the bliss within Happiness!

The Buddha once said: What mental fermentations (āsava) should be overcome
by development? If a Bhikkhu by careful and rational attention develops the
Tranquillity Link to Awakening based on seclusion, based on disillusion, based
on ceasing, and culminating in cool relinquishment, then neither can any mental
fermentation, nor any fever, nor any discontent ever arise in him. MN2 [i 11]

In one who is joyous, the body becomes calm and the mind becomes calm.
The Tranquillity Link to Awakening emerges right there. He develops it,
and for him it goes to the culmination of its development. MN118 [iii 85]

CALM
Calm is his thought, calm is his speech, and calm is his behaviour, such one who
truly is knowing, is indeed completely freed, perfectly tranquil, and wise...
Dhammapada 96

CONTENT
The one who eliminates discontent, tearing it out by the roots, utterly cuts
it out, such one spontaneously becomes absorbed in the calm of tranquillity
both at day, and by night as well. Dhammapada 250

COMPOSED
The one who is tranquil in his movements, calmed in speech, stilled in thought,
collected and composed, who sees right through and rejects all allurements
of this world, such one is truly a 'Peaceful One'. Dhammapada 378

Inspirations on the calming and soothing of serene Tranquillity (Passaddhi):
Tranquillity_Passaddhi, Feeding_Tranquillity, The_Tranquil_One

One the related state of Calm (Samatha):
Forest Bliss, Calm, Calm_and_Insight, Calm_Power, Calmed,
Breathing_Calm_and_Insight, Silenced, Forest_Bliss2..

Tranquillity..

who control your life?

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Have you experienced God? (Part 1) Sadhguru

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The Circus of Morality

The Nature of Human Relationships

Mind - Miracle or Manufacturer of Misery?

How to Live Happily? - Sadhguru

Devotion: When You Don't Matter Anymore

COURSE ON SPIRITUAL DIRECTION

 01. COURSE ON SPIRITUAL DIRECTION

Dear Rev. Fr. Provincial,

       We are conducting a one-month Course on SPIRITUAL DIRECTION to Spiritual Directors, Formators and Retreat Directors from 12th April to May 11th, 2016  at De Nobili College, Pune. 

       The First Preference is given to our Jesuits and so the announcement is made first to our Provincials. Soon we will be sending the invitation to individual Jesuits, whose email Ids we have. 

       Please encourage our Jesuits and others, whom you think will benefit, to participate in the course and equip themselves better in their ministries. 

       Please find the details in the attachment.

Your Brother at your Service,

Fr. M. Kulandai Raj Sj (mobile: 09849954148)

Andhra Province

Free education by the jesuits.

concept of gratuity a hard and tortuous journey from the time of Ignatius until the present.Jesuit schools became more of a privilege limited to the middle and upper classes.

Wanting to open a New English Medium School Read this reflection

 

Gratuity in Ignatian Education:

Then and Now

This article is taken from Jesuits 2006 John P. Foley S.J

Ignatius was absolutely convinced of God’s Providence with regard to the Society of Jesus. He referred to the special Providence by which God would take care of everything. He assured us that the more we trusted divine Providence, the more abundant blessing it would pour upon us. Ignatius wanted us to rejoice in our limitations. He taught that our fragility is the means for Providence to become present.

From the very beginning, it was one of the characteristics of how he and the Society operated. For him it was a test of our apostolic integrity; people will listen to us only when we can show them that we have nothing to gain from what we are calling them to.

When the first Jesuit school was founded in the city of Messina in 1547, gratuity was the solution for the Jesuits to remain faithful to their resolve not to charge for ministries provided. Ignatius commissioned his secretary, Fr. Polanco, to provide examples of how the schools might be funded: by the city as happened in Messina and Palermo; by some prince, as in Ferrara and Florence by their respective dukes, or as in Vienna by King Ferdinand; by some private individual, as in Venice and Padua by the prior of the Trinity; by a group of individuals, as in Naples Bologna and elsewhere.

Thus not to charge for education was a corollary to one of the most fundamental graces Ignatius received; to give freely what one has freely received, to minister without worrying about benefit and without support of gold or silver, concepts almost totally foreign to the ways  we are taught to see things in today’s world.

When Polanco wrote the program: “First of all, we accept for classes and literary studies everybody, poor and rich free of charge and for charity’s sake, without accepting any remuneration.”

When the Collegio Romano opened in the Eternal City in 1551, the sign over the door read, “School of Grammar, Humanities and Christian Doctrine, Free.” This concept of gratuity was revolutionary at the time. It is one more way in which from the very earliest days the Jesuits were true innovators. They refused to charge tuition for the same religious motives that from the beginning led them to refuse payment for any of their ministries. This fact made Jesuit schools financially attractive to parents and local governments and was a powerful factor contributing to their initial success.

For the first 150 years the schools were supported by begging, an activity Ignatius exercised constantly and in many different ways from the time of his conversion until the end of his life.

But times change and new circumstances demand adaptations. However, as the number of schools increased (by the end of the sixteenth century the Jesuits were founding six new schools a year), the possibility of staffing with Jesuit teachers became more and more difficult, slowly but surely lay people began to take their places. Lay people with familial obligations need a fixed income to sustain themselves and their dependents.

The school became tuition driven: the greater cost to educate, the more the school had to charge. And so it was the world over until in many cases accessibility to our Jesuit schools became more and more of a privilege limited to the middle and upper classes.

Fast forward now to 1955 and the country of Venezuela, Spanish Jesuit Fr. Jose Maria Velaz sought a solution to the fact that so many people in that country and so many others were excluded from private Catholic education because of its having become so expensive. Refusing to buckle before this cruel reality, he searched for a way to serve those being left behind in Venezuela. He was convinced that there must be another way to resolve the problem.

In response he founded the first Fe y Alegria schools which to this day are meant to be a religious alternative to the public system. He confronted the same problem that Ignatius and the first Jesuits did when they ventured into the educational field. His solution was also original and creative: let the State continue to pay the salaries for the teachers; the central office of Fe y Alegria would beg for the means to buy the construction materials to build the different schools; the parents and students would commit to working on weekends to build the new structures for their sons and daughters.

In fifty years now, Fe y Alegria has expanded to 13 countries in Latin America and educates over half a million students yearly who otherwise would be excluded because of the restraints of tuitions.

Forty years later, the US Jesuits confronted the same difficulty where they wanted to open a school in the most populated area of Chicago. When the Provincial told us who were organizing the new venture to “go out and see how you’re going to fund the school,” the three of us looked at each other and decided we needed some radical new innovative idea. So we hired a consultant and asked him for some solutions on “how to fund a school in the inner-city” What was our amazement when that same consultant returned about two weeks later and simply asked, “What if everyone had a job?” We decided to test the idea. We went to the Jesuit alumni who were active in the Chicago business community and knocked on the doors. We told them our story: the Jesuits wanted to open a school in the inner city and they wanted to fund the school by having the students work on a rotating basis one day a week. We were overwhelmed with the response from our alumni. 

Frankly it seemed that people were so desperate for new idea in the educational field that it was enough that the Jesuits were going to try something different for them to get behind it. It was almost too much to hope for. Until the students went out to work that first day. We were not at all sure it was going to be effective.

Some of the companies did in fact call us that first day, but it was to thank us for sending the students. It became an opportunity for the company to get involved and respond to the needs of the inner city; the employees were proud to work for a company that became part of such a program; it generally lifted morale in the business places and made employees feel that they really were contributing in a concrete way to make the world better.

The idea that student have a job was the seed that made it possible in 1966 to return to the original gratuitous vision of Ignatian education, as it was practiced both at Messina and at the Collegio Romano. With that suggestion we were able to restore the notion of gratuity and incorporate it into the fundamental structure of Cristo Rey Jesuit High school.

Without knowing it, Cristo Rey was applying what Ignatius mandated over four centuries ago. Basically, the Cristo Rey formula is the integration of two seemingly distinct institutions: a school and a temporary employment agency. To be a student at Cristo Rey a young person must be able to hold a job. By going to their assignments at different contracted places of employment in the city five days a month, each student earns over seventy per cent of the cost of his / her education, thus permitting the school to charge a relatively modest amount, the remaining third of the cost, to each student.

We have discovered that it does infinitely more. In a word the self-esteem of the student goes sky-high. This student never even thought it within the realm of possibility that there would be a place for him there. All of a sudden, this student and his peers see that they are welcome there and can function effectively.  These fifteen year olds begin to realize that that world of business is accessible to them, that there are options for the future. Now it makes sense to go to school and to finish. There really is a worthwhile goal to pursue and it really is possible to attain it. The Cristo Rey model has given birth to a network of eleven schools in the country.

Foundations have their eye on us. They like what they see and they want us to succeed. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has given us the biggest grant they have ever assigned to a faith-based institution. The Cassin Educational Initiative Foundation has also invested heavily in our future. These and other financial backers are our modern day equivalent of the princes and dukes of Ferrara and Florence.

For those of us who are involved in it, besides the excitement we often feel the need to kneel before what is happening. There is something sacred about this whole thing. The total is very definitely more than the sum of the parts. The Spirit is unmistakably present.

Just like any successful economic model, it has to be continually revised and probably re-created. As the needs and circumstances change, so do the solutions we try to provide. Our forefathers in Jesuit education tried to provide different answers at different times, according to the situation. We always have to be innovative and create new answers. The challenge is to preserve that spirit of dynamic creativity.

Four and a half centuries ago, Ignatius tried to be faithful to the grace he received to maintain our ministries free of charge. Each generation of Jesuit ministries, including education, must discover its own solution and create its own way of being faithful t our founder’s desire. How are we faithful to gratuity today?

There are no pat answers, no one-size-fits-all. Each generation has the obligation to produce their own solution because that’s the only way to remain vital. Is it easy? Is there an easy answer?  Not at all but it wasn’t easy Ignatius either begging on the steps of the church of Santa Maria del Mar in Barcelona. Our fragility is the means for Providence to become active.

The concept of gratuity has made a hard and tortuous journey from the time of Ignatius until the present. Happily it is making a new appearance to that basic commitment of Ignatian abandonment to what the Lord provides. May we have the courage to embrace it?

John P. Foley S.J taken from the Jesuit Year Book

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COLLABORATION bears Spiritual Fruits in Canadian Jesuit High School

We in Gujarat Had a number of meetings and seminars on collaboration.

A retreat can change people to organize themselves to collaborate:

An example below. 

Please respond to this.

I expect a short response to this report in blog Antaragni.

devasia

COLLABORATION bears Spiritual Fruits in Canadian Jesuit High School

How can the mission of the Jesuits be fulfilled as the number of Jesuits declines?

St. Paul’s High School, Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada has been wrestling with this question since 1970’s. From having a Jesuit Faculty with three lay teachers, we are now a lay faculty with three Jesuit teachers. Jesuit/ lay collaboration has evolved from grudging necessity to a welcome witness to the universal nature of the Ignatian vision. Similarly, 30% of our students are not Catholic: today this is seen as a richness that calls us to a deeper collaboration.

Great example of how collaboration can bear excellent fruit lies in the spiritual renewal which has transformed the school. In the year 1988 Ignatian Year, the Winnipeg Jesuit Community offered the Spiritual Exercises (Annotation 19) to our faculty, of which one-third took them. A significant number of the faculty now had a language and a common experience base in the spiritual life. This became the fertile soil for future spiritual programs developed for students.

Our major spiritual programs – Christian Life Community (CLC) – Kairos – the Freshman Retreat – and the Spiritual Exercises – are guided by the faculties who have done the Exercises.

In 1992 the arrival of a Jesuit Scholastic Alan Fogarty, SJ recalls it was not easy to begin the CLC. “There was some resistance among the lay faculty and even in the Jesuit community. I was beginning to feel that the time was not right, when three grade nine students said they wanted to form a CLC group and asked me to head it.

The then Mr. Fogarty’s group began to meet weekly, engaging in faith sharing, spiritual conversation, prayer and outreach, the hallmarks of C.L.C. Within two years there were 8 groups of 8-12 students meeting weekly, each guided by a faculty member. Today about 15% of our student body are members of a CLC group. Groups typically start in grade 9 and stay together, with their faculty moderator, for 4 years.

The Kairos retreat experience, is an intense four-day retreat which focuses on affirmation of the person and community building. Like CLC and, indeed, like the Spiritual Exercises, the student’s personal encounter with the Lord Jesus is the basis of building a community which proceeds to action in the world to build up God’s Kingdom.

One of the features of Kairos is that it is conducted primarily by students who have themselves made the retreat. St. Paul’s now has three Kairos retreats each year; 75% of our graduating students have chosen to make Kairos. A key element of CLC, Kairos, and all our spiritual programs is that we ensure that they are authentically Catholic, and at the same time are open to all our students and their faith backgrounds.

We have non- Christian students whose parents went to Jesuit schools in India, Lebanon, and around the world. We try to imitate the generosity of Mother Theresa who looked for the beauty of God in people of every tradition.

Hindu student Ankur Nagpal ’04 was a member of CLC, participated in Kairos, and made the Exercises. He said ‘St Paul’s has made me take into consideration ‘human interest’ at a whole new level. I no longer think that I am insignificant in helping out people. CLC and Kairos have made me realize to an extent that my vocation will certainly revolve around helping people. The best way of doing this is through my decision to study medicine.

Mehdi Seidgar ’01 a Muslim student commented “An aspect of St. Paul’s High School that really impressed me was how openly I was accepted into the community. As an active member of CLC and the Kairos retreat, I learned that as human beings, our differences are minuscule.” As a student director of a Kairos retreat, Mehdi shared his faith and talents with 35 other boys. He says that going to St Paul’s deepened his own faith: “I attribute who I am as Muslim today to my time at the school.”

Raed Joundi, whose father attended the College of St Joseph’s in Lebanon, said, “CLC was important to me as it set a time apart to allow myself and fellow members to relax review the week, and recharge for another.” 

Raed, who is also Muslim, attended Kairos after “extensive pushing and prodding” from his friends. He said, 

“Kairos was not at all what I expected. It gave me great insight into the spiritual workings of those around me, but most of all, opened an otherwise unopened window into my own beliefs, thoughts, experiences, life, and faith. Kairos was crucial to the understanding of myself and was a vital part of my St Paul’s education.

Orienting boys into our school has always been a challenge: they come from twenty-five or thirty different and elementary schools into a very big high school, and many are not Catholic. Our awakening spiritual senses challenged us to respond to the boys’ spiritual and communal needs and so in 2002 we introduced the 

Freshman Retreat.

For two nights and a day in November, the boys are conducted through an intense experience of prayer and community building. They are divided into groups of six students, each led by senior students. While the retreat is overseen by faculty members and parents, the actual work with the boys is done exclusively by senior students. The experience includes community service work, modeling talks by senior students, faculty members and local clergy, Mass, and opportunity for the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the close binding experience of “camping out”. 

We have found the impact on our students very positive.

Student Brendan Arniel commented, “The retreat was awesome. All of us really came together as friends and classmates. It broke down any barriers that we had. I really felt welcomed into the school community.”

Here our challenge is not one of integrating them into the school community but, rather, one of preparing them to move into the greater world and, we hope, be agents for the building up of God’s Kingdom. We felt, though, that we have needed more direct spiritual preparation for their life beyond high school.

The response was right under our noses: the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius are the foundation of the formation of Jesuits. St. Ignatius developed the Exercises to be given to lay people! So we decided to offer the Exercises to our graduating students. 

Our main challenges in doing this were: adapting the language and particularly the images of the Exercises to a post-modern teenage retreatant; finding in-house directors, for the Exercises require one-on-one spiritual direction with weekly meetings; and finding time for these meetings.

We recently met with a group of retreat alumni.

Tom Robertson ’03, a member of our first group, told us, “I did the Exercises because Kairos made me hungry for more. I wanted more to encounter God in my daily life.”

Dan Brick ’04 and Josh Fernando ’04 agreed. All found that the retreat experience, while challenging and sometimes difficult, was very rewarding.

Dan reflected. “I have found that the routine of daily prayer has continued into my life. Every day, doing the Examen, I can step back and look at how am I responding to God…or not.”

Josh said, “My whole life is different I try always to listen to Jesus and to respond. Sometimes he seems to shout, sometimes to whisper. He’s my friend my brother, my helper.”

Tom summed up for all the alumni when he said, “My Kairos experience and particularly my Exercises experience validated my faith, made it tangible, personal and real. I now can live my faith in daily life, not just in a retreat centre or at mass or at prayer.

These alumni represent the latest fruit of our school’s Jesuit-lay collaboration. Perhaps some of our alumni will go on to follow a vocation to the priesthood or religious life. But our hope is that all of our graduates, whatever their path in life, will have the tools and the motivation, God willing, to be ‘contemplatives in action”; to seek God in all things, and to build up God’s kingdom in word and indeed.

Johnston Smith

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Podcast Gurjarvani on Android phones / Tablets daily.

Ignatian Spirituality Commission Gujarat

Ignatian Spirituality Commission Gujarat met at Premal Jyoti  on 22nd Aug 2015 from 10 to 12 am.
A lot of future plans were made which will be submitted to the PCM - Province Commission for Ministries.
Devasia

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IGNATIAN INSPIRATIONS - SHEKHAR MANICKAM SJ

IGNATIAN  INSPIRATIONS

A thought for every day of the novena to St Ignatius.

from 22nd July to 30th July 2015

SHEKHAR MANICKAM SJ

 01. GOD IS A GENEROUS LOVER

St Ignatius of Loyola, a mystic and the founder of the Jesuits, was born in Spain in the year 1491 and died in Rome on 31^st July 1556. 
We learn many inspiring spiritual insights from his personal experiences of God. 

For St Ignatius, the mystic, his relationship with God is like that of a Lover and a Beloved. .  On 20^th May, 1521, at the age of thirty, Ignatius, a worldly but a brave soldier was wounded at Pamplona in a war against the French­. 
It was during his convalescence at home in Loyola he began his intense spiritual journey with God.

Ignatius had a profound personal experience of God’s boundless and everlasting love for him.  He experienced God as his generous lover who loved him unconditionally and bestowed on him numerous gifts like the entire creation, his own creation as a dwelling place of God’s Temple, redemption and other gifts particular to himself.  He pondered with deep affection how much God loved him and had done so much for him.  Here he met his God as his faithful and generous lover and stood before Him as His beloved in utter bewilderment, joy and wonder.

 Deeply touched, moved and drenched in God’s infinite and unconditional love for him regardless of his limitations and sinfulness, Ignatius, quite spontaneously decided to reciprocate his love for God.  At that moment, Ignatius became the lover and God became his Beloved.  This was how, his entire life was a dialectic process of God being first his lover and Ignatius his beloved and Ignatius being lover and God his beloved. He would write to describe this particular spiritual disposition of his soul as “a generous spirit, ablaze with God” wanting to perform greater things for God.  Genuine experience of God’s generous love, in turn, makes us generous too like Ignatius, “a generous spirit, ablaze with God”.

02.  GOD IS A FASCINATING LOVER

Fr Shekhar Manickam SJ

God is a fascinating lover.  The way God loves us is truly astonishing.  In the life and writings of St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits and a mystic of the 16^th century, we meet God as a fascinating lover.

St Ignatius could easily listen to the secret divine pulsating in the heartbeat of creation.  The glorious beauty and the subtle and unfathomable aspects attracted Ignatius to celebrate the liturgy of creation leading him to experience God indwelling in all that is on the face of the cosmos. 

Ignatius, the mystic, could easily meet God in the whole of creation.  He writes, “...consider how God dwells in creatures; in the elements, giving them existence; in the plants, giving them life; in the animals, giving them sensation; in human beings, giving them intelligence...” Thus, in the deep-seated silence of his being, he could hear the footsteps of God through the course-ways of creation.  For Ignatius, every being is the face of God.  Every being is a shrine of God.  The entire cosmos with its spectaculour forms, marvelous variety and indescribable beauty celebrates God’s presence.  The splendid universe, therefore, is the Temple of God. 

Besides the presence of God, Ignatius draws our attention to see how God is working like a labourer for the well-being of every member of his cosmic family.  It is to ponder over both the work of the lover and the love of the worker. And at once, he is wonderstruck and is lost in the awesome depth of God’s love for humans as manifested through his creation.  He writes, “…consider how God labours and works for me in all the creatures on the face of the earth; that is, he acts in the manner of one who is laboring.”  This is how St Ignatius would invite us to look at the cosmic family as God’s gift for us.  But what makes these gifts very unique, special and precious is God’s ceaseless presence and creative action in them.  God, indeed, is a fascinating lover.

03. GOD IS A PASSIONATE LOVER

Fr Shekhar Manickam SJ

Humans are the beloved of God.  God loves us with an exclusive love.  He is a passionate lover.  God loves each one of us with a personal and unique love.  Like any genuine lover God desires that his beloved, the humans, reciprocate his love. 

Loving God is to have right relationship with the created reality and fellow humans. The faith vision of St   Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits and a mystic of the 16^th century, is to look at the whole of creation as God’s gift for us.  It is to experience the depth of God’s love for humans as manifested through his creation. Ignatius views the whole of creation as a means to love God.

However, here he offers a spiritual nuance in his own following words, “…we ought to use these things to the extent that they help us toward our end, and free ourselves from them to the extent they hinder us from it.” This is the genius of St Ignatius.  He shares with us a spiritual insight as to how to use or relate with God’s creation.  Putting it simply, we could say, “If anyone or anything that draws us closer to God we choose and we do not choose anyone or anything that takes us away from God.”

In fine, Ignatius offers a gracious principle - “Be free from all in order to be free for God”. This is precisely to love God above all else.  Be free from all in order to be free for God is to love God passionately because He loves us passionately.

04. GOD IS A TRANSFORMING LOVER

Fr Shekhar Manickam SJ

Experience of God’s love brings out a personal transformation.  There is a new orientation; a new way of life. St Ignatius of Loyola was the founder of the Jesuits and a mystic of the 16^th century.  When he had a very deep, personal and unique experience of God’s love being outpoured on him, he simply surrendered to God in love.  After having given up his worldly ways Ignatius turned towards God with gratitude and humility because he believed that it was God who transformed him.  He experienced that fullness of God’s love divinized him. For Ignatius, therefore, God is a gentle and patient transforming lover.

Being a soldier, St Ignatius knew fully well that our desires determine how we act. He was a fighter with focused desires.  He did experience that God loved him totally, with his whole being. He did not have an iota of doubt even for a moment about the fact that God loved him unreservedly and completely. 

Fascinated by this matchless love-filled self-gift of God for him, this transformed Basque soldier, in turn, was determined to love God with his entire self.  God, no doubt, is a gentle transforming lover.  God became the focal point of his desires.  Thus Ignatius would crystallize this groaning of his soul in his well-known book called “The Spiritual Exercises” which was approved by Pope Paul III in the year 1548. 

For example, he would ask every retreatant to begin her or his meditation without exception with a preparatory prayer which goes thus: “The preparatory prayer is to ask God our Lord for the grace that all my intentions, actions, and operations may be ordered purely to the service and praise of the Divine Majesty”.  In other words, he invites the retreatant or any seeker of God to pray for the grace that her or his entire being, thoughts, decisions and actions be oriented towards God.  It is good to remember here that our desires determine how we act.  Hence, our ultimate desire ought to be God. Through this short prayer, St Ignatius introduces and invites us to imbibe a way of life.  It is a way of life to love God with our entire self. It is a way of life to love and share life with God.

05. GOD IS A NOBLE LOVER

Fr Shekhar Manickam SJ

We hear or read or speak about mystics.  But, Who is a mystic?  A mystic is the one who always lives in the loving presence of God.  Why do the mystics choose to live always in the loving presence of God?  The mystics choose to live always in the loving presence of God because God is a noble and intense lover.  God ceaselessly draws us towards Him and we too are ceaselessly drawn towards him.     

St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, was a mystic of the 16^th century.   It was Monday, may 20^th, 1521. Ignatius was fighting against the French in Pamplona, Spain.  In the midst of heavy bombardment, a cannon ball passed between both legs, shattering the right leg and badly injuring the left leg.  It was during his convalescence at home in Loyola, in Spain, his moments of enlightenment began. 

He masterfully perceived that there were two forces working within him.  There was God who was ceaselessly drawing him towards Himself and there was also an evil force that was ceaselessly pulling him away from God. From this experience he would contribute to the world what is known as “the discernment of spirits”.  

The discernment of spirits is a spiritual art of living.  Every day, we are faced with CHOICES in life to choose between right and wrong.  Quite often we struggle a lot to arrive at the right decision.  It is here the discernment of spirits is of immense help. 

The discernment of spirits is a type of sifting through our interior experiences or movements in order to trace their direction.  If they are taking us in the direction of God we embrace them.  we reject them if they are taking us away from God.

But how do we distinguish between what takes us to God and what takes us away from God?   Ignatius writes, if we experience the loving presence of God, tranquility and peace; if there is any increase in hope, faith and love, then we are on the right direction.  All of us, therefore, are invited to be mystics whose sincere effort is to take decisions that are aligned with that of God and live always in the loving presence of God.  

06. GOD IS A COMPASSIONATE LOVER

Fr Shekhar Manickam SJ

In this world all of us are pilgrims.  Our life is a pilgrimage.  No one is born a saint.  Our spiritual journey too is a pilgrimage.  God knows we are all imperfect beings.  The Maker of the universe knows that we are all made up of bones and flesh.  All of us live and will die as fallible beings. Yet…Yet God chooses to live in us and loves us unconditionally.  Therefore God is a compassionate lover.  

St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits and a mystic of the 16^th century, preferred to address himself as a pilgrim in his autobiography because he understood that spiritual growth is an on-going purification of the self.  It is a life-long journey from self-centredness to God-centredness.  We are all the fragile developing faces of God.  Day after day we are being converted; we are being moulded.  God is ever there for us with His loving moulding hands. 

Here I remember my Jesuit study guide, a holy and a noble person late Fr Maurice Dullard telling me one day, “Well, Shekhar, all of us will die as sinners!”  How true it is!  Nevertheless, what makes this journey so unique is that God journeys along with us as a loving, compassionate and true friend.  What God desires in turn is the sincerity of our heart in seeking to be with God and attempting to do His will. 

All along our life journey God never leaves us alone and particularly when we falter or lost or gone astray because He is our compassionate lover.  God celebrates our growth.  Recalling how God was dealing with him in the early days of his conversion during his spiritual sojourn at Manresa, in Spain, St Ignatius mentions in his autobiography, “God treated him at this time just as a schoolmaster treats a child whom he is teaching.”  Ignatius describes God as an understanding and compassionate school master.  Yes, God directly deals with each one of us.  It is our firm faith that God, in spite of our weaknesses, leads every one of us individually and uniquely because He is a compassionate lover.

07. GOD IS A SELFLESS LOVER

Fr Shekhar Manickam SJ

The seekers of God need to be extremely aware of an impending danger in our spiritual journey.  Our enthusiasm to reciprocate our love for God who loves us selflessly, may subtly lead us to indulge in self-glory if we are not aware of.  Instead of worshipping God we may gradually land up in worshipping our ego.  Quite often it can happen that what we want to do for God may not be necessarily what God wants us to do for him.

St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits and a mystic of the 16^th century writes in his book The Spiritual Exercises:  “Everyone ought to reflect that in all spiritual matters, the more one divests oneself of self-love, self-will, and self-interests, the more progress one will make.”  

Divesting of self-love and spiritual progress are interrelated.  Our attempts to make ourselves holy or doing service for God on our own efforts may be a futile exercise.  How hard we may try, we cannot make it happen.  Spiritual growth necessarily demands shedding of our ego.

Ignatius, after his conversion, overindulged himself in performing so many the so-called spiritual activities like excessive fasting, penances, too many hours of prayer etc.  The result was that he was ruining his health and was suffering from scruples that tormented him mercilessly.  It was only when he, in his powerlessness, cried out in pain saying, “Help me, Lord” he felt the need of God.  Till this moment Ignatius was in charge of himself but now he surrendered himself to God.  It was only after this surrender his spiritual progress took an extraordinary turn because from then on God took charge of Ignatius.

Letting God take charge of myself implies discerning at every moment of my life as to what God wants me to do here and now.  This is called discerning love. 

God’s initiating, sustaining and perfecting Grace is always active in us.  God is a selfless lover. True love is selfless like that of God.  Discerning to do God’s will is nothing but loving God selflessly because what I want to do for God may not be necessarily what God wants me to do for Him.  In the name of God we may do so many things.  But does God really want those things?

08. GOD IS A DYNAMIC LOVER

Fr Shekhar Manickam SJ

God is a dynamic lover.  God is not static.  He is God of here and now.   St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits and a mystic of the 16^th century, was praying earnestly to be accepted by God as His companion to serve Him in the world. Ignatius understood his life as a collaborative venture between God and humans.  He views humans as instruments joined with God because being in union with God is also working for God.

St Ignatius writes, “Love ought to manifest itself more by deeds than by words.” He looks at the universe as God’s gift in which He is continuously at work.  God’s love is manifested by deeds than by words.  He personally experienced how God had been showering blessings upon blessings upon him.  Thus, in his personal life God’s love is manifested by deeds than by words.  In utter gratitude, Ignatius turned to God to thank Him.  We notice that his thanks-giving to God became thanks-living.

Ignatius prayed earnestly to be accepted by God as His companion to serve Him in the world in order to show his love for God in deeds than by words.  His life became a prayer.  Prayer is union with God.  Union with God means living in the loving presence of God.  God is concerned about the here and now situation in the world because he is dynamic and creative.

Therefore living in the loving presence of God also means working for God as instruments joined with God especially to alleviate forces that are opposed to divine values within ourselves and in the world.  That is prayer even in action because union with God is also working for God. This is how our life becomes a constant offering to God.  This is how our life is a collaborative venture between God and humans with a noble purpose of establishing God’s Family on earth.

09. GOD IS A UNIFYING LOVER

Fr Shekhar Manickam SJ

God, the universe and every human person are inseparable.  They are inter-fused.  They are inter-connected.  All that is there is from God.  God is present in everything and everything is in God.  Oneness is what characterizes the divine sphere.  Reality is one because God is a unifying lover.  Genuine God experience leads to this oneness. 

St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits and a mystic of the 16^th century, writes about this oneness, “Consider how all good things and gifts descend from above; for example, my limited power from the Supreme and Infinite Power above; and so of justice, goodness, piety, mercy and so forth – just as the rays come down from the sun, or rains from their source.”  As the rays are in the sun and the sun is in the rays, God is present in everything and everything is in God. God is a unifying lover.

Experience of God as a unifying lover leads to a more universal worldview.  Ignatius writes, “The more universal the good, the more divine it is.” [622 d]. Only a person who has gone through true God experience could write like this.   Genuine God experience makes a person transcend borders, divisions, factions, discrimination, nationalities and the person has a sense of belonging to the whole cosmos.  She or he stands enveloped by the entire cosmic family.  She or he becomes a citizen of the world; a citizen of the cosmos – a cosmozen. Therefore, fanaticism of any kind does not find place in any genuine God-experience.  God is a unifying lover.  We are invited to share in the unifying mission of God.  Genuine God experience, therefore, leads us to work for universal peace.  Loving all.  Peace for all.