His Way of Proceeding

April 29, 2013

James Martin, SJ

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.

paradigm shift

Subconscious mind

Holy Week messages from Fr Willima sj in Gujarati

Surrendering our faculties - Hedwig Lewis SJ

Surrendering our faculties

Hedwig Lewis SJ

The word “contemplation” as derived from the Latin root contemplari, which means “to look at”. St Ignatius uses it on the sense. He distinguishes three levels: looking in terms of focusing – shutting out distractions – sights, sounds, that come through our outer senses (SE 75, 131, 239): looking through application of the inner senses and faculties (SE 121-126, 253-254), and looking with pure consciousness, pure attention, by surrendering the three classical faculties: memory, intellect and will (SE 234). Only our attention, our awareness, remains, since it cannot be given away. This we now direct to God.

The third level is the purest form of ‘acquired contemplation’. It is called ‘acquired’ because it pure grace. It cannot be achieved through any effort on our part. The prayer “Take and receive” disposes us for this grace. We let go of inward mental activity, till nothing is left but pure consciousness making space for God’s intervention.

Such surrender is realized in formal prayer when our attention is focused on the relationship between ourselves and God. Otherwise, as contemplatives in action, our attention is directed to God’s presence, so as to love and serve him in everything.

The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola

The Ignatian Way

Ignatian Spirituality

Pope Francis washes women's feet

Pope Francis washes women's feet 

 

Associated Press | Updated: March 29, 2013 08:21 IST

Rome: In his most significant break with tradition yet, Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of two young women at a juvenile detention centre - a surprising departure from church rules that restrict the Holy Thursday ritual to men.

No pope has ever washed the feet of a woman before, and Francis' gesture sparked a debate among some conservatives and liturgical purists, who lamented he had set a "questionable example." Liberals welcomed the move as a sign of greater inclusiveness in the church.

Speaking to the young offenders, including Muslims and Orthodox Christians, Francis said that Jesus washed the feet of his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion in a gesture of love and service.

"This is a symbol, it is a sign. Washing your feet means I am at your service," Francis told the group, aged 14 to 21, at the Casal del Marmo detention facility in Rome.

"Help one another. This is what Jesus teaches us," the pope said. "This is what I do. And I do it with my heart. I do this with my heart because it is my duty. As a priest and bishop, I must be at your service."

In a video released by the Vatican, the 76-year-old Francis was shown kneeling on the stone floor as he poured water from a silver chalice over the feet of a dozen youths: black, white, male, female, even feet with tattoos. Then, after drying each one with a cotton towel, he bent over and kissed it.

Previous popes carried out the Holy Thursday rite in Rome's grand St. John Lateran basilica, choosing 12 priests to represent the 12 apostles whose feet Christ washed during the Last Supper before his crucifixion.

Before he became pope, as archbishop of Buenos Aires, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio celebrated the ritual foot-washing in jails, hospitals or hospices - part of his ministry to the poorest and most marginalized of society. He often involved women. Photographs show him washing the feet of a woman holding her newborn child in her arms.

That Francis would include women in his inaugural Holy Thursday Mass as pope was remarkable, however, given that current liturgical rules exclude women.

Canon lawyer Edward Peters, who is an adviser to the Holy See's top court, noted in a blog that the Congregation for Divine Worship sent a letter to bishops in 1988 making clear that "the washing of the feet of chosen men ... represents the service and charity of Christ, who came 'not to be served, but to serve.'"

While bishops have successfully petitioned Rome over the years for an exemption to allow women to participate, the rules on the issue are clear, Peters said.

"By disregarding his own law in this matter, Francis violates, of course, no divine directive," Peters wrote. "What he does do, I fear, is set a questionable example."

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said he didn't want to wade into a canonical dispute over the matter. However, he noted that in a "grand solemn celebration" of the rite, only men are included because Christ washed the feet of his 12 apostles, all of whom were male.

"Here, the rite was for a small, unique community made up also of women," Lombardi wrote in an email. "Excluding the girls would have been inopportune in light of the simple aim of communicating a message of love to all, in a group that certainly didn't include experts on liturgical rules."

Others on the more liberal side of the debate welcomed the example Francis set.

"The pope's washing the feet of women is hugely significant because including women in this part of the Holy Thursday Mass has been frowned on - and even banned - in some dioceses," said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author of "The Jesuit Guide."

"It shows the all-embracing love of Christ, who ministered to all he met: man or woman, slave or free, Jew or Gentile."

For some, restricting the rite to men is in line with the church's restriction on ordaining women priests. Church teaching holds that only men should be ordained because Christ's apostles were male.

"This is about the ordination of women, not about their feet," wrote the Rev. John Zuhlsdorf, a traditionalist blogger. Liberals "only care about the washing of the feet of women, because ultimately they want women to do the washing."

Still, Francis has made clear he doesn't favour ordaining women. In his 2011 book, "On Heaven and Earth," then-Cardinal Bergoglio said there were solid theological reasons why the priesthood was reserved to men: "Because Jesus was a man."

On this Holy Thursday, however, Francis had a simple message for the young inmates, whom he greeted one-by-one after the Mass, giving each an Easter egg.

"Don't lose hope," Francis said. "Understand? With hope you can always go on."

One young man then asked why he had come to visit them.

Francis responded that it was to "help me to be humble, as a bishop should be."

The gesture, he said, came "from my heart. Things from the heart don't have an explanation."

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
"I, your Lord and Teacher, have
just washed your feet. You,
then, should wash one another's feet.
I have set an example for you,
so that you will do just what
I have done for you."
John 13:14,15
THERE IS NO NEED
TO DO A DEGREE
TO WASH THE FEET !
WASHING THE FEET
IS THE SUMMARY OF
THE WHOLE GOSPEL !!
BRO. ANDREW EX SJ { CO FOUNDER ,LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR }
PRAYER:
Master, You stooped in all humility

to prove Your love for us. Give us
the wisdom to understand what
You have done for us so that we will
never seek glory for ourselves

when we are called to serve You.
'Jesus, I trust in You!'