Jul 2005 Christian Spirituality By George A Lane SJ

(Continued from previous issue) IGNATIAN PRAYER: FINDING GOD IN ALL THINGS The history of Christian Spirituality reveals a rich variety of forms of prayer, each an effort to achieve union with God. This effort is the common ground of all spiritualities; one only differing from another in its manner or mode of approach to God. One of the most decisive factors determining a spirituality is the prevailing notion of God, who He is, where He is, what He is doing, and accordingly, how He might be approached. In the Eastern spirituality of Evagrius, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Cassian, the idea of God showed strong Neoplatonic influences: God the supreme transcendent Mind, the pure, immutable One. The approach to God, then, was an effort toward a union of minds, the human with the divine. Contemplation became the ideal of Christian life and perfection. This doctrine has influenced religious thinking, as we have seen, down to our own day. A more human, simpler, less angelic method of prayer was proposed by Saint Benedict; the chanting of the Divine Office and the quiet, meditative reading of the Sacred Scripture. Both of these forms of prayer require recollection and some withdrawal from other forms of activity. It seems to be at least implicit here that God is thought of chiefly in His transcendence. So the ideal of the Christian life still centers around the periods of formal prayer carried on away from the world in the quiet of the oratory or cell. The apostolic demand which Pope Gregory I made upon the Benedictines set the conditions for the prayer-action problem which has existed for centuries in the history of spirituality. The problem is a theoretical one, how to justify this activity and work for the neighbour when the ideal of Christian perfection has been identified with a union with God achieved through some form of formal prayer. The problem is capsulized in Thomas a Kempis. Being among men, he is presumably away from God. The difficulty remained up until the sixteenth century, and no spirituality actually proposed that union with God could be sought and found in the world among men. It first came with Ignatius Loyola. The revolution in spiritual thinking and practice brought about by St Ignatius centered around a different idea of God, where He was, what He was doing, and how He might be found. And this led to a radically new kind of prayer and spirituality. With a great mystical grace, Ignatius received a vision of God and the world which could resolve the prayer-action dilemma which we have described above. The God of Ignatius is He who works the magnalia Dei in the world. There is a new, a more biblical emphasis here on God's immanent activity in the world. He continually works the creation of the world; and in the person of Jesus Christ, He works the redemption of men. The God of Ignatius is not deistic or remote. He dwells in creatures and "works and labours for me in all of them."

- To Be Continued - © Copyright Shalom 2005. All rights reserved.