Discernment: Pope Francis' current series of General Audiences

 Each week, the Holy Father speaks to a gathering of the faithful in Rome, in the Audience Hall during the winter months when numbers are smaller, and in St Peter's Square in the summer. The audience to which he speaks is, in the first instance, those who have gathered on that particular day with the Pope. But the Pope's words are also addressed to the wider Church, via subsequent publication in the means of social communication. They also have a degree of permanence, being offered not just for the Church of today but, depending on the subject, to the Church for the future. A particular example of this are the series of General Audience addresses from Pope St John Paul II beginning in September 1979 and ending in November 1984 that are now known under the title "The Theology of the Body". Likewise is the series of audiences devoted to the psalms and canticles of Morning and Evening Prayer, begun by Pope John Paul II in March 2001 and completed by his successor, Benedict XVI, in Feburary 2006, and published in a collection by the Catholic Truth Society.

The subject of Pope Francis' present series of audience addresses is that of discernment. One can see, both in the choice of subject and in the contents of the addresses themselves, the influence of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola. The choice is pertinent given the part to be played by discernment in the Synodal process and the part that discernment plays in the teaching of Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia.

In his third audience in the series, Pope Francis suggests that it is an affective form of prayer that is an important element of discernment:

Discerning what is happening within us is not easy, for appearances are deceptive, but familiarity with God can melt doubts and fears in a gentle way, making our lives increasingly receptive to his “gentle light,” according to the beautiful expression of Saint John Henry Newman. The saints shine with reflected light and show in the simple gestures of their day the loving presence of God, who makes the impossible possible. It is said that two spouses who have lived together for a long time, loving each other, end up resembling each other. Something similar can be said about affective prayer. In a gradual but effective  way, it makes us more and more capable of recognizing what counts through connaturality, as something that springs from the depths of our being. To be in prayer does not mean saying words, words, no: being in prayer means opening my heart to Jesus, drawing close to Jesus, allowing Jesus to enter into my heart and making us feel his presence. And there we can discern when it is Jesus and when it is us with our thoughts, that so many times are far from what Jesus wants.

 In the sixth audience, Pope Francis speaks of how the "book of one's own life" forms one of the elements of discernment, suggesting a slightly different character to a daily examination of conscience:

Discernment is the narrative reading of the good moments and the dark moments, the consolations and desolations we experience in the course of our lives. In discernment, it is the heart that speaks to us about God, and we must learn to understand its language. Let us ask, at the end of the day, for example: what happened today in my heart? Some think that carrying out this examination of conscience is like doing the bookkeeping of the sins we have committed — and we commit many — but it is also about asking oneself, “What happened within me, did I experience joy? What brought me joy? Was I sad? What brought me sadness? And in this way, learning to discern  what happens within us.

The most recent audiences address the questions of desolation and consolation with regard to discernment, themes that are profoundly Ignatian. Perhaps these audiences will prove to be a specifically Ignatian contribution from a Jesuit Pope.

St Ignatius Loyola: Theology as a way of living

Fr James Hanvey SJ has written on St Ignatius Loyola for Thinking Faith, to mark St Ignatius' feast which falls today. The article's title is St Ignatius Loyola: Theology as a way of living.

"What Ignatius gives us is not a scholastic or academic theology; it is not a theory, but a theology that is lived and experienced.... What Ignatius opens up for us is the unity between the act of creation and redemption and the gift or grace of participation."

This is the theological vision that Fr Hanvey finds in the Spiritual Exercises and in St Ignatius' life.

The article is in my view a worthwhile read, though I do think you need to have to hand the text of the Spiritual Exercises and Sacred Scripture in order to look up the references in Fr Hanvey's footnotes. Rather than reading the article on-line, I found it easier to download the .pdf version and read it in print. In particular, I think that the second paragraph of the article contains a well articulated warning against using the Spiritual Exercises as a basis for a psychoanalytical and person-centred practice in spirituality. According to Fr Hanvey,

Ignatius "always offers an uncompromising 'theology'.

Two brief, linked comments.

I think the Spiritual Exercises are clearly about a theology that is lived and experienced, something embedded in their nature as being a structure for a retreat rather than for a course in academic study, and intrinsic to the very structure of their meditations which consistently seeks to engage the individual in the encounter with the mystery of Christ. But that does not mean that the theology expressed in the Exercises lacks what one might term doctrinal content. Such content is assumed.  In the section of his article headed "Some key themes", Fr Hanvey chooses to consider

... the extraordinary relational way of thinking and seeing that marks the Ignatian vision; the refusal to distort these into some logical form or process ..

Clearly, the meditations of the Spiritual Exercises are profoundly relational in that they do not try to "teach doctrine" to the person following the Exercises but instead seek to engage the person into a growing relationship with God. There is is a deeply relational intent in the Exercises in this sense. But the assumption of doctrinal content means that one should not take the presentation of the relational intent as in some way representing an overcoming of an idea of doctrinal content, as a suggesting that we can live our faith relationally instead of doctrinally.

Both of these points can be exemplified by reading the Contemplation to attain the love of God (Spiritual Exercises nn.230-237), to which Fr Hanvey refers in his penultimate paragraph. I quote below just one paragraph of this contemplation, with added italics to highlight the doctrinal (and scholastic?) element and added bold to identify the move to the relational aspect:

235. SECOND POINT: This is to reflect how God dwells in creatures: in the elements giving them existence, in the plants giving them life, in the animals conferring upon them sensation, in man bestowing understanding. So He dwells in me and gives me being, life, sensation, intelligence; and makes a temple of me, since I am created in the likeness and image of the Divine Majesty.

Then I will reflect upon myself again in the manner stated in the first point, or in some other way that may seem better.

[The first point, being referred back to here, asks the retreatant to "ponder with great affection how much God our Lord has done for me ...Then I will reflect upon myself, and consider, ...what I ought to offer the Divine Majesty, that is, all I possess and myself with it". Clearly relational.]