symbolic function of persons and things. Our Franciscan ing the Spirit to incorporate us into Christ.

Franciscan
liturgical style is characterized by the awareness of the
importance of the symbolic function of the material
objects used in our prayer; we seek to avoid all forms of
symbolic minimalism.
5. Praise-filled
The prayers of Francis are prayers of praise. Francis gives
praise in the Spirit to the Father for the wonders worked
in Jesus. Our praise of the Father is essentially this: allow­
liturgical style is uncomfortable with heavy didactic ver­
biage and ponderous confessions of guilt and unworthi-
ness. Franciscan liturgies are praise-filled: filled with the
loving, spontaneous praise of children playing before
their loving Father.
Joy, love, poverty, praise—may these key elements of
Franciscan spirituality be always evident in the lives of
each and every Franciscan.

Finding God in All Things: Jesuit Spirituality

Peter E. Fink

hat is called Ignatian or Jesuit spirituality It offers four insights for one to explore. The first is that

W is embedded in three major historical doc­

uments and in the ongoing tradition of
Jesuit Congregations, which continually
update the demands of that spirituality for the life of the
contemporary Church. The principal document is the
everything that exists is born of God and that the domi­
nant stance we must train ourselves in is praise and grat­
itude for all that is given to us. The second is that God
dwells in God's creatures and that truly to understand
events in one's life is to uncover the One who in every­
Spiritual Exercises,1 which present Ignatius' own journey thing desires to touch the human heart. The third is that
into God and which have become the spiritual journey of through God's dwelling God is offering himself. This is a
Jesuits and many others, religious and lay, who have been sacramental view of the world, that everything that hap­
guided by Ignatian methods of prayer. The second is the pens presents the creator God to God's creatures. The
Autobiography of Ignatius,2 which describes in intimate final movement of this contemplation is to grasp what it
detail the movements of the spirit that led Ignatius as he is that God is offering. Whether it be things of delight or
discerned where God would lead him. The third is the things of sadness, events that are life-giving or events that
Constitutions,5 which translated the journey of the seem to be destructive, through them all God is present
Exercises into a formal style of living for Jesuits within as lover. God offers himself in love, seeks to embrace us
the Church. Others have adapted these Constitutions as in love, seeks to transform us by love into love. The aim
well. A fourth source is the ongoing Congregational doc­ of this vision is the song of Psalm 8: "O Lord, our Lord,
uments, the latest of which are those of the Thirty-fourth how glorious is your name over all the earth."
Congregation.4 The prayer of contemplation is well
In this brief essay I will focus pri­ known: "Take, O Lord, and receive all
marily on the Spiritual Exercises of Rev. Peter Κ Fink> S./·, U profes­ my liberty, my memory, my under­
Ignatius, with some reference to the standing, and my entire will, all that I
documents from the Thirty-fourth sor ofsacramentnlAiturgical ώε- have and possess. Thou hast given all
Congregation. to me, to Thee I return it. All is Thine;
ohgy at the Weston Jesuit School
dispose of it according to Thy will.
Contemplation of Theology in Cambridge, MA. Give me Thy love and Thy grace, for
this is enough for me."5 It assumes two
The first thing to capture about the He was president of the North premises. "The first is that love ought
Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius is the to be manifested in deeds rather than
vision toward which the entire journey American Academy of Liturgy in
words. The second is that love consists
is directed. This vision is presented in 1995, and he is abo a member of in a mutual interchange by the two
the contemplation for obtaining parties, ...that the lover give to and
divine love at the end of the Exercises. Sodetas Liturgica, share with the beloved all that he has

Page 208 Liturgical Ministry Fall 2001

or can attain, and that the beloved act toward the lover in
like manner."6
This vision, captured in contemplation at the end of
the Exercises, is in fact offered at the beginning as a con-
sideration. The Principle and Foundation proposes that
men and women have been created for a purpose: to
know, love, and serve God. It says further that everything
created is designed to unveil the knowledge and the love
of God and invites us to approach God in obedient love
and service. In the famous words of T.S. Eliot, the con-
templation to obtain divine love is a return to this initial
proposition, yet seeing it, as it were, for the first time.
Structure of the Exercises
The Exercises are structured in the form of four weeks,
each having a particular purpose or grace. Each one takes
us further into the journey of God's love.
Seen objectively, the first week puts the retreatant in a
place of conflict. He or she is invited to reflect on sin: the
sin of the angels, human original sin, and one's own par-
ticular sin. One does not do this, however, to become
self-absorbed. One does this in the presence of Christ on
the cross. The keynote is this: "Greater love has no one
than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. And
you are my friends if you do what I command you" (John
15:13-14). Seen more subjectively, as William Barry
observed,7 the person confronts sin in light of this love of
Christ on the cross. The person's first desire is to be with-
out sin. The second is the realization that I cannot be
without sin. The third is that I do not have to be without
sin, that God loves and accepts me as I am. In the move-
ment into God, the freedom of knowing that I need not
be in some other place, but only to approach God as I
am, is the final grace that Christ, in his loving act on the
cross, offers.
Seen objectively, the second week is about disciple-
ship. Ignatius would allow someone to remain in the first
week if that is where God invites the person to be. Yet, he
also encourages the retreatant to go further. Where there
is gratitude to make the person want to respond to the
love of Christ, Ignatius opens the second week. There he
invites spending time with Jesus in contemplation of his
public life. Here we find the invitation to follow Christ.
Here we ask how far and to what extent I will follow
Christ. Key questions: what have I done for Christ, what
am I doing for Christ, what will I do for Christ? Key med-
itations: on the call of the King (making the decision to
follow Christ), the three kinds of people (determining
one's freedom in following Christ), and the three degrees
of humility (being faithful to the Lord at any cost). Seen
more subjectively, a different conflict is set before us.
Liturgy and Various Spiritualities: Brief Summaries
The journey Ignatius offers
to the Church invites people
to know that, even as sinners,
they are called to follow Christ
and he his companion and friend.
There is the excitement of following Christ. But from the
very beginning there is also the sense that the Jesus who
invites us is a Jesus who will be opposed. The real ques-
tion is not "will I follow Christ?" but "how far will I fol-
low him?" The grace of this second week is the commit-
ment to follow Christ regardless of where he will lead me.
Seen objectively, the third week is about the passion.
One turns one's attention to the dark side of opposition
to Christ, following the journey from Palm Sunday to his
final gasp on the cross. One explores the level of opposi-
tion in both those who rise up against him and in those
who have been his followers. This is a difficult week to
enter because it is more difficult to approach this prayer
objectively. It can remain as an experience of the second
week, where one continues to ask the lessons of disciple-
ship. But the third week invites one even deeper into the
toils and torments of the one who is crucified. This more
subjective side was nicely described by a woman on
retreat who was convinced she had run out of steam.
Everything had been pleasant; she had experienced the
presence of Christ and enjoyed being in his company. But
now all was silent, doubtful, uncertain. She was experi-
encing the pain of the third week. Only to the extent that
one knows this pain, knows its doubt, its uncertainty, its
sense of hopelessness, will the promise of salvation,
unveiled in the fourth week, be exciting, astounding, and
liberating.
Seen objectively, the fourth week is about the resur-
rection. Contemplations include a visit of Jesus to his
Page 209
Mother, his various resurrection appearances, with a
focus on the Church to come and the Spirit to guide it.
This, too, could be seen in the mode of discipleship,
holding promise of what will be if one follows Christ
completely. Seen more subjectively, however, it takes one
into the freedom of the children of God. It is like the
words of Paul: "What eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor
the human heart can imagine, is what God has prepared
for those who love him" (1 Cor 2:9). It is like something
Teilhard de Chardin said when he asserted that the earth,
with all its allurements, can do no harm, because it has
become the body of him who was, is, and is to come. It is
the thrilling excitement of being touched by the love who
is God and invited into the God who is love.
The journey Ignatius offers to the Church invites peo-
ple to know that, even as sinners, they are called to follow
Christ and be his companion and friend. It invites people
to share his journey, to taste his sufferings and to enjoy
the fruits of his victory. It invites us to see God in every-
thing that is and to love God through everything that is.
The journey can be part of a retreat, where one enters the
journey explicitly and allows God perhaps to bless or to
challenge, to chasten or simply to be with. The journey
can be seen as stages in one's prayer, where the person
meets God's love in Christ, or is perhaps called to
embrace more fully the call to be disciple, or invited to
taste Christ's suffering or given freedom to embrace the
world as God sees and shapes it. But whether one looks
at a retreat or sees a life shaped by the Ignatian graces, the
goal remains the same: to be drawn to the love of God
made manifest in and through creation and to express
that same love of God in and through creation.
This somewhat spiritual view of the Ignatian journey
has its counterpart in decisions about life in the ongoing
Church. The documents of Congregation 34 give an
example of being a person of and for the Church. The
first document announces again our fundamental orien-
The Spirituality of Taizé
Judith Marie Kubicki
estled in the Burgundian Hills of eastern
N France, an ecumenical community of broth-
ers in the small village of Taizé has become an
international pilgrimage site for Christians
seeking to deepen their spirituality and find an oasis of
prayer. Three times each day the brothers, along with
their pilgrim guests and a local community of women
Page 210
tation as companions of Jesus speaking of being united
with Christ as he worships God and is savior to his peo-
ple. When the documents go on to speak of being ser-
vants with Christ, they call attention to issues of justice,
the complexity of culture, and the interreligious dialogue
that belongs to the emerging Kingdom of God. When
they address being priest, they speak of being among
those whom no one else will serve—the poor, the outcast,
the disenfranchised. The language of service continues as
the documents speak of conversation among the church-
es, of cooperation with lay colleagues in ministry, and
care and support for women in both the Church and civil
society. Other documents speak of entrance into a tech-
nological culture, in the hope of bringing forward both
our educational and pastoral heritage.
The spiritual challenges of the Ignatian vision contin-
ue to invite men and women into companionship with
Jesus, into the call of his kingdom, into the sorrow of his
passion and the joy of his resurrection, into the God
whom Ignatius saw as wonderful. The Spiritual Exercises
and the ongoing decrees of Jesuit congregations continue
to present one source of the vision. And the people who
embrace that vision, who live its challenges in the Spirit
who lives within them, are the other.
1. There are many translations of the Exercises. Citations here are from
The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, tr. Anthony Mortola (Garden
City: Image, 1964).
2. The Autobiography of Ignatius Loyola, tr. J. O'Callaghan, ed. J. Olin
(New York: Fordham University Press, 1992).
3. The Constitutions of the Society ofJesus and their Complimentary Norms
(St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996).
4. The Congregation documents are too numerous to mention.
Documents of the thirty-fourth Congregation referred to here are
published by the Institute of Jesuit Sources (St. Louis, 1995).
5. The Spiritual Exercises, 104.
6. The Spiritual Exercises, 103.
7. Barry has explored this in "The Experience of the First and Second
Weeks of the Spiritual Exercises," originally in Review for Religious 32
(1973) 102-09; also in Notes on Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, ed. D.
Fleming, Review for Religious 40 (1981) 95-102.
religious who offer auxiliary services, gather in the great
Church of Reconciliation to pray the Liturgy of the
Hours and/or Eucharist. The style of their prayer is
unique and has developed out of a desire to enable all
those who join them to actively participate in the liturgi-
cal worship of the community.
Promoting Christian unity and the reconciliation of
Liturgical Ministry Fall 2001
 ^ s
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