Venice (Florida)

While the pilgrimage to Italy was deferred during this novitiate for several reasons, we still went on the road and visited the newest OMV house in the USA: Our Lady of Perpetual Help Retreat Center in Venice, Florida.

The retreat center was founded by the Redemptorists and administered by the Carmelites before us, but it belongs to the Diocese of Venice. It is a rather recent diocese; I'm not certain, but I believe it was founded c. 1990 or later. We were able to meet the bishop while we were there. He came to the house and had lunch with us and is very interested in increasing the Oblate presence and ministry in his diocese.

Although we had a few day trips, it was not exactly a vacation. Our novitiate routine was more intense than it has been since retreat in February and we did a lot of work on the house while we were there, but it was really nice to get out of the big city and have a quieter community for a couple of weeks.

A model of the retreat facility- 50 acres on a peninsula of the Myakka River. There are several different structures including a conference center, dining hall, and retreatant rooms in villas. The Oblate community is in a house owned by the diocese in the city of Venice, several miles away.

The other end of I-75

The screened porch and pool area- the best room in the house.

Making lunch for the bishop

One of the things I found most enjoyable was all the exotic wildlife that I got to see, including a deep sea fishing expedition in the Gulf.

Brown anoles were everywhere

White ibis showed up to feed on the lawns every morning

Wildlife at night: an armadillo and baby alligator

Big alligator!

Out fishing the Gulf

 

Puffer fish: not the biggest catch of the day, but maybe the most interesting.

Swimming 20 miles off shore!

An Osprey carried a fish right over my head

Even the ditch by the house was exciting: a common gallinule and glossy ibises.

The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola

Since I will be away for a while, I decided to leave a chunk of reading that will last for the entire month. Something of a skeletal summary of the 30-day Exercises, this may give you some idea of what I am engaged in over the next several weeks. What I wish to do is give a short outline of the Exercises for those who want to understand a little more about what I will be doing on retreat, but also to give personal annotations and how the various elements of the spirituality are present in my daily life.

At the very beginning of his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius defines what he means by "spiritual exercises." Using the analogy of physical exercise, which includes everything done in order to improve physical conditioning, spiritual exercise is everything done in order to reach the highest possible state of spiritual conditioning. I have been learning over the past five months that spiritual exercise can be just as exhausting as physical exercise in its own way, so contrary to my vague impressions of yesteryear that the 30-day Exercises is something of an extended vacation to get in touch with one's spiritual faculties, it is far more closely analogous to boot camp.

The Spiritual Exercises are often judged to have an esoteric mystique, but Ignatian spirituality is really a way to understand everyday experience that is common to everyone. The "full" Exercises occurs in the context of the 30-day retreat, but is not confined to that; not only does it occur in a surprisingly diverse array of retreat formats, but the elements found in the Exercises are all applicable to daily life.

Some basic elements:

• The retreat is silent: outside of meeting with a retreat director everyday for up to an hour, attending daily mass, and any other vocal prayer there is no other speaking, music, or other non-ambient sound. This serves multiple purposes, principally fostering a spirit of recollection and interior reflection, but also acknowledging that God speaks through all the events of daily life and not just times formally designated for prayer. 

*In daily life, the grand silence (9 pm to 6 am for us) serves the same purpose

• The retreat is ideally conducted away from home and work: it is convenient for us that the Oblates have a retreat house very near, but it is good to be in an environment different from normal away from the distractions of daily life.

*This is not an essential element; St. Ignatius' 19th Annotation of the Exercises provides for those who are unable to take time away from their daily obligations for a 30-day or eight-day retreat, specifying that they should have 90 minutes set aside for silent prayer daily and meet with their director weekly. And, obviously, all elements of the Exercises used in daily life occur in the home/work environment. But being away really helps eliminate distractions.

• The retreat consists of meditations on the Gospels or a designated theme four or five times daily during the retreat: this is the core activity of the Exercises. The person of Jesus is encountered in praying with the Scriptures, leading to deeper knowledge of him and self. 

*This is one of the core elements of formation throughout novitiate; it is part of the Spiritual Directory of the founder for all Oblates to meditate on the Gospel for at least one hour daily.

• The retreat is about discernment: a major misconception about discernment equates it with decision making. The process of discernment is really about growth in relationship with God, which is another way of saying growth in knowledge of God and knowledge of self; decisions should be made out of this growth, but they are not the direct end in themselves. 

*This misconception probably stems from the fact that most people only make a really intense discernment (such as a 30-day retreat) when they are facing a really major life decision such as one relating to vocation or career, but it is still not correct to conceive of the retreat as being about the choice to be made- once again, choices made on or subsequent to retreat flow from encounter with God, the true goal of the Exercises.

The ultimate way that the Exercises and the Ignatian spirituality of discernment relate to choices is through freedom, which can be seen as the goal of the exercises. True freedom that comes from profound encounter with God and the self-knowledge that it imparts enables decisions to be made based on the experiences in life of how God is drawing one to himself, and to weed out superficial desires that can get all twisted up (but more on that later).



If you are still reading, congratulations! Your reward is further exposition on the structure and content of the Exercises.


The internal structure of the Exercises covers four phases, plus an introductory phase. (In the original text of the Exercises, these phases are referred to as 'weeks,' but contrary to another popular misconception, these do not correspond to chronological weeks but to different graces received in prayer; a person may make a 30-day retreat and remain in the first week the entire time).

A. The First Principle and Foundation (text here).
The Exercises begin (before they actually begin) with the personal experience of divine love. This is where the desire that drives discernment originates: if there is no sense of God creating me in love for a definite end, then there is nothing feeding my desire to know or serve him.

*This is the starting point of all Ignatian prayer; before the Examen, for example, one should "consider for a brief moment that God the Father is beholding me with love."

I. First Week
The goal of the first week is the conviction of personal sin and the experience of God's loving forgiveness, given at great cost to himself. It is not simply an exercise in rejecting one's specific personal sins, but seeking the grace to understand sin from a theocentric perspective, to experience God's own abhorrence of sin.
The most famous part of this week is the fifth exercise: application of the senses to the horrors of hell. It has sometimes been viewed as a way to force conversion by scaring exercitants, but Ignatius clearly specifies that it is not the starting point of the week but a final step of confirmation. The grace received is gratitude for realizing more fully what salvation means.

This is followed by the Kingdom Exercise, in which three questions are posed: What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What must I do for Christ?
After the experience of the Foundation and First Week, this question invites one to a subtler, more nuanced way of loving. The Second Week does not begin automatically; Ignatius was clear that the director must see signs that the exercitant is seeking deeper intimacy and has the desire to grow in this more sensitive way of loving God.

II. Second Week
This is the school of discipleship. It is a deeper relationship with a desire to continue growing in knowledge of the other person. The Second Week of the Exercises employs a different set of rules for discernment than the First Week that reflect a more probing sensitivity in relating. This is where Ignatian contemplation, the entrance to intimate encounter through the application of the senses, a prayer that goes deeper than simple consideration, becomes the main component. Through repetitions, the person is affected on the deepest and most intimate dimensions. Ignatius knew that this is the only way that lasting transformation is effected.

The second phase is followed by the Two Standards Exercise, in which the exercitant considers that the only forces in the world are those acting with Christ or with the devil. ("standards" here refers to battle standards, not moral frameworks; the modern equivalent is sports, e.g. there are only two teams on a field). The grace is to examine the opposing mentalities- honor and pride vs. poverty and humility-, to penetrate the meanings of these words, and to realize the sometimes subtle differences between worldly ideas of success and how they can cause one to stray from the ultimate end.

III. Third Week
The focus of the third stage is the Paschal Mystery. It follows upon the first two phases as a deepening of the relationship by accompanying Jesus through his work of redemption. The Second Week begins with contemplating the Incarnation focused on the person of Jesus, but the subsequent contemplations are distinctly trinitarian even when focusing on the earthly life of Jesus.
The grace of the Third Week involves overcoming personal selfishness to a higher degree and identifying personal suffering more closely with Christ's Passion. Part of this is realizing the effect of personal sin, a connection back to the First Week and the "hard consolation" of learning the cost of love.

The following exercises are not fixed but can fall anywhere after the Second Week:
One is meditation on the Three Classes of Persons, a consideration of natural attachments and how they can prevent full commitment to God. Three types of people come into a large sum of money; the first feels attachment and, although desiring to make the right decision in regard to it, they never act on this desire and simply procrastinate. The second person feels attachment and, acting impulsively, preempts the will of God in the matter. He has an awareness of his inner dynamics, but although determined to do the "right thing," this is done without consultation to ascertain what God is asking. The third class of person will make a definitive decision, but without forcing it. He will take time for prayer and contemplation and not act until he has attained the freedom of embracing God's will, which might be in keeping the money as much as giving it away, not confusing the will of God with human intuition.

The other is the meditation on the Three Degrees of Humility and Love. This, like the previous exercise, is not something that is grounded in personality traits or temperament but is more of a test to see how far one has progressed in spiritual maturation; these degrees are a concrete illustration of love's process of becoming identified with whom is loved. In the first type, eternal salvation is so important that nothing can entice seriously to offense of the Beloved, love to the extent of never going against the Beloved's explicitly stated desire, something only possible after a deep experience of love. The second type builds on this and involves the sensitivity to detect the implicit, unstated desires of the Beloved and an eagerness to respond to those desires. This degree of love presumes the freedom of indifference to natural goods such as honor, wealth, health, longevity, etc. The third degree is a class of its own: the desire of imitation has been shed for the desire of unity, the desire for identification with the Beloved and the experience of joy when sharing poverty, contempt, and humiliation with Christ.

IV. Fourth Week
The last stage in the Exercises starts with the Resurrection and focuses on daily life, how life is affected by this deeper encounter with God and what things look like going forward. This is the stage of resolutions for daily life, but resolutions centered on being, not doing; this stage is about a new realization of who the exercitant feels called to be from this experience, a discernment of personal vocation distinct from discerning state in life.

The Contemplation to Attain Love is a rich revisitation of the previous stages of the exercises and the grace to be attained is complex, touching some or all of the previous experiences.

*It is important to note that, while the exercises are presented in a linear and consecutive manner for the formal Exercises, spirituality in daily life is never so neat. In a daily experience of prayer, one may experience some or all of the stages or 'weeks' of the Exercises in no particular order.

Spiritual Thought: Sentire and Sapere

Novitiate is an experience that is difficult to describe, partly because much of it is deeply personal, but also because of its nature as raw experience, a direct communication through sense powers.

Saint Ignatius expressed this in the Spiritual Exercises by using the verb sentir rather than saber to express what is important in the spiritual life. (The words in Latin are sentire and sapere, which correspond to French sentir and savoir and Armenian kidenal and imanal).

The neat difference between the two verbs is something difficult to describe concisely in English, but roughly it is the difference between experiential knowledge and pure intellectual knowledge; sentir knowledge is felt and experienced through the senses, whether the external senses or the internal senses of imagination and memory. It is knowledge acquired through first-hand rather than second-hand experience, and can therefore be more difficult to communicate because it comes through wordless sensation rather than a verbal formula.

Saint Ignatius explains this in his Second Annotation to the Exercises, in which he instructs the retreat director to relate the points for meditation briefly in order to allow the exercitant more freedom for the experience that occurs in the meditation, 

For, if the person who is making the Contemplation takes the true groundwork of the narrative, and, discussing and considering for himself, finds something which makes the events a little clearer or brings them a little more home to him -- whether this comes through his own reasoning, or because his intellect is enlightened by the Divine power -- he will get more spiritual relish and fruit than if he who is giving the Exercises had much explained and amplified the meaning of the events. For it is not knowing much [saber], but realizing and relishing things interiorly [sentir], that contents and satisfies the soul.

-Spiritual Exercises, Second Annotation

His insight into prayer and how the human person experiences God through the senses relates what many consider arcane mysticism to the life of everyman. By the sixteenth century, Christian spirituality in the west threatened to split into scholastic intellectualism and spiritualist quietism, but his understanding of an integrated person calls for balance between sense experience and intellect within the mind.

This is why I contend that Ignatius has an Eastern Soul, one that transcends the dichotomy between mystical experience and intellectual definition and bridges the gap between the pietist and rationalist world views that later sprang up and have come to dominate modern thought. 

People versed in Catholic theology would be puzzled if Ignatius were referred to as a theologian; he studied but never taught nor wrote what are considered works of theology. But in the original sense used by the Cappadocian Doctors, a theologian is one who has a deep experience of God and shares it with others, in which sense the Spiritual Exercises is a profoundly theological work and Ignatius a theologian par excellence. 

Saint Alphonsus on Uniformity with God's Will

During my spiritual reading this weekend, I was looking for material on conformity to the will of God, something that is becoming a focus for me in my retreat preparation. I found something by Saint Alphonsus that contrasts conformity of will with uniformity of will, the goal he holds as crucial in the spiritual life. He distinguishes joining the will to God and actually appropriating the will of God, and that the latter is more pleasing.

A single act of uniformity with the divine will suffices to make a saint. Behold while Saul was persecuting the Church, God enlightened him and converted him.

What does Saul do? What does he say? Nothing else but to offer himself to do God’s will: “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do” (Acts 9:6).

In return the Lord calls him a vessel of election and an apostle of the gentiles: “This man is to me a vessel of election, to carry my name before the gentiles”.

Absolutely true – because he who gives his will to God, gives him everything. He who gives his goods in alms, his blood in scourgings, his food in fasting, gives God what he has. But he who gives God his will, gives himself, gives is.

everything he

Such a one can say: “Though I am poor, Lord, I give thee all I possess; but when I say I give thee my will, I have nothing left to give thee.” This is just what God does require of us: “My son, give me thy heart” (Prov. 23:26).

St. Augustine’s comment is: “There is nothing more pleasing we can offer God than to say to him: ‘Possess thyself of us’”.

We cannot offer God anything more pleasing than to say: Take us, Lord, we give thee our entire will. Only let us know thy will and we will carry it out.

If we would completely rejoice the heart of God, let us strive in all things to conform ourselves to his divine will. Let us not only strive to conform ourselves, but also to unite ourselves to whatever dispositions God makes of us.

Conformity signifies that we join our wills to the will of God. Uniformity means more – it means that we make one will of God’s will and ours, so that we will only what God wills; that God’s will alone, is our will.

This is the summit of perfection and to it we should always aspire; this should be the goal of all our works, desires, meditations and prayers.

To this end we should always invoke the aid of our holy patrons, our guardian angels, and above all, of our mother Mary, the most perfect of all the saints because she most perfectly embraced the divine will.

The greatest glory we can give to God is to do his will in everything. Our Redeemer came on earth to glorify his heavenly Father and to teach us by his example how to do the same.

St. Paul represents him saying to his eternal Father: “Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not: But a body thou hast fitted to me…Then said I: Behold I come to do thy will, O God” (Habakkuk 10:5-7). Thou hast refused the victims offered thee by man; thou dost will that I sacrifice my body to thee. Behold me ready to do thy will.

Our Lord frequently declared that he had come on earth not to do his own will, but solely that of his Father: “I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me” (John 6:38).

He spoke in the same strain in the garden when he went forth to meet his enemies who had come to seize him and to lead him to death: “But that the world may know that I love the Father: and as the Father hath given me commandment, so do I; arise and let us go hence” (John 14:31).

Furthermore, he said he would recognize as his brother, him who would do his will: “Whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother” (Matthew 12:50).

To do God’s will – this was the goal upon which the saints constantly fixed their gaze. They were fully persuaded that in this consists the entire perfection of the soul.

Blessed Henry Suso used to say: “It is not God’s will that we should abound in spiritual delights, but that in all things we should submit to his holy will.”

“Those who give themselves to prayer,” says St. Teresa, “should concentrate solely on this: the conformity of their wills with the divine will. They should be convinced that this constitutes their highest perfection. The more fully they practice this, the greater the gifts they will receive from God, and the greater the progress they will make in the interior life.”

A certain Dominican nun was vouchsafed a vision of heaven one day. She recognized there some persons she had known during their mortal life on earth.

It was told her these souls were raised to the sublime heights of the seraphs on account of the uniformity of their wills with that of God’s during their lifetime here on earth.

Blessed Henry Suso, mentioned above, said of himself: “I would rather be the vilest worm on earth by God’s will, than be a seraph by my own.”

During our sojourn in this world, we should learn from the saints now in heaven, how to love God. The pure and perfect love of God they enjoy there, consists in uniting themselves perfectly to his will.

It would be the greatest delight of the seraphs to pile up sand on the seashore or to pull weeds in a garden for all eternity, if they found out such was God’s will.

Our Lord himself teaches us to ask to do the will of God on earth as the saints do it in heaven: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787): Uniformity with God’s will

Interior Desert

Desert spirituality has been very important in my spiritual life, and it is something that has been coming up consistently over the past two weeks. And what does this look like?

I wish!

The desert is a place of solitude, which makes it a place of encounter with 1) self, 2) God, and 3) evil.

It is a place that has loomed large in the spiritualities of monasticism and especially the Christian East, but there are many levels of interpretation and understanding the desert.

Fuge, tace, quiesce (be alone, be silent, be still)

In the Bible, the desert is a place where Israel is courted and betrothed to God, but also a place of temptations and trials. It becomes a battleground of the eschatological battle of Christ against the powers of the world. Defeating Satan means weakening him by spreading the kingdom of God and supporting other Christians through prayer. In the desert, the means to fight are acquired: mortification and penance used systematically for the practice of virtue keep the individual focused on the "narrow gate" of the Gospel, the asceticism (askesis, "exercise") essential for seeking union with God. By fasting and penance, it is also shown that man "shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Mt 4:4, Deut 8:3; cf. Vita Consecrata 7b).

The desert is a place to flee to "live alone for God alone," a place of radical detachment, an exhortation to the Church and contemporaries never to lose sight of the supreme vocation: to be always with the Lord (cf. Vita Consecrata 7b). The first encounter is with self: the discovery of how far one is from God and the difficulty of return. It thus becomes a place of spiritual combat, struggle against the passions and the devil that oppose union with God, against the evil in the world that begins in the individual heart. True knowledge of the human heart is attained in the desert. Its weaknesses and foibles are revealed and it is strengthened for spiritual battles. Herein lies the importance of controlling "thoughts" (custodia sensuum), understanding virtue and vice, and honing weapons: continuous prayer, nourishment by Scripture, humility, and mortification.

The importance of purifying the heart and the senses from passions (apatheia, "equanimity") is paramount: "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God" (Mt 5:8).

In addition to this negative interpretation, there is also a positive one. The desert is a place of God's providence, where Elijah was nourished (1 Kings 19:7) and a place prepared for God's people (Exodus, cf. Rev 12:6). In Thomas Merton's book Thoughts in Solitude, he described the desert as a place dear to God precisely because it is useless to man, where there is nothing attractive and nothing to be exploited; it was made to be nothing but itself, the perfect place for man who seeks to be nothing but himself.

This was my primary experience of "interior desert" over the past week. It is a place of profound silence and imperturbable solitude, a place of refreshment where food and water are forsaken for nourishment on God alone. It has been a place of rest with God, but also pilgrimage: no one who takes a long look at himself in the presence of God can be satisfied. The pilgrimage that begins and ends in the world must at some point pass through the dry wasteland where there is nothing to depend on but God and no one to blame but the self, and thus there is purgation. But beyond every desert is a promised land, beyond the teaching is the goal of the lesson, and beyond the pilgrimage is rest. 

The Counsels in Daily Life

This week, the evangelical counsels have been prominent in both our novitiate conferences and in the Gospel readings. The Wednesday Gospel, for example, is one in which the counsels really stood out to me even though they are hidden in the parable: the servants received an extravagant gift (one talent was about fifteen years' wages) that is unmerited (chastity), given to them in trust for another (poverty) to use according to the master's will (obedience).

In meditating on this, what came up was living these counsels in daily life. Not having taken public vows can seem to make living the counsels a lofty goal in the future; as a novice I am obliged to live the counsels now in a 'hidden' way, but my daily life (custody of the senses, material dependence on others, fulfilling my obligations and obeying superiors willingly) is that of religious life, of living the counsels in the ordinary actions of everyday life.

I also reflected on responsibility, that those faithful in small matters are to be entrusted with greater matters. In the human mind, responsibility is something to be earned, something given after trustworthiness has been proven. But what I had from this Gospel was a sense of divine pedagogy: we do not prove ourselves to God in order to earn gifts but rather he trains us for greater responsibilities through lesser ones. It is for our own sake, for our own growth that some things are withheld and others allowed, that growing pains occur before new doors are opened and we are given our food in the proper season.

The Lanterian Charism: Personal Charism

I have previously written some brief and deficient descriptions of the Lanterian charism of the OMV (here and here) and it is something I am continuing to elaborate as I progress in my formation this year.

Last week we had nine men in discernment visit the seminary and, although it was a busy week, it gave me excellent opportunities to reflect on my own discernment when I was at that stage and make a then/now comparison. I was also deeply involved in several discernment visits last year, but I have a very different perspective now in novitiate from studying the charism of the founder and the congregation closely.

The charism of the founder, an idea put forth and elaborated in Vatican Council II conciliar and post-conciliar documents, is something we have begun to unpack slowly over the past month.

The essence of the Council's teaching is that the founder of each religious institute experienced a movement of the Spirit, a unique inspiration that educed a charism to serve the needs of the Church in a particular way according to the needs of their specific place and time. It is out of this personal charism of the founder that the charism of the institute springs, which is important because it explains why the Council's addresses to religious urged them to return to the "original inspiration and charism" of their founders in order to reform and renew their institutes; the charism of an institute is not precisely the same thing as the charism of a founder; some change over time and acquire new features, such as Jesuits spreading devotion to the Sacred Heart and Marians of the Immaculate Conception adopting the Divine Mercy apostolate, but in some instances religious had strayed far from the original purpose of their foundation.

In practical application, many religious took this invitation and used it as an occasion to reform their institute in conformity with their vision rather than their founder's, but it was meant to be an occasion to return to the heart of the way of life and apostolic works proper to each institute according to the founder's charism. In almost all instances, it led to heated debate if not outright strife over how the rule/constitutions should be interpreted and what life for each institute should look like in the 20th century.

The OMV are not an exception to this. There was not much debate in the 1960s; the congregation was vastly more stable and assured of its identity and orthodoxy than the majority of religious institutes, which is precisely why the tiny Italian community began attracting large numbers of American seminarians at a time when Archbishop Fulton Sheen said he could not recommend a single seminary in the United States to any young men discerning the priesthood. It was some of these Americans who read the writings of the founder and discovered that the Ignatian aspect of the congregation's charism was not being practiced the way he had intended. This began a slow process of renewal and rejuvenation that has been progressing slowly but steadily, and not without resistance and disagreement.

Anyway, that is all background information to what affects me most directly.

We have also been learning about the personal charism of individual religious; these are the means by which each individual is constituted in relation to a founder and a community. A religious vocation is recognized by a community when an individual expresses the same movement of the Spirit experienced by the founder, or rather a similar movement or an echo of the founder's call. This immediately grabbed my attention because it expresses and formulates my experience in a way that I have not previously framed it.

When I was learning about the Oblates and reading Venerable Bruno's writings, I could not express my experience that clearly, and yet I felt a strong attraction to the founder's spirituality; I sensed that these were passions and desires that I shared, and that I wanted to participate in his mission. I felt that his Spiritual Directory was a way of life I had already felt drawn toward and that his passion for the Spiritual Exercises and media apostolate was exciting to me also.

Learning about this was timed perfectly with the discernment visit, giving me an occasion to reflect on my experience and what made me feel so strongly about my OMV vocation. Four years ago, my identification with the founder's charism seemed to be one reason among many that gave me enough certainty to leave everything and move to Boston, but looking back I now appreciate its importance more fully and understand the interior movements that preceded and followed my first encounter with the founder's charism and those that have continued since.