The Discernment of Spirits: An Ignatian Guide for Everyday Living by Timothy M. Gallagher OMV

Author:Timothy M. Gallagher OMV [Gallagher OMV, Timothy M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9780824549718
Publisher: The Crossroad Publishing Company
Published: 2005-08-31T22:00:00+00:00

Ignatius tells us that the reason why God leaves us in this trial, feeling bereft of all divine help and with only our human powers to sustain us, is so that, in undergoing this trial, we may have the opportunity to resist “the various agitations and temptations of the enemy” that arise in its course. Rooted spiritual capabilities (virtues), as classical theology teaches, develop through repeated exercise of their acts. Repeated experience of and repeated resistance to the trial of spiritual desolation is the normal path, in God’s design for the human person, toward freedom from subjugation to such desolation. When humbly and courageously resisted, spiritual desolation becomes, indeed, a crucial spiritual lesson, teaching hope and guiding the person toward spiritual maturity in ways that spiritual consolation alone could not accomplish.

A key reflection regarding the entire spiritual life emerges here. As dedicated people look back over their lives, over how they have lived their calling, over a period of service in their families, in ministry or at work, over a week of prayer or over this day’s prayer, they may tend to judge that the times of peace and spiritual consolation were the fruitful times, and that the times of spiritual desolation were the emptier, less fruitful or even lost periods of time in terms of spiritual progress. They are grateful for the times of light and consolation and recognize God’s love and action in them. The times of spiritual desolation, past or present, may, however, leave them uneasy or saddened; these appear as spaces “outside” the workings of God’s grace, and some sense of regret is associated with them.

Much begins to change when such dedicated persons recognize what Ignatius affirms here: that God’s loving providence does not include only “half” of our experience—spiritual consolation, yes, spiritual desolation, no—but rather is always active in our lives, both in giving us spiritual consolation and in permitting us to experience the trial of spiritual desolation. When spiritual consolation is embraced and spiritual desolation resisted, each movement permits its own kind of growth. Both are necessary, in the measure God’s loving wisdom disposes, and both are, as Ignatius tells us, lessons. Through both, we come to “the full stature of Christ” (Eph 4:13).

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