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A MANUAL TO GROW IN SPIRITUAL LIFE

FOR SCHOLASTICS

First of all let me clarify that by spiritual life I do not mean only that area of our life which deals with prayer, spiritual direction, ethics, mass, sin, virtue… But by spiritual life is meant the whole of our life in its totality. This includes all the seemingly ‘unspiritual works’ that are required of us, like our studies, games, recreations…For our spiritual life to be authentic, we need the integrated approach which does not compartmentalize our life into ‘sacred area’ and ‘secular area’.  Here Arrupe says  “… securely strengthen our spiritual life and our apostolate,(for Scholastics apostolate means studies) wielding them into a perfect integrated whole so that what we do really flows from the Gospel and gives effective witness to Jesus Christ today.” [1] This approach is all the more true for a Jesuit who has offered his life as a living holocaust—a fully burnt offering, nothing left of the self so that we may be fully for Christ, including ALL the aspects of our life.

The inspiration to integrate the scared and the secular is found in Fr. Arrupe’s letter on ‘Genuine integration of the spiritual life and apostolate’ (1 Nov. 1976). It is worth taking the whole of this letter for personal meditation and reflection ( infact most of Arrupe’s letter deserve such an approach.) In the letter he states “today we need to give a very concrete meaning to the phase ‘contemplative in action’. It must not merely be a slogan but lived realization.”

Now let us dwell on this important aspect of contemplation in action.

CONTEMPLATIVE IN ACTION

It logically follows that in order to be contemplative in action the action (work) that we do be the will of God for us. We can know God’s will in two ways. First God’s Will may be revealed to us through our superiors. It is important that we not only do what we are told to do, but do it willingly, making the superior’s will our own will (Constitution 547). Secondly we can know God’s will by discernment. But discernment has certain pre-requirements. It calls for a certain level of inner freedom and not being self-centered. Ignatius says in the Spiritual Exercises that the more a person divests himself of self-love, self-interest and self-will, the more will he progress in the spiritual life. Also being self-centered will take away our inner freedom and “the man who has no inner freedom is conditioned and incapable of obtaining a clear vision of God’s will.”[2]

So being a contemplative in action is not possible for a person who is not spiritual. There are two main things needed for this. First a preparedness on our part to receive God and secondly an experience of God. It is only an experience of God that we will be able to integrate prayer and work (which is the same as contemplative in action). We will need to dwell on these two points a little further.

Preparedness

In being prepared to receive God we have to be regular for our daily prayer and examine. Actually examine should become a way of life. Let us see what Arrupe has to say about examine:

If, as Ignatius wished, at the end of each day or at the end of our meetings or work sessions, we ask ourselves regularly and even in a systematic fashion what the Spirit has accomplished in us during this time, what the Lord has wanted  to teach us, what we had not done according to the Spirit etc., then little by little we will learn to look beyond the merely technical and secular aspects of our work and to make manifest in what we do the specific characteristics that is proper to us as companions of Jesus. Isn’t this the true meaning of Ignatian examination of conscious?[3]

Arrupe also stresses the need for daily personal prayer in the following strong words:

One must repeat over and over again to all jesuits that there vocation itself obliges them to prayer, entirely independently of any rule or control. This personal responsibility is in fact deeply involved and the Society takes it as a criterion for judging of the fidelity to their vocation.[4]

Arrupe also tells us the need to know the rhythms and exigencies, with its development by stages of prayer. Arrupe never tires of stressing the need of prayer: “Prayer helps us to develop our proper spiritual stance, frees us from reliance on purely human means and from doctrinal extremes, and prepares us so that, in humility and simplicity we may be open to receive that revelation which is only given to little ones.”[5]

Experience of God

The second requirement to be authentically spiritual is to have an experience of God. Actually regular prayer and examine is a preparation and requirement for an experience of God. An experience of God is the basis of our spiritual life without which all our spiritual duties are hallow. Most often we are not only unable to articulate our experience of God but may also miss it completely from our consciousness.

Arrupe puts a lot of stress on the experience of God. It is only an experience of God that will help us to see the scared in the secular. He states: “the authentic experience of God leads us to carry out every action with the conviction that is  God Himself who wishes it, makes it possible and completes it….on the other hand without a deep experience of God, without a deliberate personal identification with Jesus Christ in our life and apostolate we would be incapable of the apostolic availability the Society asks of us, and this complete availability is the best offering we can make to God, the ideal disposition and context for all prayer and all apostolic work.”[6]

The experience of God implies commitment. To put His will into action. Arrupe warns us that the experience of God cannot be reduced to intellectual contemplation…it is not merely conceptual nor merely affective[7]

There is also a danger that we may consider other experience (like Vippassana, Zen etc. which are good and beneficial in themselves) to be spiritual experiences. There can be no authentic Christian experience of God outside the irreducible affirmation of the historicity of Jesus Christ[8]

Arrupe also places a great emphasis on experiencing God in the poor. Our dealing with others also depends on our experience of God. “The religious is made an expert regarding God and an expert regarding what is human according to the measure with which the experience of Jesus Christ forms the heart of one’s experience of God.”[9]

In a nutshell:

For our spiritual life to be authentic, we need the integrated approach which does not compartmentalize our life into ‘sacred area’ and ‘secular area’. A life which is fully offered as a living holocaust—a fully burnt offering, nothing left of the self so that we may be fully for Christ, including all the aspects of our life. However regular prayer and examine help us to arrive at that integration—“contemplative in action” and lead us to an experience of God in all the aspects of our lives.

                                                                                                                 Johnson Kuruvilla

                                                                                                           II Philosophy