Trinitarian Mystisism in Ignatius’ life
Trinitarian Mystery has become part and parcel of our Jesuit life. We start the mass each day with a Pauline formulation of this Trinity of Persons, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit.”
We can not afford to leave the Trinitarian perspective out of the renewal process of the Society. We live in a rapid changing world and hence sometimes thoughts occur in our mind to walk with the world. In this process of working with the world we incline to change some of our concepts. It is in this regard that we should not forget our basic foundational aspect from which we began our Journey. Therefore we can not afford to leave the Trinitarian perspective as we engage ourselves in the renewal process of our Society of Jesus.
We do not know that if we are able to see this Trinitarian origin of the Ignatian charism with sufficient clarity. Neither the society’s way of proceeding nor its charism can be adequately understood and appreciated unless we mount up to very top, to the Trinity.
The Trinitarian peak is clearly seen in Ignatius’ diary. The phrase in his autobiography sums up all about Trinitarian experience “all his life long he had the sense of feeling a great devotion when praying to the Most Holy Trinity.” Apart from this Gonzalez de Camara ends the Manuscript of the autobiography with his own observation and not with any words of Ignatius, “The practice the Farther observed when writing the Constitutions was to say Mass each day and to represent to God the point he was dealing with and to pray over that.” When Ignatius was writing the constitution too he frequently had (vision). And thus he showed him a very fat bundle of writings. Most of it was visions that Ignatius had seen in confirmation of some point of the constitutions, some times seeing God the Father, at other times the three persons of the Trinity, at other times the Virgin who was interceding, at other times when she was confirming.
These are the clear indications that Ignatius always sought the guidance from heavenly authority. In other words we could say that he was never self centered but God centered. He always put emphasis on the will of God and not his will. These reminds us of the words of Jesus at the
While reflecting on the vow of poverty, as it is mentioned in his autobiography that “he turned to reflect and get into elections,….. by praying to our Lady, then to the Son and to the Father that he would give him his spirit to reflect and discern, although he was talking of something already done, feeling deep devotion and certain lights with some clearness of vision, he sat down, considering, as it were in general, whether he should have complete or partial income, or not at all, and he lost all desire to see any reasons”. “Other thoughts came to him at that point like how the Son first sent out the Apostles in poverty to preach, and afterwards the Holy Spirit confirmed them, giving his spirit, all three persons confirmed that mission. This is how we can derive that the Trinity has played a major role in guiding us to be poor in our life. Ignatius recommends us to be poor like Christ whose poverty was so complete that He needed His Father’s will in order to continue subsisting. Jesus’ only possession was his radical dependence on the Father. His wealth was his poverty, since his subsistence was his dependence. In short we could say that the poverty of the son of God consists in that double attitude: receiving everything from His Father and giving everything back to Him in thanksgiving”.
Contemplation in action: Many times we get stuck with our work and forget to pray and other times we get caught up in prayer and forget to perform our duties. These are the moments we feel guilty about not praying or not accomplishing our duties. This is the time we have to take into consideration what our father Ignatius taught us to be ‘contemplative in action’. Contemplation does not exclude action. It was precisely the contemplation of the Trinitarian mysteries that turned Ignatius towards apostolic activity. Even at Alcala He said that, “Prayer and solitude without external means for helping souls, are proper to monastic congregations and those of hermits, but not to our Institute”. Ignatius had also added that “Let no one think that in the Society God helps him for his own sake.” We should always keep in mind that our apostolic activity should nourish and foster our prayer.
I would also like to stress on one of the self identity of Ignatius which becomes an inspiration as I am studying Theology. “He dedicated himself to philosophy and theology with great energy and with outstanding fruit.” Ignatius found theology a field of absorbing interest, and his studies of it had not failed to give him the necessary verbal and intellectual articulateness.
As a student of theology while studying in the regional Theologate how am I to contextualize this Trinitarian aspect to our Hindu brethren for whom the concept will look absurd. In Hinduism there are two concepts that appear to be very ‘close’ to the Trinity. These are: Trimurti and Saccidananda. Both have been regarded as a wonderful theological concepts of a very ancient tradition.
Trimurti: Brahma, Vishnu and Siva constitute the Hindu triad called Trimurti. Brahma- the god of pauranic days is personal, endowed with gracious qualities like kindness, mercy etc and accessible to even ordinary people through simple devotion. The second constituent of the Hindu triad is Siva. The third constituent of the Hindu triad is Vishnu, the god of Vaishnavism in
The multiplicity of gods is reduced to three and eventually to one. The triple function of the Absolute in the world is distributed among them. Brahma expresses the origin of the world, Vishnu preservers and whereas Siva is the god of transcendence who causes the world to be dissolved and absorbed into eternal bliss.
I desire and wish that like St. Ignatius I also might get inspired by Trinitarian Mysticism in order to excel in whatever I do for the greater glory of God.
Kamlesh K Raval S.J.
First Year Theology
