Affectivity and Ignatian Spirituality

Affectivity and Ignatian Spirituality Dec. 3, 2010 Noah’s Ark

I am thankful for this opportunity to share some of my experience and reflection related to this subject matter in light of the 400 anniversary of Ricci’s death, In order to generate some interest and conversation.

1. All of you are cordially invited to recall or imagine, trust and enjoy that you and someone who is very different from yourself, in age, gender, national origin, or ethnic, cultural, family, educational background, or religion, clerical status…etc., have the capacity for

2. Reciprocal Becoming as a mutual process of seeking and finding God’s will. What you see here is a Chinese landscape painting of mountains and water.

3. As you know, in Chinese culture, mountains and water, aesthetically and spiritually are connatural to each other – they are images of seeking silence and sending sentiments. 4. They depict vitality, connection; indicate truth, integrity, provoke desire, idea; and touch divine, soul and spirit. 5. The landscapes symbolize one’s experience of place, being in place, and/or, with imagination. Not only shows one’s physical surroundings, but also the inner landscapes that give significant meanings.

6 - 20. Again, please recall, imagine, trust and enjoy: the mutuality, the encounter; listen to the echoing, proclaim, taste, abandon and be still. View, the gives and takes, the epiphany, attraction, desire… the transient, Eternity… (Viewing slides).

21. So, this reciprocal becoming is a process of gazing, seeking, being and finding -- self, other and God.

22 - 23. Now, some background of this. As I was preparing this sharing, one common theme stood out for all of us: Ricci, Ignatius, the Jesuits and you and I. That is: how all of us encounter God through life- changing events in our lives. 23 - 25. No need for me to elaborate on the Ricci Legacy, how he was searching, moving, adventuring, sharing, risking, adjusting…in many roles, as multiple experts, from various places. In short, he was telling people about God, and learning and teaching to love like God.

26 - 28. St. Ignatius certainly was a man on the move, from place to place and finally to be in place. He experienced many roles, imagine, a soldier – a Father General, a beggar – a patron saint for all retreatants 500 years later…. He sure appropriated encountering and relating with God personally, uniquely and directly, and shared.

29 - 30. Fast forward, at Xavier House, where I have been for the past six and half years, the Jesuits are men of diverse and unique characters… From their various and multicultural backgrounds, they believe and evangelize that God desires to communicate directly and patiently to themselves and others.

31 - 32. How about you and I? Aren’t we continuing to face life transitions, to experience conflicts from change and challenges? Making choices, taking risks… and encountering God through these life- changing events – finally, being in place? Like right here and now, aren’t we journeying with companions and making friends?

33 - 34. So, reciprocal becoming starts with our Christian values and virtues, makes the most of what is present, aiming at becoming as the goal for our personal development, believing that we are innate good, collaborate with one another and finally, in harmony with nature and the world. Finding God in all things! Through affect and Ignatian Spirituality, from affective love to effective love, we learn and experience intimacy with God, self and others.

35. Since we are on this Ark here, let us continue to recall, imagine, trust, enjoy and hope… Johanna Chao