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Ecology and the Spiritual Exercises THE WAY a review of Christian spirituality published by the British Jesuits January 2004 Volume 43, Number 1 Foreword 5-6 Ecology and the Spiritual Exercises 7-18 Trileigh Tucker How creation awareness enhances the experience of the Spiritual Exercises; and how the Exercises offer spiritual wisdom to the ecological community. Dialoguing with the Dance of Creation 19-30 John English New insights into Ignatius’ Principle and Foundation from astronomy, ecology, and trinitarian theology. Ignatius Loyola and the Unconditional Love of God 31-42 Antony F. Campbell An exploration of the idea of God’s love in the Spiritual Exercises, and the questions it raises.Why is Ignatius’ language initially so dry? How can a transcendent being love us? Can we love a God when faith in God’s very existence is difficult? What of sin and evil? From the Ignatian Tradition Exercises for Infidels, Heretics and Sinners 43-50 Jerónimo Nadal A striking, even if not fully developed, example example of creation theology from Ignatius’ lifetime, exploring even then how the Exercises might nourish people thought to be outside the Church. Editorial office Campion Hall, Oxford, OX1 1QS, UK Subscriptions office Turpin Distribution Services, Blackhorse Road, Letchworth, Hertfordshire, SG6 1HN, UK THE WAY January 2004 Spirituality in Adulthood: Development and Fruition 51-64 Peter Feldmeier A study of how old age can be serene, fruitful, and life-giving, drawing both on traditional spiritual resources and on Erikson’s developmental psychology. The Spiritual Exercises and a Spirituality for the Later Years 67-79 Gerald M. Fagin We make the Spiritual Exercises in different ways at different stages of our lives. Later in life our experience of the Exercises reflects quite specifically the changes we have gone through, and the call to generosity and surrender takes on new forms. Crisis and Transformation: Turning Over the Compost 81-96 Heap Vilma Seelaus The changes that take place in a compost heap are a powerful image of God’s leading us through death to life, as witnessed by a historical figure such as Teresa, or in the contemporary call to global transformation. Seeking God in All Things: Ignatian Spirituality as Action 97-108 Research David Coghlan How the Ignatian ideal of ‘contemplation in action’ converges strikingly with new methods of learning and research being developed in the social sciences. Theological Trends The Second Person 109-128 Margaret Barker It is often thought that Christianity transformed a Judaism that believed strictly in one God only. Recent research suggests a more complex picture. Jesus and the early Christians were drawing on ideas of God as Father with a Second God who was his Son that go back to the Temple rituals before the Exile. THE WAY January 2004 Recent Books Edward Howells on an important new study of St John of the Cross Elizabeth J. Harris on Jacques Dupuis and interreligious dialogue Paul Nicholson on two British books about Christianity and culture Gerard J. Hughes on Andrew Moore, faith and reason Nicholas King on the unimportance of the Gospel of Thomas Andrew Hamilton on a study of the Augustinian tradition of spirituality John Pridmore on ‘ordinary theology’ as done spontaneously on the street Billy Hewett on Fintan Creaven, the Celtic tradition, and Ignatius Joseph A. Munitiz on the enigma of Ignatius Jennifer Cooper on the work of the late George Schner Philip Endean on some continental spirituality books and on Church authority Celia Deane-Drummond on ethics and GM food The Way is an international journal of contemporary Christian spirituality, published by the British Jesuits. Through writing informed by critical and creative scholarship, it aims to provide a forum in which thoughtful Christians, from different walks of life and different traditions, reflect on God’s continuing action in human experience. Among particular concerns of The Way are: • the role of spirituality in the struggle for justice • the spiritual issues raised by intercultural and interreligious dialogue • the interactions between spirituality, politics and culture • the fostering and development of the Ignatian spiritual tradition The Way warmly invites readers to submit articles with a view to publication. They should normally be about 4,000 words long, and be in keeping with the journal’s aims. The Editor is always ready to discuss possible ideas. Further details can be found on The Way’s website, www.theway.org.uk. The Special Number for 2004 will be entitled Commitment and Freedom. It will mark the centenaries of three distinguished Jesuit theologians (Rahner, Lonergan, John Courtney Murray) by exploring how Ignatian and other traditions of spirituality can expand the possibilities of Christian living and discipleship. Contributions to that issue would be especially welcome. Loyola Hall Paul Nicholson SJ, The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:12) … to look how God dwells in creatures, in the elements giving being, in the plants growth, in the animals feeling, in people giving understanding. (Exx 235.1) FOREWORD GNATIUS BEGINS THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES proper with a famous Istatement: Humanity is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save its soul. And the other things on the face of the earth are created for humanity, that they may help it in pursuing the end for which it is created. (Exx 23.2-3) It follows that we have to deal with these creatures ‘rightly’: to use them as much as they help us attain our end, and to rid ourselves of them in so far as they hinder us. Commentators ancient and modern have been struck by the plainness of this statement: it does not mention Jesus Christ; it seems oddly cerebral. It might well help explain why people have often thought Ignatian spirituality irredeemably prosy, functional, even manipulative; and in the light of modern ecological sensitivities, the language of ‘use’ at least appears unfortunate. ‘Sometimes’, we read in an early Directory, ‘from just the consideration of the Foundation alone a whole soul is amended and reformed as it recollects itself and sticks at speculation on its end’.1 That comment can be read as confirming the critics’ worst suspicions; it can also be taken as a pointer towards something richer hidden in Ignatius’ text. The articles in this issue of The Way draw on various resources to expand our understanding of God’s creative presence. Thus Trileigh Tucker eloquently draws our attention to how Ignatian spirituality can take up ecological concerns, while John English sets the Ignatian text within the discoveries of modern science and more recent Trinitarian theology. Antony Campbell suggests that Ignatius’ reticence is deliberate, and must be understood in the light of what comes later, notably in what Campbell calls the Contemplation for Recognising Love. Meanwhile this issue’s piece ‘from the Ignatian tradition’ shows how Jerónimo Nadal, even in Ignatius’ lifetime, had a 1 Everard Mercurian, Dir 19.4. The Way, 43/1 (January 2004), 5-6 6 Foreword sense of God as creator of all things that was strong enough for him at least to be able to begin imagining how the Exercises could be given to ‘infidels’ and ‘heretics’. It is often claimed that classical Christian statements about creation are too static—creation is a process, and God acts dynamically. The three articles which follow—by Peter Feldmeier, Gerald M. Fagin and Vilma Seelaus—in different ways explore how our relationship with the creating and sustaining God changes over our lifetime. David Coghlan, for his part, shows how Ignatian ideas dovetail very well with ‘action research’, with new developments in social science centred not on abstract theory or generalisation, but on the practical wisdom we can draw from our ongoing busyness and activity. Finally, in ‘Theological Trends’, Margaret Barker calls seriously into question the idea that the early Christians had to complicate or change a Judaism that worshipped one creator God. She suggests, rather, that the Temple rituals of early Judaism centred on a God who had a son present among us as priest and king, and that both Jesus and the early Church were drawing on these traditions as they developed what we know as Christianity. If she is correct, then we Christians must approach dialogue with Jews and Muslims in a new way, and rethink radically our understanding of our own origins. And even if her theories turn out not to be right, this kind of new idea is itself one of the ways in which our sense of creation is expanded and deepened. Philip Endean SJ ECOLOGY AND THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES Trileigh Tucker AKE A DEEP BREATH. Notice how your whole body relaxes. Now Ttake another deep breath. This time, notice that the air coming into your lungs through your nose is free and plentiful: even if you’re in a large crowd, there’s more than enough for everyone. Finally, another deep breath. The atoms of air that you breathe in and out are a shared gift: shared both with other humans and with the creatures and plants in the immediate area. This air constitutes a radical physical connectedness with all other living beings. Statistically, it is extremely likely that several of the atoms you took into your lungs during that last breath also passed through Jesus’ lungs: a direct and potentially profound physical connection.1 Because of our intricate interconnectedness with each other in and through the natural world, what has been called environmentalism— concern for that which is around us—becomes ecological awareness. The word ‘ecology’ comes from two Greek roots: oikos, meaning ‘house’, and logos, meaning ‘reason’ or ‘discourse’.
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