To readers and friends of The Way, welcome to our new issue:

To order this new issue of The Way only, please click HERE.

Please click here to subscribe to The Way.

Contents

Kevin Leidich

“The Thing Has Been of God”: Ignatius’ Experience of God’s Confirmation in His Autobiography

Those who analyze the process of discernment often focus on the decision-making element—and this is important. However, in any good discernment, a decision is not only made but also confirmed, and this confirmation has received less attention. Kevin Leidich finds in the late Cardinal Martini’s reading of Ignatius’ Autobiography five criteria which illuminate the process of confirming a discerned decision.

Download this article in PDF format by clicking here

Brian O'Leary

Fostering a Contemplative Stance: An Ignatian Exploration

Since the personal journey of the exercitant is taken so seriously in making the Spiritual Exercises, the outcome of that process is as varied as the exercitants themselves. Yet it can be argued that they will always share a deepened contemplative stance, a way of approaching the world and the decisions that it demands. Brian O’Leary suggests what this stance might look like, and how it might best be supported.

Meredith Secomb

Being Attentive to Silence

Many of us live in a world where silence is at a premium, difficult to achieve and still more difficult to sustain. Yet almost all spiritual guides, whether they are contemplative or active in outlook, consider silence something to be prized. Meredith Secomb, a trained clinical psychologist, draws on her clinical experience to suggest why this might be so, and how the value of silence might best be built upon.

Luz Marina Díaz

Spiritual Conversation as the Practice of Revelation

Within Ignatian spirituality, spiritual conversation is not confined to explicit talk of God. It is rather a tool for allowing the exchanges between two people to deepen and focus on whatever is currently most important in the lives of one or other of them. For Luz Marina Diaz this remains a means for God to be revealed as active in the daily lives of those who speak together.

Jane Khin Zaw

Only a Witness to Speak for the Light: Simone Weil and Her Option for the Poor

Simone Weil was one of the great spiritual writers of the twentieth century, living a life as radical as her writings. Both included what would come to be known in later church teaching as an ‘option for the poor’. Jane Khin Zaw shows here how Weil came to see this lived option as offering a sounder basis for human well-being than the promotion of human rights alone.

Jos Moons

Remembering as a Crucial Spiritual Tool: Pierre Favre’s Spiritual Life According to the Memoriale

Among his first Jesuits, Pierre Favre was thought by Ignatius to be the best director of the Spiritual Exercises. He left a collection of reminiscences, the Memoriale, recording his awareness of the gifts that God had given him in the course of his life. Here Jos Moons considers what this document can tell us about the act of remembering as an important practice promoting spiritual growth.

Sue Topalian

Where Healing Streams Meet: A Danced Retreat

The implication of a phrase that is often used as a brief summary of Ignatian spirituality—‘finding God in all things’—is that God is indeed present in everything, waiting to be discovered. A retreat can be an experience of meeting God in unexpected people, events, or practices. Sue Topalian reports from a danced retreat, showing how those involved came to know God better through their shared experience.

Ruth Evans

Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles: A Reflection on the Human Struggle of Jesus

In the seventh and eighth chapters of John’s Gospel, the evangelist offers an extended account of a visit that Jesus made to Jerusalem during the festival of Tabernacles. At this visit, his words and actions provoke controversy, and lead Jesus into a fierce debate with his opponents in an attempt to justify himself. For Ruth Evans, this offers important insights into the humanity of Jesus.

To order this new issue of The Way, please click HERE.

THE WAY IGNATIAN BOOK SERVICE

New titles:

Ignatian Spirituality, edited and translated by Joseph A. Munitiz SJ Ignatian Spirituality makes available in English a group of essays by important writers from continental Europe on spirituality in the Ignatian tradition. Most of the essays in this collection first appeared in The Way, a journal founded just before Vatican II in response to a growing interest in spirituality-and Ignatian spirituality in particular. The essays have been chosen and translated from Spanish and French by Joseph A. Munitiz, and together they provide a fascinating introduction to the range and development of continental thought on Ignatian spirituality over the past half century. Those familiar with developments in the study of the Spiritual Exercises in Britain and North America in these decades will notice both parallels and contrasts here. The collection will also be of help to the growing number of retreat givers and spiritual directors. Price: £15.00 ISBN: 978 1 84867 069 3

You have received this e-mail because you have been in touch with us in the past. We will be sending out this kind of promotional e-mail at approximately quarterly intervals, but we are anxious not to send information to anyone who does not want to receive it. If you would prefer not to hear about new issues of The Way, or if you are receiving more than one copy of our message, please click here. Note that if you e-mail The Way again, you may need to unsubscribe again—our mailing list is maintained manually!