Seeking God's Will, Pt. II

Promulgation and History
In our last post we sought to establish a foundation of Scriptural proof of the Ignatian notion of seeking God's Will; that is, that man has the capacity to seek God out who first seeks him. God seeks man out in his every work and action. The Catholic Catechism also refers to the very nature of mankind is to search for God as a religious being. [CCC, 27-30] God has created man to seek the greatest good ; that is, God himself, but only by man freely turning to God in faith, can man finally reach the happiness he is called to, above the natural happiness of earth. This natural happiness in seeking God can be blurred by this world's goods as well as thoughts and ideologies that seek to obscure the simplicity of God's call to each man in his individual conscience. St. Ignatius proposes, thru his Spiritual Exercises, which have shown to be fruitful over the course of several hundreds of years since their inception and promulgation by Pope Paul III (Allsandro Farnese 1468-1549).
The concern with St. Ignatius in leading others to rid themselves of all those things which encumber the souls finding God's Will is a direct work of God on his soul, both during some conversion experiences he had during a time of sickness and recperation, but also most prominenetly during a time he spent near the Cardoner River , near Manresa, Spain, during which he received a Mystical Illumination. This illumination left an indellible amount of spiritual understnading of the Mysteries of faith in his soul as well as the charity to share this with others. According to one of the original companions of St. Ignatius, Fr Lainez, the Spiritual Exercises were written shortly after that Mystical Illumination at the Cardoner, at least "in its substance." [Ganss, 1992, intro 3] Because grace had illumined him and strengthened him to change, he in turn sought to share this knowledge with others so that they , too, could come to that source of every good change, Christ Jesus, Our Lord.

Clinton R. LeFort
Immaculata Publishing 2006©

Seeking God's Will

Seeking God's Will

[1.] In our last post we introduced St. Ignatius and the general outline of his Writings called the Spiritual Exercises. We proposed the purpose of the Exercises by quoting from the second annotation in the Spiritual Exercises:

of seeking and finding God's Will in the ordering of our life for the salvation of our soul." [Ganss, #2]

[2.] Now that we have indicated how important a notion it is in Biblical Spirituality in both old and new testament. We would like to here present a few relevant passages from sacred Scripture showing how revelation has presented this notion. It should be known that Saint Ignatius uses this term 'buscar' over fourteen times in the autographed manuscripts. Many languages have variants of the notion of searching as can be seen here. The etymology of the use of "para buscar y hallar la voluntad diuina en"[ IC,115] buscar, in the passage referred to above St. Ignatius is referring to the first and third person singular infinitive of one who seeks. Buscar is used in Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese languages. The Hebrew word would have the general meaning of tread or trample; that is, to walk and to visit often. In the Ignatian term it means to use every type of spiritual means possible to come to God's signified or permissive will in one's life. This coming to the conformity of oneself to God's Will is the whole purpose of the Spiritual Exercises. St. Francis DeSales (1567-1622) and St. Jane De Chantal (1572-1641), following St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) also taught this spirituality of abandoning oneself to God, while seeking it with one's devotion. St. Francis De Sales relied heavily upon the Spiritual Exercises in his work.
There is both an exterior seeking and an interior seeking in oneself. Ignatius is referring first to a person seeking interiorly what signifies God's Will to oneself; secondly, to this will manifested in temporal authority in the Church. This becomes clearer as one continues along the way of the Exercises themselves, since the very one who guides the person in the Exercises is supposed to have an understanding of how the Holy Spirit guides a person under normal conditions of spiritual growth as well as the opposite effects of disordinate movements of natural movements of the soul outside of God's guidance.
[3.] Getting back to Sacred Scripture, we find this word darash used in many instances thru the Old Testament, but most importantly it is used to note a personal seeking of the subject as when one seeks God. The Grk. word for seek zeteo is used over 230 times in the Old Testament and has the same meaning of seeking.
[4.] As we can see seekign God is a common theme running thru the Bible and Christian spirituality, so St. Ignatius in writing his Spiritual Exercises composed a method of allowing others to seek God's will unencumbered by things which would hinder their finding it. More about this later in this IgnatianBlog.

Clinton R. LeFort
Immaculata Publishing 2006 ©

19th Annotated Retreat

19^th Annotation Retreat

Some may wonder why St. Ignatius (1491-1556) wrote an additional set of exercises for those who cannot leave their home and go to a monastery or a retreat house to make his Spiritual Exercises. First, let us offer some clarifications to the terminology, for those who are interested in it. St. Ignatius who wrote the Spiritual Exercises between the years 1521 until his latest additions or revisions in 1541. [Ganss, 1992]. He primarily wrote the Spiritual Exercises as a way in which others could come to a clear understanding of God's Will in their individual lives, aided by a Director who was familiar with both the workings of grace as well as the Spiritual Exercises themselves. He understood clearly that though many would want to leave their work and professions to make the Spiritual Exercises they were unable to, so he wrote , in what is called the Annotation's, which are preliminary to the Exercises, some directives for those who would be desirous to make them but who would under various circumstances be allowed to make them only while they pursued their work in the world. Since the beginning of his work in giving the Exercises to many lay persons these 19^th Annotation Retreats (so called because they happen to be named after the number of the Annotations mentioned above and actually numbered [1-19] in the way the Exercises have come to be systematically numbered today. The autographed copy of the Spiritual Exercises which he used thru his last fourteen year's of his life are called the Autograph text. The Verso Prima is the first translation into Latin in 1534 and is referred to as P¹ The Society of Jesus has sought to publish critical editions of all of St. Ignatius's works: Spiritual Exercises, Constitutions, Letters and other writings. They are located in Madrid, Spain and are a group of Jesuit Scholars appointed by the Minister General of the Society of Jesus to devote themselves to this critical research and publication of these original manuscripts of St. Ignatius. You can find there link here. The Institutum Historicum Societatis Jesu is their official name.

The 19^th Annotated Form of the Retreat

We now come to the form of the 19^th Annotated Retreat. It follows the form of the Spiritual Exercises as St. Ignatius gave them, but with one exception. They are done with more time allowed for the Exercises themselves. What is the purpose of 19^th Annotated retreat? It has the same purpose as the regular Spiritual Exercises but with more time in making the Exercises themselves. The Spiritual Exercises in St. Ignatius's own words (translated) are

[1.] "seeking and [2.] finding [3.] God's will [4.] in the ordering [5.] of our life [6.] for the salvation [7.] of our soul."

[Ganss, #2 (numbering added by the author of this Ignatian Blog)]


Already we are treading waters so deep in the spiritual life that we cannot see the ocean in which St. Ignatius immersed us.

Let us list the wording of this phrase below:

We would have to search all of Christian spirituality for a more dense and meaningful summary of the entire spiritual journey that St. Ignatius has given to us. This phrase is at the very heart of Jesus message of conversion and sanctification for each soul created in his image and called to holiness after the fall and after the redemption given to us in Christ Jesus: "In him we have redemption by his blood..." [Eph 1:7]

1. Seeking God- First there is always the One who seeks and the One who is sought for. This is very deep in the Christian understanding of salvation history and Biblical Spirituality. Constantly the Psalmist speaking for the
People of God are in search of Him ho called them. The moral dilemma man finds himself in is that he is surrounded by passing things and much more so since his fall in the Garden does he need light and strength to overcome this propensity to seek passing things for themselves. St. Ignatius received a great illumination besides the Cardoner River [Right or here] near Manresa, during the time of his Spiritual Journey. You can find a full set of pictures about St. Ignatius Pilgrimage at the Detroit Jesuit website. Here we would like to reiterate that this seeking God was an active endeavor for St. Ignatius from the time of his conversion, so it naturally came across when he wrote his Spiritual Exercises. More importantly, his seeking was part of what those called to redemption had been doing for centuries before the Word became flesh and would do until the end of time when Jesus would return to hand over all things to the Father. We will look more into this basic yet all-pervading notion of Seeking God in later Blogs.

"Teach us to Give and Not to count the cost."
St. Ignatius of Loyola

Clinton R. LeFort
Immaculata Publishing 2006©

• God's will
• in the ordering
• of our life
• for the salvation
• of our soul.