Finding God in All Things
Contemplation—Intercession—Action
On the Feast of Ignatius of Loyola I’ll share a bit from Finding God in All Things: Contemplation, Intercession, and Intervention
Finding God in all things is an understanding at the heart of Ignatian Spirituality. It’s an affirmation that God is present in each person, situation, and place. And that as we grow in that stance, we may see the world in new ways and become more fully in love with God. It is also very much like the Benedictine Promise of the Order of the Ascension—“to seek the presence of Jesus Christ in the people, things, and circumstances of life through stability, obedience, and conversion of life.” The ground for the Order of the Ascension’s ministry of shaping parish churches is that God is in all things. Our “shaping” and “developing” of parish churches is rooted in the conviction that God is already present in the parish; we do not bring God to the parish. …
Most people of our faith tradition have long accepted the value of the social sciences. A one-time president of Notre Dame, Theodore Hesburgh, made the point this way: “There is no conflict between science and theology, except where there is bad science or bad theology.” The primary thing we can do if we are to make good use of the social sciences in the church’s life is to have a stance, and matching practices, grounded in radical orthodoxy and prayer. An example can be seen in the life of Robert N. Bellah. He was both a social scientist and a devout Anglo-Catholic. A Jesuit friend wrote this about him.
I esteem him as, perhaps, the most deeply and authentically spiritual person I have ever known. Robert Bellah taught me that Christianity is essentially a longing, an unslakeable thirst for living water in the sense of John’s gospel, a profound hunger for the signs of God’s presence. presence. Bob also taught me that the holy mystery lies both veiled and yet betrayed in every human event, person, tradition and institution. He challenged me to become more truly Catholic than I have ever yet been. I know now that the only obstacle to God’s deepened presence in my life is me—my complacency, my mediocrity, my too literalist expectations about where God can be found and how. Through Bob I came to be convinced that a serious outreach to other spiritual traditions besides my own is necessary if I wish to discover the meaning and validity of the Jesuit tradition for our own time. Indeed, through him I came for the first time to understand the Ignatian thrust to find God in all things—not to project him but to find him—and to seek to find him truly in all things. …
Contemplation—Intercession—Action
We’ve made use of the “Contemplation–Intercession–Action” model as a way of understanding the more immediate process. This model connects the tasks of seeing things as they are in themselves and in the Divine Life of God, of connecting ourselves to the concerns and people involved, and taking action from that place. We have modified the model to make it more specific to the work of shaping a parish church, including planning and implementing parish development interventions. We have placed contemplation at the bottom to indicate it is the starting place, the base for what follows.
The model expresses a disciplined and explicit sequence based on an organic flow. We may move from observing a dynamic, a group, an opportunity or challenge, to thinking about it, to engaging our mind and heart as we seek a way forward, and then on to some action. The one may flow onto the other, or sometimes not.
Teach us, good Lord, to serve thee as thou deservest;
to give, and not to count the cost,
to fight, and not to heed the wounds,
to toil, and not to seek for rest,
to labor, and not to ask for any reward,
save that of knowing that we do thy will.
This abides,
Brother Robert, OA
The Feast of Ignatius of Loyola, Priest and Monastic, 1556