By Michele C. Murray
Some stories never fail to deliver no matter how many times I dip into their well. The conversion of St. Ignatius Loyola is one such story. Over the years I have shared it with countless students who feel lost in the aftermath of devastating disappointment. In Ignatius, they can see someone like them, ambitious and full of plans. And then… BOOM! An unexpected cannonball shatters a youthful dream of glory and accomplishment.
Thankfully Ignatius’ story does not end with unfulfilled expectations. In the familiar surprise twist, the cannonball moment proved to be the catalyst for a new path rather than the end of the old one. This path that now spans 500 years has changed lives by the millions all because an unexpected cannonball created enough space for the young, Basque soldier, Ignacio de Loyola, to discern that God was calling him to something different, something greater.
Inspiration. Encouragement. Wisdom. St. Ignatius’ story has given student after student the courage to move forward after their own personal cannonball moments. Collectively they and we are in the midst of experiencing a barrage of cannonballs, and I wonder what lessons we can draw from Ignatius for ourselves and our students. Along with my student affairs colleagues, I also wonder how we might make better use of the gifts of Ignatian spirituality—discernment, the Examen, and the Spiritual Exercises—and the opportunity of the upcoming Ignatian Year as a bridge from devastation to gratitude, from despair to joy, from desolation to consolation.
The Conversations editorial staff first contacted me in January of this year about authoring a piece about how student affairs staff are integrating the themes of the Universal Apostolic Preferences. How different life was then: The economy was humming; news outlets had barely connected the word “epidemic” to a mysterious pneumonia-like illness infecting people in faraway nations; and Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd were living their lives. By the end of March colleges and universities had pivoted to remote learning and most had canceled in-person commencement. Businesses shuttered, some never to reopen, and millions filed for unemployment. By late May precious lives had been snuffed out by anti-Black bias, and the nation was rocked by coast-to-coast protests and the emerging awareness of white people to the centuries-old scourge of racism. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The cannonballs started flying from every direction and have not yet stopped.
At the time of this writing, all of our 27 colleges and universities are weighing the health and safety risks of reopening amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the chances that their doors will remain closed if they educate students remotely. And our students across the country are conducting a similar calculus for themselves: health and safety, the ability to withstand online learning and engagement, and the desire to be among friends in a community of scholars. In either case, there is no good or obvious choice for students or their institutions.
This era of unprecedented uncertainty has certainly laid low so many of our students and those who educate and mentor them. Perhaps this is the cannonball moment that will lead to conversion and real change. As a guest on former First Lady, Michelle Obama’s recent podcast, journalist Michele Norris, compassionately offered a 21st Century version of the lessons from Ignatius’ cannonball-to-conversion story with understated clarity: “The great pause should become the great recalibration.” Exactly. Borne of immense suffering, this great pause brings deep disappointment and anxiety, but it also holds great possibility if we are willing to recalibrate.
As with Ignatius, the cannonballs that have shattered the visions we and our students held for our lives contain a hidden invitation. In the midst of bitter disappointment and frustrating circumstances, we are invited to see God at work, to understand ourselves and our neighbors as beloved of God, and to discern that which is for God’s greater glory. We, too, are called to conversion.
To help us on our journeys, Fr. General Arturo Sosa, S.J., reflected on the upcoming Ignatian Year. Beginning in May 2021, the entirety of the Society of Jesus, together with its lay collaborators, will celebrate the 500th anniversary of Ignatius’ conversion. As he lay in his convalescence bed, Ignacio de Loyola was healed not just of body but also of mind and heart. The cannonball that laid him low was the catalyst for his new life in God and the beginning of a story that now envelops our students and us.
The Ignatian Year will be both a celebration and a call to action guided by the four Universal Apostolic Preferences:
To show the way to God through the Spiritual Exercises and discernment;
To walk with the poor, the outcasts of the world, those whose dignity has been violated, in a mission of reconciliation and justice;
To accompany the young in the creation of a hope-filled future; and
To collaborate in the care of our Common Home.
According to Fr. Sosa (2020, July 31), “assimilating [the preferences] means conversion for each one of us, for our communities, our institutions and our apostolic works. We ask for the grace of a real change in our day to day life-mission.”
In an address to the major superiors of the Asia Pacific region, Fr. Arturo Sosa, S.J., current superior general of the Society of Jesus (above-right), contended that the Ignatian Year 2021-2022 furnishes an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the Universal Apostolic Preferences, and, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, to accelerate our movement on the path of reconciliation and justice for all humanity.
For those of us in student affairs and campus ministry, the preferences are immediately relevant to our on-going work with students. Staff at many of our Jesuit institutions have been advising student groups fighting climate change and those maintaining long-standing commitments to people who are vulnerable and outcast through political organizing and direct service with underserved communities. We are mindful of the disparities that exist among students’ backstories, and we provide programs that level the playing field, whether by making fee-driven college experience programs accessible or by hosting lending libraries to reduce the out-of-pocket costs of required texts.
Staff minister to students who have experienced sexual assault and counsel students who are struggling with burgeoning understandings of their identities. Our institutions seek students’ guidance in devising sustainability programs and regularly offer the Spiritual Exercises for students through silent retreats and the daily Spiritual Exercises in Every Day Life. Discernment through the Examen is often a consistent feature of our leadership development programs. In the middle of all of these efforts are student affairs professionals and campus ministers who are accompanying and guiding students as they develop an untarnished vision of a better future.
The work that my colleagues and I have committed ourselves to doing is a vocation, one that seems tailor-made to meet the demands of these Universal Apostolic Preferences. But what of Fr. Sosa’s encouragement toward conversion and real change? How might a more contemplative consideration of the process of change, modeled after Ignatius, guide our work differently?
In the wake of protests against racial injustice and inequity, the Office of Chaplains at the College of the Holy Cross, where I work, developed Reflection and Prayer for Racial Justice, a four-week series on the awareness of and encounters with racism following the patterns and movements of the Ignatian Examen. The Examen provided an overarching structure and invited participants to notice where God is at work in our everyday lives and in our histories with all of our sorrows, pain, desires, and hope. The program drew upon the tradition of Ignatian spirituality to help participants of every racial background confront one of the uglier sides of humanity, and it made Ignatian spirituality relevant to our times.
As an exemplar, Reflection and Prayer for Racial Justice demonstrates the qualitative difference between the work we are doing in student affairs that rightly aligns with the Universal Apostolic Preferences and the conscious effort to link that work to Ignatian spirituality. By and large, my colleagues and I choose to work in Jesuit higher education because we want our work with students to resonate on a deeper level, and the Jesuit purposes and ideals are simpatico with our own. This sense of personal and professional integration with institutional mission is what keeps many of us committed to Jesuit higher education throughout our careers. Still, there is a challenge to do more: If my colleagues and I are to respond to the demands of both the upcoming Ignatian Year and the Universal Apostolic Preferences, we must engage more deeply the gifts of Ignatian spirituality toward interior and social transformation as a means for confronting the particular concerns of our times.
Before Ignatius could write the Spiritual Exercises, he first learned to distinguish the spirits wrestling within him. He learned to set aside the thoughts and fantasies that left him depleted and desolate, and he began to seek the interior energy and consolation that were signs of alignment with God’s love. What a radical discovery. I mean to suggest that this is no less a radical revelation for our students today than it was for Ignatius, and it is, perhaps, just as needed.
In today’s culture, dominated by social media, vitriol and sideswiping attacks receive greater attention than do generosity and compassion. The online grenade lobbing from those with “keyboard courage” seems to have seeped into daily interactions. Nowhere is this more clear than across political and ideological divides. I suspect that this is one of the reasons that the loss of the Honorable John Lewis has been felt so sharply. Called the “Conscious of Congress” Rep. Lewis was known to meet even his most hellish moments and ardent adversaries with a spirit of love. In his final words, directed primarily to the nation’s youth, Rep. Lewis (2020, July 30) encouraged his fellow citizens, “Together you can redeem the soul of our nation,” and he blessed us, “So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.”
After delivering a speech to conclude the year-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s own speech in October 1967 at what is now Saint Joseph’s University, Congressman John R. Lewis shared a moment with Mark C. Reed, president of Saint Joseph’s University (above), by the bronze plaque commemorating Dr. King’s visit. While not officially Jesuit educated, the late congressman’s passion for the possible resonated with the humanistic and world-affirming ethos of Ignatian spirituality. Photo courtesy of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Although not formally Jesuit educated, Rep. Lewis’ approach to social change echoes the First Principle and Foundation and Presupposition of the Spiritual Exercises. Grounded in the core understanding that we, and our neighbors, are beloved of God, we might see one another as worthy of respect and be willing to work toward an environment marked by love. In a nutshell, this is what I want for us and our students: that we, like Rep. Lewis and Ignatius himself, have the habits of heart and mind—the legacy of St. Ignatius—to withstand the cannonballs and face the troubles of our times with equal parts clear-eyed conviction and generosity of spirit.
The upcoming Ignatian Year is meant to prepare us to join ourselves more deeply to the Universal Apostolic Preferences. To get there, we must follow the example of St. Ignatius and allow the cannonballs that are so prevalent today open the way to conversion. My student affairs colleagues are endlessly creative and resourceful, and they are well-positioned to accompany students through the heavy disappointments of our age to uncover the opportunities hidden within. In so doing, they help students connect their passion for justice and change with the compassion toward self and others so beautifully modeled by St. Ignatius.
In his piece, “With Ignatius at Montserrat,” Eric Clayton (2020, July 30) noted that life’s “cannonballs are unavoidable. It’s what we do next that matters.” Indeed, it has been impossible to avoid the cannonballs of late both individually and collectively. The tolls and destruction they have exacted have been innumerable. Yet, these cannonballs do not have to have the last word. We have choices about how to respond. And we, who are entrusted with the mantle of Ignatian spirituality on behalf of the students at our Jesuit colleges and universities, we have the model of St. Ignatius and the tools he left for us as we decide our responses.
Michele C. Murray is vice president for student affairs and dean of students at the College of the Holy Cross.
The featured cover photo (above) is courtesy of the Society of Jesus.