“God Draws Us Through Desire”
In 2018, I had the utter joy and privilege of joining a Boston College pilgrimage to Spain and Rome to walk in the footsteps of Ignatius of Loyola. Those ten days served up a sumptuous banquet, not only of rich food and choice wine, but of deep history, stunning landscapes, exquisite architecture, and wonderful companions. The days were nourished by prayer, reflection, inspiration, and spiritual richness as we probed the life of Ignatius in the places and the events that shaped him.
One particular “moment,” however, remains with me to this day, a moment that took me by surprise and stunned me with its powerful and poignant impact on my mind and heart. It is a picture.
We had just arrived at Manresa to visit the cave where Ignatius prayed for 7 hours each day while fasting and doing penance. A radical shift from his days of knighthood and adventure and chivalry??? To be sure! But why? During his recuperation from a severe leg wound inflicted during the Battle of Pamplona Ignatius had long hours to read the only books available to him: a book of the saints and the life of Christ. The trauma visited upon him created something of a vacuum, it seems, leaving a space to look more deeply into his life, into his heart, and he slowly awoke to deeper desires that he had never recognized before. The Christ, the man who poured out his heart and soul in mission for and with his Father, stirred in Ignatius a burning desire to give his whole life to Christ. It utterly consumed him. And so, during a night-long vigil at Montserrat prior to coming to Manresa, he turned in his dagger and sword and exchanged his fine clothing for the beggar’s garb.
And now the picture….. when I saw it for the first time, hanging on the wall outside the cave, I was captivated by the longing in Ignatius’ face as he gazed on the Crucified One. It was during this period that God taught him “the same way a schoolteacher deals with a child while instructing him.” Ignatius was soaked through with the mystery of God’s wisdom and love!
What did anything matter except to labor and to love with Jesus with everything he had for all the days that were given to him! Desiring that everyone come to know what God had revealed to him, he began to write down the ways God taught him, hoping that others, too, would come to share this great gift and grow in the desire to follow Jesus wholeheartedly. Today, 500 years after Ignatius’ conversion, we and countless others continue to be beneficiaries of Ignatius’ legacy through the gift of the Spiritual Exercises. May the longing for God and the desire to follow Jesus burn in us, too, and pour itself out in a world so in need of hope and love.