Practicing the Faith 7 - Practicing Grace in Good Works w/ St. Ignatius of Loyola

INTRO

Knowing the physics of flight -- how lift, drag, and thrust work to get a body off the ground -- is not the same as watching the ground drop below you as the clouds surround you.

Knowing what musical modes are and being able to tell someone John Coltrane used these in innovative ways to push free jazz forward is not the same as putting an intuition in your soul into notes in the air for anyone with ears to hear.

Knowing the Queens Gambit or what a force out is in baseball is not the same as besting a worthy opponent in Chess or feeling your legs take you somewhere your conscious mind may not even know you need to go so you can feel the ball hit your glove and throw where you should to get an out for your team.

And knowing that Jesus said do not worry, and love your enemies, is not the same as feeling the lightness of trust take root in your gut or feeling bitterness lose its grip on your chest.

Some things, you have to practice to understand.

So in this series, we hope to help you practice your faith so you can know salvation.

This time we look to St. Ignatius of Loyola as a guide for practicing grace in practicing good works.

STORY

Ignatius of Loyola was born in 1491.

From childhood Ignatius wanted to become a soldier. So he patterned his self-image after the stories of the knights of Camelot, El Cid, and the central warrior from an 11th century epic poem called "The Song of Roland." And with that you already have enough to know Ignatius had a potent combination of imagination and ambition.

So Ignatius did not just want to be a soldier, he wanted to become a great soldier, who would some day rise to the rank of general and have people sit around fires and recount the legends of Lancelot, El Cid, and Ignatius, all in one breath.

We look at this beginning and, depending on our sensibilities, think, "That's a bunch of dangerous machismo nonsense." Or, "I get it, kid. Dream while you can. But don't actually try too hard, because some day the real world will hit and those ideals will fade and you'll realize it's not worth it."

But as his story unfolds, I think we see God looked at it and said, "Sure. There's a good deal of nonsense there, and the world will indeed hit, but we can work with that, Ignatius."

At 17 Ignatius was able to join the army. He displayed leadership potential and a good deal of courage, so he quickly rose in rank and began to participate in military battles by the age of 18. At this point, life for Ignatius was serving a king. Following orders. Keeping structure. It was training for the excellences inherent in the life of a soldier: practicing a sword move over and over, drilling each technique into his muscle memory. And though certain events and a large share of suffering would eventually challenge his ideals and rework his life goals, there was something about the form of life he knew at this stage that never really disappeared for Ignatius.

For the next 12 years he fought, and was never injured. And when that's your record at such a young age, you start to believe you actually are invincible. But then, in 1521, in a battle with the French, a cannonball shattered Ignatius' left leg and tore up his right. Chivalry was still kind of a thing then, so the French that busted his legs also provided doctors to repair them, then returned him to his father's castle to heal. The Spanish doctors, though, thought the French never did anything right, so they re-broke and re-set his leg, and Ignatius almost died from the stress and infection.

In his autobiography, an older version of Ignatius called his younger self "vain."

Here's why he'd say something like that about himself: As his legs began to heal, Ignatius noticed one leg was shorter than the other and one was marred by an ugly protrusion of bone. That made Ignatius afraid he wasn't going to look good in his tights. So he had the doctors come back for a series of operations where they again re-broke the leg, reset it, shaved the bone down to smooth the ugly bump, and put his leg in a rack-like tool to stretch it out to proper length. All at a time where anesthesia had yet to be invented.

All so he'd look good in his tights.

If vanity is what motivated that, it had to be a deeply seated and monstrously powerful vanity. And then, I could add to this by telling stories that display Ignatius' womanizing, and unchecked ambition, propensity to abuse his influence, and his acts of violence - he once severely beat a man in what was supposed to be a mock brawl and ran a muslim through with a sword for denying Christ's divinity. Before he became a saint, Ignatius was no saint.

While recovering, Ignatius, of course, wanted to read books on chivalry and knighthood. He was still in denial of the truth that his military career was over.

But there were no military books or stories of knights where he was recovering, and it turns out that was a grace. What they had instead were books on Jesus and the saints. Most influential to him were books on St Francis of Assisi, and The Life of Christ by Ludolph of Saxony.

Those books showed Ignatius a different kind of greatness, that spoiled his old ideas of what a good life was. Something turned so that when he thought about the previous kinds of great things he wanted to do, he was left feeling empty and dry, but when he thought of doing great things for God, he felt joy and strength. In his autobiography, he wrote, "Little by little I came to recognize the difference between the spirits that were stirring." That would be spirits like selfish ambition and vanity, versus spirits of humility, service, and love. And though Ignatius was raised Christian, he said, "This was my first reasoning about the things of God."

He once fought to the death to defend the divinity of Christ, but, writing later, as a saint, he realized this was his "first" reasoning about the things of God.

And notice the shift that took place in what, during this series looking at Christian practice, we've called the telos: instead of wanting to serve the King like a soldier to do great deeds as the final goal or purposes of his life, Ignatius now simply wanted to serve Jesus, his heavenly king. So his ideal of performing feats like Lancelot transformed to carrying out saintly deeds.

And notice that today people do not link legends of Lancelot, El Cid, and Ignatius.

But they do tell stories of St. Benedict and St. Francis back-to-back with stories of Ignatius.

And to live in this direction, chasing this new telos, Ignatius did what he'd alway done: he practiced. And Ignatius never did anything half way. So he took pilgrimages. Studied under the most brilliant and holy men he could find. He lived in a cave to pray without distraction and do penance. To combat his vanity, he let his hair and fingernails grow long. He went to the Holy Land, but instead of running Muslims through with a sword, worked to serve them and help them realize a greater fullness in life.

So, progress.

But it is also encouraging to know that he didn't suddenly become perfect inside and out. As he understood it right after his conversion, holiness was entirely measured by the intensity of his exterior efforts.

As soon as he could, Ignatius started out on that pilgrimage to Jerusalem. But he didn't ride a horse or chariot. As is fitting for his character, Ignatius walked. Even after all the surgeries and rack-like stretching, Ignatius' one leg stayed shorter than the other, and he walked with a limp the rest of his life. And limping toward Jerusalem, he wore only one sandal on the leg that hadn't fully healed.

If you haven't noticed, Ignatius was intense.

While in Jerusalem, he visited a Benedictine Monastery and there he made a confession of his sins. And I really feel for the priest that heard his confession, because it took Ignatius three days to get it all out.

One Jesuit from our day joked, "When I die and face judgment, I'm not scared of Jesus. I'm scared of Ignatius."

To finish his time at the monastery, he hung his sword and dagger before a statue of Mary, went outside with his blue cloak and hat with a fancy feather sticking out, and those gold tights he was so concerned about looking good in, and gave them all to a beggar. Doing that, he ended one way of life and started another the only way he knew how: with a courtly gesture.

He still was no saint. But this is how his journey toward sainthood progressed: Ignatius became an entirely different person by being the same person in a different direction.

Such is the power of our telos.

Throughout this series we've made the claim that engaging in a practice well doesn't just spoil the external goods like wealth and power that we can gain from doing something well. But it turns our hearts from them by making us the kinds of people who are able to recognize and receive internal goods, which tend to not spoil us and the people and things around us like external goods can. So in the conversation that follows, Julius and I talk about what things were nested inside Ignatius' practice once his ultimate goal or telos shifted, and what kind of person that helped him become.

DISCUSSION

Julius: Welcome back to all things. Once again, this is Julius and will, and today we're actually, I believe wrapping up the series on practicing the faith and we're coming out of the story where we've looked at the life of Saint Ignatius. And I emphasize that word Saint, because I feel like that word, I think.

Conjures gone conscious, maybe a little too intense conjures, different reactions in certain groups of Christians were

Wilson: is a great word for

Julius: okay. Perfect. Yeah, it was either too intense or just the right amount of intense and intense is a great word because we're talking about St. Ignatius. Um, But like my point there was, um, the word Saint, I feel like certain sects of Christianity respond to that world word differently.

And I think certain groups of Christians are a little resistant to that word for the reason of like, I think there's a hesitancy in ascribing sainthood to any person because there's this fear that, that kind of like. emphasizes. The role of like human effort or even like our strivings for perfection or holiness, um, in this world.

And so I think there are certain reactions against, right? Like the, the, the role of words. In being a Christian. And especially once you throw the word kind of Saint in there. So especially looking at the life Saint Ignatius, who, if we're talking about striving and discipline human effort, he might be at the pinnacle of Christian history.

Wilson: Yeah.

Julius: Looking at the intensity of Ignatius in his practice as a Saint and in his life and ministry. What can we say about where grace fits into that? And even, uh, I think enlivens his, his life and works with the human effort. How do those work together?

Wilson: Right. If you're even open, I mean, this is why we closed it with St. Ignatius, right. And, and what Christian practice can awaken us to. And if, if you're even open to the idea of seeing grace and work flowing in and out of each other, Ignatius is, is the guy to go to because the, the, like you were pointing at the intensity of the area, The intentionality and the intensity of the effort with Ignatius is just so over the top that it's not, it's not hard at all for me to picture someone, you know, uh, uh, I'm laughing because I'm actually picturing.

Friends, uh, Christians that I know it's super easy for me to, to actually picture real people that I know going like Ignatius dude. Have you read Ephesians? Like, like, um,

Julius: Yeah.

Wilson: Yeah,

I mean, even just like barking back at the guy, like Ephesians chapter two, man, right.

I mean, it is by grace. You have been saved through faith and this is not from yourself.

It's the gift of God. Right. And if, and when this comes well, I mean, they can take the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast like chill Ignatius. And, uh, I think we're Right.

to bring up this question of grace, but I don't think ending with, so chill is, is really. The termination point, um, that we have to wind up at, if we bring grace into the, into the picture.

So do to like get into directly this question. What about grace and Saint Ignatius is life. I think if, if we're gonna pose that question to him and his example, I think we've got to be aware that St. Ignatius himself became aware of this became aware of the issue of grace. That's why we're talking about them this way.

That's why we're capping off this whole series on practice with him, because he's a model for us, of someone who, who practices the faith in a certain way that— and it's through that, the case I'm making is, it's through that practice that he becomes aware of the centrality of grace. Um, and so we, we need to know that he himself, as an older man, he himself at a point where, you know, where the church would say now as a Saint, he's looking back at his younger self.

And when he, when old Ignatius looks back at young Ignatius, He admits straight on, there are so many things about—and not just grace, he would admit… he even says flat out. There are so many things about God that I was totally ignorant of. I had no clue that God was like, this God was like this. And, and a central piece of that is I was really like God's grace was in my blind spot. I couldn't even perceive it. He, he himself says it.

Wilson: And you look back at this and he's straight up honest. Yes, was doing all of these good things to earn God's favor to win valor. You know, it it's, it's what he was coming up out of in the, in the, kind of, in his time and place with chivalry, uh, and knighthood being the model and the role that shaped so much of us, he's doing this to win his halo in the same way that a night would honor some kind of like, or a Knight would win some kind of honor from the. And sure we can look at this and say so much of that seems silly, right.

Like God loves us no matter what, you don't have to earn. God's favor all of that. And in all of that is true enough. And at this point, yeah.

Um, the whole person, the whole purpose of his life was driven by doing something that would win him.

Something that he felt like he didn't have. Right.

And so these outward works are gonna. Bring me glory and wind glory for God. Uh, and, and he still is, you know, this noble soldier, dreaming of fame and glory and unmatched deeds of courage, all of that stuff. But now instead of for my king now for God, and he says straight up at this point, I knew nothing about interior virtue.

Like humility, charity patients. Now he's got a few, a handful of interior virtues, you know, he's got courage. You don't do the kind of stuff he does without courage. He's got discipline. You don't do the kind of stuff he does without discipline, but there were all sorts of other internal qualities and virtues that he knew nothing about.

But the good news about all of this, and this is where. Uh, you know, we're, we're imagining this scenario where someone is some contemporary person is looking at Ignatius and going, well, what about grace and there's? And we're saying that person does have something to say to Ignatius, especially young Ignatius.

We're also saying older Ignatius realizes this and said it to a younger age too, but here's the point, right, where he's, he's doing all these things trying to win, uh, honor and glory. But now for God, instead of just his, his earthly king, at this point Ignatius has something to say back to us who are really, really concerned about grace too.

Julius: Yeah.

Wilson: If our concern for grace leads us to like totally do away with good works, or feel like it's wrong to put effort into intentionally trying to do something good, Ignatius speaks back to us at this point too. Because what he found out as his life played on was how— what he discovered and witnesses to his, how outer works could start to do things to his inner self. And these outer works did like… everything you do does something back to you, shapes you and forms you. And Ignatius’s life shows how. And this kind of dedication and consistency in the outer works, did something to his inner life, his inner being that allowed him to awaken to these sorts of internal goods.

And the way I would say it is it, it, young Ignatius was clueless about grace. But then he directed his life in Christian practice towards a different end. And now engaging in that practice towards that end is exactly what God used. That's exactly the thing that worked on Ignatius that made him the kind of person that was able to recognize.

Grace was able to see it as the energy, the shaping force that it is, and to respond to it. And so he, he admits, like we said, all the nations admits, he says this in his autobiography, that there's still so much from, from the like internal vantage. There's still so much, he didn't know about God, but where this really starts to connect for him in his story as well.

He was living in the cave. And at that point, when he's out there living in the cave, doing his prayer and doing his penance, he came to begin to understand God in a whole new way. You'd always known. God is like, right. Those sorts of biblical images, uh, resonated, made sense to him, but it wasn't until he was in the cave doing his penance for his king and all that sort of stuff that started to also be able to recognize that God is so much more than that.

His words for it is he started to see God is not just king, God is also like a school teacher— Gently gracefully teaching a child, which was an image for God he, he wouldn't have resonated with wouldn't have made sense to him before, out there engaged in the practice that way he becomes the kind of person that can think of can perceive that this is God too. This is God, gently, kindly, intimately, not just barking orders, but close and awakening him to the inner nature of things, uh, to, to see things that until this point and what I'm really trying to stress here is he wasn't just ignorant of them.

You know, he'd read the Bible. He was raised in a very Christian. He'd heard the scriptures. So it's not just that he was ignorant. He was incapable of resonating with and understanding God is like this.

Wilson: But now, as his journey progresses and moves along, this is where Ignatius has something to say back to us who, because there's always the danger of, of taking the message of salvation by faith, by grace alone and subtly making our faith. Now, I mean, essentially the same thing that incredible acts of generosity and penance were for St.

Ignatius. It's super tempting and easy for us to make our faith. I mean, to still center that in us to make our trust and our faith in God's grace, that act on our part, the thing that saves. And, and that's, that's, it's so subtle and tempting, but what Ignatius says back is when he awakens himself to when, when he awakens to grace, he never, like, he never feels remorse for doing good works.

He never feels guilty for working so hard to do good things. It's, you know, if this guy would have felt guilty for it, he would have gone to confession and he would have told his priest about it in excruciating detail about all of the things that I did trying to earn it. He doesn't feel he doesn't feel guilty about it.

And he never like, um, suddenly talks about good works as if they're not worth anything and not something that Christian should be engaged in, because what he came to understand at this point is that, that grace, um, as— well, let me say it this way. At this moment, he becomes aware of grace, but that doesn't mean that that was the moment that grace started working in his life.

Julius: Ooh. Yes.

Wilson: Right. Like, he becomes aware of it and now it's not like, “Ooh now grace is, is at work in me. And from here on out, I'm energized by grace.” This is the point where he becomes aware of it finally, late in the game and becoming aware of it. He's now able to look back and see that grace is what made anything good possible. Right?

That even in my past, grace was at work. And this is because that's what real grace is. It's not centered in us. Grace is God's favor, it's God's power at work in us. And so sure. Bam. There's this thing called grace. I see it now. It's not like it wasn't there before. He now, you know, it's not from that point on. Looking back everything was graced.

And so we can see like every moment of his life, everything good was made possible because of God's grace. And so all of it was you. Right. So he was, he was a military man. And while he's part of that vast efficient military machine, God used that stuff because of grace in those places, we could see Ignatius learned something about how to bring order to groups that are, if it's just a bunch of individuals run over, like we'll run a thousand different directions. If there are a thousand different individuals there, but can bring order to that kind of complexity in a group setting, it made him the kind of man that could found the Jesuit order would exist to this day, also called the society of Jesus. Um.

But, but founded it and structured it in a way that, uh, and—and the Jesuits do still tend to be pretty rigorous,— but, uh, even, even, not just in spite of its rigor, but because of its rigor, it grew, was able to spread and do incredible good, uh, in his day and age, which in a lot of ways was like ours, where there was a lot of religious uncertainty, a lot of just philosophical, cultural uncertainty too.

And that makes people scared. And that all in that sort of environment always tends to breed violence. And in a moment like that, he was able to found a rigorous discipline society that let people find a way to, to center themselves… and, and live in such an uncertain time. And so his time in the military was graced. Uh, all of his physical exercises, and I mean, literally like working to get the, the sword moves. I don't know anything about it. I should have done a little bit of like “perry”? Is that…?

Julius: Uh, no clue whatsoever.

Wilson: Is that like blocking a blocking a strike or something? I don't know, whatever, but. Everything over and over and over again, training his boss. His muscles for sword fights got something into his body and into his mind that allowed that carried over all of that physical exercise was used. Now it reminds me of when Paul says physical training is of some value.

Julius: Right.

Wilson: A lot of us, especially if we mis- understand grace, we'll hear that, and even though it says physical training is of some value, we'll hear that as “Physical training is worthless.” That’s not of no value. That's not what Paul says. It is of some value.

And there is something of Ignatius is physical training that carried over in his mind and in his body that made him the kind of person. Who, especially when he awakens to grace and when he has his ambitions and his goals redirected towards God, it made him the kind of person that could persist in prayer and in study the way he did until they actually showed fruit.

So even as time as a soldier was graced. When he was crippled by the cannon ball, that was grace. God used that to teach him how God can speak through our limps. You know, literally and metaphorically, how, how Ignatius, who, who wanted to be, and in so many ways was so disciplined and strong— that awakened him to how God can use our weaknesses too.

And some of our greatest work comes from vulnerability. Graced. Like in, in all of these ways, in every moment before Ignatius became aware of it, grace was working in his pain and his loss and his training and his discipline. Whatever happened, whatever instance it was, always prior to it was grace.

Julius: Yeah.

Julius: I love that. I think Ignatius's story affirms kind of, I mean, in the tradition that we come from a really Wesley and kind of view of grace, of all of reality, having. Being graced by God, right. Anything that has life that has, like, goodness, um… beauty to it, is graced by God. And so these things, um, Ignatius awakening to this grace… what happens there is that, um— I think you've said before that grace doesn't like erase our nature, but, um, but that grace, I guess, truly like perfect it and like affirms the things that are good in, in how like his passions, right, his discipline and situates them in a love, in something that is greater than some of the lesser things that those these practices were directed towards. Right.

Like, um, the discipline in the military, like being directed towards power. Or like, violence… redirecting the good that comes from the discipline toward something like love and communion with God. But, but without getting rid of that part of his story or his character. Like, not ridding him of like the passion and the intensity, just directing that away from vanity and towards chasing God and wanting to know God more deeply. That that is the grace that is at work in everyone's story and in all of creation.

And I think that even the people that like, maybe don't resonate with Ignatius’s like intensity. I, I think that there's something to be said there of… I think it speaks to— Ignatius had like a, I guess like a religious zeal in everything that he approached, um, in every aspect of his life that he engaged in. And I think there is something true to that adage that we are all religious about something.

You know, we, we are all pulled by something. There's something that we desire and that shapes our actions. And then we have habits that grow out of that and things that we are like… there are things that we can be intense about, no matter if our personality isn't intense or not, that we have learned how to approach the world in such a way that is religious. But that the grace of God is that which like, kind of doesn't get rid of those things, but redirects them and situates them.

Wilson: Yep and that's. That puts, a… or gives opportunity for us to just clearly state exactly what we're hoping to do now, what we're trying, what, what our, uh, our conversation about Ignatius to cap off this series on practice would let us do, is to see how these interrelated parts of what we're calling a practice. And again, you know, we can go back to earlier episodes for the explicit definition, how we're using it.

We're not just talking about any time you work at something, but a practice according to the, you know, the very specific definition we've been working at or looking at, lets us see how. right.

That when you’re, you’re… everything you do has some sort of ultimate goal in mind. The question is just how aware of that goal are we, do we realize what it's aimed toward? And is it good? And what we're hitting on on here is when that practice is taken and directed towards a good goal— a telos, an ultimate aim…. when that's directed towards a good one, what that does is start. Uh, work on us, enable us to become the kinds of people that can recognize, appreciate experience the internal goods. The real benefits woven into God's creation by grace.

And so what that would do for something as central to Christian thought as like the category of grace has helped us to understand what grace is. Like Ignatius now, as, as this is connected towards this great, a genuine goal to know and love God… even if, even if we would say, when he first aimed himself that way, he didn't know what that meant. But he was genuinely, at least, at least now genuinely aimed toward that. He comes to know more and more of what it is to know and love God. To come to know more truly what we even mean when we say the word “God,” and along the way to, to then realize the grace that is there, that's making it all possible. And what that opens up for us.

And this is where it really comes together. Like Ignatius looking back at this, seeing all the times that he spent visiting hospitals, and when he let his hair and fingernails grow out to counter his vanity, um, and, and like limping on foot towards Jerusalem to do penance and like… all of this stuff, his acts of generosity, over the top gifts, towards the poor, all of those things were worth doing.

And when this started, when the telos shifted, things inside also shifted. Not just the ultimate goal way out there on some transcendent horizon it, but that shifting that transcendent goal shifted and unlocked things inside of him. So he could understand, like what we're saying, what grace is. That was kind of, it took me a while to get there, but to restate that's the point.

When you, when you aim it towards God, it allowed Ignatius to understand what grace is and what would, he would have to say back to us who, rightly, our goal— one of our goals would be to understand what grace is. He could help us with that by saying that grace is not just unearned favor from God. It is that, right…

It's not just unearned favor from God, but Ignatius sees because of that favor because of all those gifts, God enabled me to do all those good things. Even though I wasn't fully aware of all of the dimensions of what it means to be truly good. God's grace enabled me to do that. And so, grace is not just unearned favor from God, but another dimension of that, or because of God's unearned favor, grace is also unearned power that allows me to do good things.

Wilson: And that's what Ephesians says. That's what comes next, It is not by works, but by grace that you have been saved, right? Not of yourself so that no one can be. Right after that, Paul says for you were created for good works. And this is what Ignatius shows us is that grace unlocks it ma is the unearned power that allows us to do what we were made for.

And we were made for good.PRACTICING SAINTHOOD - Discussion