“The Kingdom of God is near you” [Luke 10:9]

There are three strands that appeared in our conversations these past three days of Heartland-Delta 4. These are: [1] stories became a powerful vehicle for the narration of our spirituality, [2] the Ignatian educational process is profoundly relational, and [3] a profound trust that the way of the human is the way to God.

The stories we heard and the stories we told were the rhetoric of this conference. Only narrative, finally, captured the graced complexity of our listening and our response as in:

Jack De Gioia’s narrative centered on the triad of mystery, love, and grace
Maureen Fay’s story focused on her adaptation of Heroic Leadership
Karen, Chuck, and Joyana told of their personal conversions towards justice
Greg Boyle’s prophetic emphasis that beyond taking a stand is the choice to stand where Jesus stands
Alice Hayes’s invitation to see our Jesuit educational future in liberating the imagination so that our stories find life and power.

The Jesuit educational process is founded on relationships:

With those whom society has forgotten or ignored
With colleagues whom we trust will reverence our stories
Within an ever-widening kinship, characterizing our work as a union of minds and hearts
With the Ignatian heritage unfolding within our school apostolate as a sign of the Spirit’s abiding presence
With the futures we are called to create.

Our journey calls us to a profound trust in our human experiences as housing the presence of God and the directions of God, as reflected in:

Greg Boyle’s insistence on “today” and “now” as the moment in which we meet God
Jack De Gioia’s insistence that mystery, grace, and love have to abide within our lives as discoveries of God’s accompaniment
Maureen Fay’s insistence that our strategy is to find God in all things
Karen, Chuck, and Joyana pinpointing within each of their moments of conversion the people and events that revealed God’s call to them
Alice Hayes’s exploration of how that future lies within the acceptance of the changes we all must make in the present.

Conclusion.

As an old man Ignatius had completed the Exercises, most of the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, and hundreds of letters. But, in the end, what his followers wanted most was his story, his narrative of how it all began.[1] The final gesture of his heroic leadership was to narrate how God had treated him like a schoolboy,[2] gradually and patiently, leading him to trust his experience[3] and to dedicate all his energies to helping people.[4] During these three days through presentations and through conversations we have renewed this Ignatian process. What does this experience mean to us now?

Each of us will have to unpack the meaning for herself and himself. But one constant consolation is that we stand with Ignatius best when we stand like pilgrims, not controlling our lives and our talents but surrendering these in trust to the unfolding leadership of God. We leave Heartland-Delta 4, proud to be pilgrims, women and men still finding the way, still people on the journey both as Church and as Ignatian apostles. As pilgrims our journey discovers new hope in the promise of today’s gospel: “The kingdom of God is near you.”

Howard Gray, S.J.

[1] Cf. this reflection from Saint Ignatius of Loyola: Personal Writings, edited by Joseph A. Munitiz, S.J. and Philip Endean, S.J. (London: Penguin Books, 1996): “This particular account of Ignatius’ s life, written up from his own spoken narrative, seems to have arisen from the initiatives taken by two of his followers, Jeronimo Nadal, who perhaps did more than anyone else to consolidate and institutionalize the Society of Jesus, and Luis Goncalves da Camara, the faithful, almost adoring scribe to whom Ignatius recounted his memories. Why were these two men interested in having a text based on Ignatius’s reminiscences? Nadal tells us of how he was anxious that the elderly Ignatius, having achieved his major goals, would soon die” (p. 3).

[2] Ignatius Loyola: Reminiscences [27].

[3] Ibid. [27]-[31].

[4] On the importance of this Ignatian phrase in forming the Society of Jesus, cf. John W. O’Malley, S.J., The First Jesuits (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993): “ ‘To help souls.’ By ‘soul’ Jesuits meant the whole person. Thus they could help souls in a number of ways, for instance, by providing food for the body or learning for the mind. That is why their list of ministries [in their founding documents] was so long, why at first glance it seemed to be without limits. No doubt, however, the Jesuits primarily wanted to help the person achieve an even better relationship with God. They sought to be mediators of an immediate experience of God that would lead to an inner change of heart or a deepening of religious sensibilities already present. With varying degrees of clarity, that purpose shines through all they wrote and said as the ultimate goal they had in mind when they spoke of helping souls, whether through the simple Christianitas of their catechesis or through something more profound” (pp. 18-19).