St. Ignatius of Loyola

Contemporary Spiritual Problem:  Subjectivism 

Dear friends, these days from both within the Church and from without we see an inordinate emphasis on examining one’s subjectivity in a quest to come to terms with “my truth.”  On this memorial of St. Ignatius I’d like to combat this.  It is disturbing to see such sophisticated sophistry masking emotivism and relativism within the Catholic Church – from the world we don’t expect much else.  My most recent explicit encounter with this was when I noted Fr. James Martin decrying the document Rome put out on the issue of Gender Theory.  The document was technical, pastoral and used very intelligent categories to explain itself.  A great deal of work must have been put into this document and encouraged Christians to “propose” a Christian and sound-philosophical Anthropology.  So how did Fr. James Martin respond?  He said that those who had constructed the document didn’t take into consideration the subjective experiences of those experiencing gender dysphoria (of course, I’m restating this in my own terms).  In other words:  let us totally ignore all the critical thought in this document that is logical and well thought out and discuss how people feel instead.  It’s an unintelligent response that skips over almost everything important I learned in my class on logic.  It also reeks of false compassion, since compassion isn't genuine without objective truth.  For someone to dismiss logic so simply (appeal to emotion and experiences), is to demonstrate an attitude towards truth that is disinterested at best. 
 
Authentic Accompaniment

I don’t say any of this to rally support against such clerics or opponents to a sound Theology of the Body.  In fact, I think the less attention we give such “public” speakers, the better.  But what it illustrates to me, and ironically so from a Jesuit, is that we’ve lost our capacity to discern God’s Holy Will.  Today we celebrate the memorial of St. Ignatius who gave the Church a systematic way of examining our subjectivity that holds it accountable to objective truth.  The authentic Jesuit tradition does not ignore subjectivity, nor does it lean upon it as infallible.  Rather it acknowledges our own feelings, our own nature and the society we live in, and seeks to bring all of this into conformity with God’s truth – or Truth itself.   This is a process that requires accompaniment within the Church.  Yet today people approach "accompaniment" with a twisted version of itself which generally can be called "the gradualness of the law."  This is when the law is introduced and applied to the person incrementally and according to "where they are."  This subordinates the moral law to one's subjective state of life and is therefore a form relativism.  On the contrary, law is the greatest teacher, and when it made invisible to people or not applied when it ought to be, it enables its rejection rather than acceptance.  True accompaniment is best described as "the law of gradualness" whereby the law remains explicit and applied, yet if a person struggles to agree, practice, or understand and consent to it, that doesn't mean they will not be cared for, and invited to a deeper relationship with other Christians.  Rather we will walk with them, bending over backwards to show them that we love them.  The sacraments might not be able to be administered to them "yet" but that doesn't mean that they will be rejected.  In a broader context, outside of the liturgy, a person can experience acceptance that will help them understand why holding off on an initiation into the sacraments is actually a loving and accepting thing for the Church herself to do.  This is only possible lest we abuse the liturgy and treat it as if it is used to evangelize the non-believer.   Our only outreach cannot be limited to the liturgy, in fact, the liturgy is for the initiated.  And the safeguarding of the sacraments will teach them more eloquently of their dignity and foster a genuine desire for communion.
 
The Question We Should All Be Asking!

What might be lacking in our lives is just as simple as a this concrete question:  “but what does God want?”  To even ask this question, authentically, is to inspire detachment from our own subjective experiences, our subjective feelings and preferences, from the pressures of the world, from the fears and anxieties or the moments of desire and passion.  To bring to a halt all of these things within the “subjective-self” by asking a question about God’s will rather than ours is a huge step in the right direction.  It is also a sign of interior freedom, whereby our will is not impulsively driven by such factors, yet remains aware of them and capable of discernment amongst them.  This question doesn’t appeal to what “others think” or “others experience” but it appeals to “God’s thoughts” and His “heart and will.”  This can lead to a change of heart within us, to experience the good, rejoice in beauty and goodness, and change our perception and even affect towards what is objectively good.  It begins by this enlightenment in regard to what is true.
 
To that end, I would like to give reflection on two key concepts.  The first is in regard to developing an actual concern and care for what God thinks and loves.  The second concept I’d like to address are the four voices that can influence our decisions.  There is a particular order to this reflection.  We cannot even begin to discern these four voices properly if we do not have a real commitment and dedication to hearing God’s voice.  It is too easy to rationalize to ourselves “what God is saying” when in reality we are actually just listening to one of the three fallible voices that can mislead us.
 
We must develop a deep sense of following God’s Will alone.  In order to do this we must come to terms with our own addiction to self-will.  Self-will is to ultimately trust our own judgment or the judgments of others over God’s.  A will that does this is by the virtue of this act demonstrating a lack of faith in God’s goodness.   When we do not have faith in God’s goodness we are ultimately not only victimizing ourselves, but insulting God and not being truthful about whom He actually is. In a nutshell, we are rejecting God.

The Origin Of Disobedience:  Inordinate Fear
 
So how do we care about God’s Will more than our own?  It might help to first realize that the main reason we do ignore God's will is ultimately because of fear.  The inordinate fear that tells us God is cruel is the deepest lie built within our soul and it’s planted there by the devil.  Not only is God cruel, but so are His laws.  Think back to the Original Sin, where Eve was convinced after a dialogue about God, to eat of the forbidden fruit.  God had commanded this of Adam and Eve for their own good – and with faith, they would have trusted this commandment as such.  But the devil dialogued with Eve and she listened.  Here we learn about the limits of dialogue, whereby dialogue can itself become a sin when we open our mind to evil, rather than God.  That is, we willingly open our mind to the liar.
 
The devil ultimately twisted Eve’s mind (with her permission) against God, and it was only then that she found the fruit desirable.  Prior to this temptation the fruit was quite undesirable.  Satan convinced her of three lies:  1) that God is a moralizing tyrant, 2) that God is a liar; and 3) God is in direct competition with mankind’s success.  The devil began sowing these seeds by first asking 1) did God really tell you not to eat of any of the trees in the garden?  No, there was only one tree that was forbidden, all of the rest were good.  How often do we get tunnel vision with what we cannot do that we lose sight of the real blessings in our lives?  The devil continued this deception about God’s goodness by saying 2) you will not die.  In other words, God lied to you.  And finally the devil convinced Eve in a final manipulation by saying that 3) you will become like God.  In other words, the reason why God is lying to you and holding you back is because He wants you to be inferior to Him and not to reach your own full potential.  One can see that here the devil is crafty – yet the cruelty of Eve and Adam is often overlooked in this process when you think about it.  They were willing to entertain all three of these lies after all that God had given them.  They had walked with God in the garden, and gotten to know Him, and yet they chose to entertain a false narrative.
 
The simple application of all of this descends upon the Church today in two particular ways.  The first is the attitude towards the Church’s teaching, and the second is the actual meaning of eating from the tree and how that plays out today.  If one looks at the popular view of the Church from the worldly and likewise dissenting Catholics, we can see a common thread:  “the Church is a moralizing tyrant that wants to oppress people to prevent them from becoming who they truly are.”  In a nutshell, the devil has convinced many people, like Adam and Eve the same thing about the Church that was said of God in the garden by the Serpent.  This shouldn’t surprise us since the infallible Magisterial teaching of the Church is itself God’s voice by the Holy Spirit.  Why else would the devil attack people's understanding of it, and generate so many strawmen in this regard?  The Church and Christ are one, and it requires faith to assent to this fact.  But how can such faith be fostered if people truly believe in their subjective view of things which end up being the exact opposite of what is true?  How can conversion even begin to take place when the only reference point is one's own personal interpretation of their own experience?  In other words, the inordinate emphasis on a person’s subjective feelings doesn’t account for the possibility of self deception or social deception or even diabolical deception.  All three of these types of deception were considered by St. Ignatius of Loyola.
 
St. Ignatius clearly stated that when discerning the Will of God that if one’s understanding of God’s Will contradicts scripture or the Church, then it is to be immediately disregarded.  This seems to be the missing step perhaps in some Jesuits as well as other Catholics.  It’s almost as if people are instructed to “follow your conscience” while bypassing the very gifts of revelation from Truth itself:  scripture and the Church, science and philosophy (four pillars of truth).
 
The second implication is the actual nature of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  The sin didn't involve allowing Adam and Eve to develop their knowledge and to keep their understanding simple and unreasoned.  That is Hollywood's interpretation of scripture. Adam and Eve already knew the difference between good and evil:  don't eat of this tree (bad), but eat of all the other trees (good).  Therefore the actual sin is best described as “appropriating to myself the Divine-prerogative to define good from evil.”  Its a false knowledge that man cannot actually obtain.  Ironic isn’t it?  Once God is no longer part of the picture "I" can make the whole universe revolve around "my" will.  I can define what it means to be man or woman, to be a person or not a person, all because “I will it to be as such.”  Yet no matter what narrative a person creates from themselves it is a supreme act of pride (which we are all sadly guilty of), it all amounts to nothing more than investing in an illusion that supremely offends God.  We are given this wonderful gift of our existence and creation that comes with a design, and the first thing we do is tell God (by our behaviour) that we think He did it out of cruelty, as we resent his designs and we think we know better.  
 
If we can have a heart for God’s designs, His wonderful work in creation, and thank Him by embracing it, even when we don’t “feel” like it (due to concupiscence) or understand it, then we can give Him great glory by complimenting Him through faith that what He has done is actually good, and in fact: very good.  Pope Francis made this point in his document about the consistent love between ecology and human ecology.  He discussed the importance not to relativize sexuality, and to learn how to compliment God by appreciating the design in our very lifestyles and virtues (behaviour) (LS, 5, 148, 152, 155).  Pope Francis quoted his predecessor in saying:  “man too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will" (Ibid, 155).  Pope Francis, also a Jesuit, explains:  

It is enough to recognize that our body itself establishes us in a direct relationship with the environment and with other living beings. The acceptance of our bodies as God’s gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the Father and our common home, whereas thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation. Learning to accept our body, to care for it and to respect its fullest meaning, is an essential element of any genuine human ecology. Also, valuing one’s own body in its femininity or masculinity is necessary if I am going to be able to recognize myself in an encounter with someone who is different. In this way we can joyfully accept the specific gifts of another man or woman, the work of God the Creator, and find mutual enrichment. It is not a healthy attitude which would seek “to cancel out sexual difference because it no longer knows how to confront it”.  (Ibid)

The Four Voices

So this leads me to the last point of reflection:  the four voices that influence us in discerning God’s Holy Will.  If we have a faith, and a hope and love for God, then we will be able to discuss these four voices within the proper context.

1)  The Devil
 
The first voice we need to discuss is that of the Enemy.  Remember that the devil is a fallen angel who doesn’t often come to us appearing to be disgusting and vile, cruel and malicious.  He might want to hug you and smile in your direction.  He pretends to be what is going to soothe our pride and ego – and if we are concerned about being faithful, he will have his traps in this regard too.  If we are concerned with being perceived as compassionate, he will likewise have a counterfeit for this too. 

Let me keep how we approach this voice simple:  don’t dialogue with it and do not try to outsmart the devil.  Rather develop an utter indifference to Him.  Don’t get anxious, don’t get excited or angry – just move on to something else.  You can rebuke it, but then move on.  The devil doesn’t deserve our energy or time, and maybe the purpose of his whole dialogue is merely to wear us down and thereby wear down our resolve.  The desert fathers suggested something called holy apatheia which is a holy apathy towards listening to the devil and all things that would distract our soul from Christ.  Keep our eyes on Jesus.  How do we identify his voice as distinguishable from God’s?  The perversion of the devil's voice always leads us  back into a prideful state, where we are at the centre of our own universe.  It could contradict the bible or Church’s explicit doctrinal or dogmatic teaching to accomplish this end.  Imagine you have an idea or concept greater than what the Holy Spirit has already stated!?
 
2)  The World

The second voice is also very influential upon us, and we often don’t realize it.  This is the voice of the world.  The world will place what I call an extrinsic pressure upon us that we must be careful not to internalize unless it is true (unless it is from God).  In this case, when speaking about social pressure, we must be aware of our weakness as humans to be willing to compromise the truth and love in order to feel like we “belong.”  Cults exist precisely because of this weakness, whereby they convince people of the most absurd doctrines after making a person feel accepted, giving them a taste of what they will experience more so when they conform to whatever false doctrine is promoted.  An authentic faith will accept person's regardless of their doctrine, but it will never accept erroneous doctrine.  It will want to accept the person, but not the error they are wedded to.  Pressures aren’t always explicit, they can exist as a mere result of comparing ourselves to others, or by the behaviours of the majority of people that we find in our various social circles.  The point is, when faced with the feeling of an accusation or pressure from the “world” ask yourself, is this a reasonable suggestion, is it truthful, or is it artificial and extrinsic to me?  If so, ask yourself, “But what does God say?”
 
3) The Self

The third voice is simply the self.  We each have a voice and it is good to have this.  While we are each good, we are also not infallible.  I suppose a humble person will not only recognize this in principle, but will point out particular moments in his/her life where this ended up being the case, and where today it might still be the case.  As humans we are incredibly complex, wounded by many things, undergoing the disorder of numerous passions, filled with fears and anxieties.  We are also zealous and excitable about our passions and sometimes go about fulfilling our desire for joy in inordinate ways.  The integrity of mind and our heart are compromised – sometimes speaking truth, sometimes speaking lies, and sometimes a mix of both.  Jesus said he came to save the lost, not the righteous.  I suppose how we identify here is most important.  If we realize we need to be saved, that we are lost, and need to be found, we will admit easily that we need God’s direction above our own reasoning based upon our own interpretation of our experiences and intuition.  If we identify as already righteous, then we will say externally we are fallible, but act infallibly, and never really ask ourselves in a detached spirit:  “but what does God want?”
 
4)  God

The last voice is the Word - and therefore the only one worth opening our mind to.  It is God’s voice we long to hear, and often is found when we silence out the former three.  You see, God’s voice can be drowned out by us entertaining and listening to all these other voices.  By actively opening ourselves up and engaging in those voices we passively communicate to God we don't want to hear Him.  We lean into hear their words which are distanced and opposed to the voice of preferring God’s Word.  God doesn’t discourage, but He does challenge and in such a challenge demonstrates He has confidence in us.  He doesn’t soothe our ego, but he does draw our attention to the awe-inspiring fact that we are good only because of God, and we find our dignity in being a finite participation of His infinite Being.  God’s voice brings about charity, but not the sickly sweet sentimentality of charity that is praised by the world’s comprehension of love.  It is something so much deeper that doesn’t depend on the praises and acceptance of others, and in fact is so hated at times that it later is accused of hatred and then crucified.  God’s voice is always in union with the infallible magisterium and infallible word of God.  It is found in humility, and it begins by simply asking “What do you want God?”