Formation and the Practice of Discernment

It is an honor for me to be here with you in a place that has so much meaning for our community and in a series that has brought so much consolation to all of us.

Mark, and our co-chairs of our Ignatian Year Working Group, Ron Anton and Kelly Otter, invited me to offer these reflections on discernment, in the context of an unusual celebration. We honor the moment of conversion—of a young courtier, injured in an impossible battle in Pamplona, defending a “stronghold the French were attacking.”¹

We know that he was highly regarded—for his courage, bravery, his skill on the battlefield.

His opponents had such respect for him—they carried him off the battlefield and brought him home.

In his Autobiography, Ignatius, from the village of Loyola, shares with us what unfolded in his months of convalescence—his account of his conversion.

But let’s not rush this. In good Ignatian style, let’s activate our imaginations and try to wrap ourselves around what happened.

He was hit by a cannonball! I try to imagine what it was like to be hit by cannonball.

Listen to his words:

“…a shot hit him in one leg, completely shattering it for him; and because the ball passed between both legs, the other was badly wounded too.”²

More than his leg, his entire world was shattered.

His self-identity, one whose “chief delight” was “in the exercise of arms, with a great and vain desire to gain honor,” was hard to sustain.³

But not without trying. In convalescence he asked for books that would feed this identity—requesting “tales of chivalry.” With none to be found, he was limited to “a life of Christ and a book of the lives of the saints….”⁴

We are all the beneficiaries of what unfolded in the imagination—in the interiority—of this young man from Loyola.

What emerges is an experience that might have resonance with each of us: there were interior movements that brought him joy. And there were interior movements that brought sadness, a heaviness, even dread. He gave us the words that describe these contrary interior movements—consolation and desolation.

When he reflected on his reading of sacred literature “the life of Christ and the lives of the saints” and allowed his imagination to flow: consolation.

When he reflected on the ways of the world—on the pursuit of glory, of honor: desolation.

These experiences, in his home in Loyola, as he recovered from his injury, set him out on a new path—on a new journey.

He calls himself a “Pilgrim.”

And building from the experiences in Loyola, he developed a practice that would enable himself and others to grasp sources of consolation and those that could lead to desolation. This practice is called discernment—he calls this practice the “discernment of spirits” and develops a guidebook—the Spiritual Exercises—for those who would guide, direct, support colleagues who seek an immersion in the practice.

This handbook was originally intended for his closest colleagues and soon for the first members of a new religious order.

As John O’Malley has taught us (and I will likely refer to many things John has taught us!):

“No previous religious order had a document like it.”⁵

Five-hundred years later—here we are—members of a community of an American research university, celebrating the moment that started the founder of a religious order on his “pilgrim” journey. My reflections today will focus on the meaning of this moment for this university community: why would we privilege and celebrate this moment—specifically—how does the practice of discernment fit within the mission and purpose of Georgetown University?

What is “discernment?”

Early in the interview that more than any introduced the way of proceeding of Pope Francis, Father Antonio Spadaro, S.J., asked the Holy Father the following question: “What does it mean for a Jesuit to be elected pope? What element of Ignatian spirituality helps you live your ministry?”

Pope Francis responded with the word: “Discernment”:

“Discernment,” he replies.

“Discernment is one of the things that worked inside St. Ignatius. For him it is an instrument of struggle in order to know the Lord and follow him more closely.”⁶

Father Nicholas Austin of Campion Hall, Oxford, calls discernment a “simple but transformative practice.”⁷

And later, writing on the Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, Father Austin identifies Pope Francis as advocating for “formation in discernment.”⁸

This transformative practice is outlined in the Spiritual Exercises. And again, John O’Malley:

“The immediate action of God on the individual is the fundamental premise of the Exercises.”⁹

Discernment assumes that we can each have a personal relationship with God. Ignatius is saying to us:

“Understand my journey. I have one. And all of you can too!” 

We see the first indication of the origin of the practice in Ignatius during his convalescence:

“…when he was thinking about that worldly stuff he would take much delight, but when he left it aside…he would find himself dry and discontented. But when…going…about [what] the saints had done, not only was he consoled while in such thoughts…he would remain content and happy even after having left them aside.”¹⁰

In his interiority, some thoughts left him “dry and discontented” and others “consoled…content and happy.”

Ignatius continues:

“…he wasn’t…stopping to ponder this difference, until one time when his eyes opened a little, and he began to marvel at the difference in kind and to reflect on it, picking it up from experience that from some thoughts he would be left sad and from others happy, and little by little coming to know the difference in kind of spirits that were stirring: the one from the devil, and the other from God.”¹¹

This is the “first reflection” of Ignatius on what he will develop in the Spiritual Exercises.

The deepest explication of “discernment” is offered near the conclusion of the Exercises—Rules by which to perceive and understand to some extent the various movements produced in the soul: The good that they may be accepted and the bad that they may be rejected.

Here Ignatius offers two sets of “rules” or “norms” to help the spiritual director in understanding the interior “movements” of the individual the director is helping.

The two “movements”:

“…I give the name ‘consolation’ to every increase of hope, faith, and charity, to all interior happiness that calls and attracts a person towards heavenly things and to the soul’s salvation, leaving the soul quiet and at peace in her Creator and Lord.”¹²

“…’Desolation’…darkness and disturbance in the soul…one finds oneself thoroughly lazy, lukewarm, sad, and as though cut off from one’s Creator and Lord.”¹³

What follows is somewhat technical—hard-earned reflections of St. Ignatius’ own engagement with these “contrary” movements.

John O’Malley identifies the limitations of this document:

“One of the world’s most famous books, the Exercises are in that category one of the least read and least well understood. Reasons for this reality are not difficult to find…They were…a set of materials, directives, and suggestions for the person helping another through that course. They are…more like a teacher’s manual than a student textbook…[consisting] of interspersed pieces from different literary genres—directives, meditations, prayers, declarations, procedures, sage observations, and rules.”¹⁴

To grasp the nature of the practice as a lived reality, I think it is helpful to turn to the “second” Jesuit—Ignatius’ roommate at the University of Paris—the first of the men to take vows as a priest—one who learned the practice of discernment from Ignatius himself and, as Father James Martin has shared, the one “Ignatius would say…was the most skilled of all the Jesuits in giving the Spiritual Exercises:” Pierre Favre.¹⁵

Saint Pierre Favre—he was canonized by Pope Francis in 2013—left us a Spiritual Autobiography—in the form of a diary, the Memoriale.

What we see in Favre’s interior life is the emphasis on “affect.” It is not a rejection of the “intellectual” but a recognition that there is more to our interiority—and attention must be given to this additional dimension—the “affect.”

As Father Brian O’Leary, an exceptional interpreter of Favre has shared:

“The priority to be given in our experience to the affective element over the intellectual element is one of the corner-stones of Favre’s theory of discernment. The spirits make their presence felt through affective movements over which the person has no control….”¹⁶

Here is Saint Pierre Favre:

“…I understood more clearly than ever…how very important it is for the discernment of spirits whether we direct our attention to thoughts…or to the spirit itself. For the spirit is wont to betray its presence through desires, feelings…tranquility or disquiet, joy or sadness…It is surely through these rather than the thoughts themselves that one can more easily pass judgment on the soul….”¹⁷

We are not to ignore or reject or run from these interior movements: we are to try to interpret them. What are they telling us? What could they mean? Where are they leading us? If they are leading us toward “consolation” than they can be trusted and we need to reflect with them. And if the contrary, they need to be resisted. What is this work of interpreting these feelings?

This is discernment.

Father O’Leary:

“It must again be stressed that the basic experience is affective, because this is how the spirits manifest their presence.”¹⁸

It can be in a desire or a feeling or in tranquility or disquiet, in joy or sadness…these are ways in which our soul can speak to us.

And Saint Pierre Favre:

“…you will easily detect both spirits: the spirit which strengthens and the spirit which weakens, the spirit which enlightens and the spirit which darkens and defiles—I mean the good spirit and the one which opposes it.”¹⁹

We see in Favre, a faithful companion, putting into practice the insights provided by Ignatius.

Here is one last passage, a reflection following an experience while celebrating Mass:

“…during Mass I had a feeling that in this communion with him the better part is to share in what he experienced during his passion, not only in his body but also in his soul. For his soul was sorrowful at the thought of the dangers that threatened souls: eternal suffering, temporal punishment…The above was not imparted to my understanding or recalled to my memory by means of words new in themselves, but my awareness of them was something new and unusual.”²⁰

That “something new and unusual”—the recognition of the importance of focusing on the affective dimension—the source of this insight.

We recognize the importance of our Affect—in its most developed form is captured in the word Sentir.

What I have tried to emphasize in Favre—is the importance of affect.

For Ignatius and for Favre…this is not a rejection of the intellect. Our reason is essential to our humanity. What is new—or original—or…Ignatian—pay attention to our interiority. Look for what brings consolation…and trust it. Look for what brings desolation…and study it. This attention we pay…will illuminate—will shine a light on our interior lives and enable us to experience the presence of God in our lives.

No doubt you noticed and perhaps are uncomfortable with some of the vocabulary. The references to “spirits”, to “devis”—sits uneasily in our modern setting. It is important that we recognize, we do not share the same worldview as Ignatius and Favre.

Father O’Leary:

“The existence of an invisible world, inhabited by spirits both good and evil, was taken for granted by the men of sixteenth-century Europe. It was a belief, a conviction, a part of their cultural imagination, which they had inherited from the Middle Ages, and which neither the Renaissance nor the Reformation had done anything to undermine.”²¹

Father O’Leary recognizes “the difficulties which modern readers face” but encourages us to identify: “What is of perennial value in the writings of Favre…”²²

Father David Lonsdale, another incredible master of Ignatian spirituality, reminds us that works like Ignatius’ Autobiography and the Spiritual Exercises and Favre’s Memoriale were written in a pre-Freudian psychology. 

In contemporary discourse, we would use a different vocabulary, in seeking that which has “perennial value” in the penetrating insights into our interiority offered by Ignatius and Favre.

There is one more word I wish to share today and I will again look to Father O’Leary for insight. The word is sentir—an Ignatian word that is difficult to define.

Here is Father O’Leary:

“Sentir is obviously a key concept for Favre as for Ignatius. Here we would stress the point that it defies any efforts to force it into either an intellectual or an affective category; it successfully spans both. Hence the difficulty of translating it by any single word. Phrases like ‘to have a felt understanding’ of a truth, or ‘to have an experiential and affective knowledge’ of a person or a thing, are awkward; but they are often necessary circumlocutions to bring out the rich spiritual meaning of the original.”²³

What we have here is a profoundly original and deep understanding of our interiority—an understanding that enriches our grasp of our identity as a university.

Discernment respects our whole person—including our affect—and this respect for the whole person bring us to formation.

What we see in Ignatius, in Favre, in the First Jesuits—and through to the present day—the insights offered now more than four centuries ago, enrich and expand our understanding of the work in which our university is engaged.

The practice of Discernment addresses the experience of deepening our relationship to God. Within the mission of our university—for some of our members, this can connect to the work in which all of us are engaged—the work of formation.

I began these reflections with the question: why would we privilege and celebrate this moment—specifically—how does the practice of discernment fit within the mission and purpose of Georgetown University? This returns us to the word that I shared at the beginning of our time together: formation.

Colleges and universities support the formation of young people in multiple dimensions.

Most of this development has already taken place in various settings and contexts before students ever arrive on our campuses. Young people emerge out of families, faith communities, primary and secondary schools, youth sports, and artistic experiences, such as drama and music; they are immersed in popular culture; they are connected to each other through social media. They have grown up with an array of cultural norms and assumptions.

These settings and contexts all contribute to their personal development. And yet, our colleges and universities play a distinctive role in continuing and contributing to this formation process, one that is shaped by the centrality of knowledge.

Colleges and universities are dedicated to the acquisition and dissemination, the discovery and construction, the interpretation and conservation of knowledge.

Together, these knowledge-developing activities determine the orientation of the university.

In short, knowledge is what we are for; it is our work; it is what we contribute to the students who weave in and out of our orbit, and to the larger environments in which we’re situated. And our role in students’ formation across all dimensions occurs at a particular time in their development, as part of an arc that begins at birth and continues throughout their lives.

And formation involves more than knowledge—all of our colleges and universities support the interior work of making meaning in students’ lives and we provide a broad range of resources to support this work.

For our institutions have long provided a multitude of resources that complement the work in our classrooms and laboratories, libraries and seminar rooms, ranging from co- and extracurricular programs in the performing arts, to volunteerism and community service, intercollegiate and intramural athletics, campus newspapers, literary magazines, and our programs in residential living.

In our residential campuses, we provide these programs to enrich and enhance the undergraduate experience. In some cases, in some of our communities, these complementary programs have a disproportionate, even, at times, an unhealthy presence. Yet whether it is the outsized role of an athletics team or of a marching band, we all navigate through the distinctive histories and cultures of our campuses, with a belief that these programs are valuable to the overall student experience.

Beyond the work of formation within structures committed to knowledge, universities provide a place for protecting and nurturing resources of incomparable value for deepening self-understanding, self-awareness, self-knowledge—resources that support the interior work of making meaning in one’s life.

We seek to provide a context for our students to become their most authentic selves.

For some of our students, we know that the work of pursuing a personal relationship with God is essential to becoming their most authentic selves.

Look around our campus—the sacred spaces provided:

• for our Protestant community—St. Williams Chapel; 
• our Orthodox community—Copley Crypt; 
• the new Masjid for our Muslim community; 
• the Makóm for our Jewish community, and the Dharmalaya for our Dharmic community; 
• and of course, this sacred home for our Roman Catholic community.

The Calcagnini Contemplative Center; our programs in Campus Ministry—Father Mark, Greg, Jerry, Jim, Rachel, Yaya, Ebony, Bramachari, David—to name just a few.

We take seriously here the possibility that each of us can enter into an intimate, personal relationship with God. And that this is connected to the work of formation.

An authentic self is one living in accord with one’s most deeply held values; one capable of resisting the forces of darkness that are always pulling us away from the goods that enable us to realize our full promise.

Our decisions and actions are informed by these values, these goods. We seek alignment between these goods and our decisions and actions. We seek authenticity. As the philosopher, Charles Taylor, writes: “There is a certain way of being human that is my way.”²⁴

All of us struggle to align our decisions and actions with the deepest goods that animate our lives.

Too often, however, we lack an interior freedom that enables us to break through blocks to authenticity.

It is possible for our colleges and universities to contribute to this interior work in which our students are engaged, the work through which an “authentic self” can emerge.

And here, beginning with that injury in Pamplona, a sacred resource emerged that is available—the practice of discernment.

Close

In this university, animated for more than two centuries by the Jesuit tradition, we accept the possibility that we can each have an intimate relationship with God.

As heirs to the insights of St. Ignatius, we believe a way into this relationship is careful attention to our interiority.

Ignatius gave us two words, consolation and desolation, to describe interior movements that are most important.

With St. Pierre Favre, we understand the need to engage the affect created by these movements—looking for those movements, those yearnings, those desires that bring us to joy, to flourishing, to deeper meaning—these movements—that will deepen our capacity to be in intimate relationship with God.

There is a powerful idea at work—that we can attain “felt knowledge.” Knowledge that we just know, in the deepest parts of our beings, is true. We have both our intellect and we have this practice—of discerning the affect that we have in each of our interiorities.

We share a deep conviction of the significance of our inner lives—that our interiority can be enriched, illuminated, strengthened—that it is worthy of our attention and our care.

In a university community, we foster the work of formation; the process through which we each seek to become our most authentic self. And in this university community, we are the recipients of these gifts of incalculable value, that enrich us in our quests for authenticity.

And it all started when a brave young man was hit by a cannonball five hundred years ago.

Works Cited

1. St. Ignatius of Loyola, Personal Writings, trans. Joseph A. Munitz and Philip Endean (London, Penguin Books, 1996), 1.
2. Ignatius, 1.
3. Ignatius, 1.
4. Ignatius, 5.
5. O’Malley, John, The First Jesuits (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1993), 37.
6. Pope Francis. Interview. Conducted by Interviewer Antonio Spadaro. 19 August 2013.
7. Austin, Nicholas. “Francis: the discerning pope.” Thinking Faith. 9 March 2018.
8. Austin, Nicholas. “Discernment as a Work of the Church.” Thinking Faith. 16 October 2019.
9. O’Malley, 43
10. Ignatius, 8.
11. Ignatius, 8.
12. Ignatius, 316
13. Ignatius, 317
14. O’Malley, 37.
15. Martin, James. “Who was Saint Pierre Favre?” America Magazine. 24 November 2013.
16. O’Leary, Brian, Pierre Favre and Discernment. (Campion Hall, Oxford, Way Books, 1979, 2006), 112.
17. St. Pierre Favre, The Memoriale, trans. Edmund C. Murphy SJ. The Spiritual Writings of Pierre Favre (St. Louis, The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996), 300.
18. O’Leary, 113.
19. Favre, 302.
20. Favre, 275.
21. O’Leary, 72.
22. O’Leary.
23. Leary, 86
24. Taylor, Charles, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1992), 28.