Jesuit Friends and Alumni Network Lunch

It’s terrific to have this time with all of you this afternoon and to have this moment to reflect together on the values of Jesuit education.

All Jesuit colleges and universities share, what distinguishes us within the context of higher education, is our tradition—a tradition of education that may be the greatest the world has ever seen.

For four decades, Georgetown has been my home. And I’ve had the honor in serving in my role for the past 22…almost 23 years.

The perspective that I offer is that of someone who has lived his life in a community, shaped by a tradition, by the values of the Academy. It’s an experience that I would not trade for any other.

And it’s a life that I share with all of you here. This gathering has brought together many friends and colleagues who I’ve had the privilege of working alongside for many years, who’ve helped to shape my own experience of faith, and my life at Georgetown.

This tradition is a gift to all of us who have the opportunity to live, learn, work, and serve in Jesuit higher education.

This afternoon, I want to start with this feeling—this idea—this sense of rootedness that can come from an experience of our tradition. What is it about the Ignatian tradition that gives it the resonance it does for so many of us?

We begin with St. Ignatius.

Ignatius gave us processes by which to understand our own interiority—our sense of identity…the person that we are, the values that guide us, and how to bring those values into alignment with our actions.

Let’s start at the beginning—at the moment of Ignatius’ conversion—the radical transformation he experienced over all those months recovering from his battle injuries.

I want us to begin with 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.”¹

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.²

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….”³

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.

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.

Fr. John O’Malley S.J. taught us—as he taught us so many things: “No previous religious order had a document like it.”⁴

Five-hundred years later—here we are—seeking to understand for ourselves those aspects of our lives that bring us toward consolation, and those that lead us away, towards desolation. Here we are with the resources to engage in our own practice of discernment, to understand our own interiority.

What is “discernment?”

Early in the interview that, more than any other, introduced us to Pope Francis and his way of proceeding, Fr. 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.”⁵

Father Nicholas Austin of Campion Hall, Oxford, calls discernment a “simple but transformative practice.”⁶

And later, writing on the Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, Father Austin identifies Pope Francis as advocating for, as he describes: “formation in discernment.”⁷

This transformative practice is outlined in the Spiritual Exercises.  Again, John O’Malley’s wisdom:

“The immediate action of God on the individual is the fundamental premise of the Exercises.”⁸

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!”

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.”⁹

“…’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.” ¹⁰

We are to try to interpret these movements. We are not to ignore or reject or run from them. Instead, we ask: 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.

Ignatius is telling us not to reject the intellect. Not to reject reason. What is new—or original—or…Ignatian—the recognition that we must pay attention to our interiority.

Look for what brings consolation…and trust it.  Look for what brings desolation…and study it.  This attention will illuminate—will shine a light—on our interior lives and enable us to experience the presence of God in our lives.

What does this mean for us in the context of the college or university?

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

The practice of Discernment addresses the experience of deepening our relationship to God.

Within the mission of a college or university—for some of our members, this can connect to the work in which all of us are engaged—the work of 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.

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. And of course, our diverse campus ministry.

Beyond the work of formation within these 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.

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.”¹¹

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 Ignatius, a sacred resource emerged that is available to all of us—the practice of discernment.

Thank you.

1. Ignatius, 1. 
2. Ignatius, 1.
3. Ignatius, 5.
4. O’Malley, John, The First Jesuits (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1993), 37.
5. Pope Francis. Interview. Conducted by Interviewer Antonio Spadaro. 19 August 2013.
6. Austin, Nicholas. “Francis: the discerning pope.” Thinking Faith. 9 March 2018.
7. Austin, Nicholas. “Discernment as a Work of the Church.” Thinking Faith. 16 October 2019.
8. O’Malley, 43
9. Ignatius, 316
10. Ignatius, 317
11. Taylor, Charles, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1992), 28.