YIN & YANG OF SPIRITUAL EXERCISES

As I was reading about Teresa and Ignatius I felt like I was experiencing the yin and yang of spiritual devotion and exercises. Teresa’s devotional methods were much more passive and developmental where as Ignatius’s seemed like devotional boot camp. Teresa talks about the watering of a garden, with each step bringing us away from doing and more into BEING. Then she talks about the silkworm, spinning its cocoon, dying, and then being transformed in a butterfly. Her descriptions are so gentle and calming and draw you right into that space of forgetting about the action and enjoying the contemplation.

Ignatius, on the other hand, sets up his spiritual exercises like a devotional “boot camp”, examining, confessing, ordering one’s life, setting priorities, and achieving goals. I was exhausted just reading about the exercises without even yet attempting to try them. His military background came through loud and clear. Schmidt suggests that he left his legacy in the Jesuits, who are “called to do something, not merely to be something.”

Fortunately there is a need for both methods because people are different and respond differently to methods that work best for them. What is even better to combine the methods and create a balance of doing and being. I think Teresa did this as I read her saying, “It won’t do for everyone to spend long hours in prayer, because there must be someone to cook the meals.” There are always conflicts about being vs. doing in the Christian walk. I must admit I would put the being first, and then the doing would be truly fruitful.