In order to shed some light on the complementarity between Ignatian and Carmelite Spirituality that is being discussed at present I would like to say a few words to avoid confusion. The Black Death or the Plague (1348-1350) was so horrific, so widespread and so destructive that people began to ask how God could allow such a thing to happen. Where was he when the collective prayers of Christendom rose up to plead with him to stop it? Where was he in those apocalyptical times, and why was his Church on earth so impotent to prevent almost half the population of Europe dying terrible gruesome deaths?
Instead of looking to God and his Church then, many started to look elsewhere for spiritual guidance, for principles on which to base their lives. When the Renaissance (circa 1350-1620) conveniently unearthed the ancient philosophical religions like Stoicism that the early Church had condemned, many began to turn to them. The influence of these doctrines can still be seen in the Exercises of St Ignatius that were composed at the height of the Renaissance
The Credo of Humanism
The Credo of the humanism that was born at the Renaissance was, “I believe in man, what man can do, what man can achieve with his unaided human endeavour”. The Credo of Christianity that was born on the first Pentecost is, “I believe in God, in what he can do, in what he can achieve with his divine endeavour, working in those who open themselves to receive him”. The new religious congregations founded after the rise of humanism then, like the Jesuits, were deeply influenced by what man can achieve, working by his own endeavour.
Those founded before the rise of humanism are more influenced by what God can achieve working through those who firstly turn to him, and continually turn to him in mystical prayer. For it is here that they are purified to receive his love and all the infused virtues contained within that love . It is this that enables God to do through those who receive him what is impossible without him. Now, in order to avoid any misunderstanding both these trends are orthodox, as long as the grace of God that comes to us through the sacraments is sufficiently emphasised. However, if the mystical prayer that prepares and purifies a person to receive this grace is not sufficiently taught and practised, then the reception of God’s grace will of necessity be impaired.
No Mystical Theology – no true Discernment.
The discernment process that you find in the Exercises of St Ignatius are a good example of these two different approaches, if you read them as they were originally written in the Exercises. For the older orders it is in mystical contemplation that the Holy Spirit gives the wisdom and the other infused virtues that enable a person to see the truth about oneself, about God, and what he wants of you and of his Church. Their whole emphasis is theocentric not anthropocentric.
As the Jesuits have no mystical tradition, they have devised the process of what is called ‘discernment’ to do for them what the Holy Spirit does in mystical contemplation, because mystical contemplation plays no part in their spirituality. The only effective way that a person can discern God’s will for themselves, or for others is in the light of the Holy Spirit, not in the light of man-made rules or instructions. Even if they were divinely inspired they will be misunderstood and misapplied by those who have not been sufficiently purified in the mystical purification to receive ‘the infused gift of Wisdom.’ Let us see how what is being called ‘discernment’ today was achieved in the early Church
How the Catholic Church makes Decisions
When in about AD 48, fifteen or more years after the Crucifixion, several serious questions that were dividing the early Christians had to be resolved. A gathering of the faithful was called together to settle the matters. St Peter presided but other apostles were there too, including St Paul. This conclave that came to be called the Council of Jerusalem was seen as the prototype and forerunner of the later ecumenical councils. Please notice that those involved had come, not to take part in some sort of discernment process devised by human beings, but in serious debate and discussion that was successful because deep and prolonged prayer had sufficiently purified their minds and hearts, making then porous to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit who guided and inspired them.
This had already taken place over many years in the lives of the apostles in ‘retreat’ at Jerusalem and in St Paul’s ‘noviciate’ for ten years in the Arabian desert and in Tarsus, where they had been radically purified in such a way that they were open and docile to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, their experience had led them to insist on at least two years of prayerful preparation for all those who were preparing for baptism, after which this preparation would become part of their daily lives, as described by the fathers of the Church.
The fruitfulness and effectiveness of all later Councils, Conclaves and Synods depended on prolonged and serious arguments and debates of the participants who for many years had their minds, their reasons and their hearts purified in profound contemplative prayer. It was the quality of the collective prayerfulness of the participants that preceded these conclaves that determined the quality of the presence and the power, the influence and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Their conclusions therefore would always be attributed to the Holy Spirit working through those who, through their prayerfulness were at all times open to receive his wisdom.
That is why when announcing the results of their deliberations at the Council of Jerusalem, St Peter uttered those famous words. “It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and ourselves” (Acts 15:28).
In Catholic Councils, Conclaves and Synods it is primarily the Holy Spirit who is at work, but his work depends on the collective quality of the prayerfulness of those who are sufficiently open to receive him. This is how God’s will is sought in the Catholic Church. The same means of seeking his will was copied by the monks and nuns in their monasteries and the mendicants in their priories and friaries through their Chapters.
It was only when later congregations like the Jesuits rejected contemplative prayer and the purification that would make the working of their minds and heart both sensitive and open to the Holy Spirit, that they had to devise man-made methods and techniques to discover, or in their words ‘discern the truth’ to which only the Holy Spirit can lead people. True God-given Wisdom is only fully open to those who have become poor in spirit and humble and pure of heart, in the purification that only comes through encountering He who is mighty, in profound contemplative prayer.
The Demise of Mystical Theology.
After the Renaissance the theocentric and the anthropocentric spiritualities began to travel side by side, one emphasising divine endeavour the other human endeavour. These two trends or pathways continued to journey on side by side in the seventeenth century until at the end of that century a counterfeit form of protestant-inspired mysticism called Quietism was condemned by the Church. It unleashed a powerful anti-mystical lobby that threw out the baby with the bath water, permanently undermining the classical Catholic teaching on mystical theology.
Henceforth the two different pathways would disappear as the spirituality that maximised the action of man’s endeavour became the major highway along which the vast majority who wanted to deepen their spirituality travelled. This anthropocentric or man-centred emphasis that originated at the Renaissance (1350-1620) was reinforced at the Enlightenment (circa 1700) when mystical theology receive a further knockout blow from the rationalism that became the arbiter of everything.
If there is no mystical theology, no teaching on how to prepare oneself to receive God’s grace in sufficient measure then we are condemned to making do on a diet that is hardly sufficient to keep us from spiritual starvation, never mind receive into us the fullness of God’s grace in Christ’s mystical body. The spirituality that emerged and continues to prevail down to the present day was called ‘Devout Humanism’ by the renowned spiritual theologian Louis Cognet.
All the great saints who helped bring about renewal into the Church in the past were great mystics, every one of them. They became such because they radically gave themselves up to the prayer in which they were prepared through purification to receive the Holy Spirit as did our first forebears in the early Church. What was once done to transform a pagan Roman Empire into a Catholic Empire before can be done again to-day. However, this can only be done through learning the profound mystical prayer that was taught by the two great mystical doctors of the Church St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila, not by turning to man-made techniques and methods to do what only God can do through those brave enough to give themselves to him.
Mercurian and St Teresa of Avila
When the Jesuit General, Mercurian heard that one of his priests was supporting St Teresa of Avila in her mystical prayer, he was told to stop and lead her back to the Exercises of their founder. What was done then has been done by many Jesuits ever since. The Ignatian Exercises were ratified by a Papal Bull but not as the ultimate pathway to union with God, but as a beginner’s guide, and only a beginner’s guide because it completely excludes the mystical theology that is needed to guide a person onwards when spiritual adolescence comes to an end.
If the Ignatian Exercises are seen as the introduction to the mystic way as detailed by the great Carmelite saints, then that would be fine, but they are not, and those who teach Ignatian spirituality positively exclude it, or at least they never show any knowledge of it, nor therefore ever teach it. Instead they keep trying to do what Mercurian did over four hundred years ago. It is no good protesting that the Exercises both describe and encourage ‘contemplation,’ because in the Exercises the word ‘contemplation’ is used to describe what mainline mystical writers have called meditation or Lectio Divina for centuries. In other words the prayer of beginners who have not yet been led into the Mystic Way.
Despite their renown for intellectual brilliance that dazzles their devotees, Jesuits are by training no more than spiritual adolescents. They are therefore unable to lead and guide others into the contemplative prayer that is totally alien to their tradition. When approached for help by those clearly called by the Holy Spirit to contemplative prayer, bona fide spiritual travellers are regularly dismissed out of hand. They are dismissed as being misinformed, deceived, or suffering from some mental aberration or sinfulness that has to be addressed before they can be considered worthy enough to be introduced to the Exercises.
In this way they manage to ‘gaslight’ those who are on the right path making them feel spiritually inferior because they have chosen to follow the spiritual way that leads to humility, not one that leads to the arrogance of self-made spiritual masters. So for more than four hundred years they have been preventing the Holy Spirit from raising up the great saints and mystics through whom he can bring about the renewal that is several hundred years overdue.
Rather then by actively trying to generate the sort of contemplative prayer through which the infused gifts of understanding, prudence, and wisdom are given, they have spent their time trying to do the impossible. They have been trying to harness their own unpurified mental and emotional powers to misunderstand and misapply whatever the current secular ‘wisdom of the world’ happens to be for the benefit of the Church, and often therefore with disastrous consequences, as we can see today.
Please do not try to do the impossible. Ignatian Spirituality is all but totally different from the Carmelite Mystical Spirituality that is needed more today than at any time before. For the classical Carmelite tradition, mystical prayer is their very life blood, but for the classical Jesuit tradition mystical theology simply does not exist, or if it does, it plays no serious part in their mainline spirituality.
To say that you can fuse Carmelite Mystical Spirituality, that reflects the Catholic mystical tradition from the beginning with the Ignatian moral spirituality that reflects the stoical philosophical tradition that began to seep into Catholic Spirituality at the Renaissance, is simply impossible.
In short and in the words of Christ himself. “First seek God and his Kingdom of Love and everything else will be given to you”. And this means above all else, the God-given wisdom without which we will be no more than blind leaders of the blind.
First published on Catholic Stand and Big Pulpit
Hello,
Just stumbled on your article on Ignatian \ Carmelite compatibility.
It is interesting to find how the Soul of Christ prayer had the ” Let thy sacred countenance shine upon me ” replaced by the current ” O sweet Jesus, hear me! “. Evelyn Underhill would have been ecstatically and gnostic in the decent of man, if she had known of the change.
I know that this is now an old thread. However, I wanted to acknowledge that this has been helpful to me. I have long thought that the discussion of “acquired contemplation” which often turns into a heated debate with Carmelites on one side and Ignatian proponents on the other, is in fact a category mistake. Carmelites argue for a phase in the life of prayer that precedes infused contemplation but represents a distinctive maturation of discursive prayer. Ignatian proponents and others, deny this, insisting that there is contemplation and contemplation only, though they can be cautious about using the word “infused”. (Of course, when talking among themselves, Ignatian proponents mean something very, very different by “contemplation” in any case – for them all word forms derive from a verb “to contemplate” which is an alien understanding from the Carmelite perspective.) I know that the notion of “acquired contemplation” is not from the language of Teresa of Jesus or John of the Cross but I think it may have some mystagogical value, though discussions are often merely semantic. However, the Ignation/Jesuit position is really a denial of infused contemplation at all. At best, they see the great silence into which the soul may be drawn as a psychosomatic state that may represent a deepening of the soul’s mediated awareness of God – a taking of breath, before returning to the world where the real search for God continues. Rhaner sums it up when he says that there is only ever “mediated immediacy” and no distinctive immediacy, or infused contemplation at all. While they avoid the term, Ignatian proponents deny the reality of anything beyond “acquired” contemplation.
Thanks so much David. So true! Best wishes, Mairi
Thank you for publishing this essay. I have a better understanding now of something that had puzzled me quite a while. You are so correct when you write that Catholic mysticism is a neglected subject. The spiritual exercises and lectio divina are so often put forward as the full extent of mental prayer, the best one can do. I had asked for spiritual direction and was given the steps for these methods which surprised me because they seem like ‘baby steps’. However, these methods are easy to describe. I have read The Interior Castle and enjoyed it very much, it was a clear and simple guide to prayer as I have always known it. The mystic experience is shunned for not being clear minded and even a sign of madness. That makes speaking about it with others difficult. To be honest, I don’t even try anymore, but I am so often shocked and dismayed at the pessimism and lack of faith in the Power of God that I hear from so many clergy, consecrated people and laity. Anyway, thank you for reminding me that mysticism is not the equivalent of madness and that our goal is union with God.
Charlette, you are so right. Thank you for your valuable contribution.
David
Thank you for this article! I consider myself a Carmelite in spirit after learning from Dan Burke’s spieituadirection.com and Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation.
But I have also benefitted from Ignatian spiritual exercises when I had my conversion a decade ago.
Right now I am teaching an Ignatian course to college seniors in a Jesut university.
I agree with you that the spiritul exercises are best suited to the outer dwellings of the interior castle.
And I can see how the discernment of spirits is more anthropocentric. This would certainly explain why Jesuits in general tend to confuse Catholic spirituality with New Age and psychology trends.
I have had a Jesuit SD and a Religous of the Cenacle Sister who dismissed interest and/or experiences in theoretical life.
But my current Jesuit SD isn’t like that. He is famiiar with the Carmelite tradition. And he encourages me along the path God is leading me.
I’d love to understand this issue more thoroughly. Knowing the weaknesses of Ignatian spirituality will help me address them in guiding my students. God bless!
Dear Maria,
Thank you for your very helpful and insightful comment. If you are interested in seeing a copy of my book, currently with the publishers, I would be happy to send you a copy. You will recognise some of the material from spiritualdirection.com but I have added much more and dealt with this subject in greater depth. Please just send me an email via https://davidtorkington.com/contact-david/ and I will send you a word copy.
God bless you always.
David
Thank you very much for your generous offer! I am very grateful! It would certainly help my students.
God bless you always and in all ways!
Dear David,
I just discovered you last night on a Discerning Hearts podcast on your book, “How to Pray”.
Turning to your website I was immediately drawn to your thoughts on Ignatian spirituality and Carmelite mysticism.
Wow! I can’t thank you enough. I just withdrew from a 3-year Ignatian SD program in my first year. I kept thinking, “I don’t like these Spiritual exercises which we were required to do every year) and the rules of discernment seemed too unnecessarily complicated, antiquated, too rational and planned out.
I’m drawn to the Carmelites and other mystics.
I’ll be interested to read and listen to some of you other work. Thank you!!
Karen
(A former United Methodist pastor)
Dear Karen, Thank you for this heartfelt comment. I have explained much in my latest book due for release late this year. May I send you a copy? Please email me your address on davidjohntorkington@gmail.com
Afterthoughts
In order to question the assumption that Jesuit and Carmelite spiritualities are mutually compatible, I have précised six long chapters from my book, ‘The Primacy of Loving’ that will be published in the new year. Although I have listed in this book many great Jesuits, two of whom I have been proud to call my personal friends, the wellbeing of the Church impels me to point out certain glaring anomalies in their spirituality. Although these anomalies are well known to older Orders, what I feel is a misguided charity has prevented them from pointing out the truth, so the laity remain confused, most particularly about the true nature of the authentic Catholic mystical prayer that is rejected.
This profound and life-changing prayer that was, and still should be the life blood of the Church, has been undermined in the name of a false Modernism conceived at the Renaissance. The word mystical has been for too long derided. It merely comes from the Greek word meaning hidden, secret or invisible. It is the prayer made in Christ’s mystical body where, in, with, and through him, we share in his mystical contemplation of the father. Mystical theology, that has been shunned by main-line Jesuit spirituality for almost five hundred years, teaches how to practise and persevere in the self-sacrificial loving in prayer that gradually changes a person through purification. This is the only prayer that gradually enables us to be united with Christ, not just with his person, but with his personal mystical contemplation of our common Father which is our final destiny. It is not an extraordinary way for a few extraordinary souls, but for all, so that, as St Thomas Aquinas puts it, we can first contemplate and then share the fruits of contemplation with others.
I can no longer stand by and remain silent when I see ignorance of this, our profound heritage replaced by superficial manmade so-called spiritualities. I am referring to fads like the enneagram, Jesuit versions of depth psychology and homemade socio-psychological methods of doing what only the Holy Spirit can do. I am tired of seeing intelligent men so misled themselves and then misleading others by replacing orthodoxy with the latest pseudo-mystical practices culled from India such as Ignatian yoga, Jainism, and other ‘isms’ to replace the genuine mystical theology that they reject. If their use of the discernment process over the last four hundred years or more has still not enabled them to discern genuine mystical prayer from its counterfeit, and then to replace this prayer with the latest fads and fashions, then its purpose must be questioned. This is particularly true when after over four hundred years their discernment process has still not enabled them to see and understand what is detailed by St John of the Cross at the very outset of his mystical theology, namely, how to ‘discern’ when the Holy Spirit is leading a person from the prayer of first beginnings into the contemplative prayer where they will be prepared for union with God. This, the most important moment in a person’s spiritual life is never mentioned in Jesuit spirituality to their own personal spiritual detriment and advancement, and to the detriment and personal advancement of vast numbers of Catholic laity who still look to them as to the great spiritual leaders in the Church.
Enough is enough. I am stating what others can see but refrain from saying, because of a Catholic political correctness that prevents them from stating the truth loud and clear. No wonder the laity do not know where to turn, for they are sheep without shepherds. I have summarised authentic Catholic mystical prayer in podcasts that can be found on my website and that may help to complement my books on the traditional orthodox Catholic teaching on prayer from its first beginnings, in the God-given spirituality that Christ introduced into the early Church to the present day.
This is very good. I think there are several challenges to those who are moving down the mystical way. The first is the lack of any spiritual directors as guides. The second, and related, is that as an individual moves down this path, there is often a substantial uptick in the demonic. As St. John of the Cross stated, the devil was his chief combatant. St. Terese stated too that the enemy was excellent and putting together all sorts of things to make her think something was going to come true. Now, we know that the Lord allows the evil one to perform his work as part of the purification, to bring about Heroic Virtue, so that we may be “mature and complete, not lacking anything” But it is a difficult road. You have to be all in.
Thank you for this article! This is a very pertinent topic for me.
I consider myself a Carmelite in spirit after learning from Dan Burke’s spieituadirection.com and Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation.But I have also benefitted from Ignatian spiritual exercises when I had my conversion a decade ago.
Right now I am teaching an Ignatian course to college seniors in a Jesuit university.
I agree with you that the spiritual exercises are best suited to the outer dwellings of the interior castle.
And I can see how the discernment of spirits is more anthropocentric. This would certainly explain why Jesuits in general tend to confuse Catholic spirituality with New Age and psychology trends.
I have had a Jesuit SD and a Religous of the Cenacle Sister who dismissed interest and/or experiences in mystical life.
But my current Jesuit SD isn’t like that. He is famiiar with the Carmelite tradition. And he encourages me along the path God is leading me.
I’d love to understand this issue more thoroughly. Knowing the weaknesses of Ignatian spirituality will help me address them in guiding my students. God bless!
Thank you, David, for this.
Thank you for giving us a clear picture of the differences between the two orders. It was very informative and helped me understand why I was never drawn to Jesuit teachings. It seemed to “go against the grain” for me. The historical explanation showed and gave me insight. God bless you
David, Thank you for writing informing on this most important topic. I Strongly Concur and add that when St. Ignatius turned, God proceeded the turning, and ran before him with His Grace. Man has no initial or subsequent power beyond Him who gifts and waits and “the Holy Spirit is given to him who obeys.” If one does not “have the courage” to give themselves to God,” in humility and obedience, the higher gifts and fruits will be impaired not by the the giver of gifts, but by mans human will opposition and resistance to His creative power to heal and repair and restore man to the “utter fullness of Christ,” as Adam in the beginning. This is our ultimate redemptive gift and call, to praise and Love Our Father and His children, so as to draw all to Him in and through Christ reigning in the full Dominion of our souls, as Alter Christus, Ipsi Christus; another Christ, Christ Himself. “Christ enables man to live in Him all that He Himself Lived, and He lives it in us.”CCC 521
This is really an amazing analysis! Thank you.