RS202: “Finding God in All Things:
The Spiritual Legacy of Ignatius of Loyola”
Instructor: Elizabeth A. Dreyer
Fairfield University
This course invites students into the experience and critical understanding of Ignatian spirituality. We will cover the life and history of Ignatius of Loyola; the founding and development of the Society of Jesus; the historical context of the major themes of Jesuit spirituality and ways in which these have been worked out in history; strengths, weaknesses, and potential lacunae of this particular charism in the church; its relevance to contemporary spiritual needs, especially in the context of university life; its potential for nurturing lives characterized by love for others and justice for the world. Students will have the option of participating in the Spiritual Exercises; a variety of prayer forms highlighted by Ignatius; a service learning project; interviews and research related to themes of the course.
Resources for this class include: a) the students’ own experience of life, university education, and class fieldwork; b) primary sources from the sixteenth century; c) secondary literature. The class will engage students at both intellectual and emotional levels, inviting them to learn about this one particular moment in the history of Christian spirituality – Ignatian spirituality -- and to mine its themes with an eye to its potential to enrich present understanding and living of the Christian life.
At the forefront of the course design is the Ignatian practice of conversation. From the beginning of his ministry, Ignatius chose to engage others in friendly conversation about their lives, their concerns, and eventually about God. The Exercises are also structured around conversations with God “as one friend speaks to another” (Ex. 54), and with a spiritual director. Each week there will be large group session (input, film, etc.) in which we will engage the major themes of Ignatian spirituality among faculty, students, and guest speakers. Each plenary session will be followed by small group conversation on the presentation and readings. Students will help lead these conversations.
Jesuit spirituality is both world-affirming and centered on the mystery of God; rooted in the Christian biblical tradition and in sixteenth-century Spain, yet open to the many ways in which God continues to communicate with the world. While the term “Jesuit spirituality” is often used to point to the spirituality of the Society of Jesus as a religious order, this course takes as its focus, “Ignatian spirituality” to emphasize its practice in the wider, lay community.
Required Material for the Course
Ganss, George, ed. Ignatius of Loyola: Spiritual Exercises and Selected Works. The
Classics of Western Spirituality. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1991.
Brackely, Dean. The Call to Discernment in Troubled Times: New Perspectives on the
Transformative Wisdom of Ignatius of Loyola. Crossroad, 2004.
Course Reader
Requirements
Class attendance and active participation in class conversation that shows a) evidence of careful reading of assignments; b) posing of questions emerging from this reading; c) visible efforts to relate material to the present in critical ways. 10%
Three or more unexcused absences will automatically lower your grade one step.
Short writing assignments; quizzes; occasional leadership role for class conversations. 30%
Mid-term exam. 30%.
Final project. (See end of syllabus for suggestions) 30%. Due at the time the exam for this class is scheduled, or before.
“If we were to trust the nightly news and the sitcoms, we might conclude that we are just lonely, violent creatures destined to spend our lives getting, spending, and bed-hopping. In this book, we have considered an alternative.” D. Brackley, The Call to Discernment, 253.
I. Ignatius of Loyola
Sept 4 Speaking Ignatian? Introduction to the Course
Welcome.
Writing exercise: What does it mean that Fairfield University is a Jesuit University?
Pre-test : What do you know and what do you want to know about Ignatian spirituality?
Syllabus
Final projects: Service Learning; The Exercises; Research projects.
Sept 8/Plenary: Finding God in All Things
Read: Lonsdale, Chapter 1: Course Reader.
Video: “Finding God in All Things” [Media Video BX 2350.65 F56]
Student video -19th annotation retreat.
Scalese video.
Sept. 11: Ignatius of Loyola
Read: Ganss, “The Autobiography, #8-10, 20, 24, 33, 41, 50, 57, 60-61, 67-70, 77, 95, 99-100.
Ask 10 Fairfield students/faculty/staff what they know about Ignatius of Loyola. Write up any information you receive (1-2 pages) and assess the knowledge quotient of these ten people. Due today.
Sign up for class project during class.
Sept 15/Plenary: Religious Experience: Wonder, Awe, Crisis
--What is it?
--Do I have it?
--Why is it important?
In-class exercise: Describe a spiritual experience that led you into the depths/heights beyond yourself. Would you characterize it as religious? Why or why not? What do you associate with religious experience?
Images of Ignatius
Assignment:
a) Go to http://www.pray-as-you-go.org Check the daily prayer for 1-2 days; “preparing to pray”; the 8-min. review of the day; “finding sanctuary”; “Who is using Pray-as-you-go?” These are prayer techniques adapted from Ignatius Loyola. Becoming familiar with them is a way to learn about this method of prayer through experience as well as reading. Write a one-page assessment of this website. Be prepared to discuss what happened when you engaged in these exercises. Be specific about what exercises you used and your reaction to them.
Sept. 18: Introduction to Ignatius Loyola (Pioneer in the Spirit video)
b) Read: Ron Hansen, “The Pilgrim: Saint Ignatius of Loyola.” Course Reader.
c) Read: William Meissner, “The Mind of Ignatius Loyola.” America (July 27, 1991). Course Reader.
II. The Exercises
“For him [Ignatius], solitude and lengthy prayer are not the chief standards by which to evaluate our prayer, nor is prayer always the preferred means to union with God.”
Dean Brackley, p. 244.
Sept 22/Plenary: The Exercises: Week 1
Lecture: The Structure and History of the Exercises: Week 1.
Read: Ganss, pp. 130-131: #23-26, Principle and Foundation.
pp. 136-40: #45-61.
Recommended:
1. Lonsdale, Chapter 6, “The Spiritual Exercises,” pp. 126-141.
2. Harvey Egan, “Ignatian Spirituality” in The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality
(ed. Michael Downey), pp. 521-29. This volume is in the reference section of the
library.
The Exercises are divided into “four weeks”:
Week 1: creative love, sinfulness, mercy
Week 2: Christian discipleship and vocational choices
Week 3: the suffering and death of Christ and its meaning for Christian existence
Week 4: the resurrection and its contemporary readings; being a contemplative in action
Elements of the deep structure of the Exercises:
Principle and foundation
Sense of sin
Freedom
Discernment (field of study, friends, lifestyle)
Jesus
Mission
Sept 25: The Exercises and Freedom
Read: Brackley, Foreword (pp. ix-xix), Afterword (pp. 253-255), Chapters 1-5.
Write: A 1-2 page paper explaining in your own words what Brackley means by freedom. Cite page numbers from the readings to argue your points. How does this differ from what the ordinary person might understand by the word “freedom.” Give an example from everyday life of true freedom and of pseudo-freedom.
Sept 29/Plenary: The Exercises: Week 2: Whose Side Are You On?
Read: *Ganss, pp. 154-57: #135-148, The Two Standards.
*Ganss pp. 160-161: #165-168, Three Ways of Being Humble.
*William Barry, Letting God Come Close: An Approach to the Ignatian Spiritual
Exercises (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2001): Chapter 2: “’What Do You Want?: The
Role of Desires in Prayer.” Pp. 26-43. Course Reader.
October 2: The Exercises: Week 3 and 4: The Christ of Suffering and Joy
Read: Ganss, pp. 167-73: #190-217.
pp. 174-177: #218-237.
III. The “magis”
“We urgently need a critical mass of such people to make this century the century of solidarity and turn the swelling tide of misery, violence, and environmental crisis.”
D. Brackley, The Call to Discernment in Troubled Times, p. 9.
Oct. 6/Plenary (YouTube: Bono and Pavarotti)
Assignment:
The news is filled with examples of extraordinary philanthropy. Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and Bono in Africa; philanthropy ($60 billion) of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet to respond to a wide range of global needs.
Read:
James Traub, “The Statesman: Why, and How, Bono Matters”, The New York Times Magazine (Sept. 18, 2005), 80ff. Course Packet.
Recommended:
One Step Closer by Christian Scharen [on U2] (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press, 2006). Scharen reflects on the Christian faith of band members’ Irish background and how U2 fits within the longer Christian tradition of voices that point us to the cross, to Jesus, and to the power of God’s ways in the world. He explores the music’s honest spiritual questioning with comparisons to King David, St. Francis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Dorothy Day.
Mountains Upon Mountains by Tracy Kidder (New York: Random House, 2003). The story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Harvard physician who has dedicated his life to practice medicine with the poor in Haiti.
Oct 9:
Read: Ken Anselment, “Soul Doctor”, Marquette University Alumni Magazine (Fall, 2005: 12-15), “Surviving Sorrow: One Mother’s Story” (Fairfield Now, Spring 2004, 23-25; “The Mommy Place” (Fairfield Now Summer 2004: 28-32); “Rescuing Family Friends” (Fairfield Now Summer 2005: 32-33). Course packet.
Write a 1-2 page paper reflecting on an experience in which you chose to go “above and beyond the call of duty” for a person, a cause, a commitment. What brought it about? Who was involved? How did you reflect about what to do? Why do you think you made the choice you did? How did this make you feel about yourself? Were others affected by your actions/words? Do you see any links between your life and the lives of public figures like Bono and Ignatius’s call to respond with generosity and love to what God is calling us to in our lives? Are there ways university students might think of their choice of majors, careers and future lifestyles in light of service to the world? What are obstacles to hearing and responding to this call? Mention 1-2 persons you know you functions as models of life for you and explain why.
Oct. 13: Columbus Day: No Class
Oct 14/Tuesday/Plenary
Class will be scheduled in the evening for film: “The Motorcycle Diaries”: We will meet in the lower level of the library, Room 101. 6:00 p.m.
Assignment: Write a 1-2 page paper on Che Guevara. Have you ever heard of him? Who was he? What was his background? Why is he famous? How did he end his life? Are there ways in which his life parallels Ignatius? Ways in which they are different?
“The Motorcycle Diaries” -- Directed by Walter Salles. Saga of two young men who take a trip from Buenos Aires through Chile, across Andes into the Peruvian Amazon. One is a 29- year-old biochemist, Alberto Granado; the other was a 23-year-old medical student, Ernesto Guevara. “One reason to explore the past is to try to rediscover an elusive sense of forgotten possibility, and in Mr. Salles’s hands what might have been a schematic story of political awakening becomes a lyrical exploration of the sensations and perceptions from which a political understanding of the world emerges. What ‘The Motorcyle Diaries’ captures, with startling clarity and delicacy, is the quickening of Ernesto’s youthful idealism, and the gradual turning of his passionate, literary nature toward an as yet unspecified form of radical commitment.” A.O. Scott, New York Times review (Sept. 24, 2004), E1.
Recommended:
Ruffing, Janet. “Ignatian Mysticism of Service: Ignatius of Loyola and Pedro Arrupe,” in Mysticism and Social Transformation, ed. Janet K. Ruffing. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2001. Pp. 104-128. (In library: reserve packet)
Nantais, David E. “Whatever!” is Not Ignatian Indifference: Jesuits and the Ministry to Young Adults. Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 36/3 (Fall 2004). In library: reserve packet.
Oct 16:
Read: Brackley, Chapters 7-13.
Discuss film and readings.
Oct 20/Plenary: Jesuit Mission: Guest Speaker: F. Maldonado, S. J.
Read: Brackley, Chapters 18-23.
IV: Sixteenth-Century Background
October 23: Sixteenth-century culture and art.
We will meet on the second floor of the library in the Kress Collection.
Assignment: Go on-line and spend 30-40 minutes viewing the catalogue of the Kress Collection.
http://www.fairfield.edu/art_kress.html
October 27/Plenary
What was going on in the 16th century?
Read: Gonzalez, Justo L. A History of Christian Thought: From the Protestant
Reformation to the Twentieth Century. Nashville: Abingdon Press,
Chapter 1: pp. 13-28. Course Reader.
Recommended:
O’Malley, John. “Early Jesuit Spirituality: Spain and Italy.” In Christian
Spirituality: Post-Reformation and Modern, eds. Louis Dupré and Don E.
Saliers. NY: Crossroad, 1989. Pp. 3-27. Vol. 18 of World Spirituality: An
Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest, ed. Ewert Cousins. Course
Reader.
October 30: The Women in Ignatius’s Life
Read: Assignment: Read letters in Ganss, pp. 325-341.
Nov 3/Plenary
Preliminary proposal for final project due (1-3 paragraphs)
Read: Decree Fourteen from GC 34, pp. 171-78. Course Reader.
Susan Ross, "The Jesuits and Women: Reflections on the 34th General
Congregations’s Statement on Women in Church and Civil Society,”
Conversations (Fall 1999), 20-28. Course Reader.
Recommended (In library on reserve – at circulation desk):
--Rosemary Angela DeJulio, Patrons, Pupils, and Partners: The Participation of Women
in Ignatian Spirituality and Pedagogy, PhD Dissertation, Fordham University,
2000. Chapter V and Epilogue, pp. 98-143
--Dyckman, Garvin, Liebert, The Spiritual Exercises Reclaimed: Uncovering Liberating
Possibilities for Women (Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 2001),
Chapters 1 and 2 and Appendix, pp. 3-50; 329-48.
--Ahlgren, Gillian T. W. “Women and the Pursuit of Holiness in Sixteenth-Century
Spain.” Chapter 1 Teresa of Avila and the Politics of Sanctity. Ithaca and
London: Cornell University Press, pp. 6-31.
--William Meissner, Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 238-71, "Women."
Nov. 6: Mid-term exam
V: Prayer and the Imagination
Nov 10/Plenary: Ignatian Prayer
Class will meet in the Lounge in Loyola Hall.
Read: Brackley, Chapters 24-26.
Mark 2. 1-12. Course Reader
“A Ministry of Access and Advocacy”by John Gage. Course Reader.
Nov. 13 Ignatian Prayer, Con’t.
Read: Hutchinson, Gloria, “Ignatius of Loyola: The Sensual Christian.” In Six Ways to
Pray From Six Great Saints. 1982. Course Reader.
Ganss, p. 151, #121-126, Application of the Senses.
VI: Discernment
November 17/Plenary: What is Discernment?
Read Brackley, Chapters 6, 14-17.
Many think about their calling in life without any reference to God. Others think that call comes as an unambiguous summons from God that can be easily sorted out and then obeyed. More helpful approaches attend to life’s complexities-- one’s gifts, lived experiences, opportunities. It is dangerous to link specific vocations (the single state, marriage, orders, religious life) with God’s will in simplistic ways. Rather, these “states” might be seen as lifestyles, “patterns we develop as we attempt to live out our vocation.” (E. and J. Whitehead, Wisdom of the Body). Thus, persons live out a range of vocations within their marriages, singleness or religious life across a lifetime. Vocation involves the question: “how does God want me to love?” and presumes sustained reflection on what it means to love well. Vocation draws us onward not by certainties but by questions: What is most necessary in our lives? For what are we living? What are the sources of our deepest joy and happiness? What does it mean to be a human person? A discerned call to a lifestyle or a career is but the inviting edge of vocation. “Something’s your vocation if it keeps making more of you” (Gail Godwin, Evensong).
Nov. 20: Discernment: Case Study
Write a 1-2 page case study regarding an important decision often faced by university
students. Design a process or set of procedures that would help someone in making such
an important decision. How would you recommend they go about it?
Recommended reading: Lonsdale, Chapter 4: Discernment of Spirits
November 24/Plenary
Read: Ganss: Exercises: “Rules for Discernment” (#313-336). Exercises: Examen (#24-
43).
November 27: Thanksgiving. No class.
VII: Ignatian Spirituality Today
December 1/Plenary Lay Power and Responsibility: Guest Lecturer: Paul Lakeland
*******Detailed Final Proposal Due
Read: Lonsdale, Chapter 10: Ignatian Spirituality and Lay Christians. Course Reader.
Lonsdale, Chapter 11: Current Issue in Ignatian Spirituality. Course Reader.
Recommended:
Ann W. Astell, Lay Sanctity: Medieval and Modern: A Search for Models (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2000).
Reflect on the following:
a) In what ways do you see the Ignatian tradition as useful (or not) to contemporary seekers of an intentional spiritual life?
b) Comment on your experience at Fairfield University vis-à-vis spirituality. How do you see yourself as a "spiritual person"? Was the Catholic, Jesuit nature of Fairfield a factor in your choosing it? What has helped/hindered your spiritual growth since you have come to university?
Dec. 4
Read: Tim Muldoon, Chapter 3: “How to Get the Most out of Your Workouts,” in The
Ignatian Workout, pp. 45-66. Course packet.
Dec. 8/Plenary/Final Class
Evaluations
Discussion:
Reflection questions:
Assess your learning and growth from the course. What changes took place? What perspectives already held, were reinforced, challenged?
Suggested Course Projects
“I always feel as if I stood naked for the fire of Almighty God to go through me – and it’s rather an awful feeling. One has to be so terribly religious to be an artist.”
D. H. Lawrence, cited in Steiner, 1989, p. 228
“Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?”
Annie Dillard, The Writing Life (New York: Harper, 1990), 68
A select number of students may apply to engage in the 19th annotation version of the Exercises. These students will write a final paper on this experience that includes both reflective elements and integration of the scholarly material of the course.
Engagement in a service-learning project with a social justice component (15-18 hours during the semester). Write a paper based on student’s experience; in-depth conversations with mentors involved in the project; analysis of the social problem addressed; difficulties encountered; joys, insights gained. Most important relate the experience to specific themes of the course related to Ignatian spirituality.
Do a scholarly analysis of a specific theme. Consult bibliography at end of syllabus for starters. Possible themes:
a) The nineteenth annotation. Resources include: Ravier, André. A Do-It-at-Home Retreat: The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola According to the “Nineteenth Annotation,” trans. Cornelius Michael Buckley (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991); Joseph Tetlow, Choosing Christ in the World: Directing the Spiritual Exercises According to Annotations Eighteen and Nineteen: A Handbook. (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1989); Smith, Carol Ann and Eugene F. Merz. Moment by Moment: A Retreat in Everyday Life (Ave Maria Press, 2002).
b) 20th century Jesuit martyrs and their female companions
c) Women and Ignatian spirituality today.
d) The Practice of Spiritual Direction
e) Historical Treatment of some aspect of the Jesuit tradition
f) The concept of vocation and how Ignatian spirituality responds to discerning one’s call.
g) Explore the apophatic and kataphatic strains in Ignatian spirituality.
Analyze the hagiographic tradition surrounding Ignatius. Consult early biographical material by Diego Lainez, Juan Polanco, Ignatius’s Autobiography, Pedro de Ribadeneira and Gian Pietro Maffei. Also Chapter 1 of Terence O’Reilly’s From Ignatius of Loyola to John of the Cross (full reference below).
Interview 5-6 persons who have made the Exercises; analyze this data in light of the structure and goals of the Exercises, contemporary spirituality, and relevant themes from the course; comment on insights gained from the experience.
Design and implement a two-day workshop for students who have chosen to become part of the Ignatian Residential College. Paper should include a) a rationale for its contents; b) an analysis of the audience and how to take their experience into account; c) theoretical backdrop for each aspect of the retreat; d) detailed plan of how each aspect of the retreat would be executed. Paper should show in-depth mastery of the relevant themes of the course.
Write and perform a play on some aspect of Ignatius’s life or of Ignatian spirituality in a university context (Group project).
Write, design and perform a project related to the arts that reflects or symbolizes what you have learned about Ignatian spirituality in this course. Explanatory rationale showing mastery of course themes must accompany the project.
Design a weekend retreat for university college seniors. Explanatory rationale showing mastery of course themes must accompany the project.
Do a thorough, scholarly reading and analysis of a significant primary text written by Ignatius or important secondary volumes related to course themes.
Read some of the texts read by Ignatius that influenced his thought and analyze how they do so.
A. Writings that influenced Ignatius himself:
The Golden Legend (Legenda aurea) by Jacopo de Voraigne
Life of Christ by Rudolph of Saxony
Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis
B.Influence on Exercises:
Ludolph of Saxony’s Vita Jesu Christi, who was influenced by:
Meditationes vitae Christi (late 13th early 14th Italian Franciscan document often attributed to Bonaventure, and certainly influenced, if not written by him (O’Malley, 46).
Identify the major images used by Ignatius in his writings, analyze their source and how and to what end Ignatius uses them, e.g., the image of the warrior.
Re-write/paraphrase key aspects of the Exercises from the viewpoint of women. Choose a number of key ideas from each “week” that you think lend themselves to fruitful adaptation for women. In each case, explain your rationale. See Lonsdale, Eyes to See, Ears to Hear (pp. 198-205; 215-16), who asks “Is Ignatian spirituality incurably partriarchal?”
Design a study on how reading the lives of the saints can influence an individual’s journey toward conversion. Focus on this experience in the life of Ignatius; find some other examples of this practice of reading lives of the saints; and connect this with contemporary spiritual practice in the 21st century with special attention to university students. Resources: Historical: The Golden Legend by Jacopo de Voraigne (read by Ignatius); Contemporary: James Martin’s My Life With the Saints (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2005); Robert Ellsberg, All Saints (1997) and Blessed Among All Women (2005).
Examine 2-3 contemporary figures who exemplify the magis in their lives; relate to course material. Examples include: Mother Teresa, Bono, Paul Farmer (Mountains Beyond Mountains), Martin Luther King, Jr., etc.
Identify the psychological presuppositions in the Exercises; assess ways in which this psychology might be helpful or problematic for modern readers (may be of interest to psychology majors).
Study and explicate key points in William Meissner’s assessment of Ignatius’s own psychology in Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint.
Explore the role of women in the sixteenth-century church and how Ignatius related to women. Hugo Rahner, Saint Ignatius Loyola: Letters to Women.
From a selection of Ignatius’s writings, ascertain the virtues which he felt were the most important and situate his understanding of virtue in his time and context and their relevance for today.
Analyze the main contours and historical context for the development of Ignatian education/pedagogy and how this relates to Ignatian spirituality.
Examine the influences of sixteenth-century humanism on Ignatius.
Discuss parallel and conflicting developments between the Protestant and Catholic Reformations in the 16th century and how this influenced the early Society of Jesus.
A topic of your choice to be discussed with and approved by professor.
“For him [Ignatius], solitude and lengthy prayer are not the chief standards by which to evaluate our prayer, nor is prayer always the preferred means to union with God.”
Dean Brackley, p. 244.
Sept 22/Plenary: The Exercises: Week 1
Lecture: The Structure and History of the Exercises: Week 1.
Read: Ganss, pp. 130-131: #23-26, Principle and Foundation.
pp. 136-40: #45-61.
Recommended:
1. Lonsdale, Chapter 6, “The Spiritual Exercises,” pp. 126-141.
2. Harvey Egan, “Ignatian Spirituality” in The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality
(ed. Michael Downey), pp. 521-29. This volume is in the reference section of the
library.
The Exercises are divided into “four weeks”:
Week 1: creative love, sinfulness, mercy
Week 2: Christian discipleship and vocational choices
Week 3: the suffering and death of Christ and its meaning for Christian existence
Week 4: the resurrection and its contemporary readings; being a contemplative in action
Elements of the deep structure of the Exercises:
Principle and foundation
Sense of sin
Freedom
Discernment (field of study, friends, lifestyle)
Jesus
Mission
Sept 25: The Exercises and Freedom
Read: Brackley, Foreword (pp. ix-xix), Afterword (pp. 253-255), Chapters 1-5.
Write: A 1-2 page paper explaining in your own words what Brackley means by freedom. Cite page numbers from the readings to argue your points. How does this differ from what the ordinary person might understand by the word “freedom.” Give an example from everyday life of true freedom and of pseudo-freedom.
Sept 29/Plenary: The Exercises: Week 2: Whose Side Are You On?
Read: *Ganss, pp. 154-57: #135-148, The Two Standards.
*Ganss pp. 160-161: #165-168, Three Ways of Being Humble.
*William Barry, Letting God Come Close: An Approach to the Ignatian Spiritual
Exercises (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2001): Chapter 2: “’What Do You Want?: The
Role of Desires in Prayer.” Pp. 26-43. Course Reader.
October 2: The Exercises: Week 3 and 4: The Christ of Suffering and Joy
Read: Ganss, pp. 167-73: #190-217.
pp. 174-177: #218-237.
III. The “magis”
“We urgently need a critical mass of such people to make this century the century of solidarity and turn the swelling tide of misery, violence, and environmental crisis.”
D. Brackley, The Call to Discernment in Troubled Times, p. 9.
Oct. 6/Plenary (YouTube: Bono and Pavarotti)
Assignment:
The news is filled with examples of extraordinary philanthropy. Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and Bono in Africa; philanthropy ($60 billion) of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet to respond to a wide range of global needs.
Read:
James Traub, “The Statesman: Why, and How, Bono Matters”, The New York Times Magazine (Sept. 18, 2005), 80ff. Course Packet.
Recommended:
One Step Closer by Christian Scharen [on U2] (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press, 2006). Scharen reflects on the Christian faith of band members’ Irish background and how U2 fits within the longer Christian tradition of voices that point us to the cross, to Jesus, and to the power of God’s ways in the world. He explores the music’s honest spiritual questioning with comparisons to King David, St. Francis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Dorothy Day.
Mountains Upon Mountains by Tracy Kidder (New York: Random House, 2003). The story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Harvard physician who has dedicated his life to practice medicine with the poor in Haiti.
Oct 9:
Read: Ken Anselment, “Soul Doctor”, Marquette University Alumni Magazine (Fall, 2005: 12-15), “Surviving Sorrow: One Mother’s Story” (Fairfield Now, Spring 2004, 23-25; “The Mommy Place” (Fairfield Now Summer 2004: 28-32); “Rescuing Family Friends” (Fairfield Now Summer 2005: 32-33). Course packet.
Write a 1-2 page paper reflecting on an experience in which you chose to go “above and beyond the call of duty” for a person, a cause, a commitment. What brought it about? Who was involved? How did you reflect about what to do? Why do you think you made the choice you did? How did this make you feel about yourself? Were others affected by your actions/words? Do you see any links between your life and the lives of public figures like Bono and Ignatius’s call to respond with generosity and love to what God is calling us to in our lives? Are there ways university students might think of their choice of majors, careers and future lifestyles in light of service to the world? What are obstacles to hearing and responding to this call? Mention 1-2 persons you know you functions as models of life for you and explain why.
Oct. 13: Columbus Day: No Class
Oct 14/Tuesday/Plenary
Class will be scheduled in the evening for film: “The Motorcycle Diaries”: We will meet in the lower level of the library, Room 101. 6:00 p.m.
Assignment: Write a 1-2 page paper on Che Guevara. Have you ever heard of him? Who was he? What was his background? Why is he famous? How did he end his life? Are there ways in which his life parallels Ignatius? Ways in which they are different?
“The Motorcycle Diaries” -- Directed by Walter Salles. Saga of two young men who take a trip from Buenos Aires through Chile, across Andes into the Peruvian Amazon. One is a 29- year-old biochemist, Alberto Granado; the other was a 23-year-old medical student, Ernesto Guevara. “One reason to explore the past is to try to rediscover an elusive sense of forgotten possibility, and in Mr. Salles’s hands what might have been a schematic story of political awakening becomes a lyrical exploration of the sensations and perceptions from which a political understanding of the world emerges. What ‘The Motorcyle Diaries’ captures, with startling clarity and delicacy, is the quickening of Ernesto’s youthful idealism, and the gradual turning of his passionate, literary nature toward an as yet unspecified form of radical commitment.” A.O. Scott, New York Times review (Sept. 24, 2004), E1.
Recommended:
Ruffing, Janet. “Ignatian Mysticism of Service: Ignatius of Loyola and Pedro Arrupe,” in Mysticism and Social Transformation, ed. Janet K. Ruffing. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2001. Pp. 104-128. (In library: reserve packet)
Nantais, David E. “Whatever!” is Not Ignatian Indifference: Jesuits and the Ministry to Young Adults. Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 36/3 (Fall 2004). In library: reserve packet.
Oct 16:
Read: Brackley, Chapters 7-13.
Discuss film and readings.
Oct 20/Plenary: Jesuit Mission: Guest Speaker: F. Maldonado, S. J.
Read: Brackley, Chapters 18-23.
IV: Sixteenth-Century Background
October 23: Sixteenth-century culture and art.
We will meet on the second floor of the library in the Kress Collection.
Assignment: Go on-line and spend 30-40 minutes viewing the catalogue of the Kress Collection.
http://www.fairfield.edu/art_kress.html
October 27/Plenary
What was going on in the 16th century?
Read: Gonzalez, Justo L. A History of Christian Thought: From the Protestant
Reformation to the Twentieth Century. Nashville: Abingdon Press,
Chapter 1: pp. 13-28. Course Reader.
Recommended:
O’Malley, John. “Early Jesuit Spirituality: Spain and Italy.” In Christian
Spirituality: Post-Reformation and Modern, eds. Louis Dupré and Don E.
Saliers. NY: Crossroad, 1989. Pp. 3-27. Vol. 18 of World Spirituality: An
Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest, ed. Ewert Cousins. Course
Reader.
October 30: The Women in Ignatius’s Life
Read: Assignment: Read letters in Ganss, pp. 325-341.
Nov 3/Plenary
Preliminary proposal for final project due (1-3 paragraphs)
Read: Decree Fourteen from GC 34, pp. 171-78. Course Reader.
Susan Ross, "The Jesuits and Women: Reflections on the 34th General
Congregations’s Statement on Women in Church and Civil Society,”
Conversations (Fall 1999), 20-28. Course Reader.
Recommended (In library on reserve – at circulation desk):
--Rosemary Angela DeJulio, Patrons, Pupils, and Partners: The Participation of Women
in Ignatian Spirituality and Pedagogy, PhD Dissertation, Fordham University,
2000. Chapter V and Epilogue, pp. 98-143
--Dyckman, Garvin, Liebert, The Spiritual Exercises Reclaimed: Uncovering Liberating
Possibilities for Women (Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 2001),
Chapters 1 and 2 and Appendix, pp. 3-50; 329-48.
--Ahlgren, Gillian T. W. “Women and the Pursuit of Holiness in Sixteenth-Century
Spain.” Chapter 1 Teresa of Avila and the Politics of Sanctity. Ithaca and
London: Cornell University Press, pp. 6-31.
--William Meissner, Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 238-71, "Women."
Nov. 6: Mid-term exam
V: Prayer and the Imagination
Nov 10/Plenary: Ignatian Prayer
Class will meet in the Lounge in Loyola Hall.
Read: Brackley, Chapters 24-26.
Mark 2. 1-12. Course Reader
“A Ministry of Access and Advocacy”by John Gage. Course Reader.
Nov. 13 Ignatian Prayer, Con’t.
Read: Hutchinson, Gloria, “Ignatius of Loyola: The Sensual Christian.” In Six Ways to
Pray From Six Great Saints. 1982. Course Reader.
Ganss, p. 151, #121-126, Application of the Senses.
VI: Discernment
November 17/Plenary: What is Discernment?
Read Brackley, Chapters 6, 14-17.
Many think about their calling in life without any reference to God. Others think that call comes as an unambiguous summons from God that can be easily sorted out and then obeyed. More helpful approaches attend to life’s complexities-- one’s gifts, lived experiences, opportunities. It is dangerous to link specific vocations (the single state, marriage, orders, religious life) with God’s will in simplistic ways. Rather, these “states” might be seen as lifestyles, “patterns we develop as we attempt to live out our vocation.” (E. and J. Whitehead, Wisdom of the Body). Thus, persons live out a range of vocations within their marriages, singleness or religious life across a lifetime. Vocation involves the question: “how does God want me to love?” and presumes sustained reflection on what it means to love well. Vocation draws us onward not by certainties but by questions: What is most necessary in our lives? For what are we living? What are the sources of our deepest joy and happiness? What does it mean to be a human person? A discerned call to a lifestyle or a career is but the inviting edge of vocation. “Something’s your vocation if it keeps making more of you” (Gail Godwin, Evensong).
Nov. 20: Discernment: Case Study
Write a 1-2 page case study regarding an important decision often faced by university
students. Design a process or set of procedures that would help someone in making such
an important decision. How would you recommend they go about it?
Recommended reading: Lonsdale, Chapter 4: Discernment of Spirits
November 24/Plenary
Read: Ganss: Exercises: “Rules for Discernment” (#313-336). Exercises: Examen (#24-
43).
November 27: Thanksgiving. No class.
VII: Ignatian Spirituality Today
December 1/Plenary Lay Power and Responsibility: Guest Lecturer: Paul Lakeland
*******Detailed Final Proposal Due
Read: Lonsdale, Chapter 10: Ignatian Spirituality and Lay Christians. Course Reader.
Lonsdale, Chapter 11: Current Issue in Ignatian Spirituality. Course Reader.
Recommended:
Ann W. Astell, Lay Sanctity: Medieval and Modern: A Search for Models (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2000).
Reflect on the following:
a) In what ways do you see the Ignatian tradition as useful (or not) to contemporary seekers of an intentional spiritual life?
b) Comment on your experience at Fairfield University vis-à-vis spirituality. How do you see yourself as a "spiritual person"? Was the Catholic, Jesuit nature of Fairfield a factor in your choosing it? What has helped/hindered your spiritual growth since you have come to university?
Dec. 4
Read: Tim Muldoon, Chapter 3: “How to Get the Most out of Your Workouts,” in The
Ignatian Workout, pp. 45-66. Course packet.
Dec. 8/Plenary/Final Class
Evaluations
Discussion:
Reflection questions:
Assess your learning and growth from the course. What changes took place? What perspectives already held, were reinforced, challenged?
Suggested Course Projects
“I always feel as if I stood naked for the fire of Almighty God to go through me – and it’s rather an awful feeling. One has to be so terribly religious to be an artist.”
D. H. Lawrence, cited in Steiner, 1989, p. 228
“Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?”
Annie Dillard, The Writing Life (New York: Harper, 1990), 68
A select number of students may apply to engage in the 19th annotation version of the Exercises. These students will write a final paper on this experience that includes both reflective elements and integration of the scholarly material of the course.
Engagement in a service-learning project with a social justice component (15-18 hours during the semester). Write a paper based on student’s experience; in-depth conversations with mentors involved in the project; analysis of the social problem addressed; difficulties encountered; joys, insights gained. Most important relate the experience to specific themes of the course related to Ignatian spirituality.
Do a scholarly analysis of a specific theme. Consult bibliography at end of syllabus for starters. Possible themes:
a) The nineteenth annotation. Resources include: Ravier, André. A Do-It-at-Home Retreat: The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola According to the “Nineteenth Annotation,” trans. Cornelius Michael Buckley (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991); Joseph Tetlow, Choosing Christ in the World: Directing the Spiritual Exercises According to Annotations Eighteen and Nineteen: A Handbook. (St. Louis, MO: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1989); Smith, Carol Ann and Eugene F. Merz. Moment by Moment: A Retreat in Everyday Life (Ave Maria Press, 2002).
b) 20th century Jesuit martyrs and their female companions
c) Women and Ignatian spirituality today.
d) The Practice of Spiritual Direction
e) Historical Treatment of some aspect of the Jesuit tradition
f) The concept of vocation and how Ignatian spirituality responds to discerning one’s call.
g) Explore the apophatic and kataphatic strains in Ignatian spirituality.
Analyze the hagiographic tradition surrounding Ignatius. Consult early biographical material by Diego Lainez, Juan Polanco, Ignatius’s Autobiography, Pedro de Ribadeneira and Gian Pietro Maffei. Also Chapter 1 of Terence O’Reilly’s From Ignatius of Loyola to John of the Cross (full reference below).
Interview 5-6 persons who have made the Exercises; analyze this data in light of the structure and goals of the Exercises, contemporary spirituality, and relevant themes from the course; comment on insights gained from the experience.
Design and implement a two-day workshop for students who have chosen to become part of the Ignatian Residential College. Paper should include a) a rationale for its contents; b) an analysis of the audience and how to take their experience into account; c) theoretical backdrop for each aspect of the retreat; d) detailed plan of how each aspect of the retreat would be executed. Paper should show in-depth mastery of the relevant themes of the course.
Write and perform a play on some aspect of Ignatius’s life or of Ignatian spirituality in a university context (Group project).
Write, design and perform a project related to the arts that reflects or symbolizes what you have learned about Ignatian spirituality in this course. Explanatory rationale showing mastery of course themes must accompany the project.
Design a weekend retreat for university college seniors. Explanatory rationale showing mastery of course themes must accompany the project.
Do a thorough, scholarly reading and analysis of a significant primary text written by Ignatius or important secondary volumes related to course themes.
Read some of the texts read by Ignatius that influenced his thought and analyze how they do so.
A. Writings that influenced Ignatius himself:
The Golden Legend (Legenda aurea) by Jacopo de Voraigne
Life of Christ by Rudolph of Saxony
Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis
B.Influence on Exercises:
Ludolph of Saxony’s Vita Jesu Christi, who was influenced by:
Meditationes vitae Christi (late 13th early 14th Italian Franciscan document often attributed to Bonaventure, and certainly influenced, if not written by him (O’Malley, 46).
Identify the major images used by Ignatius in his writings, analyze their source and how and to what end Ignatius uses them, e.g., the image of the warrior.
Re-write/paraphrase key aspects of the Exercises from the viewpoint of women. Choose a number of key ideas from each “week” that you think lend themselves to fruitful adaptation for women. In each case, explain your rationale. See Lonsdale, Eyes to See, Ears to Hear (pp. 198-205; 215-16), who asks “Is Ignatian spirituality incurably partriarchal?”
Design a study on how reading the lives of the saints can influence an individual’s journey toward conversion. Focus on this experience in the life of Ignatius; find some other examples of this practice of reading lives of the saints; and connect this with contemporary spiritual practice in the 21st century with special attention to university students. Resources: Historical: The Golden Legend by Jacopo de Voraigne (read by Ignatius); Contemporary: James Martin’s My Life With the Saints (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2005); Robert Ellsberg, All Saints (1997) and Blessed Among All Women (2005).
Examine 2-3 contemporary figures who exemplify the magis in their lives; relate to course material. Examples include: Mother Teresa, Bono, Paul Farmer (Mountains Beyond Mountains), Martin Luther King, Jr., etc.
Identify the psychological presuppositions in the Exercises; assess ways in which this psychology might be helpful or problematic for modern readers (may be of interest to psychology majors).
Study and explicate key points in William Meissner’s assessment of Ignatius’s own psychology in Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint.
Explore the role of women in the sixteenth-century church and how Ignatius related to women. Hugo Rahner, Saint Ignatius Loyola: Letters to Women.
From a selection of Ignatius’s writings, ascertain the virtues which he felt were the most important and situate his understanding of virtue in his time and context and their relevance for today.
Analyze the main contours and historical context for the development of Ignatian education/pedagogy and how this relates to Ignatian spirituality.
Examine the influences of sixteenth-century humanism on Ignatius.
Discuss parallel and conflicting developments between the Protestant and Catholic Reformations in the 16th century and how this influenced the early Society of Jesus.
A topic of your choice to be discussed with and approved by professor.