Prayer: Dean Brackley, S.J.

To be perfectly honest, it would be hard for me to get through the day without reflecting on the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. Ignatius has two key meditations in the Exercises and one of them is the two standards. Ignatius talks about life as a struggle between good and evil. He says, “Let’s not be naïve, we can’t be good unless we really struggle against evil.” It’s not just like buying apples rather than oranges. He says, “Know that there is a power of evil out there, there’s a strategy of evil and that strategy is basically a strategy of greed and lust for power. Jesus has another strategy, and that strategy is a strategy of poverty and solidarity. It’s a strategy of downward mobility.” Not that everybody has to live in misery, by any means, but Ignatius argues that typically the enemy will try to undo us by getting us to have too many things and to think of ourselves too highly. The best strategy to avoid the pitfalls is one of humility and humble service and solidarity with the poor. I find that Ignatius is right.

His other great meditation is the meditation on the reign of God, the idea that God really is at work in the world and has a project, and the project is that we all live more humanly and in community. That we enjoy the fullness of life. It seems to me that is walking in solidarity, this taking one’s place among the people is where one gets a glimpse of that reign of God, that hope, that project of God. It’s where we see God working in the world.