It was Socrates who held that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. The Jesuit practice of reflection and interiority is a development of this. St Ignatius of Loyola gave “rules for the discernment of spirits” and the “consciousness examen” described here by Brian O’Leary SJ (distinct from the “examination of conscience”) is a prayerful method of developing spiritual awareness.
The 2006 Jesuit Yearbook was devoted in large part to the three figures we are celebrating in this Jubilee Year: Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, and Pierre Favre. The opening article on Ignatius is written by Cardinal Martini, the Jesuit who for more than twenty years was an inspiring Archbishop of Milan.
He is now retired to a life of prayer and biblical studies in Jerusalem. Having referred to the dramatic times in which Ignatius lived, he asks what message Ignatius might have for the third millennium. This also seems a good question to pose in the final article of this series. Martini answers as follows:
Self-knowledge
‘I think there is one especially salient message Ignatius can give us: the great value of interiority. I mean by this everything that has to do with the sphere of the heart, of deep intentionality, of decisions made from within.’
Interiority is precisely the word that I would use in responding to the same question. Self-knowledge, purifying the heart, the inner journey, finding one’s centre, the still point; these and other similar ideas and images have always been present in the Christian spiritual tradition. They echo but go beyond the older Greek philosophical teaching attributed to Socrates: ‘The unreflected life is not worth living’.
In the Christian experience all of this is linked with prayer – not just saying prayers but praying always, really becoming people of prayer. One might paraphrase Socrates and say, ‘The prayerless life is not worth living’.
The argument for interiority today is not simply that it has been a constant part of the Christian spiritual tradition; it is also that interiority is the antidote to much that is destructive in our contemporary society.
Dangers and deception
The secularization of culture, the speed of life, the pressures of competition, consumerism, the mass media – these and other influences mould our way of living. ‘Busy-ness’ replaces reflectiveness, anxiety replaces serenity, and the craving for gratification replaces thoughtful attention to long-term goals. Even the quality of our most precious relationships is frequently put at risk. We are drawn to live superficially, losing touch with our deeper and more real selves.
We may not have succumbed to all these dangers, yet few would deny that we experience a struggle to ‘live out of our centre’ and to act in accordance with our deepest desires. These desires may even remain hidden or buried, lost from consciousness. ‘What do you really want?’ is often a surprisingly difficult question to answer.
We may also be deceived by the apparent good. Secular values can be disguised in religious clothing. Take the example of activism. Some people go from one good deed to another, always on the move, always involved in some activity. They never pause and reflect; they never put aside time simply to be by themselves, enjoying the beauties of God’s creation or the uplifting sounds of great music.
Their activity has become compulsive. It is no longer freely chosen. They would not know what to do if they stopped. In fact they are terrified of being still, and maybe even more of silence.
Ignatius was convinced that good people are not likely to be deceived or led astray by blatant or gross temptations. They have to be lured by an idea that either appears to be good, or really is good but not appropriate at this time. He writes:
‘It is a mark of the evil spirit to assume the appearance of an angel of light. He begins by suggesting thoughts that are suited to a devout soul, and ends by suggesting his own. For example, he will suggest holy and pious thoughts that are wholly in conformity with the sanctity of the soul. Afterwards, he will endeavour little by little to end by drawing the soul into his hidden snares and evil designs’ (Ex. 332).
Discernment
This quotation from the Rules for Discernment deals with a situation where both the temptation itself and the ways of dealing with it are very subtle. But the basic presupposition is clear. We recognize the temptation for what it is, we discover what is really happening, only if we are practising interiority. Without self-awareness, and a sensitivity to how God is working in us, we will be deceived.
In our example, we will be drawn into a compulsive activism because it seems to be good unless we can reflect, enter our inner space where God speaks, and learn what God really wants of us at this time. It may be to act, or it may be not to act. But in either case prayerful reflectiveness will lead to a free decision on our part.
The practice that Ignatius offers us to grow in interiority is the Consciousness Examen. An older generation knew this as the Examination of Conscience, where we looked back on the day (or some other period of time) and sought to discover where and how we had offended God. This led to a prayer that expressed sorrow and a purpose of amendment (Act of Contrition). This exercise served many people well. However, a closer look at the teaching in the Spiritual Exercises has revealed the possibility of an expanded approach. The shift from the word ‘conscience’ to ‘consciousness’ allows us to see the difference.
Awareness
Conscience is the moral sense that enables us to distinguish right from wrong. The Examination of Conscience tended to focus on sin and the occasions of sin, on failure and on our need to be forgiven. This is not left aside in the Consciousness Examen but it becomes part of something bigger.
Focusing on consciousness opens up the many ways in which we can become sensitive to the presence or absence of God in our lives. So, as we allow the day to pass before our inner eyes we try to become aware of the situations, events and people in whom we found God, and those other situations where it was difficult to find him. We can pause in thanksgiving when God’s presence was palpable, and pause in regret when we missed, ignored or did not appreciate that presence.
Learning process
In activating our conscience we mainly make use of our reasoning – enlightened by faith. Consciousness, however, brings us also into the area of affectivity, our inner world of feelings and emotions. We learn to notice these changing moods and movements, and to take them seriously.
Since conscience deals with sin and the occasions of sin, the focus is on actions that are freely carried out. Consciousness, on the other hand, includes a range of spontaneous, ‘non-free’ movements, emotional reactions to people and situations over which we have no control.
God is as much in this swirling, unpredictable mix of spontaneities as in our most rational thinking. Once we recognize this we are on the way to discerning and interpreting how God is leading us and guiding our lives. It all begins when we answer the call to interiority.
This article first appeared in the Messenger (March 2007), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
