Discernment of Spirits part 2

One of the unique contributions of St Ignatius of Loyola to the spiritual heritage of the Church is his Rules for the Discernment of Spirits. Ignatius takes seriously that both God (whom he calls The Good Spirit) and forces opposed to God (the flesh, the world and the devil whom he collectively calls The Bad Spirit) influence us. We remain free to choose, and Ignatius gives rules for understanding and choosing how to act.

One of our assignments this week has been to identify a challenging time in our lives when we were influenced by both the good and bad spirit. I wrote about my awful jetlagged retreat here in Nebraska last year, which I'm sure I told many of you about already last year. The references in brackets are to the various Rules.

"Last year I arrived at Griswold Retreat Centre keen to begin my 8 day retreat prior to the first term of CSP. I had been in the US for several days already to begin adjusting to the timezone. However on the first night I fell asleep at 8pm, woke up with a start at 10pm, then was awake until 3am, and tired the next day. The next night I pushed through to 10pm, fell asleep, woke up at 11pm, and was wide awake until 3am.  The pattern continued for the whole retreat, never sleeping through the night, but falling asleep as I tried to pray during the day. Within a couple of days I was very tired, and getting angry. I tried to pray deeply, but inevitably fell asleep in my chair. I became angry, resenting everything about the retreat; the heat & humidity, the over-cold air conditioning, the food, the timetable.

 I had never felt so trapped in all my life. I had no car, no internet, no phone, and had brought nothing to distract myself, no novel or digital device. I went for long walks down to the interstate, and longed for a bus in any direction just to get myself the hell out of the there. I kept thinking that I had to get away and get somewhere else to adjust my sleep timetable lest I be unable to focus when classes at Creighton began the following week. While I tried to pray, and worked with my very good student spiritual director, the breakthrough only came on the last day when I realised that I had to my surprise, survived. I experienced consolation and became aware that God was showing me an important new experience of powerlessness and that this would equip me for future experiences of powerlessness (Exercises 323).

Ignatius’ Second Rule applied to me here, as someone eagerly seeking God both on retreat and at CSP. The bad spirit caused me “anxiety, to sadden, and set up obstacles….to prevent my progress” (Exercises 315). It used one of my weakest points against me (Exercises 327), my poor stamina when I lack sleep. I swiftly was drawn into the possibly the starkest spiritual desolation I have every experienced, feeling “listless, tepid and unhappy” (Exercises 317) and a long way from God. I was drawn to want an escape, and any possible distraction (a television, the internet, whatever), certainly “an impulsive move towards low and earthly things” (Exercises 317). The bad spirit used false reasons ‘get away, you need sleep for classes next week’ (Exercises 315).

I did however receive “consolation” and “tranquillity” (Exercises 315) on the last day when understood the meaning of the trial I had experienced and saw that God may have some use for this experience in building me up for future challenges (Exercises 323).  

I did not take much of Ignatius’ wise advice about how to respond to desolation. His fifth rule is “during a time of desolation one should never make a change” (Exercises 318). But I quickly wanted to reverse my commitment to come on retreat, and would have left if I had found a way out. Despite my attempts to pray “against the desolation” itself (Exercises 319) I frequently gave in to sleep. I did not make use of the “sufficient grace” still available to me (Exercises 320). I did not despair however. I had confidence that this awful time would pass and that the retreat would indeed come to an end and that I would soon return to an equilibrium in sleep which would allow my faculties to sufficiently focus in prayer to feel consolation again (Exercises 321). "