St Ignatius of Loyala and the journey of discernment. Introduction.

Dorothea Wordly
Aug 23, 2017 · 2 min read

I have always — well for a long time anyway — been curious about the art and skill of decision making.

How do we know without the power of omniscience, what makes a good decision? How do we frame our decisions, how do we attain the golden chalice of knowledge that will allow us to take the right path?

Such questions are universal, but as Christians we have one major determining factor that influences all our decision making. God.

In the Bible, it is Mary the Mother of Jesus who has one of the most difficult decisions to make.

The Angel Gabriel appears to Mary and asks her if she is willing to be the Mother of Our Lord. “The Holy Spirit will overshadow you and you will conceive of a child.”

The implications to her saying yes are huge. She is not yet married, and has not had a sexual relationship with her fiance Joseph. Therefore, if she is made pregnant, not only will Joseph reject her for sleeping with another man, but she would be stoned for adultery.

Mary’s response is clear. “Let it be done unto me according to thy Word”. In other words, ‘let it be done to me what ever God wills. And if that means carrying a baby so be it.’

So Mary, bravely takes on the challenge of infact becoming a Virgin mother. Something not very probably, but through doing the will of God, becomes true.

Which brings me to the 16th Century saint, Saint Ignatius of Loyala, who can help us mere mortals who do not usually get visits from Angels, also determine what decisions to make in our lives. What to say yes to.

St Ignatius was a very handsome, highly regarded, talented soldier. Through a series of events in his life, including a shin bone shattered by a cannon ball during war, he changed paths completely and ended up founding the famous Order of Jesuits, to whom Pope Francis himself belongs.

Jesuit, or Ignatian Spirituality is about ‘discernment’. How to discern, through a series of exercises, how best to work out God’s will for us.

This process of discernment, introduced and established by St Ignatius is almost scientific in its structure, and has been proven to work by very many thousands of people, perhaps millions, over the centuries to work out what their vocation is. What the meaning and destination of their life is, and what decisions to make around that.

In the next few weeks, I will attempt to explain a little bit about Ignatian Spirituality, as well as what I have experienced myself of its workings. Stay with the series on this, because I promise it will be interesting and it will transform your life.

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