In Chapter 10 we looked at the Rules for Discernment for the First Week. Now we will look at the Rules for Discernment for the Second Week [329 - 336]. The Rules for Discernment for Second Week are quite different from the First Week Rules. Ignatius gave the Second Week Rules to "devout souls," to those people who know they are loved by God, who have prayed over the Principle and Foundation, who know that we are created and that all the other creatures on the face of the earth are to help them towards union with God. They have looked at and prayed over sin, sinfulness, and forgiveness; and they have prayed over the Kingdom meditation and desire to labor with Christ to build the Kingdom. That is a "devout soul." 

          The devout soul is given the Second Week Rules. These Second Week Rules are more subtle than the First Week Rules. The assumption is that the matter of the First Week is assimilated and that the person is moving on from there through the Kingdom and into more subtle areas of experience and decision-making.

          The Second Week person is much more concerned about the quality of decisions he or she will make for the Kingdom. In the Second Week it is not a matter of choosing good or evil. That is already settled. It is a matter of choosing from among many goods. It is asking how I feel called and what decisions should I make in that context. It is in that frame of grace that we consider the Second Week Rules.

          You will also remember that Ignatius did not have everybody make the Second, Third and Fourth Weeks of the Exercises. Most people made the First Week. Some of them he sent home at that point, and they never continued with the Exercises. In the Second Week Rules we have a set of guidelines or descriptions for a relatively small population of people who are serious persons of prayers, who have come to terms with basics, and who are now pursuing a spiritual life in the context of "what can I do for the Kingdom?" 

          The first rule is [329]: 

It is characteristic of God and His Angels, when they act upon the soul, to give true happiness and spiritual joy, and to banish all the sadness and disturbances which are caused by the enemy. It is characteristic of the evil one to fight against such happiness and consolation by proposing fallacious reasoning, subtleties, and continual deceptions.

          In the First Week Ignatius said that when people are going from "one mortal sin to another", (We know that "mortal sin" here has the idea of going from one deadly urge to another) the good spirit comes as a sting of conscience. On the other hand, the subtlety of evil is such that in the midst of my going from one deadly urge to another, I am feeling pretty good about myself and everything seems fine. I am complacent and going about my business as usual.

          In the Second Week Rules, Ignatius says the experience of desolation is the opposite. The "good person" is encouraged by the good spirit with consolation and a sense of peace and joy. The good person experiences desolation by subtleties and worry. There is a kind of dis-ease. The whole Second Week is really subtleties. Directors are fine-tuning persons in the Second Week. It is important to keep this in mind. "Get the drop on" evil by reflecting about this: what would fallacious reasoning or subtleties, or continual deceptions look like "on the hoof." They might look like a Graham Greene novel: somebody, let us say, who is very intellectual by nature getting too intellectual; somebody who is very kind to the poor, getting too kind or too overworked. The essence of the warning in [329] is about pushing a good thing too far. Some people have a subtle mind to begin with. They get into the wheel within the wheel within the wheel within the wheel and their pondering gets too esoteric, too subtle, too difficult.

          [329] reminds us that when God enters into our lives and we live out our life with God, generally speaking, our experience is characterized by peace and joy and happiness. Ordinarily, it is not a life of great struggle, great chaos and "the mountains in labor." Practically speaking, when the director works with a good person, who has been going along the way peacefully and is now upset and worried, he or she has to conclude that there is something wrong here. On the other hand, if the person is proceeding in his or her usual way of being bright, open and humble, that is a good sign. One can trust that consistency.

          [330] says,

God alone can give consolation to the soul without any previous cause. It belongs solely to the Creator to come into a soul, to leave it, to act upon it, to draw it wholly to the love of his Divine Majesty. I said without previous cause, that is, without any preceding perception or knowledge of any subject by which a soul might be led to such a consolation through its own acts of intellect and will.

          Ignatius is saying that God can give grace without previous cause. Notice that on the one hand, he says, trust it. It is something very important. On the other hand, Ignatius is always very concerned about what one does with grace and cautions the person to be careful, to examine it, to discern it, to put it in a context, and use it wisely. Most grace, in this sense, is with previous cause because our whole family background, education and lifestyle supports grace of this kind. Grace without previous cause is a special time of grace. 

          In the Second Week, we read of the Three Times of Choice. That First Time of Choice is when the experience is like a visit of God that seems to come upon a person and one knows for sure what it is one should do. Grace without previous cause is close to that First Time of choice [175] [330].

          In [331] Ignatius says,

If a cause precedes, both the good angel and the evil spirit can give consolation to a soul, but for quite a different purpose. The good angel consoles for the progress of the soul, that it may advance and rise to what is more perfect. The evil spirit consoles for purposes that are the contrary and that afterwards he might draw the soul to his own perverse intentions and wickedness.

          At other times, I am being consoled to encourage me. In all the rules for discernment there is a theme expressed: be aware and watchful. Watch the event or the movement over time. How is it moving toward the end which should be peace, joy, love of God, love of neighbor and apostolic thrust. Do not be fooled by the feeling of things. I think the emphasis here is on the affective tone of the experience. We all have enough psychology to know that sometimes one feels just fine, even exhilarated, because one is under the impress of a positive complex. The exhilaration does not necessarily mean a visitation from God. One has to be careful and knowledgeable. The process and effort is to be truly discerning: sifting through inner experience.

          Moving on to the next rule [332], 

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 endeavor, little by little, to end by drawing the soul into his hidden snares and evil designs. 

          At times good people do bad things for good intentions. Look at the Crusades or slavery. There is a certain type of a person who is a born helper. They help and then they help and they help and they help and they help themselves right into depression instead of standing back and doing some self-care and getting some perspective. They help people who do not want to be helped and deprive those persons of their own self-possession.

          We might muse about the difference between a hang-up or an addiction and what Ignatius is calling the evil spirit. He is looking at similar phenomena and naming it in a way that made sense in his time. His use here of evil spirit, good angel in the context of discernment can be considered metaphorical. We might use other words today because we live in an era that has a pertinent psychological vocabulary. 

          In [333] we are advised to "observe the whole course of our thoughts". This is an important rule. 

... If the beginning and the middle and the end of the course of thoughts are wholly good and directed to what is entirely right, it is a sign that they are from the good angel ...

The course of thought suggested to us may terminate in something evil, or distracting, or less good than the soul had formerly proposed to do. Again, it may end in what weakens the soul, or disturbs it; or by destroying the peace, tranquility, and quiet which it had before, it may cause disturbance to the soul. These things are a clear sign that the thoughts are proceeding from the evil spirit, the enemy of our progress and eternal salvation. [333]

          Secondly, Ignatius advises us to examine the whole course of events to see where it went wrong. We go back to see how the course of action began, how it has continued, and observe what the end was. Ignatius always wants us to be reflective and observant so that we can learn the patterns that determine our choices. This is reminiscent of the Two Standards, [136-148] the Standard of Light and the Standard of Darkness, where we become familiar with the forces that move us. 

          In [334], Ignatius says,

When the enemy of our human nature has been detected and recognized by the trail of evil marking his course and by the wicked end to which he leads us, it will be profitable for one who has been tempted to review immediately the whole course of the temptation. Let him consider the series of good thoughts, how they arose, how the evil one gradually attempted to make him step down from the state of spiritual delight and joy in which he was, till finally he drew him to his wicked design. The purpose of this review is that once such an experience has been understood and carefully observed, we may guard ourselves for the future against the customary deceits of the enemy. 

          People have different patterns of grace and disorder. A person, for instance, may feel angry about something and then go from anger into feeling guilty, from feeling guilty to feeling sad, and from feeling sad to depression and from depression to eating too much. That is the pattern. I know of someone who does not like to feel angry and substitutes feeling guilty instead. It is more socially acceptable to feel guilty rather than to feel angry. It takes conscious effort to move through the feelings of guilt to the root anger. 

          Each person has his or her own patterns. One needs to be observant and discerning about finding out what one's own patterns are and then encourage the retreatants to find out their own patterns. This is the burden of [334]. 

          In [335], Ignatius says, 

In souls that are progressing to greater perfection, the action of the good angel is delicate, gentle, delightful. It may be compared to a drop of water penetrating a sponge. 

... the action of the evil spirit upon such souls is violent, noisy, and disturbing. It may be compared to a drop of water falling on a stone. 

In souls that are going from bad to worse, the action of the spirits manifested above is just the reverse. 

          The Second Week experience is different: the good spirit is gentle; the evil spirit is not as boisterous. I experience myself being unfocused or diverted or perhaps over worked and drained. I remember making a comment to someone one day that I have all these wonderful projects and each one of them is excellent in itself. However, when I start to put them into one 24-hour day, I am fragmented and stressed. This is the dynamic.

          In [336] 

When consolation is without previous cause, as was said, there can be no deception in it, since it can proceed from God our Lord only. But a 
spiritual person who has received such a consolation must consider it very attentively, and must cautiously distinguish the actual time of the consolation from the period which follows it...

          We have all had the experience of rushing ahead too fast. Sometimes on a retreat people are so excited about their newly found grace that they make unwarranted resolutions out of context with their grace. For instance, one day when I was praying, I remembered that I had heard a plea on the television for small-sized clothes for some refugees who were staying in a nearby army camp. I immediately got up without finishing the prayer period, went to my closet, picked out some things, bundled them up, and took them to the post office. When I went for spiritual direction that day I modestly mentioned to the director (I did this very tentatively because this was a wise old man that I had for a retreat director!) that I had gotten this inspiration to help the refugees during the prayer. He said to me, " And, of course, you had the wisdom not to act on that, didn't you." I was caught!

          He was trying to say, when you get an inspiration, look at it, so that you do not act of the spur of the moment. Rather, consider it. See where it is coming from I might have come to the same conclusion, but I certainly was not following the guideline of [336] here.

          Ignatius has a whole plan for working with grace-inspired action. He lists several points. If one combines the insights of [326], [333], [334], [336], [351], one can see nine well-defined lines of his insightful procedure.

1. Reflect on the grace. [333], [334], [336]
2. Examine the grace. [333], [334], [336]
3. Formulate the grace. [336]
4. Shape or incarnate the grace. [336]
5. Share the grace with an experienced director. [326]
6. Put the grace in context with one's life. [336]
7. Seek approval from legitimate authority. [336]
8. Work out the details. [336]
9. Try it out in history. [351]

          In the long run the directee has a direction that is stable and consistent. What one wants to avoid is a religious experience that leaves one deeply enthusiastic but uninformed and non-directional. Merely deep enthusiasms will not carry us. This is typically Ignatian to be careful.

          There is a famous story about St. Francis in which he had a deep sense of conversion. While he was praying, he opened the Scriptures one day; and it seemed to him that the Lord was saying to him, "Go, build my church."

          What did he do? He picked up his shovel and his pail and he went down the way to San Damiano's, the little church in the country that was falling apart. He spent a great deal of time trying to build up that little church which had fallen into disrepair. In after-sight, we know that is not what that message meant. Francis' mission was much bigger than putting new stones and mortar into a little church in the countryside. Building the church said something about the wider church. Francis had a message for all people in all times. Here we are, 700 years later, and we are still involved with Francis and his message of peace and simplicity for building up the Church. This shows how a grace needs understanding and shaping before being put into action.

          I may have a love for the poor. How I shape and put into context my love for the poor in Scranton might be different from what I might to if I were living in China or El Salvador. The contexts are different. The "how I go about it" is different even though the basic grace might be the same.

          One must be careful how a grace is incarnated. The Rules for Discernment suggest one watch the project over time. If it is not achieving what it is supposed to do, one brings it back for further discernment.

          It is very interesting how people will think they have a particular grace, such as love of the poor. However, when they work in a setting where they can do that work, they find out they cannot live with it. It is just not their grace. In this case, it is not so much that they do not have the grace to help the poor, but they shaped the grace in a way that was not good for them. There are other ways to serve the poor. Not everyone can be a "hands on" person. Perhaps, they have to do some kind of support service behind the scenes.

          In another example, one might have a gift for teaching and try it out in elementary school. Perhaps, it does not work for the person at that level. One might need to get into another kind of teaching. It takes time and some experimentation to find a good niche for a grace to blossom.

          Some people erroneously believe that if one is spontaneous, that is better than if one is reflective and planning. Ignatius is giving a warning here to be reflective about the grace. Someone like John XXIII waited a whole lifetime until he was in his 70's until his real vocation came to light. Different people incarnate their graces in many different ways. It is always wise to seek a reality check for one's decisions. This might be a friend, a pastor, or spiritual director.

          On the other hand, if a project is establishing a soup kitchen or some kind of a social service project, then approval might involve many different local and civic authorities. Good discernment requires both internal and external confirmation. Not only will good discernment bring peace and joy and graced energy within you, but it will also have the approval of the appropriate authority. If the external approval is not forth coming, it does not mean that the grace is not there, but rather that the grace must be shaped differently.

          There might be a rare occasion when one has to say, " I cannot act according to the external disapproval or approval." These are times directors have to be particularly careful. One needs to see what is needed and consult broadly to see what other good directors say about this rare situation. As you know, Ignatius is careful about having reality checks: the internal reality check of peace and joy in the Holy Spirit and the external reality check based on the judgment of other good directors on the issue. What do good people who have been formed in the bosom of the Church have to say about this circumstance? 

          In our emphasis we have been saying what discernment looks like in individuals because of the spiritual direction context. Groups can also use discernment with regard to group projects and group life.