It is very helpful in our life with God to have a clear understanding of three important notions:

1. The difference between the Christian life and the Christian
    spiritual life;
2. the will of God;
3. the four basic assumptions of apostolic spirituality.

          Often people do not like to analyze basic assumptions and notions. They are reluctant to get into such careful thinking. Many prefer to maintain a rather unreflective attitude, which is a great unfreedom and leads to even greater unfreedom. 

The Christian Life and the Christian Spiritual Life

          Many people have a Christian life as distinguished from a Christian spiritual life. It is very important to make this distinction because it can be frustrating and misleading for a spiritual director, or a director either of the Annotation [l9] retreat or Annotation [20] retreat, to try to direct the retreat as if the person had a Christian spiritual life when the person does not have one. I would like to distinguish these two ways of living the Gospel. The Christian life is the life of faith in Jesus Christ that issues in a morally good life. It is characterized by keeping the Commandments, some prayer, occasional worship, Mass on Sunday, circumscribed sacrifice for family and perhaps a few intimate friends. The Sunday sermon nourishes the Christian life. A good book supports it. It is summed up in the words of Jesus, "Who loves Me, keeps My Commandments." That is the Christian life.

          The Christian spiritual life, on the other hand, is something beyond the Christian life as such. The Christian spiritual life differs from the Christian life by three characteristics.

          The first characteristic is "a more intense personal experience," both interior experience and exterior experience. It is more intense in the sense that loves are more loving, fears are more fearful, hates are more hateful, truth is more compelling. This last is an important one. Truth is more compelling. Let me give an example.

          One time I gave a series of hour-long talks to a group of Jesuits. They thought the talks were very fine. The superior said to me, "That is really great material. It gives clarity and gives us a way to operate. " He was very pleased and I was very pleased. The next week we had a meeting in which he did not use any of the things that he said were so good. As a matter of fact, he actively went against several of the suggestions. Afterwards I said to him, "You said that my talks had good material and was very helpful. Now we have a meeting, and you did not use any of the suggestions. In fact you went against some of them." He replied, "Doing it the way you said might seem too formal to some people; so, you know. . . " I say: "No, I don't know." I would say the truth was not very compelling for that person since he chose to ignore the truth in place of comfort.

          Someone in the Christian life says, " There are refugees starving. That is too bad." But someone in the Christian spiritual life in which the truth is more compelling says, " People are starving, and I have to do something about it." It is a more intense interior and exterior experience. Reality is more real.

          The interpersonal relationship between God and the person is more "occupying." The God-relationship is important and personal. It occupies more time, more energy. It is always there. This interpersonal relationship with God is one characteristic that distinguishes the spiritual life from the Christian life. It is the difference between the life of the believer and the life of the believer who is really on the move. Ignatius makes this distinction in the text of the Exercises [18], [96], [169].

          The second characteristic that distinguishes the Christian spiritual life from the Christian life is an ever-growing delicacy of conscience. It is characteristic of people who are growing in their life with God to have a growing freedom of conscience about many things. However, there are a few areas in which there is an ever-growing delicacy of conscience: for example, the concern for the poor or the concern for interpersonal charity. This growing delicacy of conscience encourages one to take great care in the conduct of a one's life. Interpersonal relationships are more honest and respectful. One does not "play games" with others. Moral and social issues are more vividly seen and appreciated. One becomes aware and involved in the refugees, the starving, unjust practices in hiring in the Church and in civil society. This is to name but a few examples. 

          There is also a more profound personal awareness of sin and sinfulness in this growing delicacy of conscience. One has a deeper concern for the environment, for instance, a concern for the total Body of Christ, not just me and myself and my family or my friends. There is a moving out, a delicacy of conscience for broad moral issues and concerns in society. That is the second characteristic of a Christian spiritual life.

          The third characteristic that distinguishes the Christian spiritual life from the Christian life is "the ever-present desire to grow in those first two characteristics: the more intense, integrated personal experience, interior and exterior, and the ever-growing delicacy of conscience. These three characteristics distinguish a person with a Christian spiritual life from a person who has a simply Christian life.

          There is a great story about the Abbot Joseph who comes to the Abbot Cassian and says, "Good Father, I make my meditation everyday, and I fast at the times appointed and I have care for the brotherhood. What more is wanting to me?" The Abbot Cassian stands up, raises his hands up to the heavens. Flames of fire come out of the tips of his fingers. He says, " You might catch fire!"

          There is the Christian life in Abbot Joseph as distinguished from the Christian spiritual life in Abbot Cassian. There is fire in the Christian spiritual life, a delicacy of conscience, a desire to grow, intense personal experience of the things of faith in the ways that we described.

          If one has ever tried be a spiritual director to someone who does not have a spiritual life, one faces difficulty and confusion. The director may not realize what is going on. It will be very difficult to keep oneself focused and helpful or to keep the person interested. It will be difficult to apply discernment of spirits because there are not that many spirits moving. A director can be very frustrated if he or she does not make these distinctions. Knowing this distinction between the Christian life and the Christian spiritual life will help a director know how much of the material in the book of The Spiritual Exercises to give the retreatant or directee. [18] 

Notions of the Will of God

          Let us move on now to some notions of the will of God. The will of God may have been used as a club on you when you were a child. "God won't like you if you get your hand in the cookie jar." Most people have very uncritical notions of the will of God. These notions go along with some of our images of God. According as our images of God go, so will some of our images of the will of God go. If God is an old man with a gray beard, sitting on a cloud, we might have certain kinds of images of the will of God. If God is a beautiful young woman who stands on the side of the hill, waving at me, then we have a different image of God and probably a different notion of the will of God. 

          It is important to look at the will of God in the context of these notions of the Christian life and the Christian spiritual life because the Christian life is concerned with the universal, salvific will of God. God wills all persons to be saved. God loves all people, every single one, and God wills all to be saved. The individual in the Christian life says, "Well, I know the will of God. We have the Ten Commandments and the guidelines of the church, and I know that I should keep the Ten Commandments. I have a general concern for God and the things of God and for my neighbor."

          The Christian spiritual life goes beyond that Christian life. It is concerned with the will of God as it becomes operative in the interpersonal relationship between God and the individual. God has a universal will for everyone. We all try to know and do God's will. Then I realize that I have an interpersonal relationship with God. God has a relationship with me and I with God. That brings in certain considerations of the will of God for me, not just for us. This personal orientation is characteristic of the spiritual life. 

          People in the Christian life are not as concerned about the will of God for individuals. They are more concerned about the "us", the collective. What should we do? In the spiritual life, the question is, what should I do? A person in the Christian spiritual life is concerned about the particular will of God as differentiated from the universal will of God. 

          Let us look at notions of the will of God to better understand the distinction. Perhaps your notion of the will of God is something like this. God made up his mind 100 billion years ago how the world should go and what I should do down to the very last detail. My job is to somehow figure out what the will of God is. These plans are already set in place, and I must do them. Now that certainly has been an operative notion or image of the will of God for a long time in the Church. For many people I am sure it still is. Surely, saints have been made on that notion of the will of God. Today, however, we have a more nuanced appreciation. We have to look more carefully at what we mean by the will of God.

          A person may be theologically very sophisticated and be able to say what Rahner's notion of the will of God is or Schillebeeckx's notion. However, what I am trying to get at is the person's operative notion of the will of God that he or she carries along with himself or herself deep in their imagination. An unexamined notion of God's will is very influential, yet unknown. It is an image, not necessarily a visual image. It is the stories one tells oneself about the will of God. For instance, when an accident happens, do you say, "That is God's will." Or when bad things happen to good people, do you say, "Well, that is God's will". Those comments come from a particular image of the will of God. 

          We would like to bring some psychological and theological maturity to that notion of the will of God and also some theological maturity to the notion of the will of God. A person may say, "Well, I do not think that notion of God making up his mind 100 billion years ago and my having to follow it today down to its last detail is very operative for me." Perhaps one is influenced by a more dynamic and evolutionary notion or image of the will of God.

          Here are three images of God's will that are more interpersonal and more current today. There are two freedoms: God's freedom and my freedom. There is an ambience or a forum in which what I want is O.K. with God. For instance, a valid and operative image of the will of God is contained in the following story.

          God is like a very wealthy mother and father who bring a much-loved child into a magnificent toy store. They say to the little boy, "What would you like?" One reaction that they do not want is for the little boy to say, "Well, you know, Mommy and Daddy, you have always been very good to me and you know what is best. I will be very happy to play with anything that you get me." I do not think that they want that response. They want the little boy's eyes to light up and have him say, "That red fire truck! That is what I want!" The child is all excited about the firebrick and the parents say to the clerk, "We will take the red firebrick, please."

          If the little boy had looked at a hunting knife, something dangerous for him, they would have focused his attention elsewhere. But that is a different notion of the will of God. God is big enough to accept choices that one makes that are consonant with his moral law, and especially consonant with the interpersonal relationship between God and that person. Does what you are choosing fit your Name of Grace? And if it does, are you not much like the little boy in the toy store with the very loving mother and father? Did you ever think you had that much latitude? How gracious of God!

          Many people think of the will of God as a continuum, and they say to themselves, "If God's will is on one end of the continuum, mine must be on the other end." They think there has to be a great discrepancy between God's will and their own will. I do not think that is true. The two wills are more likely close together. I like to say, "What are the deepest desires of your heart? If you can find the deepest desires of your heart, then know God puts them there. That is God's will." A person has to be very careful not to mistake the second deepest desires for the deepest desires. The second deepest desires are very apt to be shot through with selfishness and self-concern. The Spiritual Exercises are meant to help you get at the deepest desires of your heart, to get rid of disordered affections and attachments, to make quality decisions.

          Here is a second notion of the will of God. When I was a young man, I had a girlfriend. After the sophomore hop or the junior prom there was always a question, are we going to go to the Bamboo Room or are we going to go to the Nomad? My group was a group of physics majors, and we always went to the Nomad; her group was math majors, who liked the Bamboo Room. So, there was always a question, where are we going to go? Neither one wanted to tell the other what to do. There would be some talking about who was going to be there and where we were last time and what about this time. Soon we would be off to either one or the other. The point is that two wills became one. That is the big issue: two wills became one, with some depth of communication and understanding of each other.

          That is the notion, the image of the will of God that I offer you. It will take some time to peel off the layers of your images and find out what really are your operative notions of the will of God. Do not assume that because you are theologically quite sophisticated, those theological notions are the notions out of which you operate. It is very likely that you are operating out of a notion or an image of the will of God learned very early, and you have to be educated into one that you really want to consciously accept. It needs a certain psychological maturity, a certain theological maturity, and a certain appreciation for where you are now. What are the stories you tell yourself about the will of God? How do you talk with others when good things happen or when bad things happen? What do you say to yourself? How do you explain it to yourself? How do you feel about it? Those are operative images of the will of God.

          I would like to offer a third notion of the will of God. Aristotle defined the human person as "a featherless biped." I suppose that is true. We are featherless bipeds. It says something, but it does not say enough. I prefer Karl Rahner's definition of the human person, a Hearer of the Word. Of all God's creatures, only the human person is a hearer of the Word. That is a key to a very mature philosophical, theological, and psychological notion of the will of God. 

          In the New Testament, the word for "I hear you" in the Greek is acuo. I hear you. The word, "to be obedient" is hypacuo. Acuo, I hear you; hypacuo, I am obedient, or I really hear you, I hyper-hear you, I hyper-listen, hypacuo.; In Latin it is audire: I hear you; obaudire, to be obedient, the intensifier: to really listen is to be obedient. The Word of God, the Son of God, was obedient by nature. He listens to God so intently that He Himself was the Word of God, the substantial act of listening in the Trinity itself. That is a key to what we mean by the will of God and obedience to the will of God.

          God speaks a "prophetic word" to us. He speaks a prophetic word to us in Scripture. That is God's self-revelation in Scripture. He speaks his prophetic word in the authentic magisterium of the Church. Here we have to be careful. We want the authentic magisterium of the Church, what the Church always and everywhere has taught in peace. We do not want the latest obiter dicta of some official in Rome, not the latest writing of the current popular theologian. We want what the Church always and everywhere has taught in peace. That is what we mean by the magisterium. When the Holy Father, for instance, talks to the midwives of Milano, his statement is not the official teaching of the Church. It is an admonition to the midwives of Milano. One has to be careful and knowledgeable. The popular press does not give the official teaching of the Church.

          The prophetic word of God is in Scripture, in the official magisterium of the Church, in the interior workings of grace in our own spirit. God moves in our spirit. He touches; He moves, instructs, teaches, and draws us. That is the prophetic word of God.

          God also speaks "an existential word" to us. I do not mean to invoke the philosophical stance of Existentialism here at all. God speaks an existential word to us. By this I mean the fact that we can put a man on the moon is somehow God speaking to us. God is Lord of history, Lord of salvation history; and salvation history is still going on or else you and I are not saved. All of the things that are happening in the world today, the "signs of the times," are existential words of God. 

          Take the Bible, the Sacred Scripture, as symbolic of the prophetic word of God to us, and take Time magazine as the symbol for the existential word of God to us. In Time magazine you read about what is going on in the hard sciences, the social sciences and psychology, in international relationships, in international finance, the performing arts, all kinds of information. That magazine is a symbol for the existential word of God.

          In the same manner take sacred scripture, as the prophetic word of God, and Time magazine, as symbolic of the existential word of God, and put them together. You show one, through the other. You project them together on the same screen. You are looking at sacred scripture through Time magazine; or you are looking at Time magazine through sacred scripture, understanding one through the other. Here one has the prophetic word of God plus the existential word of God. Going one step further, the prophetic word of God + the existential word of God = the word of God to me or to us here and now.

          The will of God has been looked at by many people in all these ways: God made up His mind 100 billion years ago, or God as an old man with the gray beard, sitting on the cloud, or the arbitrary one, or the over-authoritarian one. A more theologically sound image is of God speaking a prophetic word and then an existential word and asking us to use our faith and our minds and our hearts to bring that prophetic and existential word together. For us to do the will of God is to understand that prophetic word + the existential word the word of God to me or to us here and now.

          We must really listen to the word that we hear when we listen to the prophetic word and the existential word. We have to hyper-listen, hypacuo, obaudire. That involves prayer, mature reflection, reading the "signs of the times" so that we come to know the will of God. 

          It is important that a good director spend some time reflecting on these notions so that he or she will not be guided by unreflective images and notions of the will of God that were perhaps given to one in one's earlier years, when one is defenseless and uncritical. One needs a notion of the will of God that is commensurate with one's faith life now. One needs to reflect on these images. Further the director needs to encourage those that one directs to reflect on what he or she means by the will of God. The question to ask is, do we, director and directee, have a common understanding of what is meant by the will of God? What are the parameters? A common accepted understanding of the Will of God is crucial. 

The Four Assumptions of Apostolic Spirituality

          Let us turn our attention to the notion of the four basic assumptions of apostolic spirituality. To some people the spiritual life is "the life that you live about three feet above one's head and maybe a little to the left." They see it as an airy, nebulous, diaphanous thing. On the contrary, the spiritual life is the life in this head and in these hands and in this heart with feet planted securely on the ground. 

          Not all the assumptions of apostolic spirituality would necessarily be shared by the monastic groups or the psychological-contemplative groups. They are assumptions that characterize apostolic spirituality as articulated by St. Ignatius Loyola and other saints like him. 

          The first assumption of apostolic spirituality is that God, our Father, is at work in the world, transforming each and all into His Christ. It is important to distinguish, therefore, what's happening from what's really going on. God, our Father, is at work in the world. The favorite image St. Ignatius had of God was God the Worker, Deus operarius . God is at work in the world. God is what is sharp in the edge of the knife, wet in water, what is bright in the light. God is at work in the world: in plants and animals and rocks and the human person. He is at work, continually creating and sustaining, at work for us on our behalf. God the Worker is at work on our behalf, to make the world a more lovely place to live in and to enjoy. God is at work transforming each and all and everything into his Christ. 

          We speak of God communicating. God does not communicate in the same way that I communicate with you by speaking to you. God communicates by giving Himself. He is transforming all things into Christ. St. Augustine says, " And there will be but one Christ, loving himself." Et erit unus Christus, seipsum amans. God is transforming everything into the total body of his Christ.

          Perhaps one of the special gifts of the spiritual director and the director of a retreat is to realize what is really happening and what is really going on. What is happening is nations are making war and making peace, people are being married and children are being born, other people are dying, and still others are conducting their businesses and their industry. That is what is happening. [cf. 106] What is really going on ? The Father is forming His Christ. That is what is really going on. That is what Ignatius meant by God the Worker. "The Father is at work and I am at work," Christ said. Christ was at work constantly. The Father is forming his total Christ. That is what I call seeing the Gospel happen.

          Can the directee see the gospel happen and can the director help? When Jesus went to dinner at Simon's house . . . When did that happen? 2000 years ago? 200 years ago in the Black Forest? Did St. Ignatius see that happen 500 years ago? or is it happening right here, right now? Can you see the Gospel happening, right here as this person lives his or her life in the new millennium? Can you see the Gospel happening? That is what a good director facilitates: the Gospel happening in the life of the person making the retreat. 

          That is the first assumption of apostolic spirituality: God is at work in the world and there is no need to flee the world, fuga mundi. God is at work in the world. That is where you find God, God the Worker.

          The second assumption of apostolic spirituality is that evil is real. Sin is real. Sin is at work in the world, inhibiting this transformation willed by the Father. Evil is real, and sin is in the world because sin is in human beings. It is in me and it is in you. We have to take it seriously. Sometimes good people have a difficult time admitting that sin is real, that evil is real. Yet all one has to do is read the newspaper. Read what is going on in organized crime, the drug wars, and the manipulative international relations. That is what we mean by sin. It is greed, a self-interest. Sin is real, and it is inhibiting the transformation into Christ. St. Paul could say, "The good that I would do, I do not do; and the evil that I would not do, I find myself doing. Unhappy man that I am, who will deliver me from this? Thanks be to God, Jesus Christ our Lord.". If St. Paul could say that he could see sin as very real in the world, in himself and in others in the world, surely we can say that also. 

          It is very important in apostolic spirituality to know oneself as a forgiven and loved sinner. God is at work. Sin is real in the world. Evil is real, inhibiting the transformation that God the Worker is trying to effect. 

          It is likely that you shared these two assumptions: God is at work in the world and sin is real. The third and fourth assumptions may present more of a challenge.

          The third assumption is that God reveals Himself more personally, more profoundly and more successfully in our a-conceptual, existential consciousness, than God reveals Himself in our intellectual consciousness alone: in the area of concept, or notion. He reveals Himself more personally, more profoundly, more successfully in our symbolic consciousness than in our pure and distinct ideas.

          God reveals Himself to the whole person, all across our affectivity, not only our intellect, or our mind or our understanding, but across the whole range of human affectivity, to the total person. Hence, He reveals Himself not just through the intellectual consciousness but through the intellectual consciousness coupled with the affective consciousness, that is, the symbolic consciousness. Only the symbol can keep together the dichotomous aspects, or at least aspects that seem dichotomous to the intellectual consciousness. For instance, God is all merciful and God is all just. 

          Intellectual consciousness cannot put those together but one's symbolic consciousness can put them together. To be a contemplator one has to get into that symbolic consciousness that can accept all the reality of God and be with that reality rather than dissecting and analyzing out aspects of God that are incompatible with the intellectual consciousness. That is not due to God's unintelligibility. It is due to the limitation of our intellectual consciousness. It is important to note that.

          God's revelation is to the whole person. This is why Ignatius suggests sentir, a way of perceiving. It is a very rich notion, to sense, to feel. It is not purely an affective function. It is noetic affectivity, or affectivity with noetic nuance, or noetic value with affective response. This is the area of symbol. 

          An example will help. Suppose you are watching a Zen archer. The Zen archer takes the arrow, knocks the arrow, tenses the bow, releases and zing, a bull's eye again. He draws the arrow, and knocks the arrow, tenses the bow, releases and zing, a bull's eye. As one watches that, admiring the beauty, one knows that the archer could do that all day long. One says, "Oh, look at that, the rapid flight of the arrow." "No", not the rapid flight of the arrow, the quick flight of the arrow." "No, swift- ah yes, the swift flight of the arrow." Now the full experience is given with the word. It is not independent of the word. 

          That is what is meant by symbol. Symbol is not something tacked on to the experience, or extrinsic to the experience; but the symbol is part and parcel of the experience. A good religious symbol has to have a foot in both worlds. It has to have one foot in this world and one foot in God. When this happens, it is a good religious symbol. A symbol is revealing "God the Worker," Who is at work in the world" and yet is available only through faith. In like manner this sentir, of Ignatius, this combination of affective and intellectual assimilation, is what we mean by the symbolic consciousness.

          Some people will not allow for a flexible image. They demand that God live up to their own manufactured demands of intellectual consciousness. The image has to be logically consistent with their freshman course in logic. However, God is greater than that. God reveals Himself to the total person, affective and intellectual consciousness. It is not primarily feelings, but our affective sense, our sentir.

          Take as an example a six-year old girl. Let us say her mother goes to a psychiatrist twice a week. One could say to the psychiatrist, "Given this situation, what will that woman do?" The psychiatrist will say something like, "Well, she is given to anti-impulsive choices so she will experience an immediate attraction for this choice and then stop and do just the opposite. On the other hand, she might do this or that." Now you ask the woman's little girl, "What would your mommy do if ...?" The child will say, " She will do this." And the child will be right on.

          Why? Because she has a sentir knowledge of the mother. She has a knowledge by connaturality. We miss it in English. She has a knowledge because she is flesh of the mother's flesh and bone of the mother's bone, connaisance, she "was born" with that, in French; cognosciemento, in Italian; cognosciento in Spanish. It means knowledge by connaturality "by birthright" and that is what we are getting at in the symbolic consciousness. 

          The religious imagination is very important for assimilating religious truth. That is symbolic consciousness. It is at the union of our affective and intellectual consciousness that we have symbolic knowledge of God. If one excludes either affect or intellect, one has a skewed and inaccurate, misleading consciousness. One can think of all the times in education where people educate the intellect of the student without educating the affective consciousness. How important it is to keep that in mind when one is directing someone in a retreat. A good director needs to ask, what is their symbolic consciousness like when they are considering this aspect of God or this grace that they desire? How are they imaging it? How are they symbolizing that to themselves? It is enormously important how one "gets to" the symbolic consciousness and how one facilitates it standing before God and grace.

          The fourth assumption is that " one participates in this process by a direct use of one's freedom." God does not force friendship on anyone. God offers friendship, desires it, but does not force it. That is up to one's freedom to say, "Yes, I want to willingly engage in that process in which God is transforming, in which sin is real, in which God is revealing, and symbolic consciousness is so important. I really want to get into that process and become part of it."