Commentary on a text of St. Ignatius Loyola

Norms for remaining always united with the Church, in the spirit of the Church militant. We cannot collaborate if we do not have the spirit of the Church Militant. Our first inclination is to look for enemies to struggle with … this is very crude and harsh…

St. Ignatius says: Praise those long prayers, the fasts, the religious orders, scholastic theology… Praise, Praise. This has nothing to do with shutting our eyes and giving blanket approval to everything. But the profound presupposition is somewhat obscure. Here is a splendid thought, sometimes forgotten: I must praise from the bottom of my heart that which I legitimately do not do. That is to say: do not measure the divine Spirit by my prejudices!

The mind of the Church is the breadth of the spirit. If others legitimately do something, I just as legitimately may omit it. The central idea is that in the Church there are many styles and approaches. “In my Father’s house there are many rooms” (Jn 14, 2). The life of the Church is a symphony. Each instrument has the responsibility of praising all the others, but not of imitating them. The drum does not imitate the flute but neither does it show disapproval of it… It is a bit ludicrous but it has its role. And do the other instruments mock and sneer at the big bass drum? No, of course not, because they are not big bass drums. It is like the rainbow … Can red criticize yellow? Each color has its role. How well this fits within the Mystical Body.

In the fourth century some said: “We want to serve God in our way. We are going to construct a pillar and on top we will put a small platform… high enough to be out of the range of arms and hands but close enough to be able to speak with others… The charity of the faithful will supply us with food and we will pray!”… What would we have done? Would we have said: “These people are out of their minds… Why don’t they act like the rest of us?” But man is no fool. The Church laid no condemnation on them but rather gave them a blessing! You can do so but do not oblige the rest. You on your pillar, but likewise the bishop may sit on his throne and the faithful may sleep in their beds. All of Rome went to see them, they moderated vices and they preached from their pillars. St. Simon Stylite, and with him many others. I will praise the monks on pillars, but I will not live on one.

Another peculiar group declares: “We are going to the desert, to its furthest reaches, for the rest of our lives. We are going to struggle against the devil, to fast and to pray… to live in a cave.” And the rest of us? With our good, solid bourgeois sense, we might say: “Stay here in the city. Live like the rest of us… Open up a shop; struggle with the devil in the city.” But the Church, on the contrary, gave them a great blessing. Do not fight too much among yourselves! And do not oblige the rest to go off into the desert; what you legitimately do, others just as legitimately do not! Today, we who are torn apart by the crazy rhythm of modern life, remember the anchorites with some nostalgia.

The time of the Crusades arrived. The great threat against Islam. A few rather curious looking religious arrive. What is a religious for us? Meek, with arms and hands hidden in their sleeves, modest, they hear confessions of the pious, they wear birettas? Well, these religious wore no biretta; they wore helmets and carried swords instead of rosaries… Religious warriors. They made the three religious vows in order to fight more courageously. They also made a fourth vow, that of the Knights Templars, a solemn vow: “Not to draw back the length of their lance when obliged to face three enemies alone.” This was the fourth vow and the Church approved of it. Then did everyone have to fight and kill the Moors? What the Templars legitimately did; the rest legitimately did not.

Others came along: timid, humble, beggars:
A little gold and silver, but gold is better…
What will they do with the gold of Christians?
Bring it to the Moors!
Do you plan to enrich the Moors? Where is the treasure of Christianity going?
In Christianity there is no greater treasure that the liberty of Christians.

The religious of Mercy, the Mercedarians, took a vow: to remain as hostages to secure the liberty of the faithful! And the Church blessed the Knights Templar and the Mercedarians.

What would we have done with St. Francis of Assisi? We would have put him away like some madman. Is it not madness to rip off one’s clothing in one’s father shop to prove that nothing material is necessary? Was it not mad to cut off St. Clare’s hair without anyone’s permission?
What would we have done? In the shop the bishop threw his mantle over the nakedness of Francis, a symbol that the Church had accepted him.

Along came the Carthusians who have vowed not to speak until death. If the superior commands them to preach, they may respond: No it is against the Rule! “Absurd, we say, after seven years… go off and preach!” The church maintained the liberty of the Carthusians: they wish to maintain their silence, they may do so! And along come the friar preachers, the Dominicans: and the Church gave the Preachers its blessing.

St. Francis of Assisi had an idea: construct a church with four walls without windows, a pillar, a roof, an altar, two candles and a crucifix. Ah no, we answer, this is nothing but a shed… Let’s put up pictures… benches and pillows… No, nothing, says St. Francis. And the Church granted a great blessing and fabulous indulgences. This is the memory of the stable in Bethlehem.

In the early days of the Jesuits, they constructed two churches: the Gesù and St. Ignatius. The Gesù with its beautifully curved columns, its gold and lapis lazuli… the vaulted arches took twenty years to paint: clouds, figures of saints and blesseds. And St. Ignatius with fat cheeked, fat bellied angels… The altar reaching to heaven, Moses and Abraham with full beards. We would say: “This is too much, no taste or moderation.” Yet the Church blessed the Gesù and St. Ignatius. It is not the stable but the tumultuous glory of the Resurrection.

In the Church one can pray in many ways: vocal prayer, meditation, contemplation, even with one’s feet (that is to say in pilgrimage). The heretics, on the other hand, wished to get rid of lamps, images, medals… All the disasters of the Church arose out of this narrowness of spirit! The secular clergy against the regular clergy, and one order against the other. To make it possible to think in accord with the Church it is necessary to have the Holy Spirit’s criteria for judgment, criteria which are very broad.

In the Congo may we paint the angels black? Of course! And Our Lady and Jesus too? Yes! That Chinese Jesus … admirable! Our Lord, limited by his mortal body could not manifest all the divine richness. One priest brought pictures, purchased in France, to the Congo. The pictures showed images of hell and the Africans were very enthusiastic: there wasn’t a single black man there, only whites! Not a single black man in hell!

This brilliant thought of St. Ignatius was expressed very simply: praise, praise, praise. Let us praise everything done in the Church under the blessing of the Holy Spirit. When the Church supports some form of freedom, let us praise her!