Living the question

I've just had the most fulfilling weekend attending the City District Vocation Retreat led by Fr. Ignatius Huan. I signed up for the retreat more for Fr. Ignatius, for he is such an excellent teacher/preacher that I knew I would learn something even if he recited the phone book.

The topic was an introduction to Ignatian spirituality and while I have read books and attended previous talks on St. Ignatius and his spiritual exercises, there was more to learn and many new insights (on a very personal level) given to me.

I was also reminded of God's wicked sense of humour and prescient timing  for He knows exactly how to get me. I suppose I should be grateful that He still talks to me and I can hear Him.

Oh yeah, the retreat theme was: "Speak Lord, your servant is listening,", doubly ironic for lately I have been more like the feckless Israelites than Samuel.

Anyway it got interesting when we were discussing desolation. St. Ignatius stated that desolation is never from God although He does permit it to happen, using it as a means of purification and drawing the suffering person closer to Him. It can also serve as a reminder to us that genuine consolation is pure gift.

The Ignatian definition of desolation goes beyond the affective state and relates more to "a diminution of faith, of hope, of love"* that draws us towards opting for mediocrity in our lives, giving into distractions where our souls become "wholly slothful".

One of his guiding principles is to never make a change (that is go back on a decision made in a time of consolation) in the midst of desolation but to stay the course, be firm and resolute.

When tragedy strikes and grief take over, a natural reaction is to look for answers or solutions. Not an unreasonable response. But what if there are no easy answers or solutions? What then?

Here is where the Ignatian principle above holds as well. Instead of fixating on unearthing an answer or becoming disillusioned or bitter, Fr. Ignatius proposes that we, as people of faith, endeavour to live the question.

Stay the course of true faith. Pray for the grace and gift of a persevering faith to buoy us over the raging waters of grief and inner chaos.

Ask for the consolation of a grateful heart, to be able to accept, in a conscious manner, what has happened and to actively work on finding one's way through the minefield of desolation without constantly clamouring for answers.

In What is the Point of Being Christian, Timothy Radcliffe notes that waiting is very much a part of being Christian for God is not a "powerful, celestial superman" who comes charging in to rescue us, but "God comes from within, inside our deepest interiority".

This is something that takes time, and much contemplation. So we are called to have courage, a courage that is all about endurance. As Aquinas believed "patience consists in not letting adversity crush one's joy".

It was affirming for me to discover that I have been living the question these last seven years, the question of my vocation that I discerned then, which was marriage and motherhood all along.

I initially kept asking the when, how, why, who and what does He mean by this plan for me?

With no clear, immediate answers, I could only live out my questions by trusting and believing in His will for me, and waiting on Him to unfold His plan; allowing the mystery of His very gradual revelation to bind me closer to Him.

This has not been a passive waiting for the apple to drop from the tree, but cultivating a discipline of patience and perseverance as I grow in faith.

Saying yes to love (giving and receiving) and communion.

Attempting to bear good fruit by living a life that glorifies God and sanctifies the people around me.

After seven years, I have stopped demanding for answers for living my questions have enabled me to mostly arrive at a state of "indifference" which in Ignatian speak means that I have no preference for either outcome: marriage or singlehood. Never thought I'd be this happy to be indifferent.

In the Whiteheads' book  Seasons of Strength: New Visions of Adult Christian Maturing, they define a Christian vocation as "a gradual revelation of me to myself by God" and that it is "our own religious identity, it is who we are, trying to happen".

In good times and bad, in desolation or consolation, one thing never changes, I am called to be me, a me who has been called by name.

And in choosing to respond, there is only one way to walk: one step at a time, taking my lead from God.

It is, after all, a question of living out my faith.

* http://www.isecp.org/chapt_10.html