“ Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will – all I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.” – St. Ignatius of Loyola’s famous “Suscipe” prayer

“ You have made us for Yourself, O Lord. Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” – St. Augustine of Hippo

Over the past year, what I have learned about the discernment of spirits – as taught by St. Ignatius of Loyola – has given me a heavy and joyful heart. I have been reading the book “ The Discernment of Spirits: An Ignatian Guide for Everyday Living” by Fr. Timothy Gallagher, and it is so powerful!

Fr. Gallagher shows us how to be aware of the movements in our soul so that we can grow in relationship with God – when our hearts are filled with His Joy and peace, and when we are in deep agony of spirit.  Here’s how the book has been helpful to me, and why I recommend it to other Christians with disabilities – or, really, anyone who is struggling.   

One of the reasons I believe I have been led to this is that my own life – including my spiritual life – tends to be a chaotic mix of ups and downs.  I often feel like the evil spirits exploit my weaknesses and vulnerabilities. They make mincemeat out of me, and at the time I’m writing this, the battles have intensified. I have learned a lot about how Jesus is meeting me in my weaknesses, especially since I began to focus my spiritual life (and this ministry!) on St. Therese’s Little Way.   Through Therese’s teaching, I have received a lot of graces for the spiritual battles I face. I have realized, though, that I need more structure and more help if I am going to fight them well.

Fr. Gallagher’s book was an impulse buy from the St. Patrick’s Basilica bookstore, when I was in Ottawa for last year’s March for Life. As I read it, I found that it gave me tools to handle major low points. I was able to experience God’s peace, and keep hoping in Him, instead of having my spiritual life break down completely.

Later in the year, I was very excited to find out that Fr. Gallagher would be a guest speaker at CCO’s Rise Up conference in Calgary. His presence encouraged me to set up a booth for St. Therese’s Vision for a 2nd year. At the time, I was finding Fr. Gallagher’s book very relevant to my life…but I didn’t know it was going to be the topic of his talk!

The title of his presentation was “An Antidote to Chaos.” For St. Ignatius – a soldier, and the man behind the teaching Fr. Gallagher promotes – this “antidote” and grace came in the form of a cannonball causing a severe leg injury. During his recovery, Ignatius went from living a worldly and sinful life to taking Christ seriously. It also opened up questions of discernment: what could he do with his life if he wasn’t in battle? The books Ignatius read opened his mind and helped him to use his imagination. He began to pay attention to God, rather than worldly pursuits.  So many things in our lives may not go the way we hoped. (This is especially the case for readers with disabilities and mental health conditions!) Even so, we still need to have great hopes and dreams, and confidence in God – whether His love is obvious, or we wish we were experiencing anything else but the situation He’s allowed! With that in mind, in my next post, we’ll get into what St. Ignatius and Fr. Gallagher actually have to say!
 

In the last blog, I told the story of how I discovered St. Ignatius’ advice for discernment, and discussed why it should be important to many readers here. St. Ignatius’ advice is broken down into many rules, numbered in a list. Today, we finally get to see some of the rules themselves.

Here’s my paraphrase of the first one: when we are living a life of sin and have moved away from God, any happiness we feel comes from evil spirits. God, on the other hand, pokes and gnaws at our conscience to bring us to repentance – to bring us back to Himself.  The second rule says that when we are moving forward in the spiritual life – living for the Lord – the evil spirits will make us frustrated and unhappy, so that we will not progress. The Lord will do the opposite: He gives us peace and joy, and blesses our plans. Other rules define desolation (a sense of unrest in our spiritual life) and consolation (the joy and peace). They tell us what to do in either case, how to prepare for each phase, how to balance them, and more.  The temptation to give up on our prayer life when in desolation is from the Evil One. He tries to make us feel like our relationship with God won’t bear fruit, or that consolation will not return. It is important to know that these are both lies!  
Since you’ve read this far, I bet you’re wondering which rule is most related to St. Therese. During Fr. Timothy Gallagher’s workshop, the Lord revealed to me that the eleventh rule most summarized her spirituality. Here it is in full:

“Let him who is consoled see to humbling himself and lowering himself as much as he can, thinking how little he is able [to do] in the time of desolation without such grace or consolation. On the contrary, let him who is in desolation think that he can do much with the grace sufficient to resist all his enemies, taking strength in his Creator and Lord.” (p. 138, The Discernment of Spirits)

With St. Therese of Lisieux’s spirituality, it is not hard to understand how Jesus is pouring His grace into weak souls who are poor in spirit. We can see that He desires us most when we need a Savior – in our poverty and weakness, and not because of our gifts. We might be tempted to believe the opposite, but this is the Enemy using our gifts to fill us with pride.

Of course, when our spiritual lives hit a plateau, we can react in two ways. If we’re stuck in desolation, we may hate it. We feel like the roller coaster will never climb back up. If we’re in a time of consolation, though, we would like to stay there forever. It’s our own personal Transfiguration.  The disciples saw Jesus on top of the mountain – “brighter than the Sun,” as we read in the Gospels – and they did not want to come back down.  Like them, we are highly unlikely to “get” the most important truths of the spiritual life unless we become like little children. We need to see each success and consolation as a gift from God, remembering that we need God’s grace at each moment not to fall. The Cross of Jesus will come to us, and our “mountaintop experiences” will very likely be followed by valleys!

On the other hand, in desolation, let us consider how much more we must trust in Jesus when everything within us seems to tell us not to.  At these times, we may be feeling very discouraged spiritually. We may also encounter desolation that is not spiritual – anxiety, depression, or dark moods caused by difficult circumstances. Something would be amiss if I didn’t use an example from Fr. Michael Gaitley’s 33 Days to Merciful Love. In the fourth week of the retreat, he mentions how we must have consolation in mind – an example of God’s goodness and fulfilled promises – to make it through a time of in desolation. (Those of us who feel our littleness very strongly may need a concrete sign more than most!)

Fr. Gaitley mentions how Abraham had the stars of the sky to show him that he would have countless children, even though it seemed impossible.  Mary’s sign, of course, was the fact that as a virgin she conceived God in her womb. Would it not have been easy for Abraham to forget the promise, given his age and the years upon years of waiting? What about Mary at the cross – how could her God and her Son be treated so cruelly?

We see the same thing with St. Therese. She felt like God didn’t exist, but she remembered the graces God gave her before she went through her desolation. These memories allowed her to keep trusting in Jesus.** The sign that Fr. Michael proposes for us is Therese’s smile before her death (from Merciful Love, day 28). In the midst of her final agony, she was joyful when she saw Jesus.  When all is going wrong and we are tempted to give up, I second Fr. Gaitley’s idea: remember that smile. (Want to see it? Watch the trailer for the film Therese, released in 2005.) When we believe love and life are not worth fighting for – when we want to give up – this smile should have the same effect as the Divine Mercy Image that Jesus gave to St. Faustina.  The smile is a sign of faith, hope, trust, Jesus’ love for us, and our love for Him, even if we don’t feel any of those things. When all seems lost for us, remembering these signs will give us – like St. Ignatius wrote – grace sufficient to resist all our enemies, so that we can trust and take refuge in Jesus our Savior and Lord. We’ll receive these graces even if we don’t feel them in the moment.

Finally, know that when we keep turning to the Lord and realizing what the Enemy is trying to do in our lives, we can have confidence that consolation will return sooner than expected.  I can testify that I have felt depressed, extremely anxious, tired of my disabilities, lonely, grief at the loss of loved ones, and like I have had enough of the spiritual life…yet somehow, by the grace of God, His consolation has returned more quickly than I thought.  These strategies have helped me to fight the Devil’s attacks and trust in the Lord. I hope they work for you too!

One final note: when you purchase the book, don’t forget to buy the workbook as well. It will help you to journal about your experiences, feelings, and prayers. You will not regret it. I am confident that Fr. Gallagher’s book will give you many tools to persevere when you feel depressed, anxious, discouraged, overwhelmed, or even useless. Happy reading!

**For more on this, check out weeks 1 and 4 of 33 Days to Merciful Love.
 

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