Feast of Saint Ignatius Loyola
Click here for a wonderful article by James Hanvey, SJ "Ignatius of Loyola: Theology as a Way of Living.
I love the reflection on the nature of Christian freedom. The very notion of freedom has been so cheapened. Always and only referring to being free from. A place of void...a place to be self-made. For Ignatius, the freedom to be and to act grows not from of void but from a radical groundedness.
"None of this excludes the rich insights into the dynamics of the human psyche and our relationships which are illuminated in the contemporary human sciences. It does mean, however, that we come to understand ourselves and our world – social and material – through God, not apart from Him. Implicitly, therefore, Ignatius will always challenge our latent or implicit secularisation. This is why, though the Ignatian vision and practice has an extraordinary freedom to engage with the whole of human reality, it needs always to be vigilant and rooted – in affect, intellect and acts – in God. Without this groundedness, even the gift of freedom becomes the occasion of a conversion to the secular i.e. the world in which I am the centre, that I endeavour to create either without reference to God or where I use God to legitimate my creation.
(Rev. Dr. James Hanvey SJ lectures in Systematic Theology at Heythrop College, University of London)
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