Thursday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
Ignatian spirituality has a highly individualized focus. It puts great emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but not so much emphasis on the communal aspects of Christianity. Particular Ignatian spiritual exercises are intended to be tailored to suit the needs of individual persons who are praying and meditating on their own, whether in the privacy of their rooms, or outdoors, or in some public place of worship. The focus is not so much on conforming oneself to a group in prayer.
This is suspicious, if not understood in the proper context. Jesus has taught us that “this is how you are to pray: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven . . . ’” (Matthew 6:9). Notice the utilization of the plural possessive “Our.” It’s not “My Father.” Clearly, Jesus wanted his disciples to pray together in unified groups. “If two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father, for where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:19-20).
The early critics of St. Ignatius had good reasons to be cautious about overemphasizing individual, personal experience, for many people, over the centuries, have followed their own individual devotions and ended up separated from the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. To assuage his critics, St. Ignatius gradually added rules for thinking with the Church to his Spiritual Exercises, in order to make the intended context more explicit. Ignatian methods are meant only as additional, optional, occasional practices and by no means are they to be taken as replacements for the Church’s long-standing teachings and traditions.