Listen to Him

Let's look now at Saint Ignatius' Rule Six, and Ignatius is now speaking to the person who is experiencing the discouragement of spiritual desolation. So here is the woman who, let's say, works in the mornings while her children are at school. Work didn't go so well. She returns. It's early afternoon.

Her husband and children are not home. She's discouraged. Normally, she picks up the Bible and prays at this time. She has no desire to do it. There's the remote control.

There's social media. There's YouTube. There's Netflix. Ignatius is speaking to her, and we've already spoken. Let's take the man at 10:00, alone in his room after a discouraging day. And there's the Bible that he usually reads at this time—no energy for it.

Again, there are all the evasions, the smartphone and the rest. When you are in a time of spiritual desolation, Ignatius says, here are four tools to use that will help you get through it much more easily—in fact, to help you not only get through it safely, but actually grow spiritually as you go through the time of desolation. So when you are in spiritual desolation, use these four means. Prayer. Now, this is simply prayer of petition.

Ask for God's help. As the woman sits there at 1 PM alone in her house, discouraged, not wanting to pick up the tasks that she really should be doing, not wanting to pray; as the man sits there at 10:00, poised to reach out for the phone in a way that can easily become low and earthly, here is the first thing: ask for help. We have a promise: Ask and you will receive.

It can be as simple as, “Jesus, be with me.” “Heavenly Father, I need You right now.” “Holy Spirit, strengthen me.” “Mary, be close to me,” or whatever favorite saint or your angel. That's the first thing.

Is that too obvious to say? Do we think to do that when we're in that discouragement? Ask for help. And I will tell you, from many years of doing this, I have grown to love this simple and powerful means—advisedly the first—because I've seen so often the difference that it makes. Secondly, Ignatius says meditation, and that is a meditation specifically focused on rejecting the spiritual desolation.

So call to mind those biblical verses that help you know that God is with you. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. Though I walk in a dark valley, I fear no evil; you are with me, with your rod and your staff. What if the woman or the man call these to mind?

Let those words come to mind right in the desolation. Psalm 27: The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear? I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. Philippians 4.

Each of us will have his or her own favorite biblical passages. Have them ready. Call them to mind. Think about them. That's the meditation that Ignatius has in mind.

Maybe also memories of times that you've been in the darkness before and you've seen how God has always brought you safely through. Think about these things. That's the meditation Saint Ignatius has in mind. And then examination. And here are two questions to ask when you find yourself in spiritual desolation.

What am I feeling? If you can get to the point where you can name it, this whole overwhelming gray, heavy, dark cloud shrinks down to size. Okay. I'm experiencing spiritual desolation. That sets you free to start doing something about it.

And here's the second question. How did this begin? And the woman remembers, actually, this morning when I got up and had my prayer time, I was pretty happy. In mid-morning, when I was—let's say she's a special ed teacher—working with that student who was so difficult, it was pretty discouraging. And that's where this got started.

Okay. Now you can do something about that. I can talk with my supervisor, we can strategize what to do with it, and the cloud begins to lift. And then finally, what Ignatius calls suitable penance. Don't just give in to the escapes.

They only—they don't help. The aspirin wears off. The symptoms are still there, and the escapes these days are very often digital. So it may be social media, Netflix, YouTube, television. It might be just a gossipy conversation, refrigerators, and on and on.

Instead of that, Ignatius says, stand your ground with small, suitable gestures of penitential courage. Smile at the last person you want to smile at. Perform that service for someone who’s been waiting for a week for it to happen. Answer that email from the person who needs to hear from you. In small, suitable ways, resist the flight into gratification that doesn’t resolve anything.

So, prayer of petition, meditation, examination, and suitable penance. Do it, and you will see the difference that this makes. Our text for prayer this time is the Transfiguration, and we'll take this from Matthew 17:1–13. So again, let's let our hearts be at peace. Let us become aware of the infinite love and warmth in the eyes of Jesus as He looks upon us, as we open our hearts to hear His words.

After six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with Him. Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, “Lord, it is good that we are here.”

If you wish, I will make three tents here: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid.

But Jesus came and touched them, saying, "Rise, and do not be afraid." And when the disciples raised their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus alone. So six days have passed, and we can feel with the disciples the trouble of heart. They don't fully understand, but from Jesus' words those days before, they understand that something dark, painful lies ahead. And how often we find ourselves in that same situation in our spiritual lives.

And Jesus, who is so aware of human hearts, knows what they're feeling and chooses now this way to strengthen them for the time of the Cross, to strengthen us for the time of the Cross in our lives. And so I join them now. We join them, and we walk with Jesus and the three disciples that He takes with Him. With them, we climb this high mount, rising, leaving everything else behind. And now there is only Jesus.

And with deep affection and awe, we watch as He is transfigured before us, His face, His garments, white as light. The glory of His divinity is shown, is revealed in the radiance and the beauty of His person. And with the disciples, we feel the fascination of the divine, and our hearts are drawn to the One that we love. And we say from our hearts, Lord, it is good that we are here. Think of those times in prayer when you have most felt God's closeness, when everything is stilled and all you desire is just to be there, just to experience the Lord.

And now multiply that more than we can say, and we catch just a glimpse of what the disciples here experience. And their hearts say, as ours do at such times, “Lord, it is good that we are here.” We want to pray. We love that communion with the Lord. And perhaps as we pray even now, we say those words over and over to the Lord.

Lord, it is good that I am here with You. And those words reveal to us the deepest meaning of our lives, the deepest love. Now Moses and Elijah appear, and they speak with Him. And then the cloud, which biblically is the image of God's presence, the cloud of the majesty of God, overshadows them, overshadows us. And we feel with reverent awe how close we are to the Divine.

And in this moment of revelation, each of us personally, we hear the voice of the Father speaking of the greatest of all loves and the fountain of every love: This is my beloved Son. Words given to us in our Baptism: You are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter. And then the Father's voice says, Listen to Him.

And as we pray, we ask the Lord to teach us how to listen to Him every day. And we ask for a great desire to listen to Him. And then Jesus says to the disciples and to us, "Rise, and do not be afraid." So often in these Scriptures, we see the disciples' hearts afraid. So often in our own lives, we are afraid.

And once again, Jesus responds, "Rise, and do not be afraid." What fills your heart with fear this day? What are the anxieties, the worries, the burdens? Rise. Do not be afraid.

And then Matthew writes that they saw no one else but Jesus alone. And I ask as I pray that this become real in my life too, that in all the many events of my life, in all the encounters with so many people in my life, my prayer is to see Jesus and to respond to Him in everything. Now they come down from the mountain with Him, and we walk with them. The scene below is the same, but everything has changed. And I ask the Lord to help me to live now as one who daily comes down from the mountain, from frequently renewed times of close communion in prayer with Him.

What speaks to me most in this passage? What is the Lord saying? What is He asking me to bring from it, from this prayer to my life, to this day? I'll conclude by sharing an experience of a man whom I'm calling Charles, who has just begun to pray with Scripture. So this is still new in his life, and we'll see it in his description.

This is from interviews that I did when I was writing a book on this, and the persons gave me permission to share them. So Charles says, I try to pray with Scripture as often as I can. I do it when I find time for it, usually about once every two days. I pray before the Blessed Sacrament if I can for about thirty minutes. If I pray at home, I do it before going to bed.

I have found that nighttime works best for me when I pray at home. During the day, my mind is filled with thoughts of work. So you can see a man who has begun to pray with Scripture is still searching to find a rhythm that will work for him and, with very good will, trying different things. I choose the Scripture by opening the Bible and flipping through it. So again, he has not yet found his set way of doing this.

He's searching for it. I always take something from the Gospels. I'm still new at this. I haven't done it a lot, and the Gospels are the texts I can pray with best. And that may be true for many of us—that if we're beginning to pray with Scripture, the Gospels may be the most accessible for us.

So Charles is finding his way well. He's making many good choices, and you can see that as he continues this, he's going to find his way. And I pray that that be true for all of us. Amen.