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The Language of the Heart

Discernment is about learning a new language. It’s actually a language that we’ve heard all our lives—the feelings, moods, emotions, leadings, intuitions, and senses that constitute the affective part of our minds. Psychologists talk about the three parts of the mind: the cognitive (reason and other mental processes), the conative (the will), and the affective (feelings and emotions). All of these are involved in the choices we make, but the engine that drives the train is the affective power. The traditional word for it is “heart.”

Ignatius’s great discovery was that we can discern the right path by listening to the language of our hearts. Discernment is about noticing and interpreting those deep currents of feeling that shape what we want, which in turn influence what we do. By no means did Ignatius neglect reasoning and the other powers of the intellect. But he thought that the rivers of feeling and emotion are where God’s leadings can most readily be found.

Ignatius didn’t think this up. It was a discovery he made at a particular time in a particular place. Psychologists speak about “aha! moments,” those occasions when a sudden flash of insight reveals the solution to a difficult problem. Francis of Assisi’s aha! moment came when God told him to rebuild his church. Ignatius’s moment came when he was lying in bed in recovering from grievous wounds suffered in battle.

The Daydreaming Soldier

Ignatius Loyola’s path to sainthood was unconventional to say the least. As a young man he was a proud, headstrong courtier and knight at the royal court of Navarre. The ladies liked him; his rivals feared him. Once he was arrested for brawling in the street (probably in a dispute over a woman), making him one of the few saints with a police record. His macho world came tumbling down in 1521 when he was seriously wounded in a battle. He was carried back to his family’s castle in northern Spain where he endured two excruciating operations to repair his shattered legs. It took him many months to recover, long months of idleness, plenty of time to reflect on his life. He harbored dreams of returning to his previous life of knightly valor, but he probably knew that those days were over. He was a thirty-year-old washed up knight with two bad legs, living at home, being nursed back to health by his sister-in-law. He was ready for something new.

When he asked for something to read he was given the only two books in the house—a life of Christ and a life of the saints. Ignatius was a Catholic like everyone else in his society, but he was not particularly observant and certainly not pious. Nevertheless, the books stoked his active imagination. He imagined what it would be like to be a knight in the service of Christ. He was inspired by the stories of St. Francis and St. Dominic. They were great saints, but Ignatius thought he could be an even greater saint than they were if he chose to be. It was the same with stories of the life of Christ. Ignatius also spent a great deal of time daydreaming about his previous life—the battlefield glory, the amorous conquests, the rivalries at court, the camaraderie of his friends. He whiled away the long days of recovery, lost in these daydreams.

But Ignatius also had a knack for observing himself. He observed himself daydreaming, and what he noticed was this: dreams of romantic and military glory left him depressed; dreams of following Christ left him excited and inspired. He realized that his surface feelings of angst and discontent, and of joy and delight, were pointing to deeper things. It dawned on him that God was speaking to him through his feelings. Years later, when he was head of the Jesuits and one of the most esteemed churchmen in the world, he described his aha! moment. He referred to himself in the third person:

This succession of such diverse thoughts lasted for quite some time, and he always dwelt at length upon the thought that turned up, either of the worldly exploits he wished to perform or of these others of God that came to his imagination, until he tired of it and put it aside and turned to other matters.

Yet there was this difference. When he was thinking of those things of the world, he took such delight in them, but afterwards, when he was tired and put them aside, he found himself dry and dissatisfied. But when he thought of going to Jerusalem barefoot, and of eating nothing but plain vegetables and of practicing all the other rigors that he saw in the saints, not only was he consoled when he had these thoughts but even after putting them aside he remained satisfied and joyful.

He did not notice this, however; nor did he stop to ponder the distinction until the time when his eyes were opened a little, and he began to marvel at the difference and to reflect upon it, realizing from experience that some thoughts left him sad and others joyful. Little by little he came to recognize the difference between the spirits that were stirring, one from the devil, the other from God.

Ignatius realized that these feelings weren’t just shifting moods that came and went in his enforced idleness. They had spiritual meaning. God was speaking through them. His fantasies represented two directions his life could take, and God was using his feelings to point him in the direction he wanted him to go. He realized that a life of dedication to Christ and his work was the life that would bring him joy and satisfaction.

Ignatius’s experience of discernment on his sickbed opened his eyes a little. There was more to come. He followed the direction indicated by his feelings. When he recovered, he put on the clothes of a poor man, mounted a donkey, and journeyed across Spain as a pilgrim, seeking to go wherever God might lead. The road led to great things. People were drawn to him. A band of like-minded brothers formed around him; they became the Jesuits, which became the largest order in the Catholic Church, renowned for its missionary work and intellectual accomplishments—and for the spiritual perspective known as Ignatian spirituality.

Ignatius’s insight into the spiritual meaning of his feelings eventually flowered into his system for discernment of spirits. It led to his rules for discernment that help us see the meaning of our inner lives. It led to forms of Ignatian prayer that build habits of reflective awareness of the continual presence of God in our lives.

What Kind of Feelings?

Feelings come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. Some are intense but short-lived and not very meaningful. You might be powerfully moved by music—a Beethoven string quartet, a Bruce Springsteen concert—but these feelings don’t last very long, and they seldom change you in any important way. Other feelings are more significant. They draw you into relationships (or pull you out of them). They affect how you spend your time. They affect your outlook on life, which affects how you treat other people and do your work. Some feelings change your commitments and affect your most cherished beliefs. Some of these deeper feelings are intense, but many aren’t. They linger on the fringes of our consciousness; they hang around, until we realize what they mean and how important they are.

These are the affective states that discernment is concerned with—the ones that actually influence our behavior. These are the parts of the emotional life that have spiritual significance. They touch our sense of self—who we are and how we want to live. Some are triggered by external events. Others spring from our “inner world”—our imagination, dreams, prayers. Often we don’t know where feelings come from. You wake up in the morning excited about the day ahead, or dreading it. You get anxious for no apparent reason. You feel confident about a plan that no one else thinks will work.

Ignatius believed that our affective life is an arena of spiritual conflict. The Holy Spirit is at work there, but so too are malign spirits, “the enemy of our human nature,” as Ignatius called them. Discernment is concerned with determining the origin of these feelings and assessing their significance. A key question is: Where are these feelings leading us? Will they takes us in a positive, productive direction, or will they take us backward, or off on a tangent that distracts us from what’s important? Many feelings are ambiguous. A good rule of thumb is to ask whether they move us toward a deeper connection with God and other people, or whether they tend to isolate us.

Ignatius classified spiritual feelings and emotions into two broad categories. One he called “consolation.” This describes feelings that move us toward God and others. Consolation is any felt increase in faith, hope, and love. It is commonly experienced as feelings of peace, security, and joy. The other category is “desolation.” It’s the opposite of consolation—anything that takes us away from the love of God and others. We experience desolation as a troubled spirit: anxiety, restlessness, doubts, self-loathing, and dejection. One of the surest signs of desolation is spiritual lethargy. If you think that God is nowhere to be found, and that it’s not worth the trouble to establish contact, you’re probably in a state of desolation. Other signs of desolation are feelings of self-pity and meaninglessness. If you feel incompetent and your work seems pointless, desolation has settled on your soul.

We’ll have a lot more to say about consolation and desolation later when we get into Ignatius’s rules for discernment.

Conversion of the Heart

The true object of discernment is something deeper than emotions. The shorthand word for it is “heart.” “Heart” does not mean the emotions (though it includes our emotions). It refers to our inner orientation, the core of our being, the things we love. This “heart” is what Jesus was referring to when he told us to store up treasures in heaven instead of on earth, “for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Lk 12:34). This is the “heart” Jesus warned about when he said, “For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander” (Mt 15:19). Jesus observed that our heart can get untethered from what we say and do: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Mt 15:8). When we don’t have any enthusiasm for a project we say, “My heart isn’t in it.” The heart is what we really are. We’re betraying our heart when we hurt people we love and do things that are contrary to our best idea of ourselves.

What we’re after is a change of heart. We need to align our actions with our deepest desires. This is what happened to Ignatius. He underwent a profound conversion, but it was not a conversion of the intellect or will. Before his conversion he was an orthodox Catholic who followed the religious practices expected of him. That was not what changed. His conversion involved his deepest desires and commitments. His religious practice and intellectual understanding deepened over time, but it was his heart that was transformed.

Ignatius developed the Spiritual Exercises to bring about the same kind of conversion of the heart in others. He wrote that the purpose of the Exercises is “strengthening and supporting us in the effort to respond ever more faithfully to the love of God.” Note what Ignatius did not say. He did not say that the Spiritual Exercises are designed primarily to deepen our understanding or to strengthen our will. He did not promise to explain spiritual mysteries or enlighten our minds. We may emerge from the Exercises with enhanced intellectual understanding, but the goal is a response of the heart to Christ’s invitation to follow him and be like him.

Something Pedro Arrupe said sums up what Ignatius had in mind. Arrupe was superior general of the Jesuits from 1965 to 1983. By all accounts he was a lovable, enchanting man, deeply spiritual, infectiously optimistic. He seems to have been one of those rare characters who lights up the room, who makes you feel like he’s your best friend as soon as you shake his hand. One of Arrupe’s best-known quotes begins this way: “Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.” He continues:

What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.

There’s no better description of the goal of discernment. It’s about falling in love. It’s about tapping into those deep currents of feeling that shape what we want, which in turn influence what we do. Understanding is important, and the will is vital, but what gets you out of bed in the morning is what you love. This is what discernment is about.

We often think about spiritual renewal as a matter of changing the way we think. This is a danger even in a book like this, which sets forth ideas, concepts, and principles to broaden our understanding of discernment. Understanding is important, but it’s not the goal. We can understand many things without our knowledge affecting the way we live. The goal is a response of the heart, which truly changes the whole person.

We Can Trust our Experience

Most religions have codes and rules, things to avoid and things to believe. This is particularly true of Christianity, which has greatly valued creeds and doctrines and theology from almost its earliest times. Ignatian spirituality emphasizes the inner experience that gave rise to the creeds. The Ignatian way of discerning what is “of God” looks to our personal experience. Ignatius would have us experience God from the inside out, constantly discerning what leads us away from God as well as those things that bring us deeper into the divine life. Our Christian choices and decisions are often beyond the merely rational or reasonable. “The heart has its reasons of which the mind knows nothing,” Pascal said.