Order. Pentecost is over. And with that this year`s Easter Season. “Ordinary time” is the term we use to describe this liturgical time. An interesting thought. We are returning to the usual “order” of things. The “normal” annual cycle reminds us that the things of God have an order. I continue to read the collective works of Alfred Delp (Jesuit, murdered by the Nazis). Recently I stumbled upon a reflection of his regarding man’s basic order. We also find this idea in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. The purpose of the Spiritual Exercises is to put life in order. But what does that mean?
First, it means that the precondition of the ordering of other things is an ordered spirit. Before the soul can order anything, even its interior, it needs itself to be ordered. It is not primarily a matter of being disciplined or humble or merciful or persevering or less distracted in prayer or moderate. Rather, these qualities are the realization of an order and presuppose self-ownership, a certain ability to dispose of oneself and a direction of that order. Nor is it a question of having gained an insight or understanding something. That is part of it, but the magnanimity and the power of the spirit are shown in the ability to actually “draw self-responsible conclusions and take decisions” (Delp) based on what has been understood to be true.
All of this requires a direction of order. God is a God of order who has written an order of love into his creation and desires for us to conform ourselves to this order. And not because he has anything against us, but because he loves us. Precisely because he wants to save the world from its self-destructive illusory attempts to liberate itself from the real order of things. An attempt to establish an order not in accord and directed towards God´s order will in fact be an objective disorder. In Ignatius‘ Spiritual Exercises, in the middle of the second week (of the four), there is a reflection on the call of the heavenly King. The first week of the Spiritual Exercises and it´s turn away from sin is now over. One has achieved greater clarity about the ultimate goal and destiny of man. One understands in a deeper way what life is all about. Now comes the moment of decision. Delp describes this in an impressive way:
“In fact, the contemplation of Christ the King is nothing else, nothing more and above all nothing less than the search for people who, […] are able and willing not only to share the external fate with Christ and to take it upon themselves for his sake, but are actually willing to repeat the life of his soul. In this basic reflection the Jesuit sees himself committed and obligated to the interior attitudes of Christ. […]. First and foremost: the conquest, the surrender of one’s own spirit. Everything else, the external destiny, whether that means engagement on the battlefield, a parade celebrating triumph or finding oneself on the way of the cross, all of that and which one of these it may be at any given moment, is then in fact no longer so important. It arises of its own accord from the inner Christlikeness in the strictest sense of the word.”
This love gives the other loves their direction and order, aligning them with that one great love. “The religious order (the Jesuits) actually only knows one love” (Delp) – before going practical and ordering different things, one must first order the essential so that everything else can be ordered. God first. But not God first in any which way. It is a love that directs people towards higher things, that leads them into a life ordered according to God. The Jesuits have a word in this regard that may seem somewhat foreign to us, a thought from times gone by: Honor.
Delp describes it like this: “The spirit must have the courage to decide and the courage to take risks. A spirit that has a sense of honor and commitment. Animi magnitudo (greatness of spirit or greatness of soul) […] Initially, but only initially and in a preliminary manner, it does not really matter for whose honor this sense is. But a person to whom honor means nothing, who does not have an inner sense of the heights and nobility and greatness of being, such a person will not be in a position or have the ability to grasp what the honor of God, to which he should commit himself, actually means. That it has nothing to do with pusillanimous calculations and narrow-minded torment.”
In fact, only a spirit that has a sense for these heights and acts accordingly can be said “to be in order”. May the call to live in this order of holiness be “burned into our souls as a task and may it burn there and urge us as eternal holy restlessness and vitality.” (Delp) And at the same time we know that we must ask for this greatness and receive it as a gift, believing in the power of grace to “create and work great things at all times” (ibid) … also in us, in you, in me, alongside our own weakness and inability. Holiness is what is called for. “Let us not be satisfied with mediocrity” (St. John Paul II.)
God bless!
Fr. George LC
