we are sent

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71.1 2012

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Review for Religious

Were Not Our HeartsBurning within Us?

We Are Sent

I need to begin with a confession. I was given

an assignment to speak about the Eucharist,particularly as it describes a way of life flowingfrom Weeks Three and Four of the Exercises.I am not an expert on the Spiritual Exercises,but I have been a student of the Eucharist formany decades, so I was happy to think aboutthis topic. And, though the talk was still non-existent, a description had to be prepared forthe program booklet. Many of you have prob-ably had the same experience. You make up a

description of a talk right out of thin air, hop-ing to be sufficiently generic so you can talkabout almost anything at all.

KaTHleenHUGHes

ignatianspirituality

8Kathleen Hughes RSCJ, former professor of Word and

Worship at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicagoand former provincial of her orders United States prov-ince, is currently a mission consultant in the Network ofSacred Heart Schools. Her address is 541 S. Mason Road;St. Louis, Missouri 63141.

But a funny thing happened to me on the way tothe topic assigned. I took a detour. I stumbled ontowhat I regard as an amazing new insight about howthe Eucharist and the Spiritual Exercises mirroreach

other. At first I thought I was the last to arrive. Then Ichecked with those who have far greater familiarity withthe literature on the Spiritual Exercises, and no one hadheard any reflection on such a topic. That, too, gave mepause and left me wondering how far out on a limb Iwas climbing.

Nevertheless, heres the insight I want to developin the first part of this talk: there seems to be a quiteprovocative parallel between the Four Weeks of theSpiritual Exercises and the four-part rhythm of the

Eucharist. The gathering rites of the Eucharist includeelements of praise and penitence, as are typical ofmovements in Week One of the Spiritual Exercises;the Liturgy of the Word is the gradual unfolding ofthe person and work of Jesus Christ, as occurs in WeekTwo; the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the celebration ofJesus death for the life of the world, is the heart ofWeek Three; and the concluding rites of the Eucharisthave an affinity with the rhythms of Week Four.

In these pages I intend to develop this thesis in

more detail, hoping in the process to give fresh insightinto Gods activity in these two parallel celebrationsof the paschal mysterythese two ways we are beingcaught up in the work of God in Christ. Then I willmove to a focus on the Eucharist itself, as it flows fromWeek Three, incarnates the intimacy of Week Four, andremains the abiding experience of consolation, chal-lenge, and invitation to faithful living, parallel to leav-ing retreat and picking up everyday life.


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Hughes Were Not Our Hearts Burning within Us?

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Part I: ParallelsOverview

First, then, before we look at the Four Weeks of theSpiritual Exercises and the four parts of the Eucharist in

more detail, let me offer an overview of the resonancesIve discovered between them. Both the Eucharist andthe Spiritual Exercises are a series of movements orstages that, negotiated with grace, realize the Christianideal of identification with Christ. Both are invitationsto conversion; both, at their heart, are offers of holi-ness and transformation. Both the Exercises and theEucharist have a basic psychological rhythm that facili-tates growth in the spiritual life.

The Exercises and the Eucharist as we know

them only gradually evolved to their present form.The Exercises beganas jottings in Ignatiusspersonal notebookconso-lations, desolations, gracesreceivedand this collec-tion of insights developedinto a practical manual asIgnatius gave them to oth-ers and learned from their

experience. They remain acore series of spiritual exercises that are endlessly flexibleas enfleshed in the lives of individuals.

The Eucharist, too, is the result of a gradual evolutionover time around the core of readings and the breakingof bread, making every age and every human commu-nity a fresh inculturation of a basic pattern. Happily,in our day the basic four-part structure of gathering,listening, responding, and sending has been recoveredin the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

Interestingly, both the Exercises and the Eucharistare filled with words, indeed with dialogue, and withspaces of silence. Both also make appeal to all of oursenses and stir up mystagogical insights in those who are

attentive. Both the Eucharist and the Spiritual Exercisesinterrupt our ordinary time with extraordinary grace;they help us to make sense of our life as it is unfoldingbefore the living God. And both the Eucharist and theExercises send us to live, in deed, what we have justexperienced in this time of encounter with the divine.Finally, both these patterns of prayer follow, for most ofus, familiar and predictable dynamics and so, for each,we need the grace to pay attention, to move beyond thefamiliar in order to get inside the mysteries.

The First Week and the Gathering Ritesof the Eucharist

We come to retreat or to Eucharist just as we are,and we bring our history and our particular world withus into this sacred time and place. We come, sometimesbreathlessly, from the work we have just left behind andthe preoccupations that fill our minds and hearts. Wecome always with unfinished business and with distrac-tions, even burdens, of body and spirit. We come with our

crosses and our inexhaustible needs. We come becausewe are drawn to a time and space of intimacy and prayer,of encounter with the Lord who will tutor our hearts, oftransformation to new and deeper life. We come to benourished. We come remembering Gods goodness andGods fidelity to us, no matter our own response. Wecome hoping to touch our finger to the flame once again,placing ourselves, for this span of time, on holy ground.

Gods unconditional and ever-faithful love perme-ates our awareness in Week One. Each one of us has

Both the Eucharist and

the Spiritual Exercises

interrupt our ordinary time

with extraordinary grace.


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been blessed with divine life; Gods creative activity hasshowered each of us in unique ways and has supportedand sustained us throughout our lives. In face of theimmense goodness of God, we acknowledge our inade-

quateresponse; we know that sin has hindered our rela-tionships with self and others and, above all, with God.Week One provides the opportunity to recognize sin asour failure to respond with love to God always present,to express our own sorrow and repentance, and then toknow Gods ever-greater love, mercy, and forgiveness.We reflect on our lives in light of Gods boundless lovefor us, knowing that God wants to free us of everythingthat gets in the way of a loving response. The focusis less on particular sins than on our relationship with

God that has been damaged, perhaps even shattered.Yet it is a relationship always available, for God longsfor intimacy with us far more than we could ask or evenimagine. Our personal history gives us hope: God isfilled with mercy and compassion, slow to anger, fullof kindness. Gods response to our repentance is mercyand forgiveness. By the end of the First Week, we knowourselves as sinners, loved and rescued by a God who isso much greater than our hearts.

These same heart movements are present in the

gathering rites of the Eucharist. We generally begin thecelebration with a hymn of praise and thanksgiving. Weare then invited into a time of silence before the liv-ing God, and we cannot but realize our unworthinessand our experience of sin. In the language of the newMissal we ownour complicity in sin through my fault,through my fault, through my most grievous fault, andwe join with one another in begging for mercy and for-giveness: Lord, have mercy. Then the Gloria is ourhymn of praise after the words of absolution: May

almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you your sins,and bring you to life everlasting. Amen. We begin theEucharist knowing ourselves as loved sinners, disposedto open our hearts to the word proclaimed in our midst.

There are two additional striking parallels betweenthe First Week of the Exercises and the gatheringrites of Eucharist. The first has to do with the crossof Christ, for the cross is prominent at the beginningof both experiences. The retreatant is invited to makea first meditation before the cross; similarly, when wegather for the Eucharist, the entrance procession placesthe cross at the very beginning of the celebration. Thereis nothing like the cross of Christ to sharpen our focus,to bring us to the sober reality that relationships have

consequences, that the paschal mystery of Jesus life,death, and rising is what has made it possible to drawnear to the throne of grace.

And heres a second intriguing possibility with theEucharist. There is a presidential prayer at the conclu-sion of the entrance rites, another at the preparation ofthe table and the gifts, and a third after Communion.These are all, essentially, prayers of petition; they eachask for a specific grace that is dependent for its focus onthe place of the prayer in the rite. We really could think

of these prayers as preludes that name and ask for aspecific grace as we move from one week to the next,from one part of the Eucharist to the next. For example,the opening prayer for todays liturgy, the SeventeenthSunday, Year A, from icels Missal of 1998, reads:

God of eternal wisdom,You alone impart the gift of right judgment.Grant us an understanding heartthat we may value wiselythe treasure of your kingdom


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and gladly forego all lesser giftsto possess that kingdoms incomparable joy.

We make our prayer through Our Lord Jesus Christ,your Son

Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of theHoly Spirit

God for ever and ever. Amen. 1

What a per fect presidential prayer to open ourhearts to the Word of God; what a perfect prelude tomove to Week Two of the Exercises.

The Second Week and the Liturgy of the Word

The parallels between the Second Week of the

Exercises and the Liturgy of the Word are easily dis-cernible. Both focus on the scriptures, and both invitedecision; both are grounded in the Gospels and in theMystery who is Christ; both the Spiritual Exercises andthe Liturgy of the Word, over time, offer an intimateencounter with Jesus of Nazarethhealing, teaching,sharing meals, welcoming sinners, going about doinggood, spending the night in union with his Abba, gath-ering disciples and forming their hearts. We reflecton scripture passages, in retreat as at Mass, one after

another, not in order to know the scriptures better butto discover ever more fully the One whom they discloseto us.

During the Second Week of the Exercises, likeMarthas sister, Mary, the retreatant sits at the feet ofJesus, the teacher, drawn to his person, absorbing hisattitudes and values, his choices, his preaching of thedream of God for the world, for humankind, for each ofus. The Second Week, of course, is not full only of theconsolation of spending time with a dear friend. That

dear friend of ours also reveals to us the cost of dis-cipleship, the misunderstandings, the disappointments,the gathering storm of criticism and anger. We take inthe whole of the life of Jesus Christ and are drawn to

know him more intimately, to love him more ardently,and to follow him more faithfully. We choose to be dis-ciples of the perfect disciple. Empowered by the love ofGod experienced in Week One and by Jesus friendship,which deepens for us in Week Two, we choose an evercloser relationship with him, no matter what. Loved sin-ners become loving servants, embracing and followingJesus, setting our faces, with him, to Jerusalem.

It has been written that during the Second Week Wefind ourselves drinking in the experiences of Jesus, so that

we begin to assimilate his values, his loves, his freedom.This style of praying provides the necessary content ofdecision-making or discernment, which forms an essentialpart of the Second Week and is meant to be an abidingpart of a Christians life that is shaped by the Exercises.2

Of course, those statements also describe a regu-lar pattern of solitary prayer in daily life that reachesits summit in the Eucharist. God speaks to our hearts,opening up for us the mystery of redemption and salva-tion and offering us spiritual nourishment; Christ him-

self is present in the midst of the community throughthe Word proclaimed.3

The cycle of readings, highlighting first one evange-lists portrait of Christ and then anothers in the three-year cycle, invites our reflection on the life and ministryof Jesus, his proclamation of the Good News, his say-ings and parables, his teachings and miracles, and, espe-cially during Lent and the triduum, how his face was setto Jerusalem during his last days on earth.

The Gospel is the highpoint of the Liturgy of the


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Word, and we mark it with various signs of reverencefor the book and with the tracing of the cross on ourforehead, lips, and breast, praying that our mind beopened, that our words be true, and that our whole

being be exposed to the consolation and the challengeof a Gospel way of life.The homily follows. The General Instruction of the

Roman Missaldescribes the homily as a necessary sourceof nourishment of the Christian life.4 In fact, for amajority of Christians it is often the only source of spir-itual nourishment in a busy week. The Second Weekof the Exercises illuminates the challenge to those whogive the homily in the Eucharist. The point of the hom-ily is identical to the grace sought in Week Two of the

Exercises, namely, to enable the assembly to know Jesusmore intimately, to love him more ardently and to followhim more faithfully. Nothing less! Not entertainment.Not exegesis. Not personal self-disclosure. Nothing lessthan knowing, loving, and following Christ, choosing hischoices, becoming gradually and almost imperceptiblymore like him, putting on his mind and heart.

Just as one chooses discipleship at the end of WeekTwo, so too there is a choice at the end of the Liturgyof the Word. As we prepare to move from the Table of

Gods Word to the Table of the Lords Supper, we joinourselves to Christ and ask that we too be transformedevery bit as much as the bread and the wine, that we andthey may become for us and for our world the Body andBlood of Christ.

The Third Week and the Liturgy of the EucharistThe focus of Week Three is both the Last Supper

and the Passion. So, too, these two themes are conflatedin the Liturgy of the Eucharist: the Sacrifice of the

Cross and its sacramental renewal in the Mass, whichChrist the Lord instituted at the Last Supper and com-manded the apostles to do in his memory, are one andthe same, differing only in the manner of offering, and

. . . consequently the Mass is at once a sacrifice of praiseand thanksgiving, of propitiation and satisfaction.5

The first meditation of the Exercises in Week Threeis on the Last Supper in its entiretyincluding thepreparations, the choice of place, the arrangements forthe meal, the assembling in the upper room, Christswashing of the apostles feet, the supper itself, Christsgiving of his body and blood in Eucharist as the ultimateexpression of his love for them, and his final words, hislast will and testament, that they continue this same

action in his memory.Much of this finds a resonance in the Liturgy ofthe Eucharist. There is, of course, first the preparationof the table and the gifts, the preparation of the altaritself and then of the offerings of bread and wine. Thereis the washing of the hands of the presider, a ritual ofcleansing and interior purification in readiness for allthat will follow. There is the prayer over the gifts, asimple and focused petitiona second prelude, if youwill, asking in a variety of ways that the gifts we have

placed on the table will become holy and that we our-selves will be caught up in this action and be made holyto the praise and glory of God.

Then the great prayer of praise and thanksgiving,the Eucharistic Prayer, begins. We tell the story of Jesuslife, death, and rising. We enter into Christs liturgy, theendless self-giving of Christ into the hands of the Onehe called Abba, from whom he receives back his life. Our

worship is an offering of our whole selves with and inChrist to God. That is our participation in the paschal


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mystery of Christs obedience unto death, our identifica-tion with Christ in his radical obedience to God.

Have you ever used one of the Eucharistic Prayers foryour meditation during Week Three? The Eucharistic

Prayer is addressed to God the Father. Could we not thinkof it as a colloquy with the One Jesus called Abba, our ownintimate conversation with God, as we ponder the mysteryof the Passion? By turns, the Eucharistic Prayer collo-quy offers thanksgiving to God for the whole work ofsalvation realized in Christ; it imploresthe action of Godstransforming Spirit; it tells the story again of the nightbefore Jesus died when he offered his body and blood, gavethe apostles to eat and drink, and left them a commandto perpetuate this mystery; it recalls the events that fol-

lowed the supper, especially the blessed Passion of Christtogether with his victory over sin and death; it makes anoffering to God not only of the spotless victim but of our-selves so that day by day we might be perfected throughChrist the mediator and be brought into unity with Godand with each other when God may be all in all.6 It is aperfect prayer; it is a perfect condensed statement of what

we believe and what we long for; it is a colloquy, if youwill, that gathers up and gives expression to the faith of thecommunity in Jesus salvific death and rising and our par-

ticipation in that mystery. There is no better word at theend of the Eucharistic Prayer, or at the end of our Third

Week meditation on the Passion as we dwell in the silenceof God, than the word Amen. So be it.

Week Four and the Communion andConcluding Rites

We are ready for Week FourJesus resurrectionand his apparitions to his mother, to the women, to thedisciples, to Mary in the garden. Always the message is

the same: do not be afraid; peace be with you; go nowand tell the good news; go now to feed my lambs.

And as peace is the gift of the Risen One, we begthat same peace for the whole human family, and we

ask for mutual love among ourselves. We approachthe table of the Lord and receive the one Bread ofLife, which is Christ who died and rose for the salva-tion of the world. Our Communion makes us one withthe Risen Christ, and the last presidential prayer, theprayer after Communion, is a final preludea peti-tion that we might go forth and live, in deed, what wehave just done in word and ritual action. Please makethis Communion take! this prayer seems to beg.

We become what we eat. Through the Communions

of our lifetime we are gradually being transformed intoGod. We know that we ourselves and our world have beenradically changed by Jesus resurrection, and we embracehis commission to become the Heart of God on earth.

Incontemplating the love of God in the conclud-ing exercise of Week Four, we pray an intimate prayerof thanksgiving to the One who has shared his life socompletely with us that we are filled with gratitude andwith a desire to make a generous return of love. Take,Lord, receive, we say, and in so doing we express our

availability before God for whatever we will face, rely-ing simply and completely on Gods grace. We knowourselves as blessed and sent.

Thus far I have been developing the ways that theEucharist and the Spiritual Exercises mirror and some-times illuminate aspects of each other. As a transition tothe second part of this reflection, I suggest pausing overthe words of the Anima Christi using David Flemingstranslation. It was David who said that this prayer isa summary of the dynamics of the whole movement


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of the Exercises, and he also described the prayer as asummary of the transformation wrought through theEucharist.

Jesus, may all that is you flow into me.May your body and blood be my food and drink.May your passion and death be my strength and life.Jesus, with you by my side enough has been given.May the shelter I seek be the shadow of your cross.Let me not run from the love which you offer,but hold me safe from the forces of evil.On each of my dyings shed your light and your love.Keep calling to me until that day comes,

when, with your saints ,

I may praise you forever. Amen.7

Part II: Living the Eucharist

David Fleming also called the Anima Christia summary of the living of the Fourth Week in theeveryday, so it is to that topic we turn, the living of theEucharist.

Many years ago I read a book by Gregory Dix calledThe Shape of the Liturgy, a very long, very erudite historyof the Eucharist by an Anglican clergyman and liturgi-cal scholar. At the conclusion, around page seven hun-

dred something, the author shifts from liturgical history,archeology, and philology to spirituality. He quotes thewords of Jesus at the Last Supper, Do this in memoryof me, and then poses an intriguing question: Was everanother command so obeyed?

Dix paints an extraordinary picture: Century aftercentury, spreading slowly to every continent and country,to every race on earth, this action of Eucharist has beencarried out in every conceivable human circumstance andfor every conceivable human need, from the heights of

power to places of poverty and need, for royalty at theircrowning and for criminals going to the scaffold, for abride and bridegroom in a little country church, for the

wisdom for the Parliament of a mighty nation, for a sick

old woman afraid to die, for Columbus setting out todiscover the New World, for a barren couple hoping fora child, by an old monk on the fiftieth anniversary of his

vows, and on and on. Dix lyrically enumerates these andscores of other instances in which the Christian com-munity has been faithful to Jesus command, Do this. 8

Over the centuries the Eucharist has been celebrated byinnumerable millions of entirely obscure faithful womenand men like you and me, people with hopes and fearsand joys and sorrows and sins and temptations and

prayers every bit as vivid and alive as yours and mineare now. Week by week, on a hundred thousand succes-sive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly, the followers of Jesushave done just this for the remembrance of him.9

This is an extraordinary picture of the sacrament thatconstitutes the community, of the event that binds ustogether, one with another and with Christians of everyage, place, race, tongue, and way of life. The Eucharisthas been like a wave of grace rolling over the communityagain and again across the centuries of Christendom,

hollowing out spaces for the divine in the midst of theeveryday. Was ever another command so obeyed?But after pondering Dix, I realized that when I con-

sidered that Last Supper of Jesus and his friends, therewas another question on my mind. When Jesus saiddo this in remembrance of me, what did he mean bythe this? Surely not just the Jewish pattern of the meal,though we know a lot about Jewish rituals, the blessingof bread, the number of cups, the style of blessing saidover both. Surely the thisis something more. What are


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we being asked to do? to be? to embrace? to celebrate?What commitment do we make when we say Amen?

Scripture supplies two directions toward an answer:one in the Synoptic accounts of the supper and Pauls

First Letter to the Corinthians, and the other in theGospel of John.Recall the words of Paul describing the Last Supper:

I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you,that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayedtook bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it,and said, This is my body which is for you. Do this in

remembrance of me.In the same way alsothe cup, after supper,

saying, This cup isthe new covenant inmy blood. Do this, asoften as you drink it,

in remembrance of me (1 Cor 11:23-25). Do this inremembrance of me. But what is the this?

Have you ever considered that the Last Supper wasprecisely thatit was the last. The Last Supper was thelast of a whole series of Jesus meals recorded in theScriptures. Jesus never played the pious ascetic, keep-

ing away from celebrations. He loved a good feast. Heused that image of feasting as a metaphor of the reign ofGoda great banquet. It was said of him, This man is aglutton and a drunkard. An even more shocking accusa-tion was whispered behind his back: This man sits downat table with sinners, with the morally dubious, with theoutcasts of society, with those living on the fringes.

On nearly every page of the Gospels there is a mealor a reference to food. Jesus calls out to Zacchaeus,Get down from that tree. Im coming to your house for

lunch. There is the story of Simon who threw a din-ner party but was an inattentive host, and of the womanwho slipped in to minister to Jesus as he sat at Simonstable. There is the story of Peters mother-in-law who

is cured only to get up and wait on them. There is theSyrophoenician woman who would not take no for ananswer, who spoke about crumbs that fell from the tableand who expectedand receivedmore than crumbsfrom this man. There are the feeding miracles that tellus something of the utter lavishness of the banquet andthat everyone will receive enough and there will still besomething left over for another day. There are parablesof feasts, of great abundance, of jockeying for placesat table, of appropriate attire, of filling the room with

those drawn from the highways and the byways.Even the risen appearances of Jesus include meals.Peace be with you, Jesus says. Whats for dinner? Onthe shore, in the upper room, on the way to Emmaus,they recognize him in the breaking of the bread. Howdo you recognize someone? Even at a distance, you rec-ognize the timbre of a voice, or a particular gesture, orthe slight tilt of the head so characteristic of an indi-vidual. The disciples recognized Jesus for what was mostcharacteristic of him: the way he broke the bread.

What is the this that we are to replicate? It is thewhole life and mini stry of Jesus at table. Scripturescholars refer to this as Jesus ministry of table fellow-ship. To share food, in Semitic times, was to share lifeitself. And Jesus shared life with an astonishing assort-ment of people. Everyone was welcome to sit with himat table, to tell stories and to break the bread. Jesusministry of table fellowship is a ministry of universalreconciliation, no exceptions. The Last Supper reca-pitulated the attitudes and values of Jesus, who opened

What commitment do we make

when we say Amen?


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his table and his heart to everyone, who offered hospi-tality to all, who was himself at home with all mannerof people, who knew the human need for nourishmentof body, mind, and spirit and who was always present

to the otherwelcoming, reconciling, offering life. Dothis in memory of me.The Gospel of John offers a second answer to the

question What is the this? In John there is a very dif-ferent institution narrative. It is the account of the footwashing.

We know the story so well. Jesus, knowing that theFather had given all things into his hands, and that hehad come from God and was going to God, rose fromsupper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with

a towel. He poured water into a basin, and began towash the disciples feet, and to wipe them with thetowel. Peter resisted this tenderness until Jesus pressed:If I do not wash you, you have no part with me. Peterrelented in typical Peter fashion: Not my feet only butalso my hands and my head! When Jesus had com-pleted the washing and resumed his place, he said tothem, Do you know what I have done to you? You callme Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. IfI then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet,

you also ought to wash one anothers feet. For I havegiven you an example, that you also should do as I havedone to you (Cf. Jn 13:1-15). You should do as I havedone. In other words, Do this in memory of me.

I had an experience when I was studying at theUniversity of Notre Dame that colors my understand-ing of the washing of the feet after the manner of Jesus.Notre Dame has a reputation for the excellence of itsliturgical studies program and, at least when I was there,for the perfection of its liturgical celebrations: every

minister rehearsed; every detail on a checklist; everyliturgy perfect. And, during the sacred triduum, the lit-urgies were even more perfect! It was Holy Thursdayand time for the foot washing. Twelve people moved

forward, probably having prepared for the foot wash-ing by carefully washing their feet! Then, seeminglyfrom nowhere, a veryunkempt man startedup the aisle, staggeringa bit, perhaps underthe weather. It wasone of those stunningmoments.Time stoodstill. Then the deacon

walked down the aisleto help the man for-ward and assist him in taking off his shoes and socks.

What is the this? Tender and loving care for theother; accepting our mutual vulnerabilities; choosing toopen our hearts to all, even the one staggering into ourlife and upsetting its plans and perfections. Foot washing isnot just a way of life but an attitude of heart, a kneelingbefore the other in reverence. Foot washing is embrac-ing a way of service after the manner of Jesus, simply,

generously, not counting the cost.Do this: Embrace my attitudes and values as yourown. Love those I love, and be my heart to them.Welcome the stranger, the one on the margins, thedisenfranchised. Become vulnerable with one another.Kneel in reverence, especially before those whom soci-ety shuns. Nourish one anothers bodies and spirits.Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with thosewho weep, both here at home and half a world awaythose in Norway who are paralyzed by a massacre they

Foot washing is not just a way

of life but an attitude of heart,

a kneeling before the other

in reverence


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could never have imagined, those who are starving fromthe drought in Africa, those who are terrified of nuclearcontamination in Japan, those who are caught up intrafficking around the globe or denied asylum here at

home, those who have lost the ones they love and allthey owned in fire, flood, tornado, or earthquake. Makea habit of roaming the globe in prayer so that you donot remain distant from the joys and pain of the world.Send those waves of grace once again across continentsand cultures to bathe our world in the love and mercyof Eucharist. Do this in memory of me.

ConclusionWeek Three inv ites us to experience the Las t

Supper, to place ourselves there in the upper room, tolook around at the faces, to listen to the words, to pon-der them in our hearts as we watch the immense tender-ness of the Lord with those he loved even to the end,whose hearts he was tutoring even on the night beforehe died. And we have stayed with him, watched andprayed with him, and accompanied him as he gave uphis life. Then we have simply dwelt in silence.

That same intimacy and presence to one anothermarks Week Four, a time of tenderness and affection

with the risen Jesus who shares his love and his joywith us but does not let us cling to him. He sends us asapostles, empowered by his Spirit, to continue his sav-ing presence, to be his heart on earth.

And day by day, week by week, the Eucharist con-tinues to draw us into these mysteries. The heart ofthe Eucharist is Jesus Christ. The heart of it is the cel-ebration of Jesus life, death, and rising every time wegatherand the merging of our daily living and dyingwith his and with one anotherfor the life of the world.

The heart of it is joining ourselves to Christ, the perfectsacrifice, to the praise and glory of God. The heart of itis begging that the Spirit will transform each one of usjust as really as the bread and wine so that we become

more and more Christs Body in truth, not just in name.The heart of it is learning over and over again to sayAmen to all of these realities andat least some-timesactually meaning it. Meaning Amen, meaningyes I will try to live, in deed, in the coming days, whatwe have just enacted in word and ritual action.

I conclude with a favorite reflection of mine on theword Amen.

Be careful of simple words said often.Amen makes demands

like an unrelenting schoolmaster:fierce attention to all that is said;no apathy, no preoccupation, no prejudice permitted.

Amen: We are present. We are open.We hearken. We understand.Here we are; we are listening to your word.

Amen makes demandslike a signature on a dotted line:sober bond to all that goes before;no hesitation, no half-heartedness,

no mental reservation allowed.Amen: We support. We approve.We are of one mind. We promise.May this come to pass. So be it.

Be careful when you say Amen. 10

Notes

1 Cf. Sunday Celebration of the Word and Hours (Ottawa: CanadianConference of Catholic Bishops, 1995). This book contains the Sundaycollects prepared by the International Committee on English in theLiturgy for the Missal of 1998, since withdrawn.


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2 David L. Fleming sj , The Ignatian Spiritual Exercises:Understanding a Dynamic, in Notes on the Spirit ual Exerci ses of St.

Ignatius of Loyola (St. Louis: Review for Religious, 1981) 11.

3General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 2003, 29, paraphrase.

4 GIRM, 65.

5 GIRM, 9.

6

GIRM, 79. 7 David L. Fleming sj, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. A

Literal Translation and a Contemporary Reading. (St. Louis: The Instituteof Jesuit Sources, 1978) 3.

8 Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy (London: Dacre Press, 1945)744-5, passim.

9 Ibid. paraphrase.10 Barbara Schmich Searle, Ritual Dialogue, Assembly 7:3,

February, 1981.

Without the Drama:The Transition from Third to Fourth Week

of the Spiritual Exercises

S

travinskys Rite of Spring caused a furor when itwas first performed in 1913, but the more I listento it, the more I think it expresses something important,and not only from a musical point of view. At the tailend of the piece, the Sacrifice, Stravinsky tries to cap-ture the human spirit in its paganpureform. Youmight want to find a recording of it and play it beforeyou read further.

Cacophonytheres no other way to describe it! Badsound. It assaults the senses. It builds to a crescendo and

with the violence of spirit that leads to the sacrifice ofa human, a woman who dances herself to death for the

Ronald Mercier sj is associate professor of theology at Saint LouisUniversity and rector of the community where Jesuit scholasticspursue the study of philosophy and theology. This artic le wasoriginally given as a keynote presentation at Ignatian SpiritualityConference V on July 22, 2011, in St. Louis, Missouri. Commentscan be addressed to him at Bellarmine House of Studies; 3737Westminster Place; St. Louis, Missouri 63108.

Obedience

You have had my yesfor yearsand I have had yourssince the sun, the seashells, and the storms at sea.

But now, ah . . . you and Iare more than yes.As time moves with, within, and around,this yes of ours takes on wings, takes on colors I never imagined,challenges that strengthen and soften me,

glory that stills me, stirs me, extends and opens me.It becomes a murmur of love that we share.Love that frees me and compels meto choose you again and yet again . . .that I might respond as I wish to respond . . .openly, knowingly,even a little mysteriously . . .

as the bush in the desert responded to flame.

Kimberly M. King rscj

we are sent

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