Posted: September 26

Maintaining a balance

(Rome) I am back to Ordinary Time, in the sense of being at home in Rome again and can stay put for awhile. Which means weekends are free, and there is a rhythm of work and relaxing. Of course, I enjoy relaxing vigorously: yesterday I did a 30-mile ride on my bike. Although it is late September, it felt more like early June when I would be just starting to ride after the winter. But this summer has had a lot of travel and there have been many more weeks away from the bike than on it. I am certainly not in Tour de France shape and could not even summon up many fantasies of racing. But the realities in Rome are challenging enough, especially the traffic.

The Oxford meeting of editors of spirituality journals was well worth the trip. I last wrote at the very start of the meeting, which did in the end fullfill my hopes. The group of editors quickly coalesced since they share such a strong common background, despite differences in language and nationality. They all struggle to get their journals out since few of them have any one else helping in the work. The deeper struggle, though, comes from the changing situation in the church. As numbers of all members of religious congregations and orders drop, there are fewer readers. So it is difficult to maintain circulation, even at the low levels they function at, mostly at 1,000 copies per issue or less. At the same time, the issues they address are central to the Society of Jesus. Without a strong and living sense of Ignatian spirituality, all our efforts at education, social apostolate, and even communication would be groundless.

The editors have to maintain a delicate balance. On the one hand, they need to preserve our continuity with our sources—St. Ignatius, the Spiritual Exercises and the foundational documents. On the other hand, they need to take a fresh look at the tradition and reinterpret it for today. All of the editors agreed that they had little interest in publishing articles that simply repeated tried-and-true formulas. They seek to connect the tradition with our contemporary experience and draw out the implications of Ignatian spirituality for those working in it today. One thing I found very interesting was the development of a new journal in Sweden. "Polanco" (named for one of Ignatius' early companions) is published by people from the Church of Sweden, Protestants who are developing a retreat ministry based on Ignatian spirituality. They began this innovative work without the involvement of Jesuits, of whom there are few in Sweden. But people have a hunger for a deeper spiritual life and find that Ignatian spirituality is very nourishing.