Ignatius of Loyola

my goodness.

Four Saints in Three Acts is about Teresa of Avila and Ignatius of Loyola, but not really.

Mostly it's about what if we just vibe with a bunch of cool people from Harlem for three hours.

And also it feels like Aaron Copland is like in the room sometimes and then leaves sometimes.

She has all these amazing writings and contributions.

And the only reason she is the character in this opera is because Gertrude Stein was like, I love Spain.

Like— What? Like Ignatius of Loyola founded the Jesuits.

Like one of the most impactful and profound people in the Catholic imagination in the history of the church gives us the spiritual exercises, which in many ways is sort of like reflective, similar to how this opera works.

That's St. Teresa of Avila, obviously.

We've mentioned St. Ignatius of Loyola.

Yeah,

a lot of the movements of the heart is very Ignatian.

Yeah, his 14 rules for discerning experience.

I think St. Ignatius of Loyola, he encourages a daily examine.

So does St. Francis de Sales as well, an evening examine.

If that's something that you have never done before or something that you would like to do, it basically starts with giving thanks to God for the day, asking for grace in the moment to... honestly recognize within ourselves the sin that we struggle with, the things that we struggle with, not just the grace to reject them and to grow in virtue instead, but I think also grace is where we are preserved from falling into despair in recognizing our sins.

And I was like, am I even praying? I had a version of this right before I was ordained.

I did the 30-day silent retreat of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

And I remember a couple weeks in, I met with my spiritual director on it, and it met every day.

And I said, he goes, how's it going? How was the last day for you? And I go...

Yeah, I think it's also the virtue of holy indifference.

St. Ignatius, St. Thomas talks about this, to have the holy indifference to whatever it is that God wants to do.

We have our desires oftentimes.

And St. Ignatius talks about in the principal rule and foundation, how we shouldn't have a greater desire for like health over sickness or riches over poverty.

Like we're totally indifferent.

If God wants us to be wealthy, then we'll be wealthy.

While we're on names, I'll also mention that Brother Ignatio is a Spanish name for fire or fiery one.

The most notable Ignatio is probably Saint Ignatius, who founded the Jesuit order, a very important religious order in Catholicism.

Something else that happens in this interview with the abbot is Chris says he likes him, and yet he knows that he will hurt him by lying to him.

He already kind of knows what he wants to do when this question is first proposed, right? And he says, sometimes I wonder how the abbot felt seeing this skinny gringo kid sitting there lying directly to his face.

While we're on names, I'll also mention that Brother Ignatio is a Spanish name for fire or fiery one.

The most notable Ignatio is probably Saint Ignatius, who founded the Jesuit order, a very important religious order in Catholicism.

Something else that happens in this interview with the abbot is Chris says he likes him, and yet he knows that he will hurt him by lying to him.

He already kind of knows what he wants to do when this question is first proposed, right? And he says, sometimes I wonder how the abbot felt seeing this skinny gringo kid sitting there lying directly to his face.

We give up or we try a completely different path.

So for this, my friends, I say we turn to the guidance of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

You may or may not be familiar with his famous rules for the discernment of spirits.

They're great.

The 15th century Vatican Church, they were losing congregants is what happened.

And you got St. Ignatius Loyola who started the Jesuit order.

The idea was to win back the apostates, the rebels, you know.

And you can see how Star Wars was fashioned after the Jesuit battle to win back the rebels.