Chapter III The Insight of St. Ignatius

A. The basic insight

Before any elaboration, Lonergan is mindful to tell us, "When we say that the insight grasps necessity and impossibility, we are saying. If one is saying, one has already gone beyond the insight.... Insight is prior to concepts, even to the ones I use here. I am giving an expression of the insight.... The insight consists in the basis from which I can have those concepts and that expression." 15

In the experience of Manresa, especially on the bank of Cardoner, the fundamental insight Ignatius received was a deep understanding of the relationship between human beings and God in salvation history. This insight, initiated by his various images during continual prayers and questioning, gradually emerged through understanding and judging and finally came to concepts and definitions, which were formed and organized into the text of the First Principle and Foundation 16. Its spirit permeates the whole of the Spiritual Exercises. Its truth may simply be similar to the distinct statements in our catechism, such as "why we are created on earth", or other sources 17, but the realities understood profoundly and savoured interiorly (#2) cannot be compared.

In this relationship, the reality is human creatureliness and responsibility, the goal is freedom and salvation, the attitude is indifference, the guiding principle is means and end, the key words are desire and inordinate attachment. This cluster of concepts forms the so-called primitive terms, as Lonergan tells us, "for every basic insight there is a circle of terms and relations, such that the terms fix the relations, the relations fix the terms, and the insight fixes both." 18 In Ignatius' insight these terms are taken as self-evident in the context of our Christian faith.

B. Definitions

1. Principle and Foundation in the spiritual life (#23).

What Ignatius gets in his insight he has to name, giving it a significant nominal sign which underlies and governs all of his thought, and from which flow conclusions of the greatest importance for the spiritual life. This name, this nominal sign, contains in germ the substance of his expansive world-view on God, the universe, and the role of free human beings in God's plan of salvation and spiritual growth. According to Luis de la Palma, "It is called a principle because in it are contained all the conclusions which are later explained and specifically expounded; and it is called a foundation because it is the support of the whole edifice of the spiritual life." 19

2. Spiritual Exercises (#1).

In this elaboration Ignatius delineates two dimensions. The first is the 'what' or means, namely, various methods of prayer analogous to physical exercises. The second is the 'why', the purpose of these activities, namely, negatively to rid the soul of all its disordered affections, and positively to seek and find God's will for the salvation of one's soul.

Here, we see Ignatius' insight into the importance of self-appropriation in the spiritual life. Different from insight in science or mathematics, which can be passed on or taught to others at will as information without the need of the learners making the same effort as the discoverer, the spiritual truth of Principal and Foundation must be owned by each retreatant individually by going through a process of prayer, mediation and contemplation so that personal inordinate attachments can be confronted and got rid of, and they can finally see God's light shed on their own life.

3. Consolation and Desolation (# 316, 317).

Here, the spirit of the Principle and Foundation sets up a clear reference, namely the relationship with God. If its key words are desire and inordinate attachment, Ignatius elaborates two more 'tangible' terms to understand them. While in consolation the soul is inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord. In desolation one feels separated from one's Master. Expressed through inner motion, consolation brings the soul an increase in faith, hope and love, and dwelling in joy, peace and tranquillity, but desolation moves one towards the opposite, disquiet from various agitations and temptations, listlessness, tepidity and unhappiness, a lack of faith, hope and love.

Noteworthy is it that both consolation and desolation dwell within one's experiential level of consciousness. This is this inner experience which Ignatius wants us to focus on, the raw material for our discernment. In his rules for the discernment of spirits (# 313-336), almost all guidelines are about recognizing the dynamics of consolation and desolation. These definitions are mostly comprised of "feeling" words. Therefore, it is not so much thoughts or determinations which count in the initial sphere of spiritual exercises, no matter how good or great they might be. On the contrary, they might just serve as masks to cover, hide or suppress the significance of personal feelings behind and below where the treasure and genuine encounter with oneself and the Lord dwell. 20 These definitions are connected with the insight in Annotation 6, where the director is told what area he should pay attention to: "when the one giving the Exercises notices that the exercitant is not experiencing any spiritual motions in his or her soul, such as consolation or desolation, or is not being moved one way or another by different spirits, the director should question the retreatant much about the Exercises..."

4. Meditation (# 45).

Ignatius does not give a distinct definition of meditation, but simply takes it as "by using the three powers of the soul" in the context of the first, second, and third sins, followed by the indication of these three powers as memory, understanding, and will (# 50). Clearly, the faculty of memory, in Ignatius' intention, puts us into the experience of past events in history, including those of the angels and first parents, the world and the self. Therefore, experience implies a view as holistic and comprehensive as possible, not just taken from a particular or relativized perspective, since partial experience only leads to incomplete or even biased understanding. Then, understanding belongs to the faculty of intellect, a process of drawing out the meaning of these events in history, especially the meaning related to me. For instance, Ignatius encourages the retreatant to reflect during the first exercise on sin: "For one sin they went to hell; then how often have I deserved hell for my many sins!" (#50) Here, as one commentator suggests, "From the beginning to end, the Ignatian experience is sustained, explained and guided by an intellect solidly rooted in the truths of salvation history. Ignatius cautions the retreat director to expose the "true essentials" of this history as faithfully as possible (#2)." 21

Finally, it belongs to the judgment to reach the truth by the faculty of the will. As the function of our consciousness is not content to remain on the level of understanding, the retreatant conceives in order to judge the salvific truth for himself. According to Lonergan, coming to the level of judgment involves a personal commitment, 22 so the will must be moved to give consent. This movement is linked to the signs of deeper emotions. Here, we see the difference between judgment in scientific truth and religious truth. The former usually does not accompany deeper emotion while the latter always does. Only with this appearance can the judgment become one's own. That is why Annotation 6 emphasizes this aspect so much.

5. Contemplation (#101, 106).

As in the case of meditation, so too in the case of contemplation, Ignatius does not give a distinct definition but simply teaches the retreatant to understand its meaning by following his guidelines and doing the prayer itself. Where meditation uses memory, contemplation utilizes our power of imagination, on the experiential level, to put our presence into the actual events of the Gospels and relive them with Jesus Christ. Then, as in meditation, it belongs to our intellect to understand the meaning of the events, and to our will to judge and move our emotion in relishing them.

6. Four Weeks (# 4)

Here, Ignatius clarifies that each week does not necessarily consist of seven or eight days. Its length greatly depends on the progress, capacity and rhythm of the individual retreatants. However, four weeks provide an inherent and heuristic structure for direction and growth. Its design corresponds to the traditional pattern of spiritual progress from the purgative way, whose focus is on purifying ourselves from past sins or inordinate attachments, then progressing to the illuminative way, which guides us to see the light and truth in Christ, and finally to the unitive way, which means an intimate union with God, the ultimate goal of any spiritual life. If this is so, however, what is the reason for dividing the Spiritual Exercises into four weeks, instead of three, if the basic paradigm is the same? Ignatius has no words on this in his definition, yet this is a question worth probing more deeply in the following reflection.

C. The Heuristic Structure of Interior Knowledge

As discussed above, a heuristic structure is a systematic and cohesive procedure which guides the knower to discover the unknown. In interior knowledge, the guiding target is the will of God for me. This correlation mediates into the dynamic between knowing and loving, between self-knowledge and Christ's life on earth, between the director and the retreatant, between the four weeks, and among the rules of discernment.

1. Knowing and Loving.

Insight represents Lonergan's self-appropriation of the structure of human knowing. 23 By illustrating, for pedagogical purposes, the activity of knowing in classical science, statistical science, and common sense, he demonstrates that there are three levels of human consciousness, namely, empirical, intelligent and rational consciousness. Yet, coming to Method in Theology, Lonergan adds a fourth level, responsible level on which "we are concerned with ourselves, our own operations, our goals, and so deliberate about possible courses of action, evaluate them, decide, and carry out our decisions." 24 This level seems to be a further development and refinement of what Lonergan describes about the third level of consciousness, as mentioned already above, "A third determination of the notion of judgment is that it involves a personal commitment." 25 This personal level makes our knowledge not simply an affirmation of something out there, such as mathematics or science 26, but an engagement of our whole person to participate. This is true especially with reference to our knowledge which is interiority.

However, reaching to this level, the leading thrust is love. Only love can render one capable of committing to a value which one affirms, to be consistent with what one knows, finally not to contradict oneself. Sin, on the contrary, either confuses our knowing, or makes one split between knowing and loving as in the experience of St. Paul in Romans chapter 7. Lonergan put it beautifully: "Faith is the knowledge born of religious love." 27 In other words, love is the condition of possibility of our interior knowledge. This love is the self-communication of God Himself as both the Giver and the Gift itself, so that we are the image of God, the place of indwelling of the blessed Trinity. Therefore, it is no wonder that Ignatius urges the retreatant to ask for God's love or to express one's love (# 5, 12, 13, 104) to God, the pre-requisite of any deeper understanding.

Dialectically, we cannot love what we do not know. Love at first sight is only a myth. Even with love towards God, we have to know who God is, a God communicating Himself in human history, especially in the unique event of Christ incarnated. The whole Exercises are typically Christocentric in guiding the retreatant to make long and profound meditation or contemplation on Christ's historical events for the sake of drawing personal meaning out of them. Following St. Jerome's dictum, "The one who does not know Scripture does not know Christ", Ignatius depends greatly on the revelation of Jesus' life in the Gospels. Moreover, "Ignatius emphasized profound theological study because of an authentic conviction that love must know what is loving and why it is loving. Authentic love presupposes intellectual harmony with the truths of faith. A service rooted in discrete charity cannot be theologically blind." 28 In fact, the assurance of knowing makes the whole process of discernment possible and grounded.

Here there is a dialectic or tension. First, according to Ignatius, discernment is "to some extent" (#313). This implies that we have no guarantee of getting the full picture of God's will, as part of the spiritual tradition emphasizes, "for my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways not your ways ..." (Is 55:8-9) or "God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength." (1Cor 1:25). Ignatius had his own experience of this. After his conversion, in many prayers he felt without doubt that God was asking him to go to Jerusalem, to stay there and even to die there. But history tells us finally God had another plan for him. Was he mistaken in the first place? It seems not. Ignatius' insight includes this total freedom of God who wants us to know His will step by step. What is important is that we are faithful and make an effort in this present moment to find His will. No one can definitely capture God's mind, not even the prophets or saints. God is the totally beyond or absolute other who transcends all our limited knowledge and horizons.

On the other hand, the purpose of discernment is exactly to find what God wants me to do in this particular time and space in history. The presupposition is that we can know God's will. Without this basis, our image of God is either that of a watchmaker who does not care or of a puppeteer who controls our life by whims, without needing our responsibility and cooperation. The implication is either atheism or fideism where predestination becomes a natural conclusion, signified in the idea that what is most unreasonable to human beings is more likely to be God's will. Ignatius, clearly, does not suggest this solution, following the Thomistic realist tradition to affirm that being is intelligible.

In a way similar to Lonergan's epistemology, though perhaps not consciously or thematically in his proceeding, Ignatius' pedagogy in the Spiritual Exercises goes through the four levels of human consciousness. Appealing to the memory of worldly and personal sins and to the imagining of Christ's events in history is on the empirical level. Reflecting on them and drawing out meanings occur on the intellectual and rational level. Finally making an election is on the responsible level. According to Ignatius' experience, this process of searching will finally reach to an intimate understanding of God. So, knowing and loving unites.

2. Self-knowledge and Christ's life on earth

Ignatius' interior transformation starts from insight into himself, acquired when he was in convalescence. Lying in bed and reading the books on Christ and the saints, he began to notice the arousal two kinds of pleasant feelings. Then he understood that the feelings of longing for Christ were much deeper than those for a woman. This experience is the point of departure in Ignatian pedagogy.

First, the Spiritual Exercises create a time and space for a person to face himself in depth. As a scientist has to be at pains to find out and confirm the correlation between thing and thing by doing complicated experiments, no less a pilgrim needs to make an effort to discover who he is. Though he was without modern categories in psychology, Ignatius understands clearly that the self is not immediately transparent to one's consciousness because of the influence of sin and evil spirits. My masks prevent not only others, but also myself, from knowing who I am.

Here, Ignatius has a deep sense of history. In the first week, he invites the retreatant to go back into his own background, by the power of memory, and discover the fact of sin in the world and in his very own person, and then to understand how sin has blocked him from recognizing God's presence in his life. The question may arise, how does one know whether this kind of knowledge is not another kind of mask?29 As Pousset wisely points out, "There is a danger that many people making the Spiritual Exercises get no further than representation. With a great deal of good will and fidelity, they fill their imagination with images, words, stories, and yet nothing or almost nothing happens. St. Ignatius was concerned with this problem in the sixth annotation, but he did not dwell on it at great length." 30 It is clear that inner growth is not like a mechanical process which one can control at ease, since the time of transformation remains in God's hand. Yet, being aware of this problem, Ignatius marks out a clear reference in Annotation 6: "When the one giving the Exercises notices that the exercitant is not experiencing any spiritual motions in his or her soul, such as consolation or desolation, or is not being moved one way or another by different spirits, the director should question...." Here, the reference point is feeling.

Secondly, Lonergan sees feelings as responding to values in accord with a scale of preference in an ascending order, namely from vital values, to social, cultural, personal and religious values. Our discernment is exactly to identify these on their proper levels so that "there are in full consciousness feelings so deep and strong, especially when deliberately reinforced, that they channel attention, shape one's horizon, direct one's life" 31 and "to take cognizance of them makes it possible for one to know oneself, to uncover the inattention, obtuseness, silliness, irresponsibility that give rise to the feeling one does not want, and to correct the aberrant attitude." 32 No wonder that, in the Ignatian heuristic structure of the Spiritual Exercises, the high point is, from an anthropocentric perspective, one's own election, i.e., one's judgment of value. Lonergan emphasizes that "the judgment of value, then, is itself a reality in the moral order...By it the subject is constituting himself as proximately capable of moral self-transcendence, of benevolence and beneficence, of true loving." 33

Ignatius states in Annotation 2: "For what fills and satisfies the soul consists, not in knowing much, but in our understanding the realities profoundly and in savouring them interiorly." Therefore, what is at stake is not so much knowledge by representation as the feeling attached to it. As a matter of fact, though Ignatius sanctions the third time for making a sound and good election (#177), namely, a time of tranquillity and having no special inner movement, when one uses one's natural faculties to calculate the pros and cons for one's decision, he still makes it clear that "When that election or decision has been made, the person who has made it ought with great diligence to go to prayer before God our Lord and to offer him that election, that the divine Majesty may be pleased to receive and confirm it, if it is conducive to his greater service and praise."(# 183) But how does one know whether God is pleased to receive and confirm it or not? One must appeal to one's desolation and consolation of the second time (# 176) Therefore, for Ignatius, self-knowledge properly speaking Ignatius is one's own inner and deeper feeling, from which one can detect either one's own inordinate attachment or one's freedom and joy towards God's will.

However, self-knowledge is not some kind of closed system as are some modern systems or movements like New-Age, which claims that, as long as we are liberated, we are like God or are gods. The ideal may be all right, but the whole process is missing. No doubt, being God's image is asserted in Scriptures, but we have to conform ourselves to this image, whose perfect expression is, in the first place, Jesus Christ. Only Jesus is the condition of possibility of one's true liberation. Thus it is not accidental that Ignatius arranges the whole second, third and fourth week as almost wholly Christocentric, guiding the retreatant to get familiar with Christ's life and teaching on earth. Contemporary categories help us much here to understand his insight. The basic structure of the human being is philosophically I-Thou, or theologically the self-communication of God. There is no such thing as "Cogito, Ergo Sum" or pure human nature. If this basic tenet is accepted, there is no genuine self-knowledge without reference to others. 34 However, the dimension of others is always a corrupted or contaminated reality, as meditated on in the first week. Thus the Christ event, both as prototype as well as fulfilment of human destiny, becomes salvific in its actual sense. Jesus' life and mystery on earth is never just a past event congealed in history, but becomes a constant pivot of reference for one to see what one's true self rests upon.

These two dimensions come back to the dynamics of knowing and loving. In knowing Christ more deeply, we come to love him more dearly. In experiencing love and being accepted unconditionally, we can open up to a greater horizon of knowing ourselves and God's will. This is a circular and unending movement in our pilgrimage on earth, according to Ignatius.

3. Director and Retreatant

Comments on his experience in Manresa, Ignatius says: "During this period God was dealing with him in the same way a schoolteacher deals with a child while instructing him." 35 At first glance this seems to imply a simple I-God relationship, without the involvement of a third person. However, in his presentation of the Spiritual Exercises, the presence of a director is simply taken for granted, without the need of any justification.

In fact, Ignatius himself treasured very much the role and need of a director in his own spiritual journey because a lack of knowledge on spiritual matters made him suffer a lot, fast too much and even come to the point of thinking of committing suicide under the spell of scruples. By experience he also discovered that instruction from the director is helpful, "The confessor ordered him to break off his fast and though he was still feeling strong, he nevertheless obeyed his confessor, and that day as well as the following day he found that he was free of his scruples." 36

As the Exercises are basically designed for beginners in the spiritual life, the presence of a director for the retreatant is presupposed.Yet, Ignatius is very much aware that the whole Exercises are mainly a self-appropriation process engaging the retreatant with his Lord, rather than a course from the director on catechism or spiritual exhortation, no matter how meaningful these may be on some other occasion. Though not as scrupulous as St. John of the Cross, 37 Ignatius sets up clear boundary and advice for the director, whose main task is a faithful companionship in the ups and downs of the retreatant. From Annotation 6 to 15, the director is advised to inquire into the retreatant's experience during prayer; to be patient, kind and gentle towards the retreatant; to explain the rules of discernment according to the retreatant's progress and need; to keep the retreatant living in the present moment and free from worrying about what will come next; to encourage the retreatant to be faithful in prayer even in desolation; to warn the retreatant not to make hasty promises to God during consolation; and not to impose any personal preference and suggestion for a particular state of life, but to let God work directly on the retreatant. In summary, all these guidelines ask the director to be indifferent and pedagogical, implicitly setting up a good example of the Principle and Foundation for the retreatant to imitate. In other words, if the director shows a clear attachment to his own ideas, feelings and wishes for the retreatant, the latter will unconsciously follow this way of proceeding, either blindly adopting the director's prejudice or stubbornly sticking to his own inordinate attachment and spiritual freedom will not emerge.

In parallel manner, Ignatius is mindful of the attitude and disposition of the retreatant towards the director, though the Spiritual Exercises is mainly the former's process of self-appropriation. The basic tenet behind this is that, as a novice in spiritual matters, any retreatant may easily fall prey to self-deception or the tricks of the evil spirits, as affirmed by Ignatius' own experience of scruples and depression. Even an advanced pilgrim is still open to deception by Satan pretending to be an angel of light, "who brings good and holy thoughts attractive to such an upright soul and then strives little by little to get his own way, by enticing the soul over to his own hidden deceits and evil intentions." (# 332) Therefore, the retreatant is advised to examine the whole train of thoughts, if they "end up in something evil or diverting or in something less good than what the soul was originally proposing to do... all this is a clear sign that this is coming from the evil spirit..." (#333).

Undoubtedly, the instruction is clear; but Ignatius foresees implicitly that this is not easily carried out. Therefore, all these principles are not given to the retreatant for a self reading, but are left to the director to explain. Moreover, "the enemy acts like a false lover,... wants his words and solicitations to remain secret....But when the person reveals them to his or her good confessor or some spiritual person who understands the enemy's deceits and malice, he is grievously disappointed."(# 326) That is why Ignatius exhorts in Annotation 5 that the retreatant should enter the exercises with a great spirit and generosity, implying also a great openness and freedom towards the director in one's inner journey, apart from aiming at a lofty desire and ideal for God. In fact, following the structure of I-Thou, one comes to understand oneself through the presence of others. Concerning other responsibilities, Ignatius reminds the retreatant about being faithful in doing the Exercises, more rather than less, especially in time of desolation (#12). The retreatant is to be content in the present moment and not to be agitated or curious to know what is to be done next (# 11). This filial trust is a pre-requisite disposition to let oneself go and then conform oneself to God's will.

4. The Four Weeks

Ignatius structures the Spiritual Exercises in congruency with the traditional understanding of the spiritual life as a progress through the purgative way, the illuminative way, and finally the unitive way (#10). His originality seems to lie in anthropocentrically setting a personal election as the thematic goal, lying between the second and third weeks, signified as the high point of the whole Exercises, while the thrust is totally Christocentric, coming from an intimate understanding and love of Christ.

The first two weeks is the preparation for this election, whose condition of possibility is a heart purged of inordinate attachments and filled with a willingness to follow Christ wholeheartedly. Implicitly following the transcendental structure of human consciousness as discovered by Lonergan, Ignatius sees no benefit in one's spiritual life if the soul, guided by love, does not come to actualize a definite stand and commitment towards God and the world. Starting from personal experience, the interior life cannot be satisfied simply by understanding or so-called illumination, no matter how lofty it is. Even in the first week, Ignatius does not accidentally put the question to the retreatant who may still be troubled by personal inordinate attachments, namely, "What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What ought I to do for Christ?" (#53) Therefore the soul should not stop being reasonable in searching for what is true and real, or being responsible in committing to what is truly good. This desire for deliberation and action echoes through the Spiritual Exercises, in the contemplation of the kingdom of Jesus Christ (# 96), the two standards (# 146), the three classes of persons (# 153-155), the three degrees of humility (#165-167), and finally the contemplation to attain love (# 233-237). The key word is "labour", while the conviction is "love ought to manifest itself more by deeds than by words."(# 230)

A question may then arise, namely, if the election is already the fulfilment of the process of our consciousness, why do the Spiritual Exercises not end here, but continue to structure the whole Paschal mystery in the third and fourth week? First, election means one's creating oneself in a definite manner by deliberating on and choosing the genuinely good and the distinctively better. It represents an experience of moral conversion to higher values. "Then is the time for the exercise of vertical freedom, and then moral conversion consists in opting for the truly good, even for value against satisfaction when value and satisfaction conflict."38 However, cooperative grace signified by moral conversion presupposes the pre-eminence of operative grace, which is religious conversion, that "other-worldly falling in love" which is total and permanent self-surrender without conditions, qualifications, reservations."39 In this sense, the moral stage must yield to the religious one as fulfilment. Otherwise, as Kierkegaard suggests, one easily falls prey to pride and arrogance as the self-righteous Pharisees did, an insight already so adequately expounded by Paul: "If I give away all that I possess, piece by piece, and if I even let them take my body to burn it, but am without love, it will do me no good whatever" (1Cor 13:3), Therefore, religious conversion provides "a new basis for all valuing and all doing good. In no way are fruits of intellectual or moral conversion negated or diminished. On the contrary, all human pursuit of the true and the good is included within and furthered by a cosmic context and purpose and, as well, there now accrues to man the power of love to enable him to accept the suffering involved in undoing the effects of decline."40 In this sense, the whole dynamic of the third and fourth weeks is to put this pre-supposition and immediacy of operative grace into a thematic and conscious reflection so that our election is affirmed in love, while we receive the necessary strength to bear the cross as Christ did and open up to the hope of resurrection and glory which Christ experienced.Secondly, through the first week one acquires reformation of oneself, through the second week conformation to Christ, while the election begins the confirmation in Christ as choosing those things which Christ chose. But we will not succeed or be faithful in our election unless we are transformed into Christ. Lonergan tells us: "It is not merely a self-mediation in which we develop, but it is a self-mediation through another. One is becoming oneself, not just by experiences, insights, judgments, by choices, decisions, conversion, not just freely and deliberately, not just deeply and strongly, but as one who is carried along." 41

The one who carries us along is Christ, whose image and example the Father destined for us to conform to and transform into. Therefore, it is a self-mediation through Christ and by Christ. In a deeper reflection, perfection through suffering is no longer an abstract principle as the human lot but becomes an event of mutual self-mediation. "Christ chose and decided to perfect himself in the manner in which he did because of us...the way of the cross is the way in which fallen nature acquires its perfection...; by his own autonomous choices, he was thinking of us and thinking of what we needed to be able to attain our own self-mediation." 42 In this sense, the third and fourth weeks become necessary to achieve a union with Christ, as the unitive way aims at. This union does not just mean making oneself Christ-like. It means letting Christ become man in reference to us and especially to myself in the very Paschal mystery, His and mine. "I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me."(Gal 2:20)

5. Rules for discernment - direct and inverse insight

It is quite true to say that the Principle and Foundation and the rules for discernment are the heart of Ignatius' insight. Concerning the latter, Rahner affirms: "We should even like to risk the assertion that they (the rules) are actually the first and so far the only detailed attempts at such a systematic method."43 Every insight will sooner or later develop into a system, providing certain boundaries and rules. As in the study of Scripture, textual criticism, literary criticism, form criticism and redaction criticism signify both way as well as boundary, beyond which scholarship is not recognized as proper. Similarly, the positivist approach in modern human sciences only tackle value-free statements so that moral or metaphysical statements are not and cannot be treated. Of course, whether the validity of these insights is grounded or not is not our interest here. The basic tenet is that insight follows this dynamic, as Lonergan points out.

As direct insight, the rules for discernment mainly provide guidelines for understanding desolation and consolation, in relation to the good and evil spirits. There is no attempt here to explain the details of each rule, on which many distinguished writers have already contributed a lot. Yet two suppositions are worth noticing in order to grasp these rules in a better way.

First, Ignatius seems to affirm the possibility of an original and deep experience of God, which serves as a prototype and is beyond doubt. This is mentioned as the first time of doing the election (#175) and as consolation without a preceding cause (# 330). The characteristic of this experience is that "it is the prerogative of the Creator alone to enter the soul, depart from it, and cause a motion in it which draws the whole person into the love of His Divine Majesty." (# 330) However, in a 30-day retreat context, "without a preceding cause" cannot mean that consolation is totally without our preparation, effect or expectation, since we are told to ask the Lord for what we want and desire in the second prelude to meditation (##48, 55, 65) and the third prelude to contemplation (##91, 104, and to spend time doing them (#4, 12). Consolation is rather that which is out of proportion to 'what I want and desire', or beyond our conceptual object, a phrase used by Karl Rahner, so that one enters entirely into God's love. "This experience allows the person to judge an experience not only by its fruit, but also by its origin." 44 This standpoint might be arguable, yet Ignatius shows no suspicion about it. What he is cautious about is the after-thought of this experience. (# 333)

The original and deep experience of God mentioned as the first time of doing the election (#175) and as consolation without a preceding cause (# 330) serves as a prototype because other and thinner consolation or desolation take their reference from it, since it is a relationship with God without doubt, like a perfect glass to show the true face of other experiences. In fact, even Jesus asked the apostles to go back Galilee to witness his resurrection (Mk 16:7, Mt 28:7). Does Galilee not signify the undoubted experience of God's calling and love? If that is so important for the interior life, it should not be a rare phenomenon... "An experience of the CSCP (consolation with preceding cause) of varying purity and intensity is certainly to be expected as the normal crowning of the CCCP (consolation with cause) which the exercitant frequently receives during the exercises." 45 Therefore, it is the common effort of the director and retreatant to recognize its happening and presence.

Secondly, discernment deals mainly with "the various motions which are caused in the soul" (# 313). By "motions" is meant desolation and consolation. As discussed earlier, they include mostly feeling words. It is, thus, the feelings which we discern and not the thoughts. "The feelings are crucial: They are the raw material of our experiences of God. But they must be judged, rationally evaluated to distinguish the weeds from the wheat." 46 However, before understanding or judging, the recognition of true feelings is already an important task. Sometimes our true feelings can be masked or moralized into something we wish to be: I should be joyful, or grateful, etc. rather than I actually am joyful or grateful. Or we tend to hide our true feelings from ourselves or the director for various reasons, like the tactics of the false lover (# 326). Here, the words of Jesus are valid: "The truth will make you free."(Jn 8:32)

In fact, it is part of the task in the first week to discover all the historical, cultural and human factors which has been blocking our true self, especially our feelings, from emerging. No doubt, feelings can be treacherous or deceitful. That is where discernment comes in. The convalescent Ignatius had to measure his happiness in searching for the worldly career against the happiness inherent in the heroism of saints like Francis and Dominic. Only then did he discover the latter to be the truer and deeper joy. Later, the Cardoner experience became Ignatius' reference axis for discernment: "After Cardoner, Ignatius easily discerned true from false consolations, as exemplified by his rejection of the serpent-form vision because of diminished colour, his distaste for Erasmus because of diminished fervour, and his decision to reject consolations which prevented him from sleeping." 47 In this sense, the consolation without a preceding cause is the crucial criterion for discernment. In the same line, our fundamental option towards God is also an important criterion. God hardly calls into question one's fundamental commitment, unless it is wrongly made in the first place (# 172).

Let us now turn to inverse insight. It is famous that Ignatius lays down rules for thinking, judging, and feeling with the Church. Though not explicitly mentioned among the individual rules, (##353 to 370), the basic motive seems to be to answer the question whether genuine consolation from God can lead us to go against the authority, doctrines or religious practices in the Catholic Church. Ignatius may be said either to give a definite "no" or perhaps to point out that this is a wrong question, since God cannot contradict Himself by showing a different revelation to the Church and individuals. From this assertion, such consolation cannot be true.

15. Understanding and Being, 46-47

16. The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, A Translation and Commentary by George E. Ganss, S.J. (St. Louis: the Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992), #23. References to the text of the Spiritual Exercises are indicated by #. ##1-20 are commonly called Annotations.

17. Cf. Ibid., 211, where Ganss points out that Erasmus' Handbook of the Christian Soldier expresses certain ideas similar to those of Ignatius.

18. Insight, 12

19. The Spiritual Exercises, 149

20. This will be elaborated more in the later part. Cf. Thomas H. Green, Weeds Among the Wheat (Makati: St. Paul Publications, 1984), 98-99.

21. Harvey D. Egan, S.J., The Spiritual Exercises and the Ignatian Mystical Horizon (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1976), 69.

22. Cf. Insight, 272.

23. Cf. Insight, xix-xxiii.

24. Method in Theology, 9.

25. Insight, 272

26. This is not to deny that finally they also involve our commitment, e.g., if we judge something poisonous, we won't take it. But in the process the ideal is only the relationship between thing and thing.

27. Method in Theology, 115

28. Ignatian Mystical Horizon, 70

29. It is clear in the case of Jonah. He fled from God's call, and then was saved by God after three days in the whale. Then he complied with God's will and proclaimed the message to people in Nineveh. But only at the end is his deeper rebellious attitude unmasked. He has actually not been at peace with God.

30. Edouard Pousset, S.J., Life in Faith and Freedom (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1980), 61-62. The meaning of representation is covered in pages 57-63

31. Method in Theology, 32

32. Ibid., 33

33. Ibid., 37

34. Study affirms that without the positive caring and affirmation of others, a person cannot know his worth as a true image of God. Therefore, the presence of others is not only accidental, but also substantial.

35. A Pilgrim's Journey, 36.

36. Ibid., 34.

37. In The Living Flame, John indicates three blind guides who can cause the soul to go into the dark night. While he dedicates only three paragraphs to the devil and two to the soul itself, he devotes many pages to the danger of entrusting oneself to a director whose only goal is to form carbon copies of himself. Cf. Thomas H. Green, S.J., Drinking From a Dry Well (Makati: St. Paul Publications, 1991), 33.

38. Method in Theology, 240

39. Ibid., 240

40. Ibid., 242

41. Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, vol. 6, ed. By Robert C. Croken, Frederick E. Crowe, and Robert M. Doran. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), "The Mediation of Christ in Prayer", 180.

42. Ibid., 181.

43. Ignatian Mystical Horizon, 132

44. Ibid., 15

45. Ibid.,56

46. Weeds Among the Wheat, 99

47. Ignatian Mystical Horizon, 138