6 June 2022
Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church
To be a practitioner of Ignatian spirituality does not demand total submission to every last teaching of St. Ignatius Loyola. While St. Ignatius got a lot of things right, he also got a few things wrong. We can all learn from his insights while setting his errors aside.
What about being a Christian? Could we learn from Christ’s insights while rejecting his errors? To do so would require some standard by which we judge Christ. Far better, more rational and scientific, would be to make Christ himself the standard by which to judge every other standard. Did not Christ say “I am the way and the truth and the life?” Did not his first disciples understand him to be the eternal word made flesh?
The standard of Christ is what keeps the Church united. The early Christians, using that standard, “devoted themselves with one accord to prayer” (Acts 1:14). To pray together “with one accord” is an achievement not to be underrated by anyone who understands how divisive human beings can be. The early Christians could have each gone their own way, but they understood that there was only one way, namely, Jesus Christ.