Following in the footsteps of Ignatius - Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius

National Catholic Reporter, April 13, 2001 by Margot Patterson

The video was produced by Lawrence Johnson, who had earlier won kudos for "Sacred Encounters," an audio-visual museum exhibit that looked at the Jesuits' relationship with Native Americans. Jesuit Fr. Tom Rochford was the executive producer. Modras wrote the video script.

Though it was his idea to make a video, Modras said he was initially reluctant to take on the responsibility for the video script because he is not a Jesuit.

"At first I thought Jesuits know more about this than I, but then I realized that this was really aimed at people like me: non-Jesuits," Modras said.

As it happened, Modras was about to go on sabbatical at the time. "I was looking for a project that would last a few months. It may turn into the rest of my theological career," Modras said. He is now at work on a book titled Ignatian Humanism: A Spirituality for the 21st Century.

Modras said the greatest challenge in making the videos was distilling the essence of Ignatian spirituality. After researching the subject, he decided the two most important points he wanted viewers to come away with are that Ignatian spirituality is rooted in the spiritual exercises St. Ignatius wrote and that the Society of Jesus is firmly rooted in the Renaissance. Ignatius' emphasis on "finding God in all things" means that God is present in all human endeavors, that nothing human is negligible or merely secular, he explained.

Modras uses the term "spiritual humanism" to describe what he thinks of as distinctively Jesuit characteristics. The 15th century humanists saw the study of the humanities as leading not only to insight and understanding but to eloquence and action, Modras wrote in an article in America, in which he described the Jesuits as descendants of a humanistic tradition that tries to marry insight and action and attempts to strike a balance between contemplation and action.

Since the videos were completed, Modras has heard from scores of enthusiastic viewers, including at least one grateful Jesuit who wrote to thank him for explaining his Jesuit charism to him.

"Sometimes living in the forest, these people didn't appreciate where they were," Modras said. "At a distance, I knew enough about theology and history to know how they (Jesuits) were different. Benedictines built their monastery on mountain tops; Cistercians built them in valleys; and Jesuits built them in cities."

At St. Louis University, 40 trained facilitators, all laity, lead their lay colleagues in a discussion following the video presentations. Modras notes that conversation was an important part of the ministry of Ignatius -- "That's how the exercises got started" -- and remains a Jesuit ministry today.

"What the video has done for me and for hundreds of people is to make us more conscious members of the extended Ignatian family," Modras said.

-- Margot Patterson

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One of the great mystics of 16th-century Spain, Inigo de Loyola was born in 1491 to a wealthy family in the Basque province of Guipuzcoa. The youngest son of 13 children, at age 16 he became a page to the treasurer of the kingdom of Castile and later transferred his service to the viceroy of Navarre. By then, Ignatius had become a courtier fond of gambling, swordplay and tales of chivalry. In his account of his early life, he mentions being "fairly free in the love of women" and, later, that he was much enamored of a certain lady and the deeds of gallantry he would do in her service.