This morning between dropping off 140 tea sandwiches for the seventh grade language arts party and a midday consultation with a student, I spent an hour sitting in the back pew of my parish church, my mind fixed on what was happening on Calvary. These are not comfortable contemplations, and I am finding them particularly challenging to engage with in the middle of my routine life. Pray, he says, for the grace to know sorrow, regret, and confusion, because the Lord is going to his passion for my sins. Ignatius charges us in the third movement of his Spiritual Exercises to embrace chaos, to know confusion, and to be present to the difficult. It’s not always a comfortable space to inhabit. At the start of each semester my students face what I imagine seems to them an enormous writhing mass of primordial information, which they must dive into, come to know, and ultimately recognize in new situations.
If I had a Latin motto posted over my office door it might be Conplecte abyssum-embrace chaos, or more literally, entwine yourself into the depths. This is a guest post by Michelle Francl-Donnay for Week Seven of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure.
