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Featured Book for May 2025

The Spirituality of Transformation, Joy, and Justice: The Ignatian Way for Everyone

by Patrick Saint-Jean

Discover how rooting our beliefs and practices in relationship–with each other, the natural world, and the Source of All Life–leads us to transform ourselves and the world.

At its heart, Ignatian spirituality is practical and experiential, offering modern readers a structure for pursuing inner growth that results in transformed action. While it is a deeply contemplative practice, Ignatian spirituality appeals to many of us who are looking for purpose and meaning, and who are wondering how to live out that purpose in a way that addresses the brokenness of our world.

At the heart of this thoughtful introduction to Ignatian spirituality are the Spiritual Exercises, developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola of Spain. Using ordinary language, these meditations point to the ways in which this spiritual path not only “grows our souls” but also inspires us to defend human rights, respect and listen to other cultures, find common ground between science and religion, struggle for justice, and honor a Divine Spirit who is actively at work in each aspect of our world. As twenty-first-century spiritual seekers, we do not need to be Jesuits, Catholics, or even Christians to make use of Ignatius’s methods; some of history’s most important thinkers–from René Descartes to Carl Jung–were influenced and inspired by the Spiritual Exercises. Let them guide you to transformation in the ordinary, everyday world.

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Community Questions from Claudia Love Mair

Part I

  1. In the introduction to The Spirituality of Transformation, Joy, and Justice, Patrick invites us to journey to our true selves, while admitting that we may fear what we will find when we look inside ourselves. He quotes psychologist Ann Weiser. “There are no enemies inside. Every part of us is trying to save our lives.” (page 1) Reflect on a part of yourself you may be afraid to look at. How can you befriend it as an inner savior?
  2. Patrick writes that Ignatius believed God is the source of all freedom, allowing us to be the truest versions of ourselves. (page 8) Describe a version of yourself in possession of this kind of freedom.
  3. Like Saint Teresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola taught the practice of “interior recollection”, the process of gathering together what has been scattered within us, bringing focus to our inner world. This could be a re-collection of our memories, random thoughts, emotions, inclinations, desires, and imaginings. (page 2) What is scattered inside of your beautiful mind, that needs to be gathered back together?

Part II

  1. Review “The Foundation” of the Spiritual Exercises. (page 4) What comes up for you as you as you ponder these core principles?
  2. The last section of the Introduction, “Falling In Love” offers us the guidance to fall in love and stay in love, letting love guide us in deciding every aspect of our lives. (page 12-13) In what ways do you want love to renew and transform you?
  3. Chapter One (page 17) “Missing the Mark” is about the first stage of the Spiritual Exercises, looking at clarity in the ways in which universal and personal sin shapes the state of our world and ourselves, yet the topic of sin is uncomfortable for many to ponder. Considering Patrick’s ways of reframing how we think of sin—missing the mark—how do we enter into this stage without guilt or shame often associated with the word sin?

Part III

  1. According to Patrick, “Another way to think of sin is as something that damages our wholeness and well-being, either as individuals or as communities. . . As we damage the living bonds of relationship. We ultimately create a broken world, a world of poverty, racism, sexism, violence, and anger.” (page 18-19) Why is it important to be aware of and understand the impact of communal sin?
  2. Page 32. “The road to hell (unhappiness, emptiness, and despair) is paved with a lack of intention.” Describe what a life lived without intention could look like. “Ignatius would tell you that everything you see is in some way a communication from the Divine Spirit. The sun shining through the window, the colors of painting on the wall, the multihued rows of books on shelves: each whisper, I’m here . . .and here. . . and here.” (page 51) What are some ways we can learn to receive this communication that is happening all the time, even when our spirits feel dry and the world becomes dulled?
  3. Patrick writes, “Again and again, throughout the Gospels, Jesus expressed his solidarity with people his society had marginalized and ignored. He listened to outsiders and affirmed their identities. He touched people considered to be unclean; he broke the taboos of his people as he had long talks with women; he spent time with people outside his own ethnic group; and even as he was dying, he talked to the man who was on a cross beside him, a man condemned to death for his crimes.” (page 59) What is something you can do to begin to reclaim that beautiful solidarity that Jesus expressed with those on the margins?

Part IV

  1. Ignatius describes humility as essential to discernment. (page 86) How can you begin to enter into your failures as places of new insight in a culture that wants us to only focus on the positive?
  2. Page 124: “As we look at Jesus’s death as described in the Gospels, we see the reality of human suffering. There are no miracles, no last-minute rescues, no theological discourses about the meaning of death. Instead, we see a person who is thirsty, weak, exhausted, full of despair, and in terrible pain. With his death, Jesus challenges us to acknowledge the violence and pain that takes place every day in our world.” What does this brutal reality of Jesus’ death have to teach us about the suffering of the world?
  3. In the chapter “Healing” (page 157) Patrick shares how Ignatius, in his sick bed, began to slowly heal through his encounters with the life of Jesus. In a culture of quick fixes that is more often ableist that not, how can we endure what ails us when time stretches out before us and we have no relief, when words of comfort seem hollow?