Bulletins
July 27, 2014
Download the Bulletin as a PDFOn July 31 the Church celebrates Saint Ignatius of Loyola. At the beginning of the Spiritual Exercises, the purpose of which is "to conquer oneself and regulate one's life without determining oneself through any tendency that is disordered", the great founder of the Jesuits explains the Principle and Foundation of the Exercises:
Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.
And the other things on the face of the earth are created for man and that they may help him in prosecuting the end for which he is created.
From this it follows that man is to use them as much as they help him on to his end, and ought to rid himself of them so far as they hinder him as to it.
For this it is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created things in all that is allowed to the choice of our free will and is not prohibited to it; so that, on our part, we want not health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, long rather than short life, and so in all the rest; desiring and choosing only what is most conducive for us to the end for which we are created.
At the conclusion of the same work he details eighteen rules for what is commonly called "thinking with the Mind of the Church", the first rule of which is "All judgment laid aside, we ought to have our mind ready and prompt to obey, in all, the true Spouse of Christ our Lord, which is our holy Mother the Church Hierarchical." The famous thirteenth rule reads: "To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it, believing that between Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom, and the Church, His Bride, there is the same Spirit which governs and directs us for the salvation of our souls. Because by the same Spirit and our Lord Who gave the ten Commandments, our holy Mother the Church is directed and governed."
If this were unhinged from the Eleventh Rule, which anchors the Society of Jesus and all spiritual children of St. Ignatius to the Fathers of the Church, Sacred Scripture and the Councils of the Church, an anti-intellectual positivism could result. That not being the case, we need more servants of the Church with the heart and mind of Saint Ignatius.
Our Lady of the Way, pray for us! Saint Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us! All you holy Martyrs, pray for us!
God bless you!
Fr. Christopher J. J. Pollard
