Discernment through ‘consolations’ and ‘desolations’

This is the fourth of six blogs intended to help you to allow yourself to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Press this link if you wish to start reading from the first blog.

Awareness of the movements of the spirits

In discerning the Spirits, the person involved and one’s director (mediator) needs to be aware of  “the various agitations and thoughts brought about by the different spirits.” “These are not abstract ideas, but rather what Ignatius calls ‘movements of the spirits’; they involve imagination and feeling, and they tend toward actions, either interior or exterior.

• Personal thoughts are those we either initiate or choose to entertain.
• Thoughts brought about by the spirits are thoughts, good or bad, in so far as they come unbidden and, as it were, from outside ourselves (cf. Exercises 32, 347)” (Michael Ives, Understanding the Spiritual Exercises. Text and Commentary. A handbook for retreat Directors, MGP, Great Britain 1998, p. 17).

Analysing the causes of the ‘consolations’ and ‘desolations’

Mainly this consists of an analysis of the causes of the ‘consolations’ and ‘desolations’ experienced during prayer.  Such observations will then help the individual to discern which Spirit (human, Divine or Diabolical) is present in one’s actual way of thinking.

Saint Ignatius also offers a set of “Rules by which to perceive and understand to some extent the various movements produced in the soul: The Good that they may be accepted, and the bad, that they may be rejected” (Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, n. 313).

The movements of the spirit

The term movements here “refer to the interactions of feelings, thoughts, and impulses of attraction and recoil, which occur spontaneously in consciousness. It should be remembered that these movements consist of, ‘thoughts’ in this context being not dispassionate or solely speculative thoughts, but thoughts as it where ‘charged’ with feeling. In the vocabulary of the Exercises. ‘thoughts’ also include the activity of the imagination” (Michael Ives, Understanding the Spiritual Exercises. Text and Commentary. A handbook for retreat Directors, MGP, Great Britain 1998, p. 210).

Accepting good thoughts and rejecting the bad ones.

During this discernment of the spirit, these rules are intended to help the person accept the good thoughts and reject the bad ones. This is because the movements mentioned above in “themselves are involuntary; freedom consists in the choice to accept or not accept the direction they impart to the will, the thoughts and the general perceptions of reality to which they give rise. To say that one can decline to accept involuntary or spontaneous movements does not imply, however, that one can always immediately get rid of them”.

The approach of Saint Ignatius

In short, Ignatius summarized his approach to the discernment of spirits in two sets of Rules for Discernment, which he included in the Spiritual Exercises. The rules deal with ways to interpret the states of consolation (joy, peace, gratitude, and the like) and desolation (depression, anxiety, fear) that people typically experience in the course of cultivating a spiritual life.

The first set is 14 rules (Spiritual Exercises, n. 313-327) that give practical spiritual advice about dealing with desolation—those times when the heart feels far from God and spiritual vigour wanes. They are intended to be used by an experienced spiritual director who is helping people understand the nature and meaning of the emotions they are experiencing in prayer. They are specially intended for people embarking on a systematic spiritual journey. They assist people in identifying the spiritual forces involved in these emotions: the Good Spirit (God, the Holy Spirit) and what Ignatius called “the enemy of our human nature” (the world, the flesh, the devil).

The second set is eight rules (Spiritual Exercises, 328–336) intended to help people who are firmly established in spiritual life. These rules focus on spiritual consolation. They help people discern when the spiritual consolation they are feeling is an authentic sign of God’s presence.

It is important to note here, that these rules are a resource for the director, rather than the person in discernment. However, by referring to them during one’s discernment, one can confirm, extend or correct one’s actual discernment.