At twenty years old I had my first experience of a severe depressive episode. It occurred while I was spending six months discerning consecrated life within a community. The memories of that time still hit me strongly, all the anticipation of this life and following God’s call to give myself to Him, followed by intense loneliness and sadness that nothing could shake. My formaters were caring, yet confused. Honestly, I don’t blame them, the suddenness of this overwhelming misery consuming me was shocking to me as well. I stumbled through those first few months, crying through most of my daily tasks, and completely unsure what was next. The depression eased as time went on, but never left me in those months. As I was discerning what to do next, one of the consecrated women introduced me to a podcast on The Discernment of Spirits that changed my life. This was my first real introduction to principles of discernment and the contributions to the Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
No one had ever told me my emotional life was relevant to my spiritual life! Hearing the way that St. Ignatius acknowledged his emotions, considered the messages they contained, and decided to act with or against them was revolutionary! His work on discernment of spirits came from his own experiences, Ignatius was an incredibly passionate person in all areas of his life. After his conversion, he reflected on how he saw God working in his own life and others, and this informed his writings. He acknowledges that the emotions matter, the ups and downs of our emotional life and the way they play into our relationship with God have importance. “All faithful persons in all walks of life experience some form of these inner spiritual fluctuations: times of energy and desire for the things of God, and other times when that energy and attraction wane” (Gallagher, 2013).
The content of discernment of spirits or Ignatian exercises deserves far more exploration than I can do in a short blog post, but I do want to share a few points that have been helpful to me in my understanding of the meeting point between emotions and spirituality:
The emotional capacity and experience as humans is part of God’s intentional design, and therefore, is good!
Emotions have importance and deserve attention and care.
Emotions are neither morally good nor bad, and yet can direct us to actions that are either good or bad.
Being aware of our emotions can actually help us deepen our relationship with God and see His action in our life more clearly.
God does not want our misery!
This last point was something that twenty-year-old me had never encountered before. Reading Ignatius’ work it was clear that the more one followed God, there would be more peace and joy. Not an absence of negative emotions, by any means, but the idea that there would be indicators in one’s emotional life that this was what God wanted. Somehow, I had internalized this idea that God wanted me to be miserable, that joy would only come in Heaven. Once that distortion was revealed, it became immediately clear that my discernment with that community was done, that God wanted joy for me that I hadn’t experienced in those six months. Today, on the feast of St. Ignatius, I am so grateful both for my personal realizations brought about by his writings and overall for the gift St. Ignatius was to the Church! I invite you to think about your own emotional life, do you view it as a good from God? Do your emotions help you draw closer to God? Either way, I invite you to check out the resources below to learn more about St. Ignatius & his writings!
St. Ignatius of Loyola, Pray for us!
The Discernment of Spirits Book (Gallagher, 2013)