The spirituality of St Ignatius reminds me of a farmer who decides to buy a field that is adjacent to his property but has not been worked for a number of years.

This field will show the neglect because it will be full of weeds, tree saplings planted by the birds, and rocks that have worked their way to the surface by the shifting of the earth. The first thing the farmer must do is to remove the rocks so that they do not damage his equipment. Next he will try to remove all the saplings, including the roots, that he will cut up into small pieces for burning. If he is lucky enough to have a mulcher, then he will put the saplings through it and spread the mulch through out the field. When all of this has been accomplished he is now ready to burn off the weedy growth. Now he can satisfied that all of the seed producing parts of the weeds have been purged and only the roots are left.

Once the field is barren, he will walk every inch studying for defects in drainage so that he can redirect the water. Only after much hard work has been done over a week or two will the farmer be ready to put a plow on the field and begin turning the soil. The object of the plowing is to destroy the roots of the weeds and to open the soil so that oxygen can enter and be trapped in the soil for use by the seeds that will be planted in the near future.

This preparation of an unused field reminds me of the first week of the Ignatian retreat as presented in The Spiritual Exercises. During this week the retreatant spends almost all of his time going over his life with a fine toothcomb (removing the rocks and saplings), admitting his shortcomings and sinful ways and making a firm purpose of amendment so that these evils no longer cause him to fall from God?s grace (burning off the field).

Just as the farmer will work needlessly unless he understands the nature of producing his crop, so too will the retreatant labor in vain if he does not understand why he has chosen his sins and how he must change to allow the graces of God to work in his life.

The farmer will let his field lie quiet during the winter months unless he has chosen to plant a winter crop. When the earth begins to awaken from its hibernation, the farmer will again break open the soil, spread some much needed fertilizer and weed retardant. When the danger of frost has past, he will plant his seeds. As he does so he visualizes in his mind how the seed will germinate and what stages his crop will go through until it is time for harvest. He will try to calculate the yield and the profit.

During the second week of the retreat the retreatant begins to find out how dependent he is on God and how easily Lucifer can sneak in and cause trouble. The farmer is dependent on God to provide for the seeds in the field. The rain must come at the right time, the lightening and thunder must split the right amount of nitrogen out of the elements to feed the seeds, the sun must shine so many hours a month in order for the plants to mature and produce fruit, grain, or seeds for the next year. Evil things can happen to the field too. Storms can produce too much rain and wash out the seeds. The wind can become a tornado or hurricane and pull the plants from the soil before the crop is mature.

During the third week the retreatant realizes how much God loves him. How far God will go to show his love and how willing the retreatant must be to prove his love for God. The farmer sees this love with the maturing of his crop. He has really done nothing since the seeds were placed in the ground and the plants have grown to be several inches tall. The whole crop and his livelihood are dependent on nature.

During the fourth week the retreatant focuses on the glorious coming of Jesus. This helps him focus on the reward for living a holy life. So too the farmer happily harvests his crop and then takes a look at how he can make things better for the next season and those to come after that.

Being a farmer means living a cycle of events. So it is with becoming a saint. Both jobs are difficult and require a lot of patience and endurance but the reward is worth the work.

What is your experience? Please share a personal story of when patience and endurance were rewarded in the comment section below.



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