Reform of Life.

Well, we've confessed and we've been forgiven. We've been baptized into the wet waters of new life! Nothing but roses from here on out, right?

Of course we know better. Life is messy - and sometimes it can feel like we are beset on all sides by its messiness. As Pastor Carol put it in her sermon on Sunday, we are baptized, yes, but before our wet heads have dried we are beset with questions, choices, a million little forks in the road, each of which has the potential to pull us down paths we should not go, away from the full and vibrant life God intends for us.

Jesus knew this problem well. Luke tells us in our Gospel reading from Sunday that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit when he was led by the Holy Spirit away from the baptismal waters of the Jordan River to go hungry and be tempted again and again.

Jesus knew that navigating the waters of the baptismal life is not always easy. As Dean Brackley puts it (44),

[The baptismal life] involves struggle. It stirs deep sentiments in us. As we commit to change [or to living out our baptismal covenant], we experience two kinds of feelings at a deep level: on the one hand, discouragement and strong desires to backtrack; on the other, enthusiasm, hope, and joy at the prospect of a new way of life.

How are we to navigate these currents, moving as they are in different directions?

Sometimes we use tools to navigate our way. Sometimes these tools don't tell us so much exactly where to go so much as they tell us where we have been and where we are - and sometimes knowing that much helps a great deal in figuring out where to go next.

One tool that Ignatius used and handed down to his followers was called the Examen. In the Examen, as Brackley puts it,

Ignatius... invites us to recall how God and many creatures gave us life and sustenance, as we were acting selfishly. This exercise produces gratitude and enthusiasm for the future. It also gives us a more mature appreciation of sin as ingratitude and betrayal. (40)

In that way, the experience reshapes our likes and dislikes, our will and our thoughts. Engaging that reality draws us out of ourselves and even moves our hands and feet to act. Sitting with reality, allowing it to work on us, working through the feelings and the thoughts it stirs is what we mean by contemplation. Contemplation arises naturally out of our need to be in touch with reality in its rich complexity. Contemplation in this sense is the opposite of flight from reality. Rightly understood, spirituality is the opposite of escaping from reality. We encounter Ultimate Reality not by leaving the world, but by plunging into it, as Jesus did. (22)

I invite you to take a few moments today to try this exercise. You can find a step-by-step guide to the Ignatian Examen here. You might consider printing out, if looking at a computer screen makes it difficult to focus.

Then, look back over a day - or a week, or a month, or a year, or even (as Ignatius suggested) an hour - and examine it in the way Ignatius suggests. This could take as little as 20 minutes.

I pray God's presence be with you in your prayers and examinations.