St. Ignatius can’t be beaten for New Year’s resolutions

OK, turn the page.

As easy as that sounds, turning the calendar from 2020 to 2021 and making a resolution is like picking up the 300-pound telephone when it’s your turn to apologize: We don’t want to apologize, but we must.

One of the great challenges and gifts of the new year is to make an assessment of our spiritual fitness. One of the best ways to do that, if your circumstances allow, is to make a retreat at some time during the year.

For men living in Louisiana, that means having the privilege of making a silent retreat at Manresa House of Retreats, about 45 miles north of New Orleans in Convent.

Manresa is one of the few retreat houses in the country that is at nearly 100% occupancy for its retreats, a testament to the Jesuits and other qualified clergy and laymen who offer spiritual guidance during the 50 weekend retreats each year.

Everything changed, of course, in 2020, when Manresa was forced to cancel virtually all of its weekends after March due to COVID-19 restrictions. The hope is that that will change in 2021.

The retreats are grounded in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits who published his guide to prayer and discernment in 1548.

St. Ignatius’ important insight into spiritual growth was that too many people sleepwalk through life without fully examining their virtues and weaknesses. His step-by-step approach to spiritual discernment has been a gift to humankind for the last five centuries.

Michael McVeigh, editor of Australian Catholics magazine and a senior editor at Jesuit Communications, considered several New Year’s resolutions that St. Ignatius would consider important:

™ Be slower and more considerate in speaking. What a gift that would be for a world tethered to quick-twitch communication tools such as Twitter and Facebook. Without considering the consequences, people share instantly so many hurtful and even poisonous sentiments, and once the “send” button is pushed, there is no chance to “return to sender.”

St. Ignatius wrote nearly 500 years ago: “Be considerate and kind, especially when it comes to deciding on matters under discussion. ... Be slow to speak, and only after having first listened quietly, so that you may understand the meaning, leanings and wishes of those who do speak. Thus, you will better know when to speak and when to listen.”

► Do small acts of kindness daily. The idea here is not to wait for some broader, more universal action such as erecting a home for Habitat for Humanity or serving meals at Ozanam Inn, but to do something small that helps a neighbor or a stranger. Maybe it’s something as simple as a smile or an affirmation or encouragement.

“We should never postpone a good work, no matter how small it may be, with the thought of later doing something greater,” Ignatius writes. “It is a very common temptation of the enemy to be always placing before us the perfection of things to come and bring us to make little of the present.”

► Seek out feedback regularly. McVeigh says the Jesuits’ practice of meeting regularly with their superiors is a way to uncover hidden faults. Thus, a married couple should be open to humbly accept well-intentioned criticism from a spouse.

“To make progress in the practice of virtue, it is of great advantage to have a friend, whom you yourself have chosen, to advise you of your faults.”

Who else knows your faults better than your spouse? Ouch!

► Bring prayer into your life as a regular practice. Sometimes that doesn’t even mean “formal” prayer time but remaining “conscious” of how our daily work can be an offering to God and to others.

“Since your studies do not give you much time for anything else, not even prayer,” Ignatius writes, “you may make up for this by your holy desires, that is, the time you spend on your studies becomes a continuous prayer,  for you have begun these only with a view to God’s service.”

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