The third volume in the acclaimed and best-selling Ignatian Trilogy, by international speaker and retreat leader, Fr. Timothy M. Gallagher. In Spiritual Consolation, Fr. Gallagher introduces us to the teachings of Ignatius of Loyola through the use of real-life examples and principles from Ignatius's Second Rules for discernment. Fr. Gallagher, author of The Discernment of Spirits and The Examen Prayer, shows how all of us, especially those with busy religious lives, can learn to listen to and follow God's leading. Spiritual Consolation An Ignatian Guide for the Greater Discernment of Spirits By Timothy M. Gallagher The Crossroad Publishing Company Copyright © 2007 Timothy M. Gallagher, O.M.V. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-8245-2429-6 Contents Acknowledgments, Introduction, The Text of the Rules, Prologue: A Greater Discernment of Spirits, 1. The Contrasting Spirits in the New Spiritual Situation (Rule 1), 2. When Spiritual Consolation Is Surely of God (Rule 2), 3. When Spiritual Consolation Is Ambiguous (Rule 3), 4. True or False Light? (Rule 4), 5. The End Reveals the Beginning (Rule 5), 6. The Review That Prepares the Future (Rule 6), 7. Consonance or Dissonance? (Rule 7), 8. The Ambiguous Time after Unambiguous Consolation (Rule 8), Conclusion, Appendix: The First Set of Rules for Discernment, Notes, Select Bibliography, Which Ignatian title is right for you?, CHAPTER 1 The Contrasting Spirits in the New Spiritual Situation (Rule 1) * * * Your servant, too, when he sits in prayer, glows and loves in his fervor. His mind is transformed; he burns with fire; indeed, he expands in the vehemence of his longing. — Richard Rolle The Spirits at Work in the Second Spiritual Situation Ignatius opens his second set of rules with a statement regarding how the spirits operate in the dedicated persons who have entered the second spiritual situation. In these "second week" persons, Ignatius says, the spirits work in the following manner: First Rule. The first: it is proper to God and to his angels, in their movements, to give true joy and spiritual gladness, taking away all sadness and disturbance that the enemy induces; to whom it is proper to militate against that joy and spiritual consolation, bringing apparent reasons, subtleties, and persistent fallacies. This first rule does not give guidelines for spiritual action but rather, like the first rules of the first set ( First Rules, 1–2), clarifies how the contrasting spirits characteristically operate — " it is proper to God and to his angels ... the enemy ... to whom it is proper " — now in the new spiritual situation envisioned by the second set of rules. The rule is comprised of two parts: the first describes how God and his angels characteristically work in such generous and ardent persons; the second depicts the deceptive tactics of the enemy in these same persons. "True Joy and Spiritual Gladness" In these deeply dedicated persons, Ignatius tells us, "God and his angels" characteristically act by giving "true joy and spiritual gladness," or, in the similar vocabulary of the second part of the rule, "joy and spiritual consolation." This joyful spiritual consolation takes away "all sadness and disturbance that the enemy induces." God and his angels give something that takes away something else: they bestow the gift of spiritual consolation, the joy of which takes away all the sadness and disturbance that the enemy insinuates in the hearts of these persons. God's workings in both the persons of the first spiritual situation (the college-age Patricia) and in the deeply committed persons of the second spiritual situation (Patricia ten years later) remain essentially the same: whether in the beginnings of the spiritual journey (first spiritual situation) or in the later stages when these persons have become more rooted in God's service (second spiritual situation), God and his angels give a spiritual consolation that fills the heart with joy and imparts blessed clarity to the mind, breaking the grip of the spiritual desolation induced by the enemy. This spiritual consolation, Ignatius writes, "casts out all disturbance and draws a person to complete love of the Lord"; it "shows us and opens to us the way that we are to follow." We may note that in this rule Ignatius does not speak simply of the "good spirit" as in the first set of rules, but rather of "God and his angels," distinguishing, without further comment for the moment, between these two sources of spiritual consolation. While all spiritual consolation is ultimately referable to God as the origin of all grace, Ignatius distinguishes between specific experiences of spiritual consolation according to how they are given — whether directly from God or from God through the mediation of his angels — for a practical reason to which he will return later in the rules ( Second Rules, 2–3). "Apparent Reasons, Subtleties, and Persistent Fa