E 234 Ignatian Exercises (interview with Phoebe Love)

Today we explore the backstory of Ignatius Loyola and how imagination and daydreaming helped him (and others) get in touch with the movement of the Spirit.  We are joined by spiritual director, Phoebe Love, sharing her experiences facilitating groups in the Ignatian Exercises as well as her own story of being shaped by meditating on God’s love.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Pray As You Go app

Inner Compass by Margaret Silf

The Ignatian Adventure by Kevin O’Brien SJ

ignatianspirituality.com

godinallthings.com

phoebelove.org

Farmer’s Almanac

Puff’s plus

Some of our show notes contain affiliate links.    We want to save you the effort of looking up resources + we get a small commission at no extra cost to you.  Thanks for your support.

Transcript

Phoebe Interview

Christina: [00:00:00] Hello, it's great to be with you today. We are grateful to introduce Phoebe love to the podcast. Phoebe is a spiritual director with a specialty in the Ignatian exercises, and we recently did an episode on discernment. And referenced Ignatius of Loyola as a key figure who has shaped our understanding of that practice.

And so we thought it would be interesting to hear some of Phoebe's insights today as someone who's gone a little bit deeper into the work of Ignatian and build off of that episode. So Phoebe, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for inviting me. Good to be here. So I'm gonna guess that many of our listeners probably are not familiar with Ignatian exercises.

Maybe they might have briefly heard of it or maybe not at all. And so I wonder if you can just give us an overview of what is this exactly that we're gonna be talking about today? Sure. Some call the Ignatian exercises, a school of prayer. Others call them a pathway to spiritual. Transformation. I like to refer to them as a [00:01:00] pilgrimage of the soul.

For 500 years, countless people have been going through the exercises and they've had their lives dramatically changed. Historically they were and still are offered in a 30 day intensive retreat, but it's more common that people go through them over a nine month period in what's known as the 19th annotation or a retreat in everyday life.

So I'm Protestant and had never heard of the exercises until I enrolled at the Institute of Pastoral Studies when our family was living in Chicago to do my master's and focused on spiritual direction and chaplaincy. And one of my very first classes was called. Hearts on fire, spiritual exercises for everyday life.

I love the title. I thought I want a Heart on fire and I want somebody to help me to exercise spiritually, but I really had no idea what it was [00:02:00] gonna be. The instructor was a wonderful Jesuit priest named Bill Creed who taught at Loyola, but he was, most better known for his work in what's called the Ignatian Spirituality Project, taking these exercises into the streets and working with people who are homeless, suffering with mental illness and addiction.

And he truly had, bill had. It truly had a heart on fire for what the exercises can do for people going through a recovery process and living a life of recovery and how those compliment one another. So he introduced me to this amazing character named Ignatius of Loyola who had a remarkable life and spiritual journey.

He was a swashbuckling military man [00:03:00] who lived his life to find fame. Fortune and all the pleasures in life, especially women. And had no interest in the spiritual journey whatsoever until one day he was fighting in a battle and a cannonball. Hit his leg and he was critically injured, almost died, and spent the next year in bed recovering from his injuries and dealing with excruciating pain, the loss of his vocation in life, potentially not, never being able to walk again.

And being a man with a very vivid imagination, he began to turn all those energies that had been serving him for his worldly purpose. He began to look inward and to spend time [00:04:00] reflect in a more reflective place. And he had a, he had just an amazing imagination, which eventually played into his development of the exercises.

But at the time, he had no idea what was in store for him, of course. But he simply began daydreaming and daydreamed his way into a spiritual journey and had, so much time on his hands that he was able to just play a lot with the spiritual the spiritual questions. And he began to ask himself two basic questions that are still a big part of the exercises.

Who am I and who is God? Very human questions, right? Many of us ask the same questions. And as spiritual directors, we have the privilege of walking with people who are asking those questions. And he had a a deep desire to answer those two questions. His whole story is too long to tell, but [00:05:00] over the years as Ignatius began to.

Continue his pilgrimage of the soul. He he's really stayed with these core questions and he wanted to be able to communicate that the spiritual life because he began to experience the spiritual life. As a very human experience, as well as a divine experience. And in his conversion encounter, he met the revelation of Jesus Christ as the perfect.

Reflection of a total human being as well as a reflection of the divine. And so his spiritual journey was very much about that encounter with Christ. Now the exercises really are were developed for somebody on a Christian path, but because [00:06:00] they, many of the, spiritual principles are pretty universal.

They have been adapted for other faith traditions and people who don't necessarily even have a faith tradition.

Phoebe I love what you were just talking about I think that's such a great imagery that you use the pilgrimage of the soul, and so I just, what does that look like in your own life, and how has the Ignatian exercises really shaped you as a spiritual companion, spiritual director, and what are some journeys that you've taken and how have the exercises played out in those experiences?

Phoebe: That is a great question. I, for me personally, I have experienced a deepening conversation with God where my prayer life became much more than just a mental process. But very [00:07:00] much in a holistic encounter. And the exercises Ignatius wanted people to experience what he experienced in his imagination, and he was as he lay in bed, he.

Was given. He wanted to pass the time with romance novels or military tales, but there were no books available and the women taking care of him brought him two books, one on the Life of the Saints, and One On the Life of Christ. And he experienced those books as if he were in those books. And so he.

Teaches through the exercises imaginative prayer in a way that we can all enter an encounter with God through our five senses in, in a way that's not just a mental process, but really a holistic process. And that, that has been a great gift to [00:08:00] me, both in my own personal life and. Going deep into some places of healing, but also as a spiritual director to be able to help facilitate a broader experience of prayer than many of us either, either learned as children or learned through books or through different programs.

We tend to be in our head a lot in our culture. Not so much in a holistic Yeah I appreciate you naming that. And even the idea of imagination and that's where he was going. And I remember the first time years ago when someone had talked about God created our imagination and so therefore, what would it look like to use our imagination to engage with God?

And it was like, wait, what can we do that Is that like it was just. Really mind stretching, at the time. But interesting that, you naming that he wanted to escape into romance novels or military, but that wasn't available. And just thinking about our modern lives where we have so much of that [00:09:00] available, but to have the limits that he had right, due to his circumstances that led him down this path seems really profound to me.

Phoebe, I love you lifting up the two sort of core questions of who am I and who is God as these key pillars and tenets of the exercises. And I wonder if you could unpack that a little bit more for us. Like how does one sit with those particular questions and what have you seen emerged through that?

The exercises are structured, in particular movements. They're named as the weeks of the exercises, but they really are more of the season of each spiritual stage or spiritual ex experience. When they were just done in a 30 day period they had to be done in one week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks.

But as the, you walk through these different movements, there's always a tension to both the the human [00:10:00] experience as well as the divine experience of the spiritual journey. In my own experience, I have loved that like many of the great prayer mystics throughout the ages, the desert, mothers and fathers, and the, john of the cross, Thomas Merton, Ignatius, really understood psychology as well as spirituality. And so in my own experience, I have really loved the self-awareness as well as the God awareness that comes with the exercises that I am always being invited to look at. My deep desires, that's a big theme in the exercises, naming my deep desires.

Assessing my deepest desires. Where am I being drawn? What do I really long for in life? And what, how is God using those longings to deepen my [00:11:00] experience spiritually, but also to practically live out my life? That this is a way to discern the places to go, and Ignatius helps me assess.

Where do my desires get a little disordered, where I can get into unhealthy places compulsive ways of thinking or behaving. And and then, needing that other side, that divine side, to be able to get to a new place of freedom because I can't always get out of those places on my own. And there is, in my experience, always this balance between how is my life being transformed as a human being, as well as how is God transforming my relationship with.

The divine and that there's a big info emphasis on how is the love of God showing up in our lives? And the exercises help us continue to go back to that place of [00:12:00] where is love showing up? Where is love drawing me? And I and I really appreciate that because we cont tend to all, there's a tendency sometimes to focus on the.

Sort of the judgments of God. That's the love of God.

Christina: Yeah. I love you describing, some of the encounters that have been a part of your experience. And I think some words that jump out to me is you said self limit limiting, and I also think there's you're talking about your great mentor who was in recovery and even Ignatius himself, was in a forced limiting.

And I could see people being forced into a limitations that would cause them to enter into a growth a growth phase with the exercises. And I'm just curious what are, what are, I could see that as being a challenge, of engaging with the exercises. Like I'm self-limiting.

That's my own choice. I'm choosing to enter into [00:13:00] this. But I also see where forced limiting, where, you get hit by a cannonball and you're stuck in bed, there's nothing else that you can do. What are some other challenges that maybe you've encountered? Engaging in, in this type of prayer. I know you, we've used the word imagination and I've heard about imaginative prayer and when I was in seminary, that was like, that was something that you were warned against, right?

You don't wanna Absolutely. You don't wanna get too far out there. But what are some challenges that, that you've experienced in engaging in this type of prayer?

Phoebe: So I actually also experienced a very self-limiting episode in my life where I was bedridden for a very long period of time with chronic pain and, frankly, I was very angry at God for a physical affliction that I could not control.

There was nothing I could do. [00:14:00] And a lot of practitioners were very frustrated with the fact they couldn't necessarily help me with this. Very mysterious, disorder that was creating a lot of pain and fatigue and I had to be in bed for a long period of time. And so I actually started to spend more time with Ignatius story as well as many of the stories of the Desert Fathers and John of the cross who went through terrible affliction and some of the, the struggles, but also the gift of affliction and of physical suffering. But I couldn't really pray at the time. It was very hard to, to do much of any kind of active engagement cognitively, because I had a lot of brain fog. I was fighting pain and I was frankly mad at God for

what felt like his assignments, shall we say. And yet as I lay there and I [00:15:00] wondered a lot about, I did, I started to just daydream a lot and my mind going into places that. Could maybe I could daydream about maybe what I used to do physically or what I'd want to do someday, physically.

And I began to experience God's love in a very different way, showing up in the midst of that affliction and. So I went back to the, to certain places in the exercises of really contemplating the love of God and realized I needed some healing about the love of God, even from long ago, from some childhood injuries as well as other things in life.

And it ended up being a great gift to really contemplate the love of God. When I started working with my spiritual director again, she even said, that work's not complete. [00:16:00] I hear some other things I want you to do. So I knew that had been affirmed that the movement for the exercises for me for a season in life was simply to stay in that place of soaking in God's love without a lot of other.

I, protocols for my prayer life, or theological tenets or deep Bible study, or lots and lots of books, or, which are always the things that have fed me, but it was simply being quiet with God's love.

That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. And it's interesting a couple of times now you've mentioned the word daydream and I don't know that I've ever like associated daydream with a portal into knowing God. That's a really profound thing that you're offering us today to consider.

Yeah. And it's accessible to everybody, right? We all daydream, children do. And the homeless you mentioned earlier and things like that's very accessible. And Chris is right along with not being able to use our imaginations, we're it we're not really invited to daydream, [00:17:00] especially in the spiritual journey.

It's has to be very intentional. You have to be very disciplined and even spiritual exercises kinds of, sounds like a program, but really it's so much more fluid than that. And the, again, Ignatius desire was that people would really be able to, I simply identify the movements of the spirit of the Holy Spirit in their life and not necessarily something didactic that you followed.

And he wrote the exercises for spiritual directors, not for the lay person. To once somebody had gone through the exercises, had the charism of spiritual direction, those are the people who were to lead others through the exercises so they could listen for those movements and not necessarily go through a a really dry curriculum.

And there have been periods of the last 500 years where that. As I've talked to some of my Jesuit friends who said, at times it got really [00:18:00] dry, just like. Other programs can do if they start to lose the spirit and the essence of why they were written. 

Yeah. I like what you're, that the movement, which again, opposed to 'cause exercises does feel very rigid and rigorous and. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm curious if, because just even hearing a little bit of your story and Ignatian story today, it's very inspiring. So if someone's curious to explore more, what might you suggest as some first steps to dipping our toes into this world of Ignatian and the exercises and, yeah.

Yeah. So many spiritual directors know of the podcast or the site. Pray As You Go, that is a beautiful guidance through imaginative prayer done by the Jesuits in Britain. And so you could. Anybody who's listening can find it online or on app or on podcast, but that's just a lovely way that's about 10 or 12 minutes long and you just get a taste of imaginative prayer.

So that's an easy one to do. For books I really love Margaret [00:19:00] Sils book called Inner Compass. Margaret was one of my teachers at Loyola one summer, and so I, I experienced hers. Just a gentle guide. And her writing. She's an excellent writer, but her writing is very gentle and inner Compass is a, an abbreviated experience with sort of the main themes of the exercises.

And then Kevin O'Brien's book, the Ignatian Adventures, one of my favorite. I use that when I lead a small group of six. Directee or Six Retreatants each September through May, and that I use Kevin O'Brien's book along with all my material from Bill Creed's class, as well as some of the other instructors at Loyola.

My favorite websites are ignatian spirituality.com. A lot of my favorite Jesuit writers are on there, as well as a lot of lay writers, as well as God in All Things is a very accessible, well written. Website, Jesuit retreat centers [00:20:00] often offer evening workshops. Three, three day, five day retreats.

The, there's one in Wisconsin the. Jesuit retreat house in Oshkosh. And then I go to Bellarmine retreat house retreat center in Barrington, Illinois where my spiritual director works. And they also offer most Jesuit retreat centers offer similar patterns of retreat. So that's an easy if you just want a taste of it to go to a weekend retreat or an evening workshop or something.

Christina: And maybe you can reiterate going through the spiritual exercises again if my memory serves me correctly, there's like an eight day a, a month long and then a nine month long. Is that true? If you wanted to engage. 

Phoebe: So the eight days are also abbreviated. It's pretty hard to do all the reflections, all the scriptures, all the exercises, eight days, but the eight days and the five day, they do five and eight day at Jesuit retreat centers.[00:21:00] 

The 30 day I dream of doing that someday, where you go to a retreat center and that is all you do for 30 days. And friends who have done that and I. The experiences I hear are remarkable. You are fully bathed in the exercises and in your own ability to pay attention to what God is doing in your life without the distractions of our lives.

And so that's really a gift. And then the nine month 19th annotation, you get the full exercises because you're, you have that many more weeks to do it. And, and when I run my group, I make sure everybody has a spiritual director. So not only am I leading them, but they are in spiritual direction for those nine months with somebody.

Yeah. 

Christina: Oh, beautiful. Keeping it a little bit light, Phoebe, if you're gonna do a 31 day in the future, where do you dream of doing that at? 

Phoebe: I love the uk so I've thought of finding a place, Scotland would be maybe my first choice. But I'd probably [00:22:00] ask some of my Jesuit friends or to find out from somebody where they've gone and where it's been a great experience for them.

But that's a great question. I haven't researched it as much as I should, probably. Yeah. Phoebe, this is wonderful and we'll be sure to link the different resources that you mentioned in our show notes. Definitely I've read some of those books and praise as you go, Chris. Actually many days on your bus when you're going out to, before you pick up kids, you listen to praise as you go.

And that's been a real wonderful tool in your life. I know. Thank you so much for sharing and making this accessible for those that are curious. And if people wanna follow along with what you're doing, Phoebe, is there any resource that you'd wanna share about your own work or website If people wanna follow along?

Sure. My website is phoebe love.org, and there's a contact link if anybody wants to reach out to me. And I do offer this group September through May. I'm going to be offering a day long workshop. I thought it was gonna be in November, but it's gonna be after Christmas with how life is going.

But I'm working on that that's great. We'll be sure to share that as well. So [00:23:00] thank you so much for joining us and sharing a little bit about your work with Ignatian. Thank you. And now is the part of the podcast where we take a moment to talk about what we are into. So what are we into today?

Christina: I am into the Farmer's Almanac. I'm not into it as much as my son, but my son is into it so much that he's tugging me along at looking at all the various. Tidbits that is offered in the Farmer's Almanac and we've been looking at the different planets when they're gonna be in the sky because we love to look at the stars at night.

We love to follow the lunar cycle whenever it's a full moon. We really try to be, try to be outdoors and, we had a, and the 1st of October we had an amazing full moon. And it stayed in the sky well into late morning. [00:24:00] And so following the lunar cycle, following the planets finding out what is gonna be the coldest month, the snowiest month.

The driest month, we have been delving into the Farmer's Almanac and it is a great forecasting tool and I've enjoyed watching my son engage in that material. Zo. 

Phoebe: Yeah, it is an interesting resource. I'd be interested to hear the, how that all came about. But so I am into Puffs Plus lotion and, of course I've had a cold, but I was thinking when I was a kid, we had crunchy Kleenex at school.

I don't remember the kind of lotion that made your nose feel good. And so I'm just really thankful that somebody decided, you know what, if we have to be sick end. Use Kleenex, why not make it a little bit softer? And and that just got me on a geeky trail of like people that invent cool things that you don't think about.

So whoever out there invented Puffs plus lotion, I am very grateful for that and that's what I'm into. 

Christina: Wonderful. 

Phoebe: I am into ballroom dance. I have been for a while, but [00:25:00] just recently I had the opportunity to be a part of a professionally produced video with my instructor and myself doing a salsa.

It's going to be in a national competition in January. So I'm very excited. Wow. I'm sure. I'm just excited to be part of the act of the experience and we'll see how the competition goes, but I've had so much fun. It's the play playful side of my life right now. That sounds very joyful.

And my husband is doing it too. So we do some dancing together and some dancing with our instructors, very cool. Awesome. 

Christina: Yeah. Lovely. 

Phoebe: Thanks so much for joining us and until next time, make it a great week. Thank you.