i-Llan 13th October 2024 – Inner freedom and the captive heart

The first principle and foundation of St Ignatius of Loyola offers helpful advice on how to respond to the story Mark's gospel tells of a man who asks Jesus what he should do to inherit eternal life and is told sell everything he owns.

The Bible story is Mark 10. 17 - 31

You can read about Ignatius’s First Principle and Foundation here

You can read about Jose Mujica: The world's 'poorest' president in this BBC article from 15 November 2012, and find more about him on Wikipedia.

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Transcript

Welcome to i-Llan, a podcast connecting faith, life and scripture. This episode is about inner freedom and the captive heart.

There's a story in St Mark's gospel chapter 10 about a man who comes to Jesus and asks, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ 

Jesus points him to the commandments. ‘You know what to do,’ he says. ‘Don’t murder; don’t commit adultery; don’t steal; don’t bear false witness; don’t defraud; honour your father and mother.’

‘Yes, I know,’ says the man, ‘and I’ve always done that’.

Jesus, we read, looked at him and loved him. He recognises that the problem is ‘stuff’. The man has many possessions and they are possessing him. ‘Get rid of it,’ says Jesus, ‘give it all to the poor and follow me’. (It’s the story that St Francis took literally.) The man cannot do it. Shocked, ‘he went away grieving, for he had many possessions’. 

I couldn’t do it either. 

To make myself feel better about that, I reason that, in this day and age, it’s impractical to take Jesus’s advice literally. Some people are called to radical poverty, but if we all sold everything and gave the proceeds away, we’d become a burden on other people. After all, the early church tried it and soon got into difficulties.

So, where does that leave me when I face Jesus asking, ‘what must I do?’

This is where St Ignatius of Loyola is helpful. The foundation of his spirituality is the principle that our first priority must be our relationship with God. The call to praise, love and serve steers everything else, so that this relationship shines through all our choices and everything that flows from them. It’s the principle Jesus teaches when he says, ‘strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things [food, clothing, security] will be given to you as well’ (Matthew 6. 33).

Ignatius goes on to say that we have to learn to use what is helpful to us, and be ready to let go of what isn’t. It’s not that ’stuff’ is wrong, but that it can get in the way of better things. As an illustration, imagine you are holding a large bunch of flowers but I want to give you a huge box of chocolates. You can’t take the chocolates unless you let go of the flowers. Of course, you may try to hold on to the flowers with one hand and balance the chocolates on the other, but then you are likely to drop both. (You may even prefer flowers to chocolates, but I hope you see my point!)

Problems arise when we get fixated on, or addicted to, the wrong things. ‘Stuff’ isn’t necessarily material things either; it could be the size of your bank account, your golf handicap, or the number of facebook friends you have; whatever has got its claws into you, holding you prisoner to its demands.

At root, it’s not about ‘what must I do’ but about ‘how must I be’. It’s about feeling so secure in God’s love that we are free to make choices that best chime with that love. Ignatius wants us to have such inner freedom that we don’t cling to any kind of ‘stuff’ as though our happiness depended on it, but remain open to whatever possibility love may demand of us regarding wealth, health, status, or length of life. That’s a tough challenge which needs a lot of prayerful reflection.

It’s a principle which puzzled Jesus’s first disciples. When Jesus remarks ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God’, the disciples are astounded. Surely, it’s the poor who can’t afford to meet the requirements of the religious law who will be shut out of heaven? The rich can be confident they tick the right boxes and are acceptable. 

And it’s a philosophy which goes against our material culture. This week, I came across a quote which expresses it well. Jose Mujica, who was president of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015, said, "I'm called 'the poorest president', but I don't feel poor. Poor people are those who only work to try to keep an expensive lifestyle, and always want more and more.”

Over and over again, Jesus emphasises that true riches are found by the heart which loves God first and is ready to serve God by serving his creation. As a modern paraphrase of Ignatius puts it, ‘We can become so detached from any created thing only if we have a stronger attachment; therefore our one dominating desire and fundamental choice must be to live in love in God’s presence’.

So I invite you to prayerfully imagine yourself coming to Jesus as that man did and asking, “what must I do to find eternal life? What holds my heart captive so I am not free to live fully in God's loving presence?’ 

How does he reply? What gentle nudge comes into your mind? And what help does he offer?


There are links to something about St Ignatius's First Principle and Foundation, and something about Jose Mujica, in the podcast notes.

My prayer this week, 
May you know God's unconditional love for you.
 May you be free of all that hold you captive,
 able to choose whatever helps you best,
 and to let go of whatever hinders your flourishing, 
 so that you find your true vocation in his service.
Amen.