Since its relaunch at the turn of the millennium, The Way has been produced in two different formats. Three of each year’s quarterly issues publish material submitted by writers directly, dealing with their interests and concerns, without any predetermined underlying theme. (Writing the foreword on those occasions thus becomes a challenge to trace some common threads through the variety!) By contrast one issue annually, the special issue, is made up of commissioned articles considering different aspects of a topic that the editorial board considers important—most recently, in October last year, the idea of a discerning Church. This issue of The Way is not one of the special issues, although you could be forgiven for thinking at first sight that it was. Many of the authors here are keen to explore the idea of what it means to think of the Spirit of God permeating creation, and what the implications of this are for Christian life and action in the world.
Eric Jensen, ‘Ecological Conversion and the Spiritual Exercises’, 7–18
In his 2015 encyclical Laudato si’, Pope Francis called on Christians to undertake an ecological conversion of individual and communities. Here Eric Jensen both develops an understanding of what it means to talk of such a conversion, and asks how it might be brought about, finding in the Spiritual Exercises a useful tool to facilitate such transformation.
Ahilya Noone, ‘The Cosmic Christ’, 19–28
Ahilya Noone’s starting point is ‘whether it is possible to interpret Christ in a way that can provide an ethical and spiritual basis for Christianity’s care for creation’. She finds such a way in the notion of the ‘cosmic Christ’, and traces the historic development of this idea in theologians from Irenaeus in the second century to Celia Deane-Drummond writing today.
Gem Yecla, ‘Cosmic Intimacy’, 29–45
The idea for this article came to the writer while she was praying on retreat, as she reviewed the current state of her relationship with God. Describing that relationship as ‘cosmic intimacy’, Gem Yecla takes this as a theme drawing together sexuality, intimacy, ecology, cosmology and mysticism. Ultimately ‘cosmic intimacy’ offers us all the prospect of developing a broader ecological spirituality.
Paolo Beltrame, ‘Dark Matter to Bright Faith’, 47–50
A Jesuit and astronnomer explores how the scientific study of dark matter can lead to a fuller understanding of God’s place in the universe.
Kensy Joseph, ‘‘To an Unknown God’: How Religion Proclaims What Science Worships’, 51–54
Michael Smith, ‘A Scientist Finding God’, 55–58
The material republished from the Jesuits’ online journal Thinking Faith in this issue of The Way, unusually, consists of three linked pieces by different authors. All alike focus on the much-debated relationship between faith and science. Taken together they point to how a scientific worldview leads to a fuller understanding of God’s place in the world.
Jojo Fung, ‘Cosmicism: An Emerging Pneumatic Mystagogy’, 59–72
The word ‘cosmicism’ is used by Jojo Fung to describe an articulated cosmic spirituality, based on an understanding of the presence and action of ruach Elohim, the Spirit of God, in the whole of creation, and also drawing on indigenous people’s approach to the world as sacred. These ideas are here related to the vision of St Ignatius Loyola in the Fourth Week of his Spiritual Exercises.
Marion Morgan, ‘Elderly But Still Active: Reflections on Later Life’, 73–78
In most of the nations of the Western world, the proportion of elderly people continues to grow. Here, in our occasional Spirituality and Living strand, Marion Morgan offers a perspective on that part of the spiritual journey which is to be accomplished in later life. She calls for rejoicing, courage and an ever-deeper reliance on God.
Anonymous , ‘Pilgrimage and Addiction: Walking with Ignatius’, 79–90
A number of articles in The Way in recent years have dealt with the experience of making a pilgrimage on foot, following the Camino de Santiago, or tracing Ignatius’s journey from Loyola to Rome. Here an anonymous author offers a new approach to this theme, linking pilgrimage to the Twelve Steps of the Alcoholics Anonymous programme and the struggle to overcome alcoholism.
Robert E. Doud, ‘Compassion as a Priestly Virtue’, 91–99
No one who knows anything of Christian teachings would be surprised to hear it argued that compassion lies at their heart. Robert Doud here takes this further by suggesting that compassion is a priestly virtue; not one, however, confined to an ordained caste, but a virtue central to all those who, by reason of their baptism, become members of a priestly people.
Teresa White, ‘Marie Madeleine d’Houet and the Jesuits’, 101–112
In 1820 Marie Madeleine d’Houët founded a congregation of religious women in France, the Faithful Companions of Jesus. Here, in their bicentenary year, one of their number, Teresa White, describes the bitter-sweet relationship that the Faithful Companions have enjoyed with the Jesuit order, particularly at their origins, but also over the last two centuries and looking to the future.