Pope Francis has challenged us to recognise that the faith was never left in the hands of a select few, but given as a gift to many. As he explains: ‘when you want to know what Holy Mother Church believes, go to the Magisterium … but when you want to know how the Church believes, go to the faithful people’. Each of the articles in this issue touches upon the creativity that is necessary to reconcile the tensions between what the Church teaches and how it is believed, so that all Christians can, in Pope Francis’s words, ‘walk united with our differences’.
Julie Trinidad, ‘St Ignatius’ Rules for Thinking with the Church: Spiritual Direction for a Synodal Church’, 9–20
Spiritual directors are invited to help their directees feel their way forward as part of a community so that they recognise that the Church consists of the whole people of God on a shared journey throughout history. Ignatius’ Rules for Thinking with the Church can help them to do this in the context of today’s synodal Church.
Patrick Riordan, ‘The Mission of the Spirit’, 21–33
A theology that reflects on spiritual practice must find words for what happens in our interiority, tempering our visible mission with the invisible keenness of the Spirit.
Timothy Radcliffe, ‘Global Godliness?’, 34–38
How does a universal Church that aspites towards unity also embrace diversity in a world of increasing globalisation?
Peter Hans Kolvenbach, ‘The Rules for Thinking, Judging, Feeling in the Post-Conciliar Church’, 39–46
This classic discourse sets out how St Ignatius’ ‘Rules for Thinking with the Church’ are relevant to the ministry of reconciliation that is given to every contemporary disciple of Jesus.
Ian Randall, ‘Catholics, Anabaptists and the Bruderhof: New Spiritual Patterns’, 47–58
New ecumenical patterns of belief and practice are growing in an Austrian Christian community that has been bearing continuous witness to the Gospel over the course of the past century.
Robert E. Doud, ‘Phenomenology and Spirituality: Insight, Intuition and Introspection’, 59–69
The intersection of processes in the mind can help us to understand how body and mind work together in the world as we discern a way forward, as individuals and as Church, with integrity.
James McTavish, ‘The Deep Breath of Prayer with the Word’, 71–82
Two members of the Verbum Dei community use the image of prayer as a deep breath to introduce their institute’s adaptation of the Spiritual Exercises to the needs of their members.
Norlan Julia, ‘Seminary Formation and the Second Week’, 83–94
The dynamic of the Second Week of the Spiritual Exercises offers a template for the process of priestly formation in seminaries, helping those involved become true disciples of Jesus.
Louis Roy, ‘What Does It Mean to Say that Mary Is Mother?’, 95–103
The place of Mary in the Church has been the subject of considerable debate; this article clarifies her precise role in relation to the mediation of grace and the redemption of humanity acknowledging the vital affective influence she has on our prayer.
Kevin Leidich, ‘Sent on Mission: The Rules for Thinking with the Church’, 105–112
At the end of the Spiritual Exercises, the heart-felt identity that has been growing throughout the process is given a final encouragement to find a home in the mission of the Church.