By: Kenneth Marrs
Decisions. Big and small, they dominate our lives. Most decisions that we make every day are pretty minor, and can be made without much thought or worry. Most of them are also made on the spot: for example, I usually just wait and see what I am hungry for when lunchtime rolls around each day. There is not a lot of planning involved. However, life, and college in particular, is also full of tough decisions with consequences that can affect us for years after we make them. The choice between good and bad can be challenging enough, but what about when all the paths before us are full of competing pros and cons? How do we balance our wildest dreams with what we think is practical? Do we focus on the things we have always been good at, or do we pursue the brand new passion that we have just discovered? Decisions can be scary—even good ones.
St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, had to struggle with many important choices in his life as well. His goal as a young man was pretty simple. It was to be a famous knight in the court of Spain, and that goal is what inspired his actions up until the moment both his dreams and his leg were shattered by a cannonball at the Battle of Pamplona. The rest of the story is pretty well-known, especially for anyone who has gone to a Jesuit school. Conversion, repentance, fierce determination in the face of many setbacks, and finally the founding of the Society of Jesus, which would become the largest single Catholic order of priests and brothers as well as a force that would shape the world for the next four and a half centuries. It is easy for the events of St. Ignatius’ life to become merely a list of facts and accomplishments, but in reality, each step involved serious thought and prayer. The determination that allowed him to persevere through many disappointments came from an intense belief that the decisions he made were the ones that God willed for him as part of his vocation. One of the greatest gifts St. Ignatius left us was a prayer called the Examen, and it can help us with our future by allowing us to focus on our past.
Why focus on the past when we are trying to figure out the future? That probably does not make a lot of sense at first, and that is fine. These are the basic steps, although there are many variations.
- Become aware of God’s presence.
- Review the day with gratitude.
- Pay attention to your emotions.
- Choose one feature of the day and pray from it.
- Look toward tomorrow.
Pretty simple, right? Maybe too simple? The simplicity is actually one of the great things about the Examen, because it gives the individual freedom to focus on the moments they felt were the most significant and important in their day. Many times certain events that seemed very minor at the time they happened become much more important with some reflection. That reflection is the key to the Examen, because it allows us to look back and review how the events of our day impacted our emotions and wellbeing.
With consistent practice, we start to realize our true passions and skills, as well as the mistakes we are most prone to. By getting to know ourselves better, the pros and cons of big choices become less daunting because we know who we are, and we know the things that have brought us closer to God in our lives. Examining our relationship with God is often the most challenging part of the Examen to master because many times our own desires conflict with what we know to be the morally correct choice in a given situation. Realizing a certain decision in our day turned us away from God can be a very uncomfortable moment to say the least, but taking just a little time each day to recognize how our decisions impact our relationship with God definitely ends up being the most important decision of our entire lives. I think Fr. Pedro Arrupe S.J. explains why better than I ever could in a prayer called “Fall in Love”:
“Nothing is more practical than finding God,
That is, than falling in a love in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything.
It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings,
What you will do with your evenings,
How you spend your weekends,
What you read,
Who you know,
What breaks your heart,
And what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”
The Round Table 