St. Ignatius of Loyola wanted us to have a deeply intimate relationship with the human Jesus. It’s not enough to study or learn the story of Christ. To really know Jesus, to want to be a part of His life and to want Him to be a part of ours, we need to strive for a certain level of emotional depth that engages the complex “mountains and valleys” of human life.
During key moments of the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius advises that we “ask for interior knowledge of the Lord, who for me has become man, that I may more love and follow Him.” 1 That means, if we want to know who Jesus is, we have to acknowledge His daily feelings and sensations – His highs and His lows, His joys and His sorrows, what filled His cup and what took the wind out of His sails.
I want to suggest that a grace Jesus must have experienced on countless occasions was that of “difficult consolation.” While it’s not a term that Ignatius used himself, it’s become common parlance in Jesuit spirituality today thanks to the work of Fr. Mark Thibodeaux, SJ.
Fr. Thibodeaux, who has authored a number of books on Ignatian spirituality, points out that the phrase “difficult consolation” can describe those moments in life when someone might be experiencing grief, sorrow, pain, frustration, anger, fear, or temptation, and “yet still be in sync with God and have great desires for faith, hope, and love.” 2 Doesn’t this ring a bell?
What might Jesus have been feeling on that Saturday when He cured a man with a withered hand, and the Pharisees began to plot His demise? What might have been moving through Jesus’ heart or head when His own disciples began to question why He was talking with the woman at the well? What stirred in the Lord as he saw a great crowd of people and identified them as sheep without a shepherd?
There’s no doubt in my mind that Jesus was “in sync” with His Father while performing miracles or engaging in life-changing spiritual conversation. And I also feel quite confident saying He must have felt deeply sad that others questioned His goodness, or would have preferred that He reserved it for Himself. He must have been experiencing difficult consolation in those very moments and innumerable others.
I don’t know about you, but that actually gives me some hope. It gives me the freedom to feel what I need to feel. It suggests to me that my joy in the good moments is just as valid as my hurt in the more frustrating ones: that being with my siblings is a cause for rejoicing, and that watching a fellow human being suffer is a cause for great sadness. To realize that God can be, and wants to be, present alongside me and alongside others in those moments is what encourages me to express my gratitude.
“Difficult consolation” is the grace that allows me to witness, name, and testify to some of the hardships or tragedies of this world and to be so grateful that God isn’t making me process them alone. It’s the grace that has me expressing my appreciation to God, who can accompany our world better than I can. It’s the grace that comforts me with knowing that, if I’m feeling heavy about something that has happened, God is willing to carry some of the weight so that I don’t have to.
Difficult consolation might not feel good. I’ve been saddened to see great friends move across the country, and pained to see students of mine question their sense of security in this world. But because God is present – because God wants to walk with us in that hurt and uncertainty – it’s a grace all the same. That physical and spiritual closeness from God is undoubtedly a gift, and surely a cause for thanksgiving.
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Image: Christ in the Desert, by Ivan Kramskoi. Source: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.