I stood next to Ignatius last April, when I visited his apartment in the building next to the Church of the Gesu, the mother church of the Jesuits in Rome. There sits a bronze cast of the mask made at Ignatius’s death, and it stands on a pedestal set to his exact height. At six feet, I towered above him in the room where the first meetings of the Jesuits were held.
At first I couldn’t imagine 30 men meeting there. But a noisy tour group arrived, and clearly 30 people easily fit in the room.
I expected as a writer to find it easy to dialogue with Ignatius as I pulled up a footstool in front of his writing desk and looked up at a beautiful woman who inspired him: Our Lady of the Desk. The portrait’s inspirational value for me was short-lived. I’d prefer a picture of the laughing Christ at my desk.
My most inspirational moments, instead, were not in that room which I desired to see so much. One occurred the morning before, in the Gesu, when I expected to tour Ignatius’s apartment. Visitors: beware! The rooms are only open to the public from four to six p.m. But Mass was about to start—in Italian—in a small chapel. I stayed. The familiar cadence ran through me like the blood in my veins. I knew exactly where we were in the liturgy despite not knowing Italian; I recognized my place of belonging, where strangers are Eucharist to each other.
The next day held another blessing. Before entering the place where Ignatius wrote and prayed, visitors pass through a remarkable hallway whose flat walls are painted with a perspective that makes it appear three-dimensional. When my friend Susan and I entered this long anteroom, the late afternoon light dimmed the paintings somewhat. I paused in awe and burst out singing “Take, Lord, Receive,” by John Foley, SJ.
I sang with passion and meant every word. As our feminine voices blended in the empty hall, a disembodied male voice joined in. My eyes widened. I imagined that Ignatius sang with us.
The singer turned out to be Albert from Spain, a recently ordained Jesuit who sat in the next room as attendant to the sacred spaces. Singing in that hall was a graced and memorable moment. I can still see the space and hear the echoes.
Kevin Leidich, SJ, once told me how I could know something originated with God: Its effects are long-lasting, it’s outwardly good, you have a desire to serve, you have a talent for it, and others profit. I suppose I have a talent for music and a lack of fear for sharing that gift. I hope others profited! It certainly had long-lasting effects on me.
Because here in October, I continue to receive the gift I prayed for in April: to have a pilgrim’s heart.
I travel in memory to the Gesu and pray for “my brother Jesuits” as they consider the renewal of their mission in this complicated world. As a woman and a non-Jesuit I am not of their company. But as one who embraces Ignatian spirituality, I am.