There were many tributes to St. Ignatius on his feast day a couple of weeks ago. Here is one of the best. The writer is Matt Emerson, a teacher at Xavier College Preparatory in Palm Desert, California:
Ignatius’s example, like the example of every saint, challenges us to act similarly: to have the right kind of recklessness. When I read of Ignatius’s encounter with his brother, I’m encouraged to let my life be a language the world cannot translate; to be willing to dash hopes and confound dreams—even dreams that seem grand and beneficent—ad maiorem Dei gloriam, for the greater glory of God (as the Jesuit motto has it). This is what makes Ignatian spirituality so demanding, but also so potentially rewarding: It makes a kind of totalizing claim, asking a person to surrender everything from mundane occurrences to elaborate, “best laid” plans to the will of God.