Nothing Human Is Merely Human

The Ignatian ideal is that we should now recall and relive an experience of “union and intimacy” with God that uplifts and sustains us, regardless of the distractions of our work or the banality of our lives. Here is the basis for finding God not only in all things, but also in the hectic pace of everyday life. Nothing human is just human. No joint work is just ordinary. Classrooms, hospitals, and artist studios are sacred spaces. No secular pursuit of science is just secular. The hand of the Creator can be discovered by looking at galaxies through telescopes or examining cell life in laboratories. Retired people return with a new vision and appreciation of the effective presence of God in their supposedly boring, monotonous life. Like Ignatius after his experience on the Cardoner River, we see it differently. We get a new sense of what the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins meant when he wrote, “The world is charged with the greatness of God”.

—Excerpt from the Ignatian Humanism by Ronald Modras

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