A work on its context

“A tradition can only die
if it remains intact,
if a new invention does not touch it
bearing new life into it;
if it is not changed by an act that recreates it.”
 
“What injects in a tradition
the venom of a new time
is also what saves it from inertia.”

(Michel de Certeau, sj.)

I.- A WORK IN ITS CONTEXT

  1. Ignatius of Loyola in his time

Every human creation arrives at certain moment in history. It is a tributary of that time. It vividly reflects the characteristics of that moment and, in turn, influences it and leads it to a larger compliance. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola arrive at the time of the Renaissance. This historic moment marked by the spirit of “Reform” happens in a break with the medieval world. The centerpiece of this break can be located in the emergence of the individual subject.

The discoveries of the great navigators such as Christopher Columbus, Magellan or Vasco da Gama, prolonged the assertions of the previous century, first considered scandalous: the earth is round and revolves around the sun. The ancient cosmology is definitely questioned, with all that had been able to inspire in the realms of thought and belief. The evolution of philosophical reflection will lead, a century later, with Renè Descartes, to a sort of “refoundation”: thought is no longer based on ontology or theology, but on the evidence of the “cogito” (I think). While the Ancients sought in the celestial world that which inspires and governs the territory of humans, Pascal will write about the cosmos: “the silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.” He is thus confirming the change of mindset regarding the preceding epochs.

Thought and knowledge are to be acquired increasingly through texts, printed and published, instead of the images contemplated or the tradition handed down by authority. The spirit and style of theological and spiritual reformers like Luther and Calvin are marked deeply by this development, and emphasize the primacy of personal faith over all external belongings. In a totally new way, Desiderius Erasmus elaborates his humanism and Ignatius of Loyola creates his exercises as an itinerary of the individual. Beyond the spiritualities assumed at the end of the Middle Ages, there is a new arrival of mystical experiences, particularly those of John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila.

It is interesting to observe, in order to understand Saint Ignatius, that mysticism in this period presents an itinerary that links experience –more precisely a moment of absolute vivid experience- and the ineffable. It does so in a set of practical rules, taking distance from the “unspeakable” object of the transcendent.  Assuming as well the mystical aspect of the itinerary he also takes distance from the objective reasoning of theology and of the institutional Church. In the sixteenth century mystic, ways of doing replace the architecture of theology, method substitutes speculation, relationship with other replaces the “adequacy to being”, and style supplants content. Saying becomes performative.

Far from being only a philosophical or literary phenomenon, the arrival of the individual subject is also manifested by the introduction of perspective in urban planning and in painting while providing a sense of theatricality: the world is the theater where our individual destinies are played. Soon Baroque art will appear and enhance vacuum and the ineffable. Also, musical composition will get new accents with, for example, Monteverdi, who creates the opera, finding in harmony and counterpoint an adjustment for the load of words and exploring with them the complex world of emotions. Still we would have to mention the evolution of the relationship to the body, as an effect of the progress of medicine…

Everything converges to make a break with the medieval world. The birth of modern humanity is deeply experienced as a tear in determinism and in the “darkness” of preceding ages. Simultaneously it causes a feeling of release and in others a sense of loss. These features of the experience of modernity remain still widely today, in our “postmodern” world.

What is gradually and sometimes painfully left behind in this hinge-time of the early sixteenth century, is the medieval universe, largely inherited from the Ancient Era. The individual subject occupies hereinafter the primary site and the enacting function previously assigned to the cosmos. In the Middle Ages, in fact, we think by analogy: the human being is a microcosm decoded from a macrocosm of the universe or the divine, and vice versa. The Christ Pantocrator gathers the eyes in the chamber of the ancient basilicas. The great theological elaborations as the City of God, the indivisible unity of the political and religious spheres, the design of Gothic cathedrals… everything is inspired by the same fruitful thought. It is true however that during the XII-XIII centuries, something new was already underway, for example in the spirituality of Bernard of Clairvaux or the thought of Thomas Aquinas: it was a sort of a first “humanist round”, with a strive to place the human being and the human experience in the center of the worldview. This can also be seen, on the other hand, as a fruit of the gospel that progressively transforms the old mentalities.

The arrival of the individual subject deeply marks the conception and structure of the Exercises of St. Ignatius, while to some extent the Exercises trigger that arrival. The Exercises are not to be experienced by a “participant” or addressee; the person is the actor, the active subject, trying to achieve through the experience a “direct” personal relationship with God. Besides, the person that accompanies the “exerciser” simply plays the role of facilitator, providing an insight to respond to requests of life. The notion of discernment of the will of God in the open theater of life becomes fundamental, and so are the concepts of personal responsibility “in conscience” and the exercise of freedom in following Christ in his humanity.

It is therefore clear how the Exercises take part of this kind of revolution called the Renaissance; even becoming one of its factors. Ignatius is one of the great reformers of the Church of the sixteenth century. Through his Exercises, available to all (and not just to the clergy), he plans to reform the Church from the interiority of the person, insisting on the direct personal contact with God. To him, this inner conversion of persons can achive by itself the reform of the Church. A renewed person can renew the Church.

  1. In the midst of the twentieth century , Ricardo Lombardi

Here we are in another time of history. A new breakdown has taken place where eddies become more and more frequent and decisive during two centuries: it is the result of the French Revolution. The centerpiece of this new break is the awareness in peoples and countries that they can handle their own fate. Under the enthusiastic eyes of some (and the fear of others), peoples start writing their own history and forge their own destiny, under the banner of the “nation” as a new tear to the established order, thought hitherto to exist by divine right. This movement will become irrepresible in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There is a new fervour, impregnated by romanticism and rational lighting, and sustained by an unprecedented technical and industrial development. The collective consciousness is consolidated in the prospect that humanity itself, far from being subjected to a higher order, can reach self realization through progress, projecting itself towards promising horizons. It is the moment when new democratic regimes start to emerge gradually, often in a fragile state.

This new awareness also favors the emergence of ideologies that try to respond to this tendency and guide the forces at work in society. Gradually emerges the phenomenon of masses, that at first seemed resistant to change and then more and more receptive, due, above all, to the extension of education. It is the time of the rise of socialism in the ideological forms forged by Marx and Engels. These forms turned into a kind of agitated fermentation of multiple radical versions, either extreme or conciliatory, succeeding one another, opposing more or less violently any liberal or Christian trends. It is increasingly visible on the horizon, the domain of human destiny by a project of global action. This horizon provides an aim, a goal to the history written now by the peoples.

In this new awareness, it is important to underline the absorption of the religious dimension by politics, not under the forms of the Old Regime, where religion was annexed by politics to consolidate or justify itself, but in a kind of conviction that increasingly unites peoples and expresses itself as follows: the horizon of a people, the nation to which they belong, and the state that opens the way to its future destiny are the privileged places of communion and deserve sacrifice by the people. The “homeland” becomes sacred; it is an honor to die for it.

Another simultaneous and important phenomenon is the rivalry between European nations. During the past two centuries this became so intense that it lead to violence over the whole earth. This rivalry was fueled by the mystique of nation-states, the expectations of progress and power, the internal revolutions in each country, the promises made by the various ideologies, the development of technical and industrial potential of each nation, and the long-yearned colonial supremacy. The rivalry resulted in a series of phenomena that turned them into a violence never known before.

First, rivalry engenders a total mobilization of the population: it begins with the appearance of the national anthems, “religious-like” songs sometimes symptomatic of certain extremism. This also results in the invention of the media that would subsequently influence what became known as “public opinion”. Wide efforts are made to reach an unprecedented industrial development between rival nations. As in a duel, emerges a will to discourage the enemy and an obsession to deploy the most pressure on him, for the purpose of preventing the enemy´s strengthening. It soon becomes clear that, starting with the Illustration of the eighteenth century, it is not the ideas that drive the world but the exacerbated passions and confronting wills in combat and struggle. They call to war, leading eventually to the global and unprecedented catastrophes of the twentieth century. Finally, the resentment before the supremacy of the adversary is a powerful lever of reply: Hitler will count on this resentment by the German nation after the Treaty of Versailles in 1919!

Thus, if the principle is the policy that brings war, hereinafter the warlike situation will be influencing political purposes. The war itself, once limited to the military and to the space made ​​of battlefields, changes in nature and involves entire cities completely destroyed, and sometimes even genocide. In less than forty years, two totalitarian enterprises plague the entire planet.

The intuition of a reform

It is in this context that Father Lombardi feels called to speak out and start playing a new dynamic that goes to the root of this acceleration of an increasing violent history. Specifically, is in Italy where he first feels compelled to take action. It is his own land ravaged first by fascist influence and then threatened by the Nazi occupation and the successes of communist ideology.

It is not possible to take distance from the destruction to which these totalitarian regimes or trends lead. To Fr. Lombardi there is only one course: universal brotherhood/sisterhood based on the human sense of being and the relationship given by Christ.

Promoting universal brotherhood/sisterhood as a reform of hearts and society, is to address the root cause of the deadly rivalry. It rightly conducts the efforts towards a better world. Re-construction can not be imposed by a system, but rather by an underlying movement without frontiers, a renewal of the common consciousness, a global reform.

Basing this fraternity/sorority in the perpetual expansion of the human sense of being, revealed in Christ, is to revert those ideologies born from European humanism which pretended to lead systematically -and sometimes through totalitarian means- to “a new man”. The aim is to make a refoundation, by new ways, of human societies, deeply wounded by the injustices generated by that rampant liberalism. In his numerous intercontinental travels, Father Lombardi becomes keenly aware of the need for this battle over the planet, which still makes him more aware of the urgent need for universal brotherhood/sisterhood.

To establish the universal brotherhood/sisterhood on the basis of a renewal of relations, is to touch everything that has been established, structured or planned by humans through state organizations, entities, international treaties, financial systems… since the first trials of the time of the Revolution. It also implies touching in a deep way this old institution that is the Catholic Church. The institutional and hierarchical relationships of this Church were suppsoed to be built upon brotherhood/sisterhood, and yet its relationship as institution with modern societies –so rapidly and dramatically evolving- are based mainly on distrust, rejection and judment. It is through this perception of necessary reform that Father Lombardi establishes constant relations with Pope Pius XII and feels the need to found a promoting group, where brotherly/sisterly relations anchored in a common mission take precedence over the institutional situation of each one of its members.

Up to the challenges of the time

In the spirit that permeates his time, the intuition of Fr Lombardi appears as a future horizon, mobilizing for action, moving towards change and renewal, focusing in humanity. All his life, Lombardi will be open to anything that can be translated into concrete projects to achieve this horizon of universal brotherhood/sisterhood.

Still in the spirit of the time, his intuition can not be understood without its collective dimension; it is intended to the large crowds, among which the massive movements are so visible. He wishes to work even with the challenges raised by the trends and collective forces that make their way into the conscience of every person. In his personal journey, Fr Lombardi began to gather the masses of people in the streets and stadiums, and he was, within the Church, one of the pioneers of the use of mass media (he was nicknamed “the microphone of God!”).

His intuition implies, if it is to be understood in its attractive force, a focus on the challenges of society and civilization and the responsibility of the disciples of Christ in relation to these challenges. The intuition drives to a bigger acumen: the ability to discern the “signs of the times”, not only by each individual (as Ignatius of Loyola sought), but as a common exercise in ever wider circles. In his time, Father Lombardi wanted in particular to provoke an awakening among Christians. He thought that Christians suffered from certain weakness of faith that made them vulnerable to the influence of the currents of his time.

Finally, his intuition comprises a necessary conversion, both collective and personal, by constantly looking for a deepening sense of human destiny inspired by the person of Christ.

The Communitarian Exercises

To promote this renewal, Fr. Lombardi is not pleased by his numerous conferences and contacts. He slowly starts experiencing with a new instrument, which assesses both the retreat session, courses, seminars and fraternal and friendly meeting, but not limited to any of these types of encounters, or even to their sum. This instrument is the Communitarian Exercises for a better world. More than simply inspired on St. Ignatius, they are a true re-expression of the Spiritual Exercises of the founder of the Society of Jesus. The key element to this re-expression lies, undoubtedly, in the community dimension of experience proposed.

In 1969, the Promoting Group, gathered in the “Cenacle”, worked on the aspects that should not be missed in the experience of the Communitarian Exercises, and proposed them in this list, considered then “short and at the same time fairly complete”:

  1. “A strong experience of God, made in a group, essentially with others;
  2. An experience held a climate of direct listening to God and of fraternal dialogue with his Word and his will expressed through his representatives, not least in the events of history;
  3. With Jesus in the midst of the group, calling for mutual benevolence;
  4. Leading to a personal and communal conversion;
  5. Intended, above all, to the service of the common good;
  6. Always with the purpose of giving ourselves fully to Christ in his Church and by so doing, achieving, all together as brothers and sisters, what is best for the Church;
  7. A Church that is, at the same time, the sacrament of salvation for all humankind in the Kingdom of God.”

Both through the progressive elaboration of the Communitarian Exercises and the practical experiences acquired by Fr. Lombardi and his collaborators, emerges a better  vision of the relationship between Church and society; a vision that will reach even the texts of Vatican II. This can be summarized in the notion of “ferment”: the Church is the privileged leaven of renewal of the whole society in view of universal brotherhood/sisterhood. This requieres from the Church a commitment to a more open and dynamic communion, rather than remaining as a hierarchical society; a commitment to  dialogue and to promote inspiring actions rather than pretending to rule the world.

Today, a moment of explosion

Two world wars, the invention of the atomic bomb, several genocides, serious and growing economic imbalances, an impending ecological catastrophe… are they not sufficient for an abrupt and decisive change to take place on a global scale?

While ideologies and totalitarian systems collapse, and humanity finds itself without a promising horizon, the atomization of individuals is generalized and violence spreads in a latent, intense and unpredictable way. No one can take the plane today, even in a peaceful region, without being searched, at least electronically, and with a list of common objects prohibited. It is inconceivable to hold a peaceful international event, such as the Olympic Games, without a huge and costly military protection… Endlessly conflicts erupt here and there in the world, with its various branches, sometimes even at the small scale of a neighborhood or the same building.

Formerly, violence generated the sacred; today it produces nothing but violence. Located at the extremes, it becomes “absolute violence”. We are witnessing a dramatic illustration of the old statement of Heraclitus: “The war is the father of all”.

Brilliant successes, painful disasters and increasingly immeasurable risks mark this onward march of our world. We live the time of explosion: within philosophies, wisdoms, anthropologies, religions… All these old buildings have exploded, even though their mark is still very present in extended regions of the world.

This explosion is caused by two driving principles: an economic principle (“We will obtain everything we want”) and a technological principle (“We will achieve everything that is possible”). These two principles combine their strength in the form of an expansion principle: produce more every time and arouse eagerness more and more. The greatness of this principle is that it frees humans from their subjection to needs and laws. What gives it strength is that it assumes the role of highest authority through the supremacy of economics and money. Let by their own, these principles disrupt society: economic disasters and financial crises occur unabated: and, above all, they reveal their destructive trend, for they generate a proliferation of injustices and engender delusional behavior.

In this march through history, the human being is not merely threatened, but eradicated from civilization. What lies ahead is the big silence regarding the purspose of existence. Was not that the case in Buchenwald: people not only threatened or condemned, but in fact eradicated? After all, to liberate someone who is threatened, you simply remove the threat, whereas today it is necessary to work on a new birth for mankind.

The challenge of a new birth

This current context, described here too quickly under the aspect of the danger it represents to humankind, gives new relevance to the Exercises of Fr. Lombardi. Behold the new accents of the experience of ‘reform’ and ‘salvation’ that these Exercises offer today: the welcoming of universal brotherhood/sisterhood; the search –together- for the sense of humanity in a radical or fundamental way; the dialogued quest for the rescue or “salvation” of that which makes “more humane” a person and his/her relationships; the encouragement of sharing with each other a shared word… It is not just an adaptation of the “how-to” according to a particular taste, but a reform that constitutes an insurrection against the silence on human awareness and its destruction.

The Exercises are not a training or indoctrination, not even education. In the present context, the reform to which they refer is a birth-giving effort. They do not operate on the level of knowledge or skills; they are not in the order of religious courses; they are thought to help us work together, that is: they are aimed at a renewal to respond to the key challenges. They are a sort of combat against the “iron circles” in which the principles mentioned before silently imprison humanity. They struggle against the strong temptation to take refuge in religious and philosophical bubbles.

It is in this direction, in any case, that seems interesting to re-express today the Communitarian Exercises, trying to give all its relevance to the charisma inherited from Fr. Lombardi.

 

II.- TO PERFORM A “PASSAGE”[1], TODAY, OF THE COMMUNITARIAN EXERCISES OF FR. LOMBARDI

What is it about?

The process is difficult and risky. It demands to harmonize the deepest respect for the fundament and primary source of the life and mission of the Community Animation Service of the BWM, with the necessary creativity to respond to the present situation. There could be a possible comparison in the field of mathematics. Within the group x, (a) is moved or transferred to (a’). While this shift is done, (a’) does not lose any property from the original (a).

The first attempts to re-express the Communitarian Exercises through this exercise were elaborated by the Belgian Group by the year 2006, using the Directory as the reference. These tests particularly looked at to the objectives and fruits to be expected, according to the Directory. It was an effort to understand the full spiritual itinerary that is proposed in the Exercises, and not simply adapt each of the elements of animation or the formulations of the content. It felt as a bigger challenge to move from a pre-established path, the one that makes a question and presupposes the answers, and keeps posting new questions on the base of the previous answers.

Some Christian words that are essential in the practice of the Communitarian Exercises, such as: “God”, “Kingdom”, “community” and even the word “humanity” have become equivocal, especially in Europe. They in fact deal with the ultimate, and cannot be expressed through anything else than words with a meaning as deep as humanity itself. The re-expression of the Communitarian Exercises as a spiritual experience that is held with others, implies a brotherly/sisterly search that has a starting point on experience. It also implies an emergence of awareness that results from the new way in which these ultimate realities are made part in our lives.

It is important to re-connect with the original feature of the Communitarian Exercises -possibly somewhat lost in the Directory-, which states that the participants are not the mere addressees but the subjects of experience. This calls for very a clear itinerary of what is proposed, yet very simple in its development.

It is also the personal and collective experience of participants which constitutes an itinerary. The privileged ‘place’ of this experience is the word exchanged. It gives birth to reality and to our relationship with that reality, overcomes classifications and divisions; generates the ‘story’ of life, with the involvement of those who speak, and definitely leads to pay attention to the evangelical ‘story’.

 Previous clarifications

“The Communitarian Exercises are a powerful experience of God, made in groups, mainly with others.” The experience is always what is said of life: it is an interpretation made ​​in the process of sharing with others. This is not an enumeration of anecdotes, but an update of what might be called the radical experience, ie, that which deeply touches people and drives them into a relationship. It is the experience of that essential aspect that leads each one to be himself/herself and to find his/her place. It indicates the limits between that which fosters life and that which destroys it, that is: what is acceptable and what is intolerable. This sort of experience inevitably requires “to feel it”.

“… In a climate of direct listening to God …” This is the radical listening, ie without defense, without an a priori, with no intention of tampering. This listening draws attention to the essential. It is permanently open, a style that must permeate wholly the Communitarian Exercises as an ascetics assumed by all. It is a non-possessive listening that follows the evangelical commitment for a free and transparent self-opening. It is listening to the voice that speaks in the silence of consciousness, not stating “contents” but our name, and somehow calling us to encounter ourselves. It is a calling within that conscience where the shackles of difficulties or affections do not submit us. Then I am one in communion with the All-Other, dwelling in his entrails, “the Holy One among you”[2]. It is therefore a listening beyond all visible belongings.

“… With Jesus in the midst of the group …” This is an experience of Jesus as “linchpin” of the willingnes to live and of the actual discovery that no human being is definitely condemned. It is also the progressive knowledge of Jesus and of the faith that unveils the uniqueness of our existence and the dimension of selfless giving. It approaches the mystery of the others and engenders radical hospitality in the challenge of our time to make life as a possible abode for everyone. It is the discovery of that which ‘precedes’ this life, history and faith as a way, as the road of transformation evoked by the Letter to the Ephesians: “you are no longer foreigners and noncitizens, but you are fellow citizens…”[3], fellow citizens of his humanity, of the Reign.

The Communitarian Exercises are in themselves a concrete opening to the “Reign of God”. They are not meant to be a tool to be oriented in the perspective of the spirituality of the Reign, but an “exercise” of this spirituality, a living source of it.

The spirituality of the Reign of God

If we had to re-define “spirituality of the Reign of God”, we could say:

  • Spirituality means living a lifestyle that leads us to think, feel, react, interact, relate, correspond, act … deeply and in an ongoing conversion …
  • The Reign refers to a new way of living together according to the gospel, in the tension derived from the fact that there will always be an imbalance (a disproportion) between that which can be expected from life and the promise that Jesus reveals concerning what happens among us.

In this re-expression of the Communitarian Exercises, the first feature is particularly reflected in the style of experience that is offered and how to deal with reality through narrative and sharing. The second feature leads to a first discovery in the first itinerary and opens to possible further journey. This second feature marks in a decisive way the whole second itinerary. It is clearly the issue of disproportion that forces to leap from the “basic faith” to the faith in Christ.

 Sources

This re-elaboration of Communitarian Exercises has benefited, in the first place, from the patrimony of the Promoting Group, the numerous meetings of the Elaboration Commission, a test for the re-expression of Exercises done by the Belgian Group in 2006 (notably with André Elleboudt and the collaboration of theologian Jean-Yves Nollet), some other trials in the region of Charleroi, seminars and meetings with Maurice Bellet and contributions by the Father Giuseppe Piva, a Jesuit expert on the Ignatian Exercises.

Throughout the elaboration, this present work relies on many experiences that have already taken place (and are still ongoing) in the Latin Europe Area and in México…

Determining influences for this work are the ideas of authors like Maurice Bellet, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Paul Ricoeur, Christoph Theobald and Paul Tillich. Besides, we are grateful as well to Emilio Benveniste, Michel de Certeau, Marcel Gauchet and René Girard, Jean-Claude Guillebaud, Albert Rouet.

In particular, the following works have been consulted:

BELLET Maurice

  • Invitation : Plaidoyer pour la gratuité et l’abstinence, Bayard, Paris, 2003.

(Invitation. A defense in favor of graciousness and abstinence).

  • In Italian: Elogio della gratuità e dell’astinenza, Messaggero, Padova 2004.
  • Croyants (ou non), passons ailleurs pour tout sauver, Bayard, Paris, 2011. (Passage: Believers! (or not), let´s move to the other side to save all!)
  • The big army (not published).
  • Nova vetera (not published).

CERTEAU de Michel

  • La Fable Mystique, vol. 1, XVIe-XVIIe Siècle. Editions Gallimard. Paris, 1982.
  • In English: The Mystic Fable: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Translated by Michael B. Smith. University of Chicago Press. 1995.
  • In Italian: Fabula mistica. XVI-XVII secolo, trad. S. Facioni, Jaca Book, 2008, ISBN 978-88-16-40797-8.
  • In Spanish: La fábula mística. Siglos XVI – XVII, México, Universidad Iberoamericana, 2004; Madrid, Siruela, ISBN 978-84-9841-025-9
  • L’Invention du Quotidien. Vol. 1, Arts de Faire. Union générale d’éditions 10-18. 1980.
  • In English: The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven Rendall. University of California Press. 1984. With Luce Giard and Pierre Mayol. The Practice of Everyday Life. Vol. 2, Living and Cooking. Translated by Timothy J. Tomasik. University of Minnesota Press. 1998.
  • In Spanish: La invención de lo cotidiano. México: Universidad Iberoamericana/ITESO/Centro Francés de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos 1999.
  • In Italian: L’invenzione del quotidiano, trad. M. Baccianini, Edizioni Lavoro, 2001, ISBN 978-88-7910-993-2.
  • La Faiblesse de Croire, ed. por Luce Giard. Seuil. 1987.La debilidad de creer, París, Umbral, 1987.
  • In Spanish: La debilidad de creer, Buenos Aires y Madrid, Katz Barpal Editores, 2006, ISBN 978-84-609-8359-0
  • In Itialian: La debolezza di credere. Fratture e transiti del cristianesimo, trad. Morra, Città Aperta, 2006, ISBN 978-88-8137-242-3.

GAUCHET Marcel

  • L’Avènement de la démocratie, t. 1, La Révolution moderne, t. 2 La crise du libéralisme, Paris, Gallimard, 2007. L’Avènement de la démocratie, t. 3, A l’épreuve des totalitarismes, 1914-1974, Paris, Gallimard, 2010.

GIRARD René

MARTIN VELASCO Juan de Dios

  • Mística y humanismo. Madrid. PPC 2007

MORLANS Xavier

  • El primer anuncio: el eslabón perdido. Madrid. PPC 2009

MELLONI Xavier

  • El deseo esencial. Santander. SAL TERRAE. 2009

ISASI-DIAZ Ada María

  • Hacia un cristología feminista
  • La Palabra: comunicación como comunión

THEOBALD Christoph

  • Transmitir un Evangelio de libertad, París, Bayard, 2008.
  • ¿Habéis dicho vocación? París, Bayard, 2010.

MELLONI Xavier, OTÓN Josep …

  • La interioridad una paradigma emergente. Madrid. PPC 2004

TILLICH Paul

[1]              The word “passage” here tries to express the meaning of the word “translation”, used in the original French text, following a treatise by philoshopher and theologian Maurice Bellet. It does not mean “translation” of words but of “place”. It is closer to the meaning of “transport” or “transfer”. As it will be explained, it refers to an act of not simply “copying” the former contents of the Exercises and updating them with some new elements, but to acquire above all the spirit and intentions of Fr. Lombardi, to exercise the act of discernment he performed, and by that action reproduce today the intention/spirit/discernment in a creative way, in the present context. That would keep the new experience faithful to the initial inspiration, although the result will probably be different. (Note of the translator.)

[2] Hosea 11, 9.

[3] Eph 2: 19.

Luc Lusy