The spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the Sixteenth Century founder of the Society of Jesus whom we commemorate today, has played an important role in the formation of the Spirituality of our Society. The SSJE is very much an Anglican Religious Community, not a copy of any one of the existing Roman Catholic Communities. But an Ignatian element has been part of our history from the start. Fr. Richard Benson, the principal founder of the SSJE, once wrote that he hoped that the Society would always walk in quiet Church of England ways. (Cf. The Letters of Fr. Benson, p. 30. in a letter to Fr. Hall, Nov. 1872.) But, at the same time he was very much grounded in Ignatian spirituality. This grounding came from his study of various monastic traditions as he along with Fr. Grafton and Fr. O’Neill moved towards the founding of the SSJE. This was a strong influence in the development of the ethos of the Society which they founded.
My first visit to this monastery as an inquirer was in Mid-March of 1956. I had arrived in a howling blizzard, having changed from plane to train midway here from San Francisco. After a hot bath to warm me up, and a change of clothes, Paul Wessinger, then the Novice Guardian, knocked on my door and showed me around some of the places I would need to know. After his tour he handed me a well used manila envelope bearing the printed title “A Three Day Retreat based on the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius.” In the envelope were outlines for the meditations I would be using for the retreat I would begin that Monday. This was not my first retreat, but it was my introduction to the Ignatian method of retreat. That retreat played a significant part in my decision to try my vocation in the SSJE as soon as I finished seminary and was ordained deacon.
Before I was ready to come east to begin my novitiate, my Presbyterian father was invited by one of his friends to go on a Jesuit retreat in Spokane. Afterwards he told my mother that if giving retreats like that would be the sort of thing I would be doing if I joined the SSJE, he thoroughly approved. The influence of his parents who had answered God’s call to volunteer as missionaries to the Native Americans was still very much with him.
While the Society has kept a Benedictine style of worship from the beginning, there is still a strong Ignatian spirituality in the Society. The long retreats which Fr. Benson customarily gave were based on the Ignatian method, but did not slavishly follow the pattern of the Spiritual Exercises.
The work of Fr. William Hawks Longridge in making an English translation of The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, and writing a commentary and notes, laid the basis for further adaptations of the Exercises. Several series of printed retreat notes based on Ignatian methods of prayer soon followed. Fr. Longridge’s commentary, first published in 1919, was for many years used as a standard text book for Jesuits in English speaking parts of the world, perhaps until the 1960s. I believe that through the retreat work of Fr. Benson, and the books and pamphlets written by Fr. Longridge, the Society of St. John the Evangelist can probably be credited for introducing Ignatian Spirituality to the Anglican Communion.
I delight in the freedom which there has always been in the SSJE to let our own individual spiritualities develop along many different lines. I am also thankful for the heritage which we have from St. Ignatius which we share with our Jesuit brothers-in-Christ, and with others whose spirituality derives from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola and his spiritual descendants. That spirituality is summed up simply in these words from St. Paul: “Whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.” (1 Cor. 10:31)
