As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Loyola Press is celebrating the upcoming birthday of St. Ignatius by creating a page on their website with 31 insights from Ignatian Spirituality.
If you haven’t had the chance to check it out, I hope you will. It’s a great resource if you’re interested in deepening your relationship with God. One of the questions St. Ignatius used to ask his companions each do was how are you doing right now? I posed the same question to my men’s group last night, and now I’m asking it to you.
I’m not asking it in some superficial way, but with genuine interest. Oftentimes in our society, we hear people inquire about how we’re doing, but, maybe they don’t want to know the answer. So we say fine, and then change the subject. I’ll admit, I do it all the time.
No, I figure they don’t want to hear about all the stress I’m under, that I worry about a difficult situation I’m dealing with, or that I’m depressed about the state of our country. Nope, I just pretend it’s all good and keep going.
But St. Ignatius would remind us that, to be genuinely concerned for someone else, we have to be open to hearing about what they’re dealing with. Now, don’t get me wrong. We will also hear honest stories of things going great in people’s lives, of the good events that are happening, and we should rejoice with them. We need to be open to both the good and the bad, hopefully with the emphasis the good.
In the end, my point is that we need to take a little more time with people, and work on our genuine concern for their well-being. Wouldn’t it make your day if someone asked you how your day was going, and meant it? Let’s all make an effort to do this at least once a day for the next week. I wonder what will happen…
