Not being a priest or in a religious order or having much Catholic education, my response to this requirement of being well versed in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius has largely been:
The what of the who?!
Well, I’m not the only recovering addict to say that about the Spiritual Exercises. I found out that Bill W. (co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous) said pretty much the same thing to Fr. Ed Dowling in about 1942 when AA was just getting off the ground.
Ok, back up... how do I know this?
Part of my course requirements have been to attend a 5 day Ignatian retreat. I was able to fulfill that requirement this past summer. I showed up at the Bellarmine Retreat Center for my required five day retreat very much looking forward to it.
Three hours into it at the end of dinner time, they say what everyone but me knows.. "This is a silent retreat from here on. Enjoy!" (Read more about my Bellarmine Retreat adventure here.)
What?!
That must have been in the fine print somewhere... hmmm... this is going to be interesting.
Silent, that is, except for going to Mass and meeting with my spiritual director. Her job was to lead me through some of the Spiritual Exercises.
Well alrighty then!
But I needn’t have been worried, God knows what he is doing.
During my first meeting with my spiritual director I found out that she is a recovering alcoholic, ten years sober. I’m not sure we ever got through many of the Ignatian Exercises (as much as I needed them to be explained to me), because we were both geeking out about being in recovery and how we work with our sponsees and so on. We spent a lot of time comparing notes on those fronts.
As we were talking she asked me if I’d seen the “Fr. Ed” book in the Bellarmine book store?
I said no and asked her what it was about.
Turns out Fr. Ed Dowling was a great champion of the early AA organization. He also befriended Bill W. and became one his most trusted spiritual advisors.
My spiritual director then explained that the book was written by an excellent research journalist named Dawn Eden Goldstein, a Jewish convert to Catholicism. She said that Dawn takes great pains to meticulously explain how Father Ed helped Bill W. see the connections between Ignatian spirituality and the 12 steps.
So I of course bought the book along with several other of Goldstein’s books (all very good by the way) and I’ve been slowly reading it during my weekly holy hours.
I have to say, this is really helping me get my head around the spiritual exercises now that I understand that this spirituality actually permeates much of AA and all 12 step spirituality. It is starting to make sense to me because of my familiarity with the 12 steps.
I guess if I’d only gone to the Calix Society Store when I first joined a few years back I might have seen the excellent book by Father Jim Harbaugh that explains how the 12 steps are related to the Spiritual exercises. Maybe I’ll read that one next.
But back to Goldstein’s book. She is indeed an excellent researcher and an amazing story teller as well. She knows how to make a biography interesting.
Anyway, if you are at all interested in the roots of Alcoholics Anonymous and twelve step spirituality, do yourself a favor and get a copy of “Father Ed: The Story of Bill W’s Spiritual Sponsor” and sip on it. If you’re like me you’ll learn a whole lot about the spiritual formation that Jesuits go through at the very least (that is the first part of the book). Then I guarantee you’ll learn things you never knew about the first decades of AA... Dawn Eden is one of the best research journalists I’ve ever read.
The what of the who?!
Well, I’m not the only recovering addict to say that about the Spiritual Exercises. I found out that Bill W. (co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous) said pretty much the same thing to Fr. Ed Dowling in about 1942 when AA was just getting off the ground.
Ok, back up... how do I know this?
Part of my course requirements have been to attend a 5 day Ignatian retreat. I was able to fulfill that requirement this past summer. I showed up at the Bellarmine Retreat Center for my required five day retreat very much looking forward to it.
Three hours into it at the end of dinner time, they say what everyone but me knows.. "This is a silent retreat from here on. Enjoy!" (Read more about my Bellarmine Retreat adventure here.)
What?!
That must have been in the fine print somewhere... hmmm... this is going to be interesting.
Silent, that is, except for going to Mass and meeting with my spiritual director. Her job was to lead me through some of the Spiritual Exercises.
Well alrighty then!
But I needn’t have been worried, God knows what he is doing.
During my first meeting with my spiritual director I found out that she is a recovering alcoholic, ten years sober. I’m not sure we ever got through many of the Ignatian Exercises (as much as I needed them to be explained to me), because we were both geeking out about being in recovery and how we work with our sponsees and so on. We spent a lot of time comparing notes on those fronts.
As we were talking she asked me if I’d seen the “Fr. Ed” book in the Bellarmine book store?
I said no and asked her what it was about.
Turns out Fr. Ed Dowling was a great champion of the early AA organization. He also befriended Bill W. and became one his most trusted spiritual advisors.
My spiritual director then explained that the book was written by an excellent research journalist named Dawn Eden Goldstein, a Jewish convert to Catholicism. She said that Dawn takes great pains to meticulously explain how Father Ed helped Bill W. see the connections between Ignatian spirituality and the 12 steps.
So I of course bought the book along with several other of Goldstein’s books (all very good by the way) and I’ve been slowly reading it during my weekly holy hours.
I have to say, this is really helping me get my head around the spiritual exercises now that I understand that this spirituality actually permeates much of AA and all 12 step spirituality. It is starting to make sense to me because of my familiarity with the 12 steps.
I guess if I’d only gone to the Calix Society Store when I first joined a few years back I might have seen the excellent book by Father Jim Harbaugh that explains how the 12 steps are related to the Spiritual exercises. Maybe I’ll read that one next.
But back to Goldstein’s book. She is indeed an excellent researcher and an amazing story teller as well. She knows how to make a biography interesting.
Anyway, if you are at all interested in the roots of Alcoholics Anonymous and twelve step spirituality, do yourself a favor and get a copy of “Father Ed: The Story of Bill W’s Spiritual Sponsor” and sip on it. If you’re like me you’ll learn a whole lot about the spiritual formation that Jesuits go through at the very least (that is the first part of the book). Then I guarantee you’ll learn things you never knew about the first decades of AA... Dawn Eden is one of the best research journalists I’ve ever read.
Maybe I'll actually be able to navigate through the rest of my course work now and obtain my certificate because of making this connection. Who knew?
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