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Reviewed by:
  • The Call to Discernment in Troubled Times
  • Margaret Eletta Guider OSF (bio)
The Call to Discernment in Troubled Times. By Dean Brackley, SJ. New York: Crossroad, 2004. 318 pp. $24.95

This book came into my hands quite suddenly. It found me before I found it. No sooner had I agreed to do a review than its pages began to make an unexpected claim on my own consciousness and spiritual journey. Initially, I found it curious that a Franciscan would be asked to render an accounting of the book's merits. Yet the more I entered into it, the more I was persuaded that the timeliness of the volume allows it to speak to a much broader audience than readers already familiar with the essential elements of Ignatian spirituality. Spiritual and social in its orientation, the book has a magnetic appeal that is both radical and global in nature. Invitational, compelling and profound in terms of its style, tone, and content, it is a book that can be read a paragraph at a time, a theme at a time, a section at a time, or in its totality during one mesmerized sitting. It is simultaneously a page-turner and a book of meditations to which a reader will return over and over again. Unlike those of us who venture into this Ignatian arena of consciousness from the outside, I suspect that those well-acquainted with the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, along with his life and times, may bring to their reading of this volume a different set of questions, observations, and possibly reservations, regarding Brackley's interpretations, applications, and perspectives. Yet regardless [End Page 135] of one's particular charism, spiritual background, social location, or orientation to life, Brackley's narrative promises to engage the reader's theological imagination and moral sensibilities. The personal stories that he uses to contextualize his points are not of the ponderous self-referential sort. Rather, they are moving reflections that draw the reader into the very heart of life's many relational dimensions—social, economic, cultural, political, and spiritual.

The book itself is divided into six sections and builds on the framework of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. The first section, entitled "Getting Free," invites the reader to consider the conditions needed for cultivating a spirituality of solidarity. Four related topics are further developed under this heading, including becoming "free to love," the "reality of evil," the exigencies of "forgiveness," and the "reform of life." It concludes with a thought-provoking exploration of Ignatius's Rules for Discernment. The second section, entitled "Something Worth Living For," addresses the subject of vocation. It examines the experience of "the call," the meaning and demands of "the Reign of God," "the contemplation of Christ," and offers a challenging interpretation of Ignatius's meditation on "the Two Standards." It considers the movements of "downward mobility," "humility" and "solidarity" as preconditions for the "expanding of one's soul." The third section focuses on the "Acts of Discerning and Deciding." It takes up the question of how one lives "life in the Spirit." In offering a series of responses, it provides "more rules for discernment," analyzes "three ways of making decisions," and highlights the core elements of "seeking the way of truth and life." Section four examines the inter-relatedness of "Passion and Compassion" through a series of moving reflections on the "grace of compassion," "the solidarity of God," and the "blessedness of the persecuted." The fifth section probes the mystery and significance of the Resurrection by contemplating the dynamics of "Resurrection and the Spirit" in terms of the experiences of "consolation, action and liberation," and "learning to love like God." The sixth and final section treats the topic of "Prayer" by way of exposition, exhortation, observation, and a concluding personal anecdote.

In addition to the main contents of the book that draw upon the Spiritual Exercises in provocative, challenging, and perhaps unconventional ways, readers will be drawn into Brackley's project and its contemporary relevance by the "Foreword for Skeptics" written by the book's copy editor, Ellen Calmus. Also, those well-versed in Ignatian spirituality will find further matter for reflection and discussion in...

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