A Companion to Jesuit Mysticism ed. by Robert A. Maryks (review)

Today, many Jesuits would dismiss the term "Jesuit Mysticism" as oxymoronic. After all, Ignatian spirituality is an everyday spirituality whose exercises and examens suit busy people's lives filled with work-day activities, such as commuting, working, shopping, cooking, recreating, worshipping, and, squeezing in prayer time when possible. To the average Christian today, the term mysticism describes a privileged sort of prayer life not at all resembling their own lives, but rather, one associated with cloisters where professional elites—that is, mystics—enjoy a sort of monastic life that facilitates extraordinary spiritual experiences such as mystical marriage, locutions, levitations, and visions. From this perspective, certain figures like Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross are mystics; even Ignatius of Loyola himself may have been a mystic (still debated among some), but the spirituality that Ignatius bestowed to his religious order, the Jesuits, and, by extension, to anyone directed through his Spiritual Exercises, is anything but cloistered, professional, or elitist. Instead, Ignatian spirituality requires no special mystical gifts, capacities, or religious vows, but simply presumes a life in which Christians pursue faith, hope, love, and justice. It seeks God's will in daily choices (great and small), searching for God in one's self and one's daily encounters with others. Rather than mystical, Ignatian spirituality serves as an everyday spirituality for everyday Christians!

A Companion to Jesuit Mysticism reminds us that this isn't necessarily so, especially when reading the tradition through the lenses of Jesuit history and post Vatican 2 developments in mystical theology, the academic discipline of Christian spirituality, and pastoral/practical theology. This fine collection of articles, edited by Robert A. Maryks, associate professor and director of Boston College's Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies, highlights key moments in the historical appropriation of the Ignatian tradition, first in terms of lesser know seventeenth and eighteenth century Jesuits—such as Àvarez, Puente, Lallelemant, and Surin—and then through better known twentieth century authors Teilhard de Chardin, Bremond, Lubac, and Rahner. Ignatian scholars well versed in mystical theology, with its categories of interpretation and appropriation, will find these articles refreshing recaps of the centuries long, critical arguments as to whether Jesuit spirituality qualifies as mystical. Other readers less familiar with the discourse, especially those whose primary engagement with Ignatian spirituality is in terms of spiritual direction or Rahner's "everyday mysticism," may struggle through the early articles because they employ categories of interpretation and appropriation that rarely come into play in contemporary discourse. However, even this second readership would benefit from wrestling with perspectives which today seem outdated. Moreover, appended to each article are extended excerpts of primary materials, some rarely available in English and well worth the reading. Taken together, I highly recommend this edited volume for the light it casts on historical and contemporary engagements with Ignatian spirituality, both as an active contemplative tradition of prayer, and as a stepping stone into the mystical traditions of infused prayer and prayer of quiet.

Summarizing the arguments of all 13 articles lies outside the scope of this review; instead, I will highlight a few significant contributions. Thinking now of the second readership mentioned above, I recommend beginning one's reading with the twentieth century contributors, especially the excellent piece by Harvey D. Egan, SJ, which covers the mystical theology of the Doctor Mysticus (teacher of mysticism), Karl Rahner. Egan, who publishes extensively on mysticism generally and Ignatian mysticism particularly, shows how Rahner's theology of grace and everyday mysticism "awakens people to their own inner depths" and dovetails nicely, if critically, with the "mysticism of the Classical Masters" (317ff). For example, in his treatment of the ages-old distinction between acquired contemplation (available to most) versus infused prayer (gifted to the few), Egan nicely explains how the traditional categories associated with the former (vocal prayer, meditation, affective prayer, and the prayer of simplicity), as well as those of the latter (an ineffable "immediate, indubitable consciousness of God's presence...