If you've ever gone to a Jesuit school or retreat, there's a good chance you've encountered the "Prayer for Generosity" attributed to St. Ignatius:
Lord, teach me to be generous, to serve you as you deserve, to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and not to seek reward, except that of knowing that I do your will.
Many people find it inspiring. And, of course, who could be against generosity?
And yet… there are some issues.
First, St. Ignatius never wrote these words. The earliest known appearance of the prayer is in a nineteenth-century book. Ignatius died in 1556.
Furthermore, Fr. Bart Geger, SJ notes, “Almost every line of the prayer contradicts what Ignatius had instructed Jesuits strenuously and repeatedly.”1
Geger continues:
“Ignatius made it clear that he wanted Jesuits – and, by implication, all those who live his spirituality – to make the greatest impact on God’s people that they could over the course of their lifetimes. This would require Jesuits to pace themselves rather than burn themselves out in a brief blaze of quixotic zeal… He wanted Jesuits to choose the one option that they believe will serve the greater glory of God, and then have the courage to let the other good options go, both physically and emotionally. That is why discernment and indifference were so central to Ignatius’s spirituality.”
Of course we should be generous, but that often means saying no to many things so that we can YES to what matters — and do it for the long haul.
This comes from Geger’s essay “Ten Things That St. Ignatius Never Said or Did.” It is excellent, but also heartbreaking. I rather enjoyed some of those myths!
A very good advice- for me that was always a difficult choice: do I abandon something because I am being a coward or because “really”, “really” that is a waste of energy…
Thanks for another great advice!