Tree-ripened fruit is much more delicious than fruit picked before its time, and this is especially true of mangos. During my years in the Philippines, tree-ripened mangos were an abundant source of natural consolation. The only drawback, if it could be called that, is that the oozing juice required ample hand-washing afterwards.
When I gave my first conference on the ninth of Ignatius’s First Week rules for discernment of spirits over 20 years ago, a mango image immediately came to mind.
The audience was a group of young Filipino women who had entered the convent within the past two years; several of them were still teenagers. Some had left their families thinking that their pursuit of the Lord would be invariably sweet. Although spiritual desolation was only one of the challenges they were facing, it was a common and significant one. For the first time many were experiencing prayer as a drudgery, and they wondered what they were doing wrong.
I had already explained Ignatius’s first reason in Rule 9 for why we suffer from desolation:
“. . . Because we have been tepid and slothful or negligent in our exercises of piety, and so through our own fault spiritual consolation has been taken away from us.”
This had been easy for them to understand. If we stop praying or grow careless about prayer, or neglect the duties of our vocation, we should not be surprised if consolation diminishes. In such cases the Lord sometimes withdraws spiritual consolation, not as some sort of petty payback, but to remind us that we must seek Him seriously if we wish to find Him.
Yet sometimes a careful examination of conscience uncovers no such negligence. We have remained faithful to prayer and to the duties of our state in life, yet we experience the darkness, turmoil, and discouragement that Ignatius describes in Rule 4. Ignatius’s second reason for why we suffer from desolation may then apply:
“The second reason is because God wishes to try us, to see how much we are worth, and how much we will advance in His service and praise when left without the generous reward of consolations and signal favors.”
This reason is a bit more difficult to digest. Why would God “try” me by turning off consolation? Does He not already know how much I am worth, as well as what the results of such a “trial” will be?
I asked each of the young sisters to imagine spending time with her “Lolo” (an affectionate Filipino term for grandfather) who loves her and enjoys her presence. He rewards her visit with a juicy, sweet, ripe mango. The visits go on daily; each day she visits, and each day she receives the same sweet reward.
One day when she takes her leave, her Lolo does not give her a mango. Though somewhat disappointed, she returns to visit the next day, only to again be deprived of her coveted prize. After several days it becomes clear that the mangos will no longer be forthcoming, at least not for the foreseeable future.
The young girl now faces a choice: continue visiting Lolo each day without receiving the sweet fruit, or stop visiting and devote her time to something more productive. This stark choice reveals something about her motivation. As Ignatius writes in the Contemplation to Attain Divine Love, “Love ought to manifest itself in deeds rather than in words.” If she continues visiting despite the dearth of mangos, she shows that she comes primarily out of love for Lolo. If she stops, the mangos may have been her main reason for visiting.
Thus, Ignatius is teaching us that if we are left without spiritual consolation despite our good will and effort, God may be giving us an opportunity to mature in faith. Are we more in love with the consolation that God gives or the God who gives it? Will we continue to pray faithfully in the absence of consolation? Like the residents of Whoville in our article on Rule 4, will we still sing when we realize that our gifts have been taken away?
I still remember the looks on the faces of those postulants and novices. They were asking themselves hard questions about their motivations for prayer and for pursuing the spiritual life. I sympathized with their struggle, and I couldn’t help thinking that our Divine Master looks upon us with even greater compassion when He allows us to undergo such a trial. He knows that the struggle can serve our salvation, but He is not unmoved by the suffering through which that growth comes.
Ignatius also gives a third principal reason why the Lord allows desolation:
“The third reason is because God wishes to give us a true knowledge and understanding of ourselves, so that we may have an intimate perception of the fact that it is not within our power to acquire and attain great devotion, intense love, tears, or any other spiritual consolation; but that all this is the gift and grace of God our Lord.”
If the second reason concerns the maturing of our faith, the third concerns the humility that desolation can bring. A good image might be that of a master gardener who has developed an impeccable method for growing mango trees. Eating the mangos brings him not only pleasure but a sense of pride and self-inflation: “These are the most delicious mangos in the Philippines, and it’s all because of me!”
Suddenly, the rain stops, and after a few days the gardener realizes that all his efforts will not yield a single mango. The rain, the soil, the tree, and even the gardener and his intelligence are gifts from God, and without Him the gardener can do nothing. Yesterday Lectio Divina on the words “The Lord is my shepherd” brought tears. Today they lie flat on the page. What went wrong? Perhaps nothing. The Shepherd may be teaching the sheep that consolation comes from Him and not from technique.
The lesson is painful but freeing. Consolation was never our possession. We need not panic when we cannot reproduce it, and we need not congratulate ourselves when it returns. We can simply receive consolation when it comes without claiming ownership of it.
“The principal reasons why we suffer from desolation are three.” There is a characteristic humility in that word “principal.” Ignatius does not claim to have cornered the market on all the reasons why God permits spiritual desolation, much less to have devised an account of all the reasons why we suffer. He has, however, given us an invaluable explanation of the main reasons behind one form of suffering that is common in the life of a maturing Christian.
For that, Ignatius deserves much more than a mango.
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This post was first published on Ignatian Discernment Institute and is reprinted here with permission.
Image: Unsplash.
