Joseph F. Conwell’s Perceptive 2003 Book Walking in the Spirit

Thomas J. Farrell
Professor Emeritus in Writing Studies
University of Minnesota Duluth
Web: www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell
Email: tfarrell@d.umn.edu


The late multilingual American Jesuit spiritual director Joseph F. Conwell (1919-2014) turned 78 in 1997, the year in which his first post-Vatican II book Impelling Spirit: Revisiting a Founding Experience [in] 1539 [of] Ignatius of Loyola and His Companions: An Exploration into the Spirit and Aims of the Society of Jesus as Revealed in the Founder’ Proposed Papal Letter Approving the Society (Chicago: Jesuit Way/ Loyola Press).
I read Conwell’s invigorating 1997 historical study recently, and so I decided to take a look at his second post-Vatican II book, Walking in the Spirit: A Reflection on Jeronimo Nadal’s Phrase ‘Contemplative Likewise in Action’ (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2003). Conwell turned 84 in 2003.
In his 2003 book, Conwell revisits the subject of his pre-Vatican II 1957 book Contemplation in Action: A Study in Ignatian Prayer (Gonzaga University Press).
As the subtitle of Conwell’s 2003 book about the talented early Jesuit Jeronimo Nadal (1507-1580) and the Spanish Renaissance mystic St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) indicates, Conwell’s charming 2003 historical study is a reflection. But Nadal was not one of those Jesuit founders in 1539 that Conwell discusses in his 1997 book. Conwell says, “Nadal was ordained a priest in Avignon in 1538, [and] a few days later received his doctor’s degree in theology” (page 11). Nadal entered the Society of Jesus in 1545 (Conwell, 2003, page 145).
Not surprisingly, the life and activities of St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus and the author of the Spiritual Exercises (which includes the prayer known as the Suscipe [“Take, Lord, receive”; standardized numbered paragraph 234:4-5]) and of the Society’s Constitutions, also emerge prominently in Conwell’s 2003 book. 
Concerning the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, the most scholarly edition in English is the American Jesuit Louis J. Puhl’s The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: Based on Studies in the Language of the Autograph (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1951). 
Concerning the Constitutions written by St. Ignatius Loyola for the Society of Jesus, see The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus and Their Complementary Norms: A Complete English Translation of the Official [1995] Latin Texts (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996).
For further discussion of Conwell’s 1997 book Impelling Spirit, see my 8,000-word review essay “Joseph F. Conwell’s 1997 Book Impelling Spirit, and Walter J. Ong’s Thought” that is available online through the University of Minnesota’s digital conservancy:
https://hdl.handle.net/11299/225838
Now, Conwell also claims that his 2003 book is “a book for reflection” (page xix). That, it is. In other words, Conwell’s 2003 book is not a straightforward biography of Jeronimo Nadal. But it is also not a straightforward exhortation for our edification – as is Pope Francis’ 2013 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, his first manifesto calling for church reform (i.e., for members of the church to re-form themselves in what is known in church parlance today as ongoing conversion), the text of which is available in English at the Vatican’s website. Pope Francis excels in writing apostolic exhortations.
As everybody now knows, the cardinal-electors in the Roman Catholic Church elected the first Jesuit pope in 2013 – and then the Italo-Argentine spiritual son of the Spanish Renaissance mystic St. Ignatius Loyola promptly took the name Francis to honor the medieval Italian church reformer St. Francis of Assisi (1181?-1226), the founder of the Franciscan order of friars and the author of “The Canticle of Brother Sun.”
For a brilliant analysis of that wonderful canticle, see the French Franciscan Eloi Leclerc’s book The Canticle of Creatures: Symbols of Union: An Analysis of St. Francis of Assisi, translated by Matthew J. O’Connell (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press,1977; orig. French ed., 1970).
The first Jesuit pope honors the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi in his widely read 2015 eco-encyclical Laudato Si’, the text of which is available in English at the Vatican’s website.
Because Conwell claims that his 2003 book is “a book for reflection,” I want to enter into a spirit of reflection here on Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope, in light of all the prompts for reflection that Conwell serves up in his 2003 book about Nadal and St. Ignatius Loyola. More specifically, I want to call attention here to the Italian philosophy professor Massimo Borghesi’s new 2021 book Catholic Discordance: Neoconservatism vs. the Field Hospital Church of Pope Francis, translated by Barry Hudock (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press Academic).
Without in any way diminishing the possible inspiration of the cardinal-electors by the Holy Spirit, Borghesi calls attention to Cardinal Bergoglio’s “address to the cardinals of the church just prior to the conclave that elected him pope” (page 218). Cardinal Bergoglio’s address to the cardinal-electors is titled “Evangelizzare le periferie” and is available in Sandro Magister, “Le ultime parole di Bergoglio prima del conclave,” Settimo Cielo blog, L’Expresso, March 27, 2013 (Borghesi, page 218, note 8).  
Borghesi then quotes the following lengthy passage from Cardinal Bergoglio’s address to the cardinal-electors:
“When the church does not come out from itself to evangelize, it becomes self-referential and gets sick (one thinks of the woman hunched over upon herself in the Gospel). The evils that, in the passing of time, afflict the church’s institutions are rooted in self-referentiality, in a sort of theological narcissism. In Revelation, Jesus says that he stands at the door and knocks. . . . But at times I think that Jesus may be knocking from the inside, so that we will let him out. The self-referential church presumes to keep Jesus Christ inside and not let him out.
“The church, when it is self-referential, thinks, without realizing it, that it provides its own light; it stops being the ‘mysterium lunae’ and gives rise to the evil which is so grave: spiritual worldliness (according to [the French Jesuit theologian Henri] de Lubac, the worst evil into which the church can fall) – living to give glory to one another. To simplify, there are two images of the church: the evangelizing church that goes out from itself; that of the ‘Dei Verbum religiose audiens et fidenter proclamans,’ or the worldly church that lives within itself, of itself, for itself. This should illuminate the possible changes and reforms to be realized for the salvation of souls.
“Thinking of the next pope: a man who, through the contemplation of Jesus Christ and the adoration of Jesus Christ, may help the church to go out from itself toward the existential peripheries, that may help it to be the fruitful mother who lives ‘by the sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing’” (quoted on page 218; the ellipsis is in Borghesi’s text; I have added the bracketed material here).
As we know, the cardinal-electors decided that Cardinal Bergoglio was the right man to elect the next pope. In any event, I want to enter Cardinal Bergoglio’s quoted statement into consider for our reflection, along with all the other prompts for our reflection that Conwell offers us in his 2003 book about Nadal and St. Ignatius Loyola.
For further discussion of Borghesi’s new 2021 book about Pope Francis, see my 5,300-word review essay “Massimo Borghesi’s 2021 Book Catholic Discordance, and Walter J. Ong’s Thought” that is available online through the University of Minnesota’s digital conservancy:
https://hdl.handle.net/11299/225993
In Conwell’s 2003 book, he routinely provides certain other prompts for our reflection, including numerous quotations from Vatican II’s Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life (of religious orders and institutes such as the Society of Jesus) and numerous other quotations from decrees of recent General Congregations of the Society of Jesus. General Congregations are usually convened to elect a new Superior General of the Society of Jesus. St. Ignatius Loyola served as the first General Superior. After he died, General Congregation 1 eventually convened to elect a new Superior General. But a General Congregation can be called for other reasons (for example, General Congregation 34 was called to update the Society’s legislation in light of the church’s then-new code of canon law). For specific page references to the General Congregations, see Conwell’s “Index” (page 291).
Now, concerning the possibility that the Holy Spirit may have inspired the cardinal-electors to elect Cardinal Bergoglio as the new pope, I would draw your attention to what Conwell says about the Holy Spirit in his 2003 book Walking in the Spirit:
“Walking in the Spirit, then, encompasses more than being in tune with the Spirit; it emphasizes that the Spirit is calling the tune and initiating the music, prompting the walker to fall in step. One filed with the Spirit does not possess a quality deserving of congratulations, but is the object of the Spirit’s action, the Spirit who has the quality of filling others; one seized by the Spirit or impelled by the Spirit is the object of the Spirit’s seizing and impelling power. If walking in the Spirit entails proclaiming the Good News in the Spirit, loving in the Spirit, praying in the Spirit, and delighting in the Spirit, it reveals even more that the Spirit is proclaiming the Good News in the one who walks in the Spirit, that the Spirit is loving in, praying in, delighting in the one walking in the Spirit [e.g., St. Ignatius Loyola and St. Francis of Assisi]. The Spirit makes the moves in the one who through the Spirit freely moves [e.g., Pope Francis]” (page 56).
In this passage, Conwell mentions “that the Spirit is loving in” “the one walking in the Spirit.” Thus, Conwell here suggests that agape forms of love are rooted in the Holy Spirit. In this way, the Jesuit vow of chastity is rooted in the Holy Spirit. For Nadal, according to Conwell, “it would seem [from his summary of the Constitutions written by St. Ignatius Loyola], life in the Society [of Jesus] can be summed up in words suggested by Luke 11:28: ‘Blessed are they who hear the word of God [prayer] and obey it [obedience],’ adding our own, ‘in love (chastity), key words to bring out some of the overtones in the phrase ‘walking in the Spirit’” (page 49; the bracketed material is Conwell’s).
Conwell further amplifies Nadal’s words on the next page: “The Spirit is the source of prayer, from which flows love, which expresses itself in chastity and obedience” (page 50; Conwell’s italics).
Subsequently, Conwell says, “Chastity is a response of love to the call of Christ [in what Conwell prefers to refer to as the Call of the King meditation in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola (standardized numbered paragraphs 90-99), a full and complete commitment to the person of Jesus, and everything else in Jesuit life flows from it. Obedience flows from love, is an act of love, rather than love being an act of obedience. Ignatius is almost silent on chastity, not out of prudish reluctance to speak of it, but because the need for chastity was so clear to him that he thought it would be clear to everyone. Furthermore, after this section [in Nadal] on chastity the reader [of Conwell’s 2003 book] will understand better and affirm more easily Nadal’s remarks about obedience” (page 62; I have added the bracketed material here).
Next, Conwell says, “When Nadal explains the vow of chastity, he focuses on the experience of Ignatius who ‘when he left his homeland [to go to the Holy Land], fearing for his chastity, took a vow, taking our Lady as his advocate, and he experienced this as a special grace” (page 62; Conwell’s bracketed material). (Conwell’s reference here to “our Lady” is to the Roman Catholic veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary.)
The American Jesuit psychiatrist and Freudian analyst W. W. Meissner (1931-2019) has written extensively about the feminine dimension of Ignatius Loyola’s psyche during his recuperation from being wounded in battle in Pamplona in 1521, during his famous religious conversion, in his 1992 book titled Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint (Yale University Press). For all practical purposes, what Meissner describes involves Ignatius Loyola’s efforts to access the optimal form of the Queen archetype in his psyche.
Subsequently, Conwell says that “in the Formula of the Institute [of the Society of Jesus], the only mention of chastity is in connection with belonging to a community ready to be sent anywhere in the world to bring God’s word” (page 66; Conwell’s italics; my bracketed material; the Formula of the Institute is the subject of Conwell’s 1997 book Impelling Spirit).
Simply stated, chastity is about being capable of agape love.
Conwell also says, “In the Formula [on the Institute of the Society of Jesus], chastity precedes mission. In the Constitutions chastity precedes obedience, being sent. In the Constitutions Ignatius is not concerned about the purity of a spirit that has no body [i.e., angels, whose name means messengers]. He is concerned with imitating in the mind and in the body the purity of one sent by God, the purity of a messenger of God’s word” (page 66; my bracketed material; Conwell’s italics).
In addition, Conwell says, “The foundation and source of chastity, its whole meaning, is love. Unchastity is either disordered love or disordered passion that pretends to be love. Ignatius moved from a chastity that fears and shrinks from the world to a chastity that loves the world and goes out to it the way the Son entered fully into it” (page 67). (In Roman Catholic trinitarian theology, Jesus Christ is referred to as the Son.)
So even if the Roman Catholic Church were to dispense with the vow of chastity for diocesan priests, the Society of Jesus and other religious orders and institutes would retain the vow of chastity, because it is essential for agape love.
Now, when spiritual sons and daughters of St. Ignatius Loyola respond to what Conwell prefers to refer to as the Call of the King meditation/contemplation in the Spiritual Exercises, they are thereby learning to access the optimal form of the King archetype in their psyches rather than the “shadow” forms of the King archetype).
When they respond to what Conwell refers to as the Two Standards meditation/contemplation in the Spiritual Exercises, they are thereby learning to access the optimal form of the masculine or the feminine Warrior archetype in their psyches (rather than the “shadow” forms).
When Jesuits and members of other religious orders and institutes in the Roman Catholic Church take a vow of chastity, they thereby commit themselves to trying to access the optimal forms of the masculine and the feminine Lover archetype in the human psyche (rather than the “shadow” forms).
The late American Jungian theorist and psychotherapist Robert Moore (1942-2016; Ph.D. in religion and psychology, University of Chicago, 1975) of the Chicago Theological Seminary has written extensively about the masculine forms of the archetypes of maturity in a series of books that he co-authored with Douglas Gillette. However, Moore also posits that there are four similar feminine forms of the archetypes of maturity in all human psyches.
Moore and Gillette have written most extensively about the masculine form of the Lover archetype in the human psyche in their other 1993 self-help book The Lover Within: Accessing the Lover [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (New York: William Morrow). 
No doubt what Moore and Gillette refers to as “shadow” forms of the masculine Lover archetype were in play in the priest-sex-abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church. However, agape love undoubtedly involves what Moore and Gillette refers to as the optimal form of the masculine and/or the feminine Lover archetype in the human psyche.
For further discussion of the priest sex-abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, see Kieran Tapsell’s 2014 book Potiphar’s Wife: The Vatican Secret and Child Sexual Abuse (Adelaide: ATF Press).
Moore and Gillette have written most extensively about the masculine form of the Warrior/Knight archetype in the human psyche in the 1992 self-help book The Warrior Within: Accessing the Knight [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (New York: William Morrow).
Moore and Gillette have written most extensively about the King archetype of maturity in the human psyche in their self-help book The King Within: Accessing the King [Archetype] in the Male Psyche, revised and expanded second edition (Chicago: Exploration Press/ Chicago Theological Seminary, 2007; first edition, 1992). 
This brings me to what Moore at times refers to as the Queen archetype in the human psyche (that is, in both women and men). But Moore and Gillette did not write extensively about the Queen archetype.
Moore and Gillette have written an introductory-level account of the four masculine forms of archetypes of maturity in the human psyche in the 1990 self-help book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco).
Just as the masculine and feminine forms of the Warrior archetype are also known as the Knight archetype, so too the masculine and feminine forms of the Magician archetype are also known as the Shaman archetype. Moore and Gillette have written most extensively about the masculine form of the Magician/Shaman archetype in the human psyche in their other 1993 self-help book The Magician Within: Accessing the Shaman [Archetype] in the Male Psyche (New York: William Morrow).
In effect, priests in the Roman Catholic Church function as shamans, most notably when they preside over liturgical services.
In my estimate, Conwell accessed what Moore and Gillette refer to as the optimal form (as distinct from the “shadow” forms) of the masculine Magician/Shaman archetype in his psyche when he wrote his 2003 book Walking in the Spirit.
In any event, in it, Conwell also says, “To find God in all things is to ‘see in ordinary everyday occurrences the power and wisdom of God, even where others perceive only stumbling blocks and scandal’ [words Conwell quotes from the Jesuit Philip Endean’s 1990 article “The Ignatian Prayer of the Senses”]. The wonder that is the Incarnation, however, has made it clear that to find God in all things does not mean to find God rather than the things, or to find God and not see the things, but to find God in things, all things, seeing God and seeing things in their proper relationship to God. That find God in all things disposes us for ‘great visits from our Lord’ suggests that we find in creatures God searching for us. It also underlines that we are living in a sacramental universe. ‘Rather than looking for God in a flight from materiality and the realm of the senses, then, it [finding God in all things?] suggests that matter itself is holy, and that things themselves in the very suchness of their being may become diaphanous with God’s presence’ [Conwell quotes from the Jesuit Robert J. Egan’s 1995 article “Jesus in the Heart’s Imagination”]” (pages 58-59).
Conwell’s quote here from Egan calls to mind Eloi Leclerc’s analysis of St. Francis of Assisi in his book The Canticle of Creatures: Symbols of Union: An Analysis of St. Francis of Assisi (1977), mentioned above.
In addition, Conwell says, “Robert Browning’s oft-quoted line ‘God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world’ makes sense only because God is not only in heaven but is in the world as well. For Ignatius, familiarity with God demands as a natural complement the facility in finding God in all, which extends into action the love of the Trinity conceived in contemplation” (page 243).



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