by Michel Lessard, SJ
As someone who rediscovered my faith and attachment to Christ through the Spiritual Exercises, I cannot imagine what my life would be like today without the spiritual dimension. The spiritual vision offered by St. Ignatius is surprisingly relevant to our world in search of meaning.
One insight from the Spiritual Exercises that continues to shape how I see the world is called the praesupponendum, the “presupposition” or “preliminary condition” that St. Ignatius places at the very beginning of the Exercises. In other words, it refers to the disposition we should have when entering into a spiritual retreat based on the Spiritual Exercises. Looking closely, I find that while this is an inner disposition originally meant for retreat settings, it should also be guiding our everyday lives.
That both the giver and the maker of the Spiritual Exercises may be of greater help and benefit to each other, it should be presupposed that every good Christian ought to be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor’s statement than to condemn it. Further, if one cannot interpret it favorably, one should ask how the other means it. (Spiritual Exercise No. 22, 1-3)
I sometimes think back to an event that occurred when I was a teacher at the Jesuit college in Quebec City. One day, a student arrived in class without having completed the assigned homework. I immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was lazy and careless! And yet, behind this trivial failure lay the fatigue of a young man who had had to stay up later than usual one evening when his parents were away from home; in short, a moment of ordinary distraction. It was far from the nonchalance with which I had labeled him. It was nothing extraordinary, except for this lesson: try understanding instead of judging, welcoming instead of labeling. In other words, “be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor’s statement than to condemn it.”
I tell myself that this attitude is an art to be cultivated, not only at school, but everywhere we meet. I am brought back to this simple truth: Every person is created, wanted and loved by God. If I believe this, then kindness becomes the inner “presupposition” that guides the way I look at people, the tone of my voice, the way I listen.
What if it were a universal mission — for teachers, parents, spouses, colleagues, friends — to give others the right to exist without fear of being judged too quickly? In our age of immediate reaction and spontaneous mistrust, perhaps we are called to rediscover the slowness of the heart: the heart that seeks to understand before speaking, to question instead of condemning. When someone feels that they are being looked at with respect, they become free to learn, to love, to get back up. This is true of a child, but also of an adult. And I discover every day that I depend on that gaze: the one that reminds me that I am, above all, a creation desired and loved by God — not a performance to be corrected, but a person capable of loving and being loved.
