On the discernment of spirits

Tomáš Josef Špidlík, S.J. was a Czech prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He was a Jesuit priest and theologian. Pope John Paul II made him a Cardinal in 2003.

Recorded in 1998 at spiritual exercises for priests.

Intro

We will talk about what it means to feel and to taste spirituality as St Ignatius says. Feel and experience, we could say, and for that we will look into the spirituality of the heart. 

There's quite a bit published on the spirituality of the heart by now. 

        That's only a recent thing, though.

When I started writing my first book on the heart, it was before the council. My censor wouldn't approve it. He was adamant. 

The delegate back then was Father Arnaud, the older ones will know of him. The metaphysicist. He kept supporting me. "Don't back down, don't back down, don't back down, don't give in to the censor." I kept lots of courage thanks to his support and refused to back down. 

Well, since the censor didn't back down and I didn't back down, eventually they took that assignment from.

        They gave it to some other censor and that's how the book went to print. So that was nice of the old father Arnaud, supporting young people like that.

Anyway, since those days I have published a great deal about the heart. Even now just before I arrived I was in Aquila at the international congress on Ignatian spirituality. 

I gave a lecture on the heart as well. 

The editor of the Moscow Patriarch asked my permission to translate it. I'm saying, "Sure you can translate it, absolutely! But I doubt it you'll manage to convince anyone that Jesuits have a heart." (audience laughs) 

        Nobody believes that, right? That a Jesuit could have a heart.

So then, let's try and get to the root of this misunderstanding.

The spirituality of the heart

The heart as a concept is known across many cultures. But what it is and what it's about that in the Bible? 

Well, the Bible uses phrases like "the heart thinks" , "the heart decides", "lift up your hearts", etc.

        Then there are the mystics. Mystics of all nations always say that God enters us through our heart. And sometimes they even say that it's through the height of the heart or from the bottom of the heart ... Anyway, they always talk about the heart at some point.

        When we look at Catholic liturgy, we have the feasts of Divine Heart of the Lord and the feast of the Heart of the Virgin Mary. Feasts like that usually leave priests scratching their heads, no? What to do with the sermon for these feasts.

        Other than that, this is a very serious ecumenical problem. And someone from our province had a lot to say to this. Some of you will know of p. Spacil[4] who used to be a professor in Rome. He wrote the first ever book about the faith of the Orthodox authors. 

        That's where he explained that in the Eastern conception, faith roots in the heart and that religion has to be understood as a felt thing. That is to say, if your faith does not come from your heart, it can't be a Christian faith.

        But it was a tumultuous period back then. All Catholic clergy had to make an oath against modernism. Which could have some very dangerous consequences. 

        And that's why p. Spacil ended up softening his claims in the book's final chapter: He said that the eastern authors are talking a lot about the heart, but it can be understood as a cultural artefact - a sentimentality typical to Slavic attitude.

        We should really explain it better. 

        Spirituality of the heart has no relation to sentimentality.

        The theologian Vladimir Lossky[1] writes: "You say that we are the same people. All of you in the West read St John Chrysostom, all of us in the East read St John Chrysostom. You read these Church Fathers, we read the same Church Fathers. But the point that you are missing is that you read it all with your mind whereas we read it with our heart. We are different people."

        Well. What gives? Clearly the problem of the heart is strongly divisive and that is always serious. 

        So I thought it would be good to look at how this problem developed through the history. 

        And I'll say it right away, you'll see that the problem is that the concept of the heart is just not fitting well into how we understand our psychology. 

        We have learned to work with reason, will and emotions. 

        Heart belongs to none of those categories. 

        In the ancient times, the Greek Fathers of the Church said: "The Scripture says heart, but what is really meant is mind."

        Scholastics had it similar: "Scriptura dicit cor..." and since I know you are all perfectly fluent in Latin, I'll try to translate it: "Scripture says heart but what it means is intellect. Intellect is what lifts us closer to God."

        Frankly, I don't know if our old mothers would agree that the reason they go to church is to get their intellects lifted and not their hearts, what do you say? 

        "Lift up your intellects..." (audience laughs) Well, well, praised be the Lord. 

        So, the opposition against that interpretation started growing through the early middle ages, and then it culminated with the Franciscans. 

        St Bonaventura comments on this: "Because love comes from the heart, when the Scripture says heart, it actually means will." 

        He's saying that phrases like "Lift up your hearts" describe a decision of your will.

        It is true, as they say, that when you're reading the Bible, it's not automatically a prayer. You can read to study the blessings for instance, not to communicate with God. 

        But then, when I say, "Out of my love for Christ I wanted to buy a new hat, but for the love of Christ the poor I will not buy it until next week." 

        Well, according to St Bonaventura this is where the heart got involved, no? So, I don't think it can be said that the will is equivalent to the heart. 

        The French in the 16 century were the first to start explaining it away as sentimentality. "L'coeur, l'santiment." That is, the heart is just another name for your feelings. This is sentimentalism. 

        Then, St Ignatius says: "First reason, then will and affect only at the last place." Step on the pedal, accelerate and after that develop feelings.

        Well, this is nonsense. All of this is nonsense. 

        The fact that there have been so many mistaken interpretations of the mentions of the heart in the Bible only points to the reality that the concept of heart is completely foreign to our psychology. 

        Which means we will not solve it starting from psychology. 

        We need to find a new starting point.

        The heart: What does it express in our spiritual life, that the Lord accepts our hearts and that our hearts are floating up. "Lift up your hearts" - what exactly is meant by this?

        Do we use "heart" as a label for some particular, isolated human faculty? 

        Of course not. 

        The sum of our human abilities and characteristics is the heart. It's best understood from the Bible: "You shall love God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength..." It means all of the faculties and characteristics at the same time.

        And this is how things start to clear up. The goal of Ignatian meditation is to have your prayer penetrate all your faculties. To stop having it isolated in your mind or in your will only. 

        Let's try to work with this now: When we say that the heart means all human faculties, then what is the best way to grasp it fully? 

        What exactly is it, this sum of human faculties? 

        I say that the key to understand this is to take the unity of a person into account. And let's say that this can be understood horizontally. 

Horizontal unity

        Horizontal unity: That's an expression I just made up. Horizontal unity means all the faculties and characteristics that are active in us.

        An example. Let's say that I've been sitting in my room for the past three says, writing an essay.                Somebody knocks on the door. 

        Oh God, I've got to get this finished by tomorrow and somebody knocks. 

        Oh well, what can you do: ,,Come in!" 

        And of course it's that old chatterbox... (audience laughs) Never a moment's peace... (audience laughs)

        Obviously this dire situation calls for an act of heroic love, and I'll do anything for you the Most Holy Heart of Christ. So I'll fasten my smile with a pin because else it would fall off and I'll say: 

        "What a joy that you came to see me! Sit down, please - I'm so happy to see you!" 

        Forcing my smile throughout because it won't hold by itself, but nobody can tell I wasn't trying, right? 

        It takes a bit to recover when he finally gets out at last, but the upside is that I have just committed a great act of ascetic love. Every spiritual father will pat me on the back, that's for sure.

        So, what do you think, is this normal? I mean, is this a way to live? Can you do this consistently?

        The truth is that the ascetics do pass their life like this. But I say that for a human being, this is not a normal state to be in. 

        The normal way is to live in such a way that the whole of the human takes part in what is said out loud: "It's so very good to see you again," in a way where I honestly am glad, I'm not just saying it. 

        And that's what I mean when I say that something penetrates the whole of the human. 

        When I tell myself, "Blessed be the poor in spirit, alright, I won't buy a new hat ever and that new umbrella can wait still," then that's not wrong, it's just that it's not my normal disposition. 

        I often quote Theophane the Recluse[3]. 

        He compared the ascetic act to reading Shakespeare at home on your couch. It's fine, you'll benefit from it in a way, but the point is that seeing it on stage with all the lights and all, that's something of a different order of magnitude. 

        So, we can say that when something penetrates the heart, it becomes our normal disposition. 

        This can be so beautiful - a sort of Christian spontaneity. One's life then isn't just rules and punishment. 

        Like in that joke where the Jesuit never giver away whether he likes the meal or not, it's always only a matter of what the Superior says...(audience laughs)

        Either way, in an idealistic way it's a beautiful picture: Prayer penetrating the whole of human.

This is what I call the horizontal unity. 

Vertical unity

        Then there is the vertical unity.

        What is a human? 

        Am I what I am today, or what I was yesterday, or what I will be in a decade? 

        People change and you know that even one day can make a difference. 

        St Teresa of Avila wrote: "Just consider how dangerous spiritual life is. I've been living spiritually for so many years, and yet I can commit a sin tomorrow and end up condemned."

        What do you say, is this possible? Are we afraid about St Teresa? 

        Well, as the Dutch say - it is possible but it is unthinkable. 

        It is possible. Unlikely, but possible. 

        When they prepared us for first communion as kids, they gave this beautiful anecdote: There was a boy who was so good that he could have been St Aloysius. Innocent and pure and all prayer. Then he committed his first mortal sin, went for a swim, drowned and now is in hell. 

        Why are you smiling? Mortal sin is no joke. And we know for a fact that for a mortal sin you go to hell. 

        But it's that we all feel that there's something in the anecdote that's not quite working, right?

What is it that isn't working in that story?

        Well, is it easy to commit a mortal sin out of the blue like that? 

        Absolutely not - one has a psychological identity. A sort of steady, slow-changing psychological makeup. A steady state.

        One can repent a sin and turn to God, but that's an act of God's grace, and things are not so easy the other way around either. 

        That's why maybe pray for someone other than St Teresa of Avila.

        So, we are feeling that there is this steady state that everyone has, a lasting state. That is the state of the heart. 

        A dad might be angry with his son, "You rascal, what have you done?" and so on. And the mom might say, "Ah he acted like a villain but he has a good heart." 

        That's what it is: He made a mischief this one time, but that's not his usual self. That's not his normal disposition. 

        When it's the prayer that is supposed to penetrate the heart, then the prayer is what must become this normal disposition. 

So, to close the first part I will tell you about a theological problem I had when I was a boy. 

        Our mom would always bless the fields with Holy Water. To do that I always had to go to the church with a little can, have it filled up with Holy Water and bring it back home. 

        And you see, it was a long walk. And when a boy is told to do something that requires effort, he'll start thinking. Then a deep thought comes forth. (audience laughs) 

        So, not far from our house we had a little forest spring that had running water year-round and I said to my mom - why don't we invite the chaplain over there, he'll bless it and we'll have Holy Water forever. Why do I have to walk to the church with a can, that's nonsense, right? (audience laughs)

        I was told I'm silly and had to keep going with the can but I never got this out of my head. 

        Much later on, I took theology with professor Smid who taught liturgy at Gregorian College. I asked him if it is possible to sanctify a forrest spring in such a way that it would forever give Holy Water. 

        Whereat the professor slowly nodded, pondering it for a good while, and then said, "It is possible, but the Church does not utilise that." (audience laughs)

        So, I say that in one way it is utilised, after all - and that's human heart. 

        Ascesis and meditation are tools that we use to gradually sanctify the spring, so that at the end of it, one would always spontaneously do the thing one is meant to do. 

        In the Eastern theology, this principle is usually called a "state". Reading Eastern authors you will come across expressions like "state of prayer", "state of virtue" and such. 

        And you know what's the most beautiful description of the same principle? 

        In the Life of St Francis of Assisi by Thomas Celano: "Franciscus did not pray - Francis non orabat, Franciscus factus est oratio. Francis became the prayer." 

        That means, his whole relation to God was such that he was able to answer with his whole person every time. Something like a musician who sits and plays, ignoring the rest of the world, whenever the inspiration comes. 

        So then once again, this is what the eastern authors stress so often: It's important to let our prayers come down from our heads and into our hearts. 

        That is to let it become spontaneous and to let it be our normal disposition, not just some rare, ceremonious act.

        And as that spreads through society it encourages a certain sense of stability. Everyone can live with a reasonable certainty that people in general don't act completely at random. 

The state of the heart

    

        I think we've explained the concept well, but now, what's really the hardest part is to understand what's going on with your heart. 

        You can divide acts into good and bad quite easily. But the state of your heart is not so straightforward.

"I spoke badly three times about the superior."

- "And what did you say?" Wait, no, you're not supposed to ask that in a confession. (laughs) "Was it serious?"

"It was very serious."

- "Well then that's a mortal sin."

"I threw a stone out of my window."

- "How heavy was the stone?"

"About two pounds."

This will be a mortal sin too, because it could have killed someone.

        This was just to illustrate that our morals are very clearly separated. Up to a certain limit it's not a big deal, and then it turns into a serious matter.

"I stole money."

- "How much?"

"30 cents."

- "You got out lucky! 50 cents would make it a mortal sin." (audience laughs)

        That's how it goes. In church we distinguish very clearly up to where are sins still venial. Priests study the rules of morals to be able to judge this.

 

        But how do you stand in front of God, that's something that only God knows. 

        A priest cannot tell you anything about that. We don't read hearts, we judge the morality of the acts, you see?

        We judge the acts according to objectively valid measures, but how you stand in front of God, that's your own job to deal with. 

        Well, the Church Fathers - the old spiritual fathers - they all had a thing called 'cardiognosia'. That means the ability to read in others' hearts. They were able to read anyone's heart quite directly and so they could say: "This is how you stand before God:..." P. Pio could do that, for instance. 

        When they read in other people's hearts, did that constitute a miracle? 

        Most theologians agree that it wasn't miraculous. 

        It is not a miracle because God created us able to understand each other deeply and it's the sin that created walls between us. 

        When one gets purified and no longer has any sins with them, then they can read in people's hearts like in an open book as well. And the most accessible way to open this ability is love. 

        You know that if a family is full of love, it gets very difficult to cheat each other. A loving mother can't be cheated; you won't say it but she'll still know you're hiding something.

        When I decided to go into novitiate, I didn't want to say it at home. So I just said that I go studying. But my sister came back to me and said, "What are you up to? Mother cried all day saying you won't be back." My mother still knew I was hiding something. 

        This is not specific to Christians, it happens to all people who love deeply. 

        When I was in Tyrol, one night I couldn't sleep so I got up and went into the library to browse old books. That's how I found some memoir of a Canadian policeman who used to serve among the native people way back when they were still living in the wilderness. 

        So, these people had awful reputation. How harsh they are, raw and impossible to reason or trade with. And that they are like this even within their own people, because it is known that they have a rule that if they marry, the man can't talk to the wife. Speaking at your wife meant public humiliation, so harsh were they. 

        This policemen spent his lifetime among them when he served in the area. He said, this was all ill understood. The couple isn't speaking to one another because they are supposed to love each other so much that they understand one another without saying anything. 

        And that's also why you couldn't lie to these natives - they knew - and why business dealings with them were so difficult. 

        This is what happens when love opens one's heart.

        You must have noticed that a variation of this is pretty common. One does have a faint sense for the state of the heart of another person. 

        You meet an acquaintance and he'll start confidently pouring into you all the truths about the universe, world and everything...As long as you look at it just by reason alone, you will almost get convinced every time. But then there is that thought at the back of your mind, "I don't know what is it but something's off. This man isn't quite honest, I don't know why exactly but I can't trust him."

        Can you trust these hunches?

        Discerning the call to priesthood is related to this. It's important to have such kind of a hunch there. So, should you believe these hunches? 

        The answer is - you can, if your heart is pure and knows how to discern spirits. 

        St Ignatius says, "to feel and to taste your prayer", which as we said earlier means for the prayer to enter into your heart, and this implies being able to discern spirits. 

Discernment of spirits

        Let's now talk about the rules of discerning spirits. Is this a brand new thing? Or did it exist in the early Church as well?

        So, when you read the Church Fathers, and especially the Desert Fathers[5]: Compare it with the Exercises of St Ignatius and you'll see that there is nothing fundamentally new in the Exercises. 

        It was all written before. The Desert Fathers were well practised in discernment of spirits and pointed out the importance of learning it in their writings too. 

        St Ignatius did not come up with something that was not done before his time, but that does not mean it is not valuable to read him. 

        The thing is, he did not read the old Fathers before he write his Exercises. 

        All he knew was acquired through direct experience, not from books. Direct experience is a valuable thing. 

        And then, if I'm quite honest with you, when your read the fathers you will find that it's all been written before. There's not much new in the books written after their time. 

        But one thing that St Ignatius did mention for the very first time was the fact that our spiritual life goes through certain stages. There are different things happening at the beginning, later on...And that's why in the Exercises we have the first week and the second week and so on, each quite different and with a clear progression. 

        But this is also a result of St Ignatius learning everything from raw experience. 

        So, if we may apply our personal experience to it too - do the stages of spiritual life have to happen by weeks? 

        No, we can split it into any length of time, based on what's happening in each. 

        Let's just call it the first stage, the second stage and possibly a third one too. 

First stage

        The first stage is happening for a person who is at the start of their spiritual life. 

        Someone who just started praying, or someone who just entered novitiate. 

        At this stage, one can either have a great zeal, or on the other hand none at all. 

        Some novices will say, "This novitiate, I would stay here forever!" 

And you want to tell them, "Easy there, you can't do that. What kind of Christian would you be then, staying in here all your life."

        But they are just trying to say that they are feeling so well.

        Contrary to that, other novices will say, "My God I'd rather run away. I shouldn't have set one foot in this place, it's all wrong, I just can't cope..." And so on.

        This is what we call consolation and desolation. One feels either extremely happy or extremely low. 

        What is the classic mistake that one tends to commit here in the first stage? 

        The classic error here is to assume that consolation and desolation are the same thing as the true state of the person. 

        What I am is the same as how I'm feeling - this was the error of Messalians and Calvinists and of many others: When you're feeling fine, it means the Holy Spirit is with you. When you're feeling down, it means the evil is with you. 

        Well, St Ignatius explains that the state of our feelings doesn't stay the same for long. Our moods are always alternating.  High and low, high and low - and this is normal. 

        That is the crucial thing that everyone has to realise at the first stage of their spiritual life: How you feel fluctuates, and your moods are not the same thing as the state of your heart. 

        Now, how do they fluctuate? Is it a rigid and regular movement, or is there any sort of progression?

        I think spiritual fathers in seminars would have a lot to say about this.

A new seminarian comes to talk to his p. spiritual. ,,So how are you feeling?"

- ,,Not well to be honest."

,,And are you following the routines? Do you go to the chapel? Do you do your meditations?"

- ,,I do all that."

,,Well if you do, then don't let the low feelings worry you. They will pass soon enough, just stick to the routines."

        Next month the young seminarian comes again. ,,How are you feeling now?"

- ,,Worse."

,,Still following the routines?"

- ,,I do, yes."

,,Then keep at it. One month is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Just don't give in."

        When he comes crying the month after that too, you'll think of pouring him a stiff one, no? (audience laughs) But you surely know that these things can take a while. 

        But when he is still not well after one year... ,,Well, maybe you don't have the call."

        What is it then? 

        It was 'keep going' for months and then all of the sudden he doesn't have the call.

How did that happen?

        The answer is that we assume that moods alternate, they don't stay the same for this long. If it doesn't alternate, maybe it's not a mood.

        Diadochos of Photiki[2] lived in 5th century in Greece, but in my opinion he has a lot in common with St Ignatius. This is what he says: "In the beginning, the Lord gives delights to the man He's trying to pull to himself." 

        That is, one usually feels consolation in the beginning. Afterwards there's the test, so that we get trained in making it through adversities as well, but most often there is a progression in that the desolation periods get shorter and less intense. 

        At the very least, at some point it should occur to you, "I'm in the right place here." 

        Theophan the Recluse[3], I'll mention him just this once more, illustrates this with an anecdote from his childhood. 

        As a boy he thought to take apart an alarm clock but the machine insides were so complicated that he couldn't take them back together. So he used trial and error: Screw by screw he tried them all, until he found the screw that fits. This one doesn't fit, this one neither, this one is in its place here. 

        Theophan says that with your spiritual call it's exactly the same thing. 

        That doesn't mean that everything fits like a glove all of the time. There are moments of disappointment, but you should never stop having the most important consolation of knowing that you are in the right place: "I don't like the building, the food's awful, the youngsters are annoying and the superiors stupid. But in spite of all this I know that I'm in the right place here."

        Knowing that you are where you're meant to be is a crucial consolation, the most important of them. There will be desolations too, but none of such magnitude to cancel out the impression that you are where you should be. 

        So once again, this is the first spiritual experience that one gets to make: That it is destructive to identify with your feelings and with your moods, because they fluctuate.

Second stage 

        Following the tasks of the second week of exercises, one now needs to dig deeper into the same problem with fleeting feelings.

        You have learned that moods alternate. Very well - but where do they come from? 

        Because they always come from somewhere, don't they? 

        You're ok and then suddenly you're feeling in a certain way that has impact on you. 

        It usually starts with a thought. 

        You accept the thought and start mulling it over. After some time it emotionally dominates you. You come to feel either deeply depressed or on the other hand in tearing high spirits.

        What you need to learn at this stage is the discernment of spirits. 

        How hard is that? 

        Well, the eight mortal sins are easy enough to discern, aren't they. 

        But the problem is that devil likes to disguise as God's angel, so I appeal to everyone to ask for advice before they gain enough experience. 

        Ask your spiritual father because especially if you're inexperienced, this can get really dangerous. 

        You know that St Ignatius uses the story of the adulterous man to illustrate this. The adulterer insists that the woman keeps their understanding secret and he does that because he knows that her father would certainly see through his plot. 

        What I'm trying to say is for God's sakes, ask for help if you're not experienced. 

        This is what they mean when they say you're supposed to 'share all of your thoughts' with your spiritual father.

        That doesn't mean that you go, "two and two are four, well that's a thought, I have to run and tell p. spiritual." Not like this. But you should tell him every thought that weighs on you in any way. 

        Whenever you feel the impact of the thought, that's a thought to share with your spiritual father. 

        Your spiritual fathers will always strive to make you independent on their counsel as soon as possible though, so don't worry about that. 

        You need to learn to discern spirits on your own, but you do need help in the beginning.

        What is the basic rule of discernment of spirits?

        In Latin, the basic rule for discerning spirits is 'quidquid inquietat est a diabolo'. All that disquiets is from the devil, because God is peaceful.

        We know that St Ignatius warns us not to apply that naively. 

        If you're walking with God, then what disquiets you is from the devil because of course the devil would love to see you despair. 

        But of you're walking in the wrong direction and straying away from God, then it's God's angel who disquiets you to bring you back to God. 

        The rule cannot be applied without consideration then. What do we make of it? 

        I always say the following story to make it clearer. 

        When I was still a theology student, I once got to visit a university in the Netherlands. I was curious to see lectures from other departments too and that's how I got to see a painting course. 

        The professor there had a couple of student works in front of him and just for fun he took one of them and told me to rate it. 

        It was a painting of a girl holding flowers, a nice scenery in the background, clouds on the sky and all that. The face of girl was really well done, I thought. 

        So I said, "Well I like it." 

        And the professor replied, "Of course you do, and that's the only work that won't pass this assignment." 

        He took a blank sheet of paper and covered most of the girl's body. "Look at her hand. How old would you say this person is?" I said, "Maybe 15 years old?" He said, "Could be, you can see that this is a hand of an adult person." Then he covered the girl so that only her legs were visible. And I saw that her leg was a leg of a baby. 

        And that's the point. Separately it's all nice, it looks good, but the individual parts of it are too disparate to fit together. 

        This is what it looks like in spiritual life. 

        One's true self has a certain form, some things will fit into it and some won't. 

        That from the devil is always the disparate, that which doesn't agree with one's true self. 

        By itself it might be a good thing,  but if he manages to smuggle it into someone's life and it doesn't agree, one will start breaking apart.

        Let's say that there's a memo from my superiors about the Jesuit university in Japan, saying that the staff shortage there is unbearable. And they'll put it the way that if you are sure you are called, then please do sign up. 

        So, I'm reading it and the beautiful thought occurs to me: "I'll sign up and go to Japan."

        But because this is the kind of thought that one must share with pater spiritual, I go and do just that. And he'll tell me with deep experience: ,,Stay where you are, silly geront." (audience laughs) 

        Because in my age, this holy thought is completely out of place in my life. 

        God has providence and forms everyone in a certain way. If you're walking with God, the way your life was formed did not happen by accident, it happened for a purpose. 

        That's why it's always a temptation to try and break that apart. 

        Monks have noticed that the biggest temptation is usually to bolt. To run to another monastery, somewhere better. 

        That's why in the old days they would say 'sedere in cela', keep sitting in your cell. 

        In the Fathers, there's a mention somewhere about one monk who couldn't cope and complained: ,,I can't spend all this time praying. I can't do it."

- "Then just do half of the psalms."

"I can't do even that much."

- "Then just say a Pater Noster and sit for the rest of the day. Just for the love of God, stay in there."

        The point of this is that if you try to chase things to improve your condition just a little bit, you end up changing your environment so often that it will do you harm. 

        And avoiding that harm is the point of discernment of spirits. 

        I don't want to assimilate something that would break me apart from the inside. It can get extremely dangerous when that happens. 

Third stage

        So, as a recap, the first stage is learning about consolation and desolation. 

        The second stage is to learn to discern where each feeling or thought comes from. 

        I will now mention the third stage, although it is quite delicate. Not everyone will notice this but I think it's not confusing at all when you look at it.

        St Ignatius says: If a thought comes from the outside, it might have come from God's angel or from the evil spirit. But if a thought has no origin at all, then it's certainly from God. 

        I don't know of any Ignatian comments to this nor any exegesis. But I think the best way to understand it is in the same way as the Fathers did.

        An explanation has to be found with the Church Fathers because it's them who say that all evil comes from the outside. 

        Good inspiration can also come from the outside, but God is in the heart of a man and that's why there are thoughts that originate in the inside. 

        When this happens, you just get a thought surface in your mind and you have no idea where it came from. That's an inspiration that came from God. 

        Of course St Ignatius makes it clear that you need to be sensible about what you consider an internal inspiration. If I drink a bottle of strong wine, obviously there will be many internal inspirations coming. We know that this has an external cause. 

        A completely different thing is when the inspiration comes in silence. 

        That's what they call the 'prayer of silence' in Orthodoxy. 

        

        All of us are are pushed to take in so many external things, even for our spiritual life: Read this, try that and so on. And then out of the blue something happens, but it didn't come from the outside. 

        You know that people have this in them. The Holy Spirit is lives in us and can inspire us like that. 

        St Ignatius did everything in this way.

        You can get inspired when you study too, but there needs to be silence. 

        That's the gist of the prayer of the silence - that you stop and silence yourself, and then without expecting it, something beautiful comes to you. Our problem is that we look for everything on the outside and we don't read our own hearts.

        Artists can look inwardly like that. Great saints always got a lot from their own heart. 

        But like I said, this is the third stage and you have to be very careful before you get there. You'll get too confused to reach it if you take in things that don't agree with your heart.

Final words

        So, as you see, St Ignatius is truly an author for the inner life. He made a great deal of experience in working with thoughts, feelings and spirits. 

        He's quite under-appreciated in this regard. People love to say that Ignatian spirituality is always about measuring and achieving. We'd make a commander out of him when in reality the point is to learn to listen to your heart. 

        The purpose of the disciplined work is to make your spirituality a second nature to you. 

        It does come partly from inspiration too. You're not supposed to live like puppets, completing tasks. 

        But you can only achieve the natural spirituality through years dedicated to meditation. There's no way to access that by a shortcut, it would not be the real thing.

        Sadly today, reading the Eastern authors people tend to get confused because when you say heart, most will think sentimentality. And you will never get it right with such an assumption. 

        So, this is as far as a 30 minute lecture will let us get, but at least you should now have the general idea about what it is the 'sentire' and 'gustare', to feel and taste God's truth. 

References:

1. Vladimir Lossky
2. Diadochos of Photiki 
3. Theophan the Recluse, his work "Path to salvation" is available online here
4. P. Spacil (CZ) 
5. Desert Fathers

This lecture on Youtube (CZ)