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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 July 2024
The contemporary world is characterized by rapid and intense activity. Yet, sometimes as an understandable reaction to the feverishness of haste, at other times for the very success of activity, there are worldwide manifestations of a drive towards greater interiority.
Asia today is an interesting example of the activity-interiority tension. Even apart from the too facile generalizations of comparative sociology, Asia remains the place where of set purpose interiority is passionately sought, even at the expense of activity. Yet Asia today is one of the most exciting fields of the action-conquest of reality. Asian action is therefore distinguished by its inherent reference to concomitant reflective interiority.
It is against this background that the Church has to work out its corporate renewal and reform. And in summary form the theme of the present article is that a continuing interaction of liturgy and a system of interiority-seeking, such as the Ignatian Exercises, provides the ideal framework for the renewal of the Church in Asia, as indeed anywhere else.
The liturgy is the most potent means of spiritual renewal for both individual Christians and for communities. This is so all over the world, but is particularly true in Asia, where the external sign and symbol have always had an important pageant value in themselves, even apart from the reality they indicate.
But in order to lead to effective and drastic renewal and reform the liturgy must proceed from the deepest inner realization and acceptance of all that it implies. It is here that the Ignatian Exercises can play a powerful role in the action-reflection dialectic by leading to a greater interior preparedness for meaningful liturgy. And fortunately the Exercises seem to be gaining ground on Asian soil.
page 72 note 1 In the absence of precise figures from all over the region, this is admittedly an impression, based on facts such as that while 441 persons came in 1970 to the Jesuit Retreat House in Kandy, Ceylon, for reflection and prayer, in 1971 the number rose to 808. The figures for the first four months of 1972 are higher than for the same months in 1970 or 1971.
page 73 note 1 Pius XII, Mediator (London: CTS), n. 28.
page 73 note 2 Ibid., n. 41.
page 73 note 3 Vatican II, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, art. 7.
page 73 note 4 ‘Isaias 44, 23.
page 74 note 1 Col. I, 19-20.
page 74 note 2 Puhl, Louis J., trans., The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius (India: St Paul Publications, 1965)Google Scholar, n. 1. All further references to the text of the Exercises are to this edition.
page 75 note 1 Edit. cit., n. 41.
page 75 note 2 Edit. cit., n. 190.
page 75 note 3 Edit, cit., n. 192.
page 76 note 1 For the delineation and description of these four periods see Braso, Gabriel M., trans. Doyle, Leonard J., Liturgy and Spirituality (Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1960), ch. 3Google Scholar.
page 77 note 1 Guibert, Joseph de, trans. Young, William J., The Jesuits: Their Spiritual Doctrine and Practice (Chicago: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1964), pp. 5578Google Scholar.
page 78 note 1 von Balthasar, Hans Urs, Prayer (London: Chapman, 1961), pp. 94 and 98Google Scholar.
page 78 note 2 Edit, cit., n. 31.
page 80 note 1 Gf. Isaias 1, 11-16; Hosea 8, 11-13; Amos 5, 21-25; Micah 6, 6-8; Malachi 2, 13-14.
page 80 note 2 John 4, 21-24.
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