~ by Fr. Jack Bentz, SJ

The Society of Jesus is fundamentally a society of readers. We read our breviaries we read the Scriptures, we read the Eucharist prayer, we read novels, poems, histories, mysteries, subtitles and even sometimes the directions on how to set up a cell phone. We read for pleasure and we read as members and leaders in a faith community centered on Christ as the Word spoken by God to us.

As novices we get used to doing spiritual reading several nights a week. This appears on the Order for the Day posted on the crowded novitiate bulletin board—“Spiritual reading from 7pm -9pm.” For most of us this directive towards spiritual reading is a formalization of what we were already doing prior to entrance. But now we have the advantage of other Jesuits giving us direction in our selection of reading. Jesuits are forever recommending books to each other as we together deepen our spiritual lives.

St. Ignatius has to carry some of the blame for us becoming an order of book worms. His conversion was brought about through reading the Lives of the Saints and an Imitation of Christ. Much to his initial disgust, these were the only two books available to him as he recovered from severe battle wounds. As he read, Ignatius was gradually able to see his future through the narrative of the lives of the saints and of Christ. By studying men and women who chose to follow God, he was able choose God in our world. He was given the freedom to see that his future could be different than his past. Ignatius was opened up to the grace of God through the books that lay in his hands.

What books are you readings this summer? Are you setting some time aside for study of a saint? Are you looking around on line to see what new books on spirituality are out there? What about finally reading O’Malley’s The Fifth Week? Or Mystics by Bill Harmless? Or perhaps some Annie Dillard essays, or Rumi poetry? Or perhaps Jim Martin’s My Life with the Saints, a book Ignatius would surely have welcomed as he lay recovering from him wounds.

We live in a world of words and summer is a perfect time to dig deep into a good book and be transformed by the Word.