This exercise should be experienced sometime between November 20 and November 23.
We have prayed with the First Principle and we have read about Fr. Tetlow’s analysis of the religious experience that led to the writing of the First Principle. Now we will see just how universal the First Principle is.
First, recall your experience of praying with Ignatius’ phrasing of the First Principle. Did it help you understand the purpose of your life? Now consider how a scholar from the Jewish tradition has thought about the purpose of life.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:
What is the meaning of my being?
. . . My quest--man's quest--is not for theoretical knowledge about myself . . . What I look for is not how to gain a firm hold on myself and on life, but primarily how to live a life that would deserve and evoke an eternal Amen. (The Wisdom of Heschel, selected by Ruth Marcus Goodhill, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975, p 3)
Pray with the following and write your answers in your journal:
What is the meaning of my being?
Have I ever become obsessed with theoretical knowledge to the detriment of my understanding of the meaning of life?
What aspects of my life would deserve and evoke an eternal Amen? What aspects of my life would not?
Read through the passage from Rabbi Heschel again. What was consoling? Did you experience any desolation? If so, why?
Close with a reverent prayer from your spiritual tradition.
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