Readings from the Message for the Third Day of Camp
Proverbs 22:1-6
Psalm 34:1-8
Luke 9:57–62
This sermon was preached by Fr. Daniel London at Camp Living Waters at Cookson Ranch in Blue Lake CA on Wednesday July 31, 2019.
Hello! My name is Padre Daniel and I’m the rector at Christ Church Eureka. It’s wonderful to be here with you this morning and the rest of this week as we learn about the saints of the Bible and history.
On Monday you learned from our Bishop Megan about Jesus’s buddies Sts. Martha and Mary of Bethany. Yesterday, you learned from Mother Geri about the Archbishop of San Salvador, the 20th century saint Oscar Romero. And today, I have the privilege to introduce you to one of my favorite saints, a 16th century Spanish saint named Íñigo López de Loyola or Ignatius of Loyola or, as I prefer to call him, “Iggy.” As a young boy, Iggy dreamed of achieving great glory and honor for himself by becoming a great knight in the Spanish army. He loved reading about King Arthur’s Roundtable and the Knights of Camelot and his dream was to become a Spanish version of Sir Lancelot. As a young man, Iggy’s dream started to come true as he rose in the ranks of the Spanish army. But unfortunately, in the process he was a real bully, pushing other people around with his power and strength and prestige. And one day, his violent bullying caught up with him in a battle between Spain and France (the Battle of Pamplona), when he was struck by a cannonball that shattered his legs and thus shattered his dreams.
He almost died from his injury, but he turned to God in humble prayer and asked for help and God pulled him through. While in recovery at the hospital, Iggy started to rethink his life. He got bored and wanted to read his favorite books about the knights of the roundtable, but there weren’t any such books in the hospital. At the hospital in Loyola, they only had one book and guess what it is about? It was about a subject in which you are all becoming experts: Saints! Iggy started learning about these brave saints who risked their lives for the poor and needy not for their own glory but for the glory of God. He learned about biblical saints like Martha and Mary. He probably read about the legend of how brave St. Martha tamed a dragon (called a Tarasque). And he learned about St. Peter, St Paul and St. John.[1] When he learned about St. Francis and St. Dominic, he knew he wanted to join the parade of saints![2] Iggy became so inspired by these saints, who had the ability to see the glory of God in all things: in birds, in trees, in the stars, in the water, in one another, in a simple piece of bread and sip of wine, in everyday life and in themselves. Iggy prayed and tried to emulate these saints until he started seeing God in all things, including within himself. He especially enjoyed seeing the glory of God in what many of you were gazing at last night: the starlit sky![3]
Inspired by the saints, Iggy used his military expertise to organize a new community called the Society of Jesus (or the Jesuits), a community that helped others see God in all things, even within themselves. As the Supreme General of the Society of Jesus, Iggy offered practical exercises to help people see God in everyday life, to help people “seize the day” as Jesus said in our Gospel this morning. Just as we exercise in order to be physically healthy, Iggy and the Jesuits offered people exercises for spiritual health, which were appropriately called the “spiritual exercises.” He offered several different kinds of disciplines in his spiritual exercises. One of these was a kind of spiritual boot camp that required a 30-day commitment of prayer and fasting. We’re not going to do that here, but I do want to invite you to practice one of his simpler exercises called the Daily Examen. Don’t worry it’s not an “exam” or a test. It’s an invitation to scan your day for moments of consolation and desolation. What does that mean? It means the highs and lows of the day. Moments of consolation are moments when you feel consoled, loved, joyful, peaceful, and close to God. The Examen invites you to recognize and name those moments in prayer and thank God for them; and ask God to deepen and increase them. And then think of moments of desolation, which are moments when you feel desolate, lonely, scared, anxious, or stressed out. In the Examen, you bring that moment to God in prayer as well and ask God for help or for guidance. Ask God what he is trying to teach you in those moments. So I invite you now to think of a high and low of this day or this week so far and bring your highs to God with gratitude and your lows to God with a prayer for help. By doing this daily, you will start noticing God in all things, including within yourself. You will start discovering your inner Iggy. You will start discovering your own inner saint.
Iggy Iggy
(A song about Ignatius of Loyola that Padre Daniel taught to the campers at Camp Living Waters. Sung to the tune of Louie Louie by the Kingsmen)
Chorus:
Iggy, Iggy, show me God in my highs and lows! Huh! yeah yeah yeah!
Iggy, Iggy, show me God in my highs and lows! Huh! yeah yeah yeah!
Iggy was born ‘round 1492
The same year Columbus sailed the blue
They both crossed over to different lands
But Iggy was held in God’s loving hands
Chorus
He wanted to be the Spanish Lancelot
But at the Battle of Pamplona, he got shot
He almost died, so what did he do?
He prayed to God who pulled him through
Chorus
He founded the Society of Jesus
Taught us how God frees us
Showed us ways to spiritually exercise
And how to find God in our lows and highs
Chorus
He traveled to Manresa, where he lived in a cave
He fasted and he prayed and he prayed and he prayed
On the banks of the River Cardoner
He had a vision of God’s love and care
[1] In his autobiography, Iggy mentioned Sts. Peter, Paul, and John in describing his recovery and even credited St. Peter for his healing: “When St. John’s day came, because the doctors were far from confident about his health, he was advised to confess. He received the sacraments on the eve of St. Peter and St. Paul. The doctors said that if he did not feel any improvement by midnight, he could be taken for dead. It happened that this sick man was devoted to St. Peter, so Our Lord deigned that he should begin to get better that very midnight. His improvement proceeded so well that some days later it was judged that he was out of danger of death.” Ignatius of Loyola, The Autobiography, trans. Parmananda R. Divarkar from Ignatius of Loyola: Spiritual Exercises and Other Works (Paulist Press, Mahwah NJ, 1991), 69.
[2] He wrote, “For in reading the life of Our Lord and of the saints, he stopped to think, reasoning with himself, ‘What if I should do what St. Francis did, and what St. Dominic did?’ Thus he pondered over many things that he found good, always proposing to himself what was difficult and burdensome; and as he so proposed, it seemed easy for him to accomplish it. But he did no more than argue with himself, saying, ‘St. Dominic did this, therefore I have to do it; St. Francis did this, there I have to do it.’” Ignatius of Loyola, The Autobiography, 70.
[3] “The greatest consolation he experienced was gazing at the sky and the stars, which he often did and for long, because he thus felt within himself a very great impulse to serve Our Lord.” Ignatius of Loyola, The Autobiography, 72.
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 