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opening song
opening song
Meditation on the Three Types of People
In this meditation, we reflect on concrete choices that three different types of persons may make as they try to live according to their calling in life. In doing so, we experience some tension between the high ideals of God’s call and our lack of interior freedom and deeply embedded resistances to God’s invitation to us personally.
The Grace I Seek
I pray for the following grace: to grow in interior freedom so that I’m able to respond wholeheartedly to God’s invitation in my life.
The Procrastinator, the Compromiser, and the Truly Free Person
Imagine three persons of good will who are trying to serve God and grow in faith. They sincerely want nothing to get in the way of their relationship with God.
Imagine that each acquires something that is very attractive to him or her. Ignatius of Loyola suggests a large amount of money, but you can imagine something especially attractive to you, such as a certain material possession, a place to live, a high-profile job, or a particular honor. None of these things is intrinsically evil; each one can be used for good. But each of the three typical persons is excessively attached to the possession in some way.
The one who procrastinates. The first person wants to let go of the attachment, but she never gets around to it. Even on her deathbed, she is still thinking about letting go of her attachment.
The one who compromises. The second person sincerely desires to be free of that excessive preoccupation; at the same time, he wants to keep the possession. So he does lots of good things and makes honorable sacrifices, but he fails to do the one thing that he really needs to do: free himself from his disordered attachment. This person is trying to negotiate with God. Rather than conforming his will to God’s will, the compromiser wants God to do what he wants to do.
The one who is truly free. In Ignatius’s words:
The person typical of the third class desires to get rid of the attachment, but in such a way that there remains no inclination either to keep the acquired money or to dispose of it. Instead such a one desires to keep it or reject it solely according to what God our Lord will move one’s will to choose, and also according to what the person himself or herself will judge to be better for the service and praise of the Divine Majesty. (SE 155)
Considering the important choices you have made, how have you resembled the three persons: the procrastinator, the compromiser, and the truly free person?
For Reflection
Note where the third person begins: she/he is not sure whether or not God is asking her/him to give up the possession; she/he simply desires to be free to do what God wants her/him to do. So she/he begins by asking God what she/he should do. She/he is open to how God directs her/him through prayer, her/his experience, reasoning through different options, discernment of consolations and desolations, and the wise counsel of others.
The truly free person checks her/his motivations, which are often mixed. She/he tries to choose from a desire to better serve God and others. The third person may feel some attachment to the possession and does not mind waiting to make a decision. But she/he does not procrastinate. She/he does make a timely decision (acknowledging that we rarely reach complete indifference or detachment).
—Kevin O’Brien, SJ
closing song
closing song
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