Opening to Gratitude: An Ignatian reflection
By Dr. Kathy Coffey-Guenther, senior mission and Ignatian leadership specialist
As we leave this month of January, having escaped any semblance of last year’s polar vortex, we may feel grateful. As we receive a call from one of our kids or a dear friend, we may feel grateful. As we hear about a parent’s healing from illness or another’s end to suffering in eternal rest, we may feel grateful.
This week is Mission Week at Marquette. The butterflies made their return to campus, reminding us to “Open to Gratitude,” which is the theme of the week. Through a variety of prayer experiences, worship, music, art, programs and lectures, our students, faculty and staff will be invited to explore the place and power of gratitude in their lives.
Gratitude was central to St. Ignatius’ relationship with God, and the underlying foundation of the Spiritual Exercises central to Ignatian Spirituality. Ignatius, though his prayer, meditation and mystical experiences with God, knew in his core that God was imbued in every single thing within and around us.
And while that may be easy to reckon with when we are thinking about the good, beautiful and wonderful gifts of people and creation, it can become more challenging when we consider the tougher moments of life’s disappointments, injustices and deep sorrows.
Seeing God in life’s sin and destruction can be downright daunting.
And yet, the invitation of this Mission Week on campus is to “Open to Gratitude.” We are invited to pay attention to the place of God, love and grace in every nook and cranny of the joyful beauty of life, as well as the harshest sorrows and injustices we may experience or witness. If we choose to stay open and alert, if we choose to stay faithfully attentive — looking for and waiting for the grace, love and presence of God to be revealed — we will see that God is within all of this beauty and mess in the world.
St. Ignatius understood that God desires intimate connection and relationship with us. He knew that God never wants to be separate from us but wants to love us fully. And from our experience of being fully loved, God wants us to respond to his love by loving and serving others — the gift of love, grace and compassion renewing and extending endlessly.
This year, as we celebrate the return of the butterflies, let’s really lean into the depth of the invitation to “Open to Gratitude.” Let’s really be attentive and generous in our seeing and experiencing the goodness of God’s care through the beauty and challenges of this world.
Let us hang on to the faithful foundations of knowing in our core that God is in all things — with love, compassion and presence. Let us breathe in the love and kindness that this faithful God offers and let us respond in gratitude by loving this beautiful, crazy, messy world with full hearts and light wings… just like the butterflies.
