Introductory notes for readers of this thesis - Theses - Flinders ...

Chapter 2: Ignatian spiritual roots—the silence of direct encounter andthe dynamic element in the churchThe pastoral and academic career of one of the twentieth century’s greatest Christiantheologians and spiritual writers began in the Jesuit novitiate with its mandatory 30-dayIgnatian spiritual retreat. During this inductive process, the young Karl Rahnerexperienced a direct encounter with God that was to shape his life and vocation for thefollowing six decades. This chapter provides a basic introduction to the nature of thespirituality through which Rahner embraced his own ‘supernatural existential’ and itscontinuing influence in his life and work. A historical sketch of Ignatius Loyola and anintroduction to his Spiritual Exercises provides the context for the subsequent explorationof the centrality and influence of Ignatian spirituality in Rahner—and, in particular, to anunderstanding of a dimension of Rahner’s spirituality of silence that emerges from hispersonal experience of a ‘primordal, mystical horizon’ 1 .Ignatius of LoyolaIn 1491 during the Spanish rule of Ferdinand and Isabella, Ignatius Loyola was born intoa Basque noble family. Iñigo López de Oñaz y Loyola was the last child of a pious familyof 13 siblings (five sisters, eight brothers). For reasons of economic and socialexpedience 2 , Iñigo’s father made plans for him to enter the priesthood. The young Iñigo,however, had very different ideas: resisting his father’s original intentions, at the age ofsixteen he began life as a page in the household of Don Velasquez, a relative attached tothe royal court 3 .Iñigo’s attraction to a political/military career seems quite natural, if not predictable—given that he grew up during a period in which Spain was developing into a new1 A phrase from Harvey Egan at the centre of his doctoral work on the spirituality of Ignatius, it implies an‘anthropocentric mystagogy’ (terms that Harvey has appropriated from Rahner) – in plain language: anexistential awareness of, and engagement with, the constant, present reality of God in the inner life. See,The Spiritual Exercises and the Ignatian mystical horizon (St.Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1976),xviii.2 A younger son of a noble family could not expect to gain an inheritance, therefore, a clerical careerbecame a customary avenue for a sustainable livelihood and position of at least some respect and authority.3 K. Rahner and P. Imhof, Ignatius of Loyola , Trans. R. Ockenden (London: Collins, 1979), 49; R.W.Gleason, from the introduction to: The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius, Trans. A. Mottola (New York:Image Books, 1964), 12.29