My colleagues and I began the new semester on Monday of this week with a day of retreat led by a Jesuit priest who offered three reflections on the spiritual life.

The first of his talks was on some of the lessons of the life of St. Ignatius. Noting that Ignatius had been kicked out of the Holy Land, ruining Ignatius’s original plan, Fr. Walsh (our retreat leader) said that Ignatius “had to reinvent the idea of following Jesus.”

The comment stuck with me. How, today, can we or must we reinvent the idea of following Jesus? Sometimes, like Ignatius, our initial efforts at discipleship go awry. We are called to a new path. We might ask: Where, today, does that path lie? 

If Ignatius had not been kicked out of Jerusalem, he might not have formed the Jesuits. His dismissal set him on the path of pilgrimage and reinvention. The same holds true for us.  

Matt Emerson's essays have appeared in a number of publications, including America, Commonweal, and the Wall Street Journal. The Catholic Press Association named his September 2012 essay "Help Their Unbelief," published in America, as the "best essay" in the category of national general interest magazine for 2012. He is the author of the book Why Faith? A Journey of Discovery (Paulist Press 2016).Articles:Fruitful Searching (Jan. 5-12, 2015)Preambles for Faith (May 13, 2013)Help Their Unbelief (Sept. 10, 2012)Posts at The Ignatian Educator