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Document Details : Title: Ignatian Influences in the Theology of Pierre Rousselot S.J. Author(s): SHEA, C. Michael Journal: Studies in Spirituality Volume: 21 Date: 2011 Pages: 243-259 DOI: 10.2143/SIS.21.0.2141952 Abstract : Scholarly attention to Rousselot’s work has tended to focus upon interpreting it systematically, with little attention paid to the thinker’s Jesuit context or experience. The current study seeks to broaden the discussion on Rousselot by reading his doctoral dissertations, ‘Pour l’Histoire du Problème d’Amour au Moyen Âge’ and ‘L’Intellectualisme de Saint Thomas’ against the backdrop of Saint Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises and the writings of two contemporary interpreters of the retreat, Fathers René de Maumigny, S.J. and Georges Longhaye, S.J., who were influential in shaping the spiritual ethos of Rousselot’s community. The analysis suggests that Rousselot’s Thomistic thought strongly reflects the Jesuit spiritual practice of his day. In interpreting the Spiritual Exercises, Rousselot’s community made use of the language of the soul’s faculties within a participatory framework guided by the major themes of creation, sacrifice, personal salvation, and order in the First Principle and Foundation of the Spiritual Exercises. Rousselot creatively adopted the broad contours, distinctive emphases, and language of this vision in his major and minor dissertations, which formed a unified project that determined much of the young Jesuit’s subsequent work. |
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