To begin, ask yourself this question:
What do I do?
When you meet someone for the first time at a party, a parish event, or any other situation in which strangers make small talk, this is the first question most people ask. We have different answers at different times in our lives: I’m in graduate school; I’m a teacher; I’m a telecommuter; I’ve just started my own business or opened my own law office. The conversation proceeds—or not—from there. The exchange is so well accepted as an icebreaker in American society that we ask and answer it almost automatically, without reflecting on how it defines us. Yet the cultural assumption that we are what we do becomes more obvious—sometimes painfully so—as we age. Transitions such as retirement, the empty-nest experience, caregiving responsibilities, and losses of various kinds prompt many older adults to ask not What do I do? but Who am I?
Once we cease to find our identity in how we earn our living, we can discover new paths to self-examination and spiritual growth.
For many of us in twenty-first-century America, particularly those in skilled professional or management positions, identity is bound up with our work. Retirement, even when planned, can thus be a shock. That was certainly my experience. I was suddenly an invisible woman in late middle age. Lawyers I encountered at bar-association functions didn’t always remember who I was. Friends who were still working were on a different wavelength. My volunteer work in the parish and other religious organizations was ongoing, and I was a part-time caregiver for my mother, but none of these roles was identity defining.
Even as the retirement age edges up in the United States, both men and women are spending more years in retirement. The question of identity at this stage of life is therefore not trivial.
Various studies have demonstrated that women live longer in retirement than men do. This may follow women’s greater longevity in general, but only in part. We all know, or have heard stories about, men who retired from satisfying careers and were dead within the year. Would the heart attack or the cancer have struck while they were still working? Or do some men adjust poorly to retirement because they have been so totally invested in their working selves?
As recently as fifty years ago, this problem was mostly limited to men, because men were the breadwinners and women who worked at all were often restricted to menial, low-paying jobs. But the baby boomer generation—those born during the post-World War II spike in the birth rate—came of age when opportunities for women were opening up. This age group includes the first wave of successful professional and businesswomen. Their ranks continue to grow. While there are no statistics showing how this change may have affected women’s longevity after retirement, one thing is clear: A definition of self that is tied up in work is no longer a single-gender phenomenon.
The first Monday morning after retirement is a moment of truth for many people: no place where you are expected to be; no urgent telephone calls; nobody depending on you. The experience can be devastating for anyone whose retirement was not voluntary. Even people whose retirement date has been carefully planned and chosen may be shocked at the magnitude of the change. Work provided a structure that now is lacking, a social network to which you no longer belong, and intellectual stimulation for which television, golf, and grandchildren are not adequate substitutes. Loneliness is a common experience, whether expressed or not. For some people, depression ensues.
Retirement can be life changing for family members as well. Many women describe the disruptive effect of a newly-retired husband who is suddenly home all day. For both spouses, “Who am I now?” may entail reexamining their relationship and considering the unstated assumptions of a lifetime.
Then there are the grandchildren. A common refrain of people about to retire is, “I’ll get to spend more time with my grandchildren!” Sometimes this is wonderful, but sometimes the busy parents of small children are all too eager to define grandparent as “babysitter.” It’s hard to say no, but for many grandparents the question becomes: Is this who I am now—a babysitter?
A life-threatening illness in retirement can pose even more painful questions of identity.
Joseph, CEO of a successful business, planned his retirement well in advance. He and his wife decided to move to New York City. In addition to spending time with family and embarking on the leisure travel he had long waited to do, he had two goals for life after retirement: learn something new and “give back” some of the blessings he had enjoyed. He found the opportunity for both in a program helping people transition out of homelessness. As he watched people he had mentored graduate from the program, he felt that what he was doing really mattered. His eyes had been opened to what life is like for people who are poor. He was also learning the principles and practices of Ignatian spirituality. Joseph felt good about where his life was going. Then he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
He researched his options—a complicated process—and finally decided on surgery. Joseph felt fortunate that his cancer was caught early; that he had health insurance and a supportive wife and family; and that he lived in a city where outstanding medical care was available. The surgery was successful, and Joseph went back to volunteer work for eighteen months. Then the cancer returned.
This time the treatment was a three-month course of intensive radiation therapy. This, too, was successful. Again Joseph was grateful, especially for the fact that he was otherwise in good health and did not have to worry about the complications that often affect people in their sixties who have multiple medical problems.
A year later, another test came back positive. Because the reading was very low, his oncologist recommended frequent testing, watching, and waiting. Joseph found himself facing new decisions about what to do during this period of uncertainty. What he decided was that he would not be defined by cancer. He has known people, including a member of his own family, whose identity was overwhelmed by the disease, and he is determined not to let that happen to him. He believes that Ignatian spirituality helped light the way.
Many women, regardless of the kind of work they do, define themselves primarily in terms of relationships: John’s wife, Betty’s mother, somebody’s caregiver. There is a long cultural tradition conditioning us to this way of thinking. As recently as the nineteenth century, in many states, married women could not own property. Prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, many employers refused to hire women with small children. Pregnant teachers and flight attendants, among others, were expected to quit their jobs as soon as their condition was known. The Roman Catholic Church in many ways contributed to this kind of pigeonholing: before Pope John Paul II greatly expanded the number and diversity of canonized saints, almost all women saints in the Roman calendar were either “virgin” or “martyr”; there did not appear to be any other recognized path to sanctity for women.
Despite changes in attitude, many women experience an identity crisis when their adult children leave home. Feelings of loneliness can be acute. If a husband is still working, or has died, a large, empty house or apartment can be oppressive.
Rosa is the single mother of an adopted daughter. Middle-aged when she adopted, she is now retired from a successful professional career and faces her daughter’s departure from home at a particularly vulnerable time. Complicating her transition is the likelihood that her daughter will move to the opposite coast to pursue a career in a highly specialized field centered there. For Rosa, “Who am I now?” is a question about filling the suddenly empty spaces in what had been a rich and generous life. Prayer is more important to her than ever.
As average life expectancy increases, so do the numbers of people in their eighties and nineties—the age group most likely to need help caring for themselves as they age. Often the caregiver is a daughter (or daughter-in-law) who is herself past age sixty-five, or a wife who has her own physical limitations. It is a harsh reality for many women—because caregivers are overwhelmingly women—that they must take on the arduous role of caregiver at just the point in their lives when they need to take better care of themselves. Sometimes the burden is physical: the household must revolve around the needs of a disabled spouse or parent, and there is a lot of (literal) heavy lifting. There are additional challenges when a patient who is cognitively impaired cannot be left alone or when a terminal illness leads to intense emotional stress. For many people, the question inevitably arises: Is my husband (or wife or father or mother or brother) better off in a nursing home? Many people who could remain in their own homes with a certain amount of skilled nursing and other assistance are forced into institutions by rigid Medicare and Medicaid rules. Sometimes there is no realistic choice, but that doesn’t make it easy. The caregiver’s own health may suffer if she continues to keep her loved one at home.
Parents of a special-needs child who may outlive them face unique challenges. Elizabeth was the CEO of a large not-for-profit organization. She and her husband, also a hardworking professional, had four children, one of whom has Down syndrome. For most of his life, they were able to arrange their schedules so that they could keep him with them. When Elizabeth’s husband of forty years died, this was no longer possible. Soon thereafter, she retired from her job at age seventy-five, moved back to her hometown, and found a group home for her son not far away. Although she brings him home every other weekend and his siblings visit, he is not happy. He told her, “This isn’t home. They don’t love me here.” She is torn by the pain she feels at his unhappiness and the desire to bring him to live with her. Yet she knows that at age eighty, this is not a realistic solution, not only because she may not be able to care for him but because he will have yet another difficult transition when she dies.
Those who work in the helping professions may have different challenges in transition. Marilyn felt called to the contemplative life as a young woman but did not follow through. She trained as a nurse, rose to supervisory positions with major responsibilities, married, and raised three children while working part-time. When her children were grown, she went back to full-time work, glad for the opportunity to set aside a little money for “old age.” Then her husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness. She left her job to become a caregiver for what she describes as the “long and difficult last couple of years” of her husband’s life. After his death, she went back to work part-time. This new stage of her life was interrupted by a serious accident. The first responders who pulled her from the car initially thought she was dead. There followed a long and painful convalescence, in which she was no longer a caregiver but a person in need of care. As a nurse, she found this especially difficult, hearing the cries of other patients in need of help. Now recovered, she lives alone in her own apartment and says that she has “landed in a place where I can begin to live a contemplative life.”
Widows and widowers face particularly painful transitions. The disorientation of retirement, the loneliness of the empty nest, and the stresses of caregiving are often exacerbated by the loss of a spouse. For many women, the immediate concern is financial: Is there enough to live on without the husband’s earnings or pension? For men, the question is often “Who is going to take care of me?” For both men and women, the loss of a life partner can seem like the amputation of part of oneself.
Edward is an eighty-two-year-old widower with no children. When his wife died a few years ago, he found it too painful to remain in the apartment they had shared. Within five months, he had moved to a retirement community. As he put it, he then “had to come to grips with how to maximize the time I have left.” Edward is healthy enough for independent living and until recently did volunteer work two days a week. He still tries to help others, such as offering rides to those who can no longer drive, and he describes himself as becoming “more faith-oriented and more spiritual” in the years that he has been alone.
Some losses are less foreseeable. Matilda was a widow in her seventies, in good health, living in her own home, driving her own car, and socializing with friends. She particularly enjoyed serving as an officer of a retirees’ group sponsored by the company where she had worked for many years. She took trips to nearby attractions, often with friends who were no longer able to drive. Despite her active lifestyle, her only son, who lived in a distant state and rarely visited, began to express concern about her living alone as she got older. After a lot of discussion, he persuaded her that she should move in with his family, with the promise of renovating their basement to make an apartment for her.
After Matilda sold her house and made the move, she found the reality quite different. It seemed that the appropriate permits could not be obtained for the proposed renovation, so she was relegated to a small bedroom on the second floor. It was so small, in fact, that the television set she had brought from home didn’t fit and was given to her grandson. The family lived in a suburban area without public transportation. Soon after Matilda moved in, her car broke down and, for reasons that were never made clear, could not be repaired. It was the 1990s, before smartphones, and Matilda lost touch with many of her friends. She felt completely isolated. Yet, for the rest of her life, she never blamed or criticized her son.
There are other losses that often seem to go to the core of who we are. Sooner or later, age brings diminished capacity in one form or another. It may be gradual—loss of energy, need for a cane or a hearing aid—or it may be serious enough to lead to loss of independence. We can see these as forms of poverty unrelated to money or property. They can also entail loneliness, because the experiences cannot be shared by those who have not experienced them.
In all these situations, it is easy to focus on what is lost. It isn’t easy to see widowhood or loss of the ability to drive as a call—much less a gift—from God. Yet there is grace in all these losses, all these transitions, and there is much in Ignatian spirituality that can help us experience the grace.
Although Ignatius’s sixteenth-century vocabulary would not have included a phrase such as identity crisis, the approach to prayer that he developed is well suited to the kind of self-questioning that comes at major turning points in life. Ignatius applied these insights to, among other things, praying with Scripture, making decisions, and adopting a form of daily prayer designed to examine these experiences in detail. All these approaches to prayer can be especially meaningful to the aging. We begin by looking at the daily examination, which is central to Ignatian spirituality.
Discussions of Ignatian prayer almost always begin with the examen, a daily examination, or review, of one’s immediate experience of the spiritual life. Originally, Ignatius prescribed an examination of conscience that focused on sin:
Give thanks.
Ask for the grace to know my sins.
Review the day in detail.
Ask pardon.
Resolve to amend.
Most of us who have a regular prayer life do not find serious sin, or even material for confession, in every single day’s activities. In practice, Ignatius’s five points soon extended to more positive reflections: not only on sin, but also on ways to grow in grace.
As the prayer has evolved, modern spiritual writers have moved away from the label examination of conscience in favor of descriptions that more accurately convey its positive emphasis. For example, Margaret Silf calls it the “Review Prayer,”10 and Armand Nigro, SJ, uses the term “Awareness exercise.” One of the most widely used terms is “Examination of Consciousness,” coined by George Aschenbrenner, SJ.11 I will follow the modern consensus, which favors examen, the original Spanish word, borrowed from Latin, that meant both “conscience” and “consciousness.” Apart from simplicity, this title carries no preconceptions. The scope of the prayer is discovered by praying it.
Many modern spiritual guides recommend a kind of preface focusing first on the presence of God before the five traditional steps. After that, a typical five-point meditation might be the following:
Give thanks.
Ask for the light of the Spirit, to be aware of all the ways God is at work in my life.
Review the day, looking not only for my sins and failings but also for where I have heard the promptings of the Spirit and how I have responded.
Ask pardon for the ways in which I have failed to respond to grace.
Finally, ask for the grace not merely to amend my faults but also to look forward to the future with hope.
There is a good deal of literature on adapting Ignatius’s bare-bones outline to the very different culture of our own times, as well as to specific circumstances. Some resources on the subject are included in Ignatian Resources. The outline that follows reflects the way I try to pray the examen. Most readers will find a rhythm and structure that best suits them.
The presence of God is the starting point for almost any form of prayer. We were taught as children to say, “I adore you, Jesus, present in the Blessed Sacrament” when arriving in church. Many prayers begin, “God, come to my assistance; Lord, make haste to help me.” The examen is no exception.
I usually begin, “Lord, help me to be fully present for prayer.” God’s presence is only one side of this relationship. My presence is also necessary. I am not fully present if my prayer is distracted by anxiety or stress; if reflections on particular events of the preceding day cause me to detour into daydreaming; or if my mind races ahead to what I’m going to do next.
The next part of my prayer is “Lord, help me remember that I am always in your presence.” I need to remind myself constantly that I meet God not only at Mass or in my times of formal prayer but wherever I go, whatever I do, and in whatever I happen to be thinking about. Sometimes this prayer step reminds me of a specific experience in which I have recognized God’s presence, such as being on the receiving end of an unexpected kindness or hearing the day’s Gospel in a particularly personal way. In the absence of such prompts, I try to focus my imagination on where God’s presence is accessible: in the dawn of a new day (even a cold and rainy one); in the call of the mourning doves who have built a nest on the roof of a nearby building (even in midtown Manhattan we hear birdsong!); in all the good people in my life.
“Lord, thank you for all your generous gifts. Thank you for life and health and energy and opportunity. Thank you for all the gifts I take for granted and for all the blessings of this past day.”
That is my usual general beginning. Life and health are no mere abstractions. I can never forget the friends of my youth who died too young or others whose later years have been diminished by disability. Every day is a gift. Every day is different. I try to focus first on one or more long-range gifts; some of my favorites are “Thank you that I can afford to live as I do without working for pay”; “Thank you that I am healthier than a great many people my age”; “Thank you for every beat of my heart and every breath I take.” Then I review the preceding twenty-four hours to thank God for the gifts unique to that day, such as a friend I had lunch with, a thoughtful gift one of my students brought me from China, a perfect New York bagel.
Sometimes, instead of a detailed review, I ask myself, For what am I most grateful today? It may be one of those more permanent gifts or a small thing that went almost unnoticed. I hold it in my heart and lift it up to God.
“Lord, send your good Spirit to guide me.” The insights that come in prayer are not our own doing. All is grace. The preceding step in the exercise will have reminded us that the very desire to pray is God’s gift, as is everything that follows from it. We can neither demand nor deserve it. What we can do is acknowledge that all the insights in prayer are gifts of the Holy Spirit and attempt to be as receptive as possible.
Some spiritual writers place this prayer first, even before thanksgiving.12 This approach invokes the aid of the Holy Spirit in exploring what we are thankful for. We all have days when it’s a little more difficult to give thanks. At other times, gratitude may well up in us so that we cannot do otherwise than begin with thanks.
Of all the steps in the examen, this is probably the one that needs the most practice. Reviewing the events of our day, either to thank God or to know our sins, is familiar enough. Reviewing the feelings that those events generate is a new approach for many people. A good way to begin is “Lord, where have I heard your voice, and how have I responded?”
Sometimes a strong emotion immediately surfaces. I was deeply saddened to get a letter from the son of an old friend telling me of her death. I was furious with the taxi driver who insisted on dropping me off four blocks from my destination. Emotions are not a matter of choice, but how we react to them is. Do I thank God for Kathy’s friendship? Can I convey that gratitude in a letter of condolence to her son? Why was I so furious with the taxi driver? Did this trivial occurrence trigger some deeper anger that I have not identified or addressed? What do I want to say to God about these feelings? Can I listen to what God is saying to me?
Sometimes the prayer reveals responses to grace that may surprise us. On a recent opera tour, the woman sitting next to me—whom I had met the day before but did not know well—asked me three times whether the opera we were seeing was a new production. The second time, I was surprised to feel compassion well up in me as I realized what had caused her to keep repeating the question. Not long ago, I might have been merely annoyed. While there is no way to explain a grace of this kind, the practice of the examen illuminates God’s gifts and, I believe, makes us readier to respond.
At other times, we may be given the grace to see how God is present in ways that differ from our expectations.
The composition of my English class has changed from year to year. Some years, there have been highly motivated people, eager to improve their English so they could pass the citizenship exam or get better jobs. At other times, the class has consisted mainly of older women who seemed more interested in socializing than in improving their fluency. My frustration and disappointment with the latter group surfaced during the examen, and I realized that I was concentrating on what I wanted from the experience rather than on what my students needed. In an immigrant community, social bonds are extremely important. My class was meeting a need—just not the one I was focused on.
Recently I made a long-anticipated pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I embarked full of eagerness for all the graces such a journey could entail. I was especially looking forward to the projected stops at Magdala and Bethany, because Mary Magdalene is special to me. A few small things went wrong at the beginning of the trip, which did not put me in the best possible frame of mind for what happened next. I got sick and missed a day and a half of the itinerary, including both Magdala and Bethany. I was bitterly disappointed; in fact, I felt cheated and told God so in prayer. Praying in front of the life-size crucifix at the Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center, I got an answer that was unmistakably clear: Why do you expect Me to live up to your expectations? Who are you to tell Me what graces you should experience on this journey? This was a lesson in humility, for one thing, and in discernment, for another. These were the graces of the pilgrimage, graces I am still unpacking many months later.
These examples are merely suggestive; there are many ways to reflect on feelings. But this part of the prayer should not be limited to the most powerful emotions of the day. It is important to review the day in more detail, searching for the subtler indications of what may be going on below the surface.
Some of my directees complain that they cannot focus on prayer, or on the examen in particular, because of “distractions.” When I ask for examples of the distractions, the response is often pressure at work or a family issue. Important matters like these are not distractions; they are where God is for this person at this time, and they should become the subject of the prayer, at least part of the time. Real distractions are those that occur when we allow our minds to wander off to daydreams or focus on physical discomfort or on what someone else in the room or the church may be doing. In those circumstances, it’s always a good idea to gently redirect our attention back to the prayer. But perhaps we shouldn’t stop there. We might ask ourselves what we were praying about when the distraction occurred—is there an issue we don’t want to face? However, when the distractions, particularly recurring ones, relate to important aspects of our lives, they should be recognized as indications of our deeper feelings and, as such, signposts pointing to material for prayer and discernment.
Even the most mundane events can reveal the presence of grace and the call to respond. All that is required is the patience to look deeper. A little practice will soon reveal a trend: Some feelings evoke gratitude; others evoke contrition; still others open avenues for further reflection that may lead to life-changing decisions.
In this part of the prayer, I ask God to “help me do better tomorrow than I did today.” But the grace I am seeking is not so narrow as a correction of the faults I’ve identified. I want to be a better disciple, to draw closer to Jesus, to look on all I see with love. The hope to which we are called is not merely forgiveness of our sins but a sharing in the life of Christ. No matter how long or short the future stretching before us, we live in hope.
The examen traditionally concludes with the Lord’s Prayer.
In St. Luke’s Gospel, the disciples tell Jesus some of the stories that are circulating about who Jesus might be. Some people think John the Baptist has come back to life; others associate Jesus with Elijah “or one of the prophets.” Jesus asks, “But who do you say that I am?”
Relax and breathe deeply. Place yourself in the presence of God. Read Luke 9:18–20 slowly and attentively. Then, turn the question around; ask Jesus, Who do you say that I am?
The Ignatian approach to praying with Scripture is discussed in detail in the next chapter. The following are a few passages that may speak to someone exploring the question “Who am I now?”
Luke 9:18–20
Psalm 16
Sirach 30:21–25
Isaiah 6:1–8
Jeremiah 29:11–14
Matthew 6:25–34
John 15:16–17