Whom Shall I Choose? Ignatian Discernment and the Sacred Work of Building Lasting Relationships in Missouri

There is a quiet crisis unfolding in the lives of many young adults across Missouri — not a crisis of faith exactly, nor of ambition, but of relationship. Faced with an unprecedented array of options, from curated dating applications to sprawling social networks, many find themselves paralyzed not by a lack of candidates but by an absence of clarity. How does one choose wisely? And more pointedly: how does a person of faith choose well?

For those formed in the Ignatian tradition, this question is neither new nor unanswerable. The very tools that St. Ignatius of Loyola prescribed for navigating vocational discernment — careful interior examination, attentiveness to spiritual consolation and desolation, and the guidance of a trusted spiritual companion — apply with equal force to the profoundly human work of choosing a partner and building a lasting bond.

Across Missouri's Jesuit institutions, spiritual directors, campus ministers, and retreat leaders are increasingly addressing this dimension of the interior life. The message they carry is both countercultural and deeply hopeful: the same God who calls us to meaningful work also calls us into meaningful love, and that call can be heard — if we learn to listen.

The Problem With Chemistry Alone

Modern romantic culture places extraordinary weight on immediate feeling. Attraction, excitement, and emotional intensity are often treated as the primary signals that a relationship is worth pursuing. While these experiences are genuine and not to be dismissed, Ignatian spirituality invites a more layered reading of the interior life.

St. Ignatius distinguished between two fundamental movements of the soul: consolation, which draws a person toward God, toward goodness, and toward their truest self; and desolation, which pulls in the opposite direction — toward anxiety, confusion, and spiritual contraction. The insight that Jesuit spiritual directors frequently share with those navigating early relationships is this: not every feeling of excitement is consolation, and not every feeling of discomfort is desolation. The work of discernment is learning to tell the difference.

A relationship built primarily on intensity may produce feelings that, upon careful examination, belong to the category of desolation — restlessness, a subtle erosion of personal integrity, or a diminishment of one's prayer life. Conversely, a relationship that is genuinely life-giving may not always feel dramatic, but it will tend to produce the quieter fruits of consolation: a deepened sense of peace, an expansion of generosity, and a growing orientation toward what is true and good.

Asking the Right Questions

At retreat centers and parish communities throughout Missouri, Jesuit-affiliated spiritual guides are teaching a generation of singles and couples to bring the tools of contemplative prayer into their romantic lives. Central to this practice is a set of questions drawn from the Ignatian tradition — questions designed not to produce an immediate answer but to cultivate an honest interior landscape.

Among the most formative of these questions:

Does this relationship draw me closer to God, or further away? This is not a question about religious observance in a narrow sense. It is an inquiry into the overall direction of one's spiritual life within the relationship. Does the presence of this person invite greater honesty, deeper prayer, and more generous living? Or does it tend toward a kind of spiritual shrinkage?

Can I be fully myself in this person's company? Ignatian anthropology insists that each person bears a unique dignity and a distinctive calling. A relationship that requires the suppression of one's authentic self — one's values, one's faith, one's particular way of moving through the world — is, by Ignatian standards, a relationship worth examining with great care.

What does my prayer reveal? Ignatius consistently directed his followers to bring their most important decisions into extended periods of prayer. For those discerning a relationship, this means not merely asking God for a sign, but spending sustained time in silence, noticing what arises, and returning with those movements to a trusted spiritual director.

The Role of the Spiritual Director

One of the most distinctive features of the Ignatian approach to relational discernment is its communal dimension. Ignatius did not envision discernment as a solitary enterprise. The Spiritual Exercises themselves were designed to be accompanied — a director walking alongside the retreatant, helping to name what is being experienced and to interpret its significance.

In the context of relationships, this translates into a strong encouragement to seek the guidance of a trained spiritual director when navigating significant romantic decisions. Across Missouri, the availability of Jesuit-trained directors — at institutions such as Saint Louis University and through various retreat houses — means that this resource is more accessible than many realize.

A spiritual director in this context does not tell a person whom to love. Rather, the director helps create the conditions in which genuine interior freedom can emerge. That freedom — the capacity to choose without compulsion, fear, or disordered attachment — is, in the Ignatian framework, the essential precondition for any truly good decision.

Discernment Within Committed Relationships

The relevance of Ignatian discernment does not end at the altar or the moment of commitment. Married couples and long-term partners formed in the Jesuit tradition are increasingly discovering that the tools of contemplative prayer offer a renewable resource for navigating the inevitable complexities of shared life.

The practice of the daily Examen, for instance, can be adapted as a relational exercise — a brief, shared reflection at the end of the day in which partners notice where they experienced connection and where they felt distance, where grace moved between them and where it was resisted. Many couples who have incorporated this practice report that it transforms not only their communication but their fundamental orientation toward one another.

Similarly, the Ignatian emphasis on finding God in all things — the cura personalis, or care for the whole person — invites couples to see the ordinary moments of shared life as charged with spiritual significance. The disagreement navigated honestly, the sacrifice made quietly, the moment of genuine listening: these are not interruptions to the spiritual life. They are, in the Jesuit vision, among its most authentic expressions.

Toward a More Intentional Love

What the Ignatian tradition ultimately offers those navigating relationships is not a formula but a formation. It asks something demanding of those who would apply its principles: genuine interiority, a willingness to be honest about what one finds there, and the humility to seek counsel from others. These are not qualities that come easily in a culture that prizes speed, surface, and self-sufficiency.

But for Missouri's Jesuit communities, the invitation stands — to bring the full weight of a contemplative tradition to bear on one of the most consequential decisions a human being will ever make. To ask not merely do I feel drawn to this person? but does this relationship call forth the best of who I am called to be?

That is a question worthy of a life well examined. And in the Jesuit tradition, it is a question worthy of God.