Brendan BYRNE, S.J. Freedom in the Spirit: An Ignatian Retreat with Saint Paul. New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2018. Pp 198, $19.95. ISBN 978-0-4994-0 (paperback); 978-1-58768-621-4 (ebook) Reviewed by James ZEITZ, Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio, Texas 48207.

            In “Freedom in the Spirit,” well-known Australian Jesuit Brendan Byrne (professor emeritus of the Jesuit Theological College in Melbourne, who specialized in Paul) sets in writing his notes for an Ignatian eight-day retreat he was asked to give Jesuits, based on St. Paul. The resulting work brilliantly achieves his two-fold goal (in the preface): make the Ignatian retreat experience available to a wider audience and “provide a guide to Pauline theology based on the Ignatian spiritual tradition.”

The “preface” also addresses the apparent difficulties of the project: the Ignatian Exercises concentrate on the life of Christ (after the first “week”) and rarely mention St. Paul. Thus Byrne’s project (a retreat based on St. Paul) will offer an “alternative version” of the Ignatian retreat as a spiritual experience, but related to the center of Paul’s spirituality of Jesus’ death and resurrection as “life-giving Spirit.” He shows that at the center of Paul is salvation, as Christ’s love displayed in his self-sacrificial death for ‘all’ … and the “love of the Father... in the community through the experience of the Spirit.”

Thus (as a retreat with Saint Paul) large sections of Byrne’s work could be used as an introduction to Paul and themes such as the “Old and New Adam” (see Day 5: The Hope that springs from God’s Love, and Day 6: a “New Creation.”) Paul’s letter to the Romans is a main source for these and other themes, some of which dovetail with the Exercises, especially the Ignatian third week on Christ’s Passion. Thus, in Day 6: “From Captivity to Freedom in the Spirit,” Byrne unpacks Rom 7:14ff – “Life under the Law,” then Rom 8 “Redeemed by God’s Act in Christ” and the “Freedom created by the spirit” (Rom 8:5-11).

In his “Day 7: Christ Crucified” Byrne develops a spiritual/theological commentary on Rom 3:21-26, Christ’s death as the “revelation of the faithfulness of God.” Here Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, proclaims his “central truth” (first in Rom 1:1-17) about his gospel of the “righteousness of God.” He links God as “Creator of the world” (which Byrne developed in Day 1: “The Gift of Creation”) – same as the Spiritual Exercises, which begin by “placing the person who makes them in the context of the whole of creation” (p.7) and now righteousness available to “the nations” (as promised to Abraham: see Rom 4).

Byrne’s Day 8 is a culmination of his twin goals of offering an entry into the Ignatian spiritual experience and a guide to Paul’s theology. He begins with Paul: In 1 Cor 15: Paul is witness to the resurrection and explains how the resurrection extends to “all things” which God “has put… in subjection.” In 1 Cor 15:21-22, Paul explains: the first Adam (death through a human being) is also the ‘first fruits’ – in relation to the harvest: Byrne notes that Jews brought first fruits to God as Thanksgiving. But then “all will be made alive in Christ (the New Adam). Byrne use this text to show how Paul reconciles early Jewish expectations of a Messianic reign with his preaching of the resurrection of Christ as an eschatological event, where God in Christ “has put all things in subjection under his (the Messiah’s) feet.” He also adds comments on Rom 12-14: Spiritual gifts “at the service of the new creation” (p.164).

The second part of Day 8 then presents Ignatius’ “Contemplation for Obtaining Love” and the petition “interior knowledge of the benefits I have received… that I may…love and serve the divine majesty.” Besides relating Ignatius’ understanding of God’s “love” to 1 Cor 13 (hymn to love), Byrne also presents Rom 8:28-39, how “all things work together for the good of those who love God…” and finally, Paul’s final words concerning God’s triumphant love: “What shall we say? If God is for us, who can be against us? /…/nothing will separate us from the love of God that comes to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:31-39)

In summary—speaking as a former Jesuit and present teacher of Scripture—I would highly recommend this book either to gain new insights into the Ignatian eight-day retreat (with Paul) or as a spiritual commentary on Paul’s theology or his “spirituality” although the two are inseparable.