As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.” (Mark 13:1-8)
Almost immediately after Jesus points his disciples to the widow’s humble offering, they turn their attention to the grandeur of the temple. “Look at the size of those stones!” they marvel. But Jesus shifts their gaze again: “Not one stone will be left upon another.” It is only when the disciples have gained some distance from the temple that they can actually entertain this possibility: "Tell us, when will this be?"
This moment forces a crucial question:
What captivates our attention and secures our sense of stability? And what happens when those things crumble?
It's interesting that Jesus is less concerned with the collapse of the institution and more concerned in the dangers of a wandering heart. They focus on the calamity of the world; Jesus points to the vacuums such calamities create—vacuums that tempt us to cling to false securities like political heroes, ideologies, or fleeting comforts. They want to know when the world will shake; and he wants to know where our hearts go when it inevitably does.
Where does your heart go when the world shakes?
As the hymn reminds us, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.” Our hearts are designed to be given away, constantly seeking something to love and serve. In community, we often discover where our hearts go and where they’re being called.
Yet paradoxically, healthy community requires the spiritual practice of detachment. Detachment, or apatheia as the Desert Mothers and Fathers called it, doesn’t mean indifference or lack of care. It’s about freedom—the ability to see and steward our desires without being ruled by them.
Unfortunately, our wayward passions express themselves in one of two ways according to the Eastern Christian traditions:
Aggression: we push things or people away, driven by a fear that the world is going to invade, violate, or absorb us.
Desire: we seek to consume the other, to make what is "out there" a part of us, serve our needs, and serve our agendas.
Margaret Silf, an Ignatian spiritual writer, offers a helpful image: bees visiting a fuchsia bush.
Ignatius urges us to seek the freedom of detachment or indifference. Neither of these words carries weight in today’s language or culture. Both sound cold and uncaring, which is far from the spirit in which Ignatius used them. A better word might be balance.
In his First Principle and Foundation, Ignatius talks about “making use of those things that help to bring us closer to God and leaving aside those things that don’t.” At first this notion seemed rather exploitative to me, as if the whole of creation were only there for us to select from it the bits that seem to serve our purpose. It didn’t come to life for me until one day when I was sitting on a bench in a quiet, sunny courtyard, looking at a fuchsia bush. It was late August, and the bees were constantly visiting the fuchsia. They would land very gently on those flowers that were fully open to receive them. They made no attempt to enter a closed flower or to force the petals in any way. When they found an open flower they crept into its depths to extract the nectar. In doing so, of course, they also carried the pollen from flower to flower, bush to bush, thus ensuring further fruitfulness.
As I watched them, I realized that although the bees were choosing the fuchsia flowers and disregarding other plants growing in the courtyard, other insects were seeking their nourishment from different sources. In choosing what was exactly right for them, they were not only receiving their own nourishment but were also playing an essential role in the fruitfulness of their environment. And in choosing one plant rather than another, they were in no way rejecting or denigrating the others. The secret of this harmonious, cooperative life seemed to lie in each creature’s being true to its own essential nature. Each gained what it needed for survival and growth from the source that was right for it, and it did so without harm either to itself or to the flowers. In fact, after each encounter, both insect and flower were left in a richer state than before: the insect had been nourished and the flower had been pollinated.
I found this picture to be a very vivid illustration of what it might mean to “make use of what leads to life” and to leave aside what, for each individual, does not lead to life. It was a truly creative kind of “detachment.” It helped me to understand what God might be calling us to when he asks us to let go of our attachments. The bees, I noticed, made no attempt to “possess” the flowers, nor did the flowers attempt to trap and hold the bees. This was a free interchange, perfectly fulfilling the needs of the bees, the fuchsia, and the wider circle of creation around them. (Excerpt from Inner Compass)
This harmonious exchange illustrates true detachment: receiving life’s gifts without grasping or controlling them. Ignatius of Loyola encourages us to “make use of what brings us closer to God and leave aside what doesn’t.” This isn’t about rejecting the world but discerning what leads to life and letting go of what doesn’t.
The church, then, is a training ground for this kind of detachment. It’s where we learn to give and receive in ways that lead to mutual flourishing.
Can we imagine a community where everyone—young and old, rich and poor, sick and healthy, across all political divides—contributes to the flourishing of others without erasing or possessing them?
When we stop trying to control or eliminate, we open ourselves to transformation. As the early Christians proclaimed: Vita mutatur, non tollitur—life is changed, not ended. Detachment means I don’t need to make others in my image or destroy them to find peace. Instead, we embrace both the open buds and the closed ones, critiquing without consuming, holding differences without damning, and seeking life while letting go of the rest.
This is the fruit of Christian maturity: learning to live in freedom, to give and receive life’s gifts without grasping. This is the church at its best—a community of open hearts, flourishing together in the freedom of God’s love.
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