In his spiritual exercise on the Resurrection of Christ our Lord, Saint Ignatius of Loyola invites us to “consider the divinity, which seemed to hide itself during the passion, now appearing and manifesting itself so miraculously in the most holy Resurrection in its true and most sacred effects.”

We know how fleeting our experience of Resurrection joy and consolation may be. It may take mere hours for us to forget Easter joy and return to the ordinary humdrum existence of our lives. That is especially the case if our experience of the joy of the Resurrection is kept to ourselves and not manifest in how we live.

Ignatius is speaking of the true and most sacred effects of the Resurrection. He associates them with an outward attitude and way of connecting with one another. The effects can be seen in three ways: effects in the individual (hope, vision, imagination, joy, love), effects in the Church (the building up of community), and in the world (the mission to go out and bring the Good News to others). The Risen Lord is offering joy that is transformative and which moves us to service.  It engages the whole person and has an impact on everyday experience.

One of the lasting effects that Ignatius describes is the office of consoler. “Consider the office of consoler that Christ our Lord exercises, and compare it with the way in which friends are wont to console each other.” Thus, our Easter joy and consolation has an effect on the world, or at least on the people around us. The joy of Christ is outward moving. Ignatius is reminding us that we are asked to share our consolation with others, not only to receive it in our hearts.

This is an invitation to mission, where our aim is to ensure that others will share in the same joy and consolation. In the Resurrection narratives of the Gospels, the Risen Christ commands those who encounter him to go and tell others, to move out and spread the Gospel to others. This is related to what Ignatius invites us to in an earlier spiritual exercise – not to be deaf to God’s call, but “prompt and diligent” to accomplish God’s desires.

So, what does it mean in a tangible way to exercise the office of consoler? It is not some mysterious and complicated matter. Nor is it a task that I place in my calendar for one day a week. It is found in our attitude to life and in our everyday presence to one another – listening to one another with compassion and understanding, being present to each other, having a hopeful and encouraging word for people who need to be reminded of the goodness of life, and being engaged with community and Church.

The office of consoler is often exercised at wakes and funerals and other events that commemorate death and tragedy. We often meet people – family, friends, or strangers – who have no sense of how much they are loved. They are discouraged or negative. Simply put, exercising the office of consoler is helping them to find hope and peace.

On the day before he retired, Pope Benedict XVI posted for the final time on Twitter, expressing a desire that we share joy. @Pontifex posted, “If only everyone could experience the joy of being Christian, being loved by God who gave his Son for us!” That desire of Benedict is what the Risen Lord desired of his followers. A good image of the sharing of joy and consolation is the encounter of two disciples and the Risen Lord on the road to Emmaus. The three walk together and as Jesus speaks to them, the disciples shift from being sad and downcast to being able to say, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road!” That is what Ignatius means when he invites us to console one another.