MOST OF US are familiar with the Prayer for Generosity of Ignatius:

Dearest Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
To give and not to count the cost;
To fight and not to heed the wounds;
To labor and not to seek for rest;
To toil and not to ask for any reward;
Save that of knowing that I am doing
your most holy will.

"To give and not to count the cost";to my mind, this is the key point in understanding Ignatian generosity. It expresses well the true spirit of this important virtue. Ignatian generosity is not about getting results.

It is not about "doing well" and achieving. It is not about gaining "success" or being concerned about what the eventual outcome of our giving would be. If we give mainly because (or only because) we know that in the end we will do well and be "successful" in our present enterprise, then we may end up being too selective and even self-serving in our giving, which is contradictory to the virtue of generosity in the first place. This is why Ignatian generosity is all about giving and not expecting anything in return. And this includes not expecting any "good" results from the very start. If "good," clear results are produced by our giving generously, then we should be happy and thankful. However, if no such results are produced by our giving generously, then we should be happy and thankful just the same.

Giving is a privilege. Because it is so, the opportunity and privilege of giving generously should be the value and the "reward" in itself. It should be the value and reward in itself because giving without counting the cost, without expecting anything in return, without any strings attached, already pleases the Lord. And if this manner of giving generously already pleases the Lord, then this should be enough for the one giving. And in the end, we already would be serving our God as he deserves. Anything that genuinely pleases our God is "serving him as he deserves."

"Giving without counting the cost" -this seems to be the true test of Ignatian generosity. And this spirit of giving is so different from the kind of giving that the world understands. "If I give, what's in it for me?" Or, "If I give, what will I get in return?" This seems to be the only language of giving that the world speaks. That is why this is the challenge for all of us today, especially for those of us who have received much. Can we give without any strings attached? Can we share a little of what we have received and not think of what we will get in return? Can we give without thinking what concrete results our giving will produce? Ignatius went out of his way to do just that. He tried to give magnanimously without expecting any reward.

There is this story about Ignatius of Loyola and a friend. In his time, Ignatius and the first Jesuits ministered mainly to very simple people, like poor children (especially orphans), the uneducated, the sick and the dying, prisoners, and even prostitutes. In ministering to these people, the first Jesuits were not always successful. In fact, many times, in the eyes of some, the earliest Jesuits were a failure. And this friend of Ignatius criticized him pointedly for his continued but apparently fruitless efforts in trying to reform a number of prostitutes whom the early Jesuits had received in one of their houses in Rome. The seeming conversions of these fallen women, the friend insisted, were not lasting. And because their conversions were not lasting, he felt that the hard work of Ignatius and the other Jesuits was not worth it. To such a remark, Ignatius made this response:

If with all my trouble and care, I could persuade only one, single [woman] to refrain from sin for one night, for the sake of my Lord Jesus Christ, then I would stop at nothing that for this time at least she might not offend God - even if I knew that she would afterwards fall back into her old vice.*

In ministering to such a person Ignatius had no thought of success, of good results, or of a reward. The paradox of it all was, in the end, he did have his reward: a deep, personal, loving friendship with a God who cannot be outdone and surpassed in generosity. And if this happened to Ignatius, this also certainly can happen to us, when we give from the heart.

*This story is taken from Ignatius, His Personality and Spiritual Heritage, ed. Friedrich Wulf (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1977), 12.