Fr. Francis - 30 Day Silent Retreat
I began studying Ignatian spirituality 5 years ago through a program at Mundelein Seminary, as I learned how to be a Spiritual Director. So I am very excited to finally complete the 30-Day Spiritual Exercises developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola. I will be in Jerusalem participating in a 30-Day Silent Retreat, so will be away from the parish from June 30th to August 6th.
If you are curious about Ignatian Spirituality and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, I encourage you to check out
www.ignatianspirituality.com
Here's how the site describes the retreat that I will be going on:
The Spiritual Exercises grew out of Ignatius Loyola's personal experience as a man seeking to grow in union with God and to discern God's will. He kept a journal as he gained spiritual insight and deepened his spiritual experience. He added to these notes as he directed other people and discovered what "worked." Eventually Ignatius gathered these prayers, meditations, reflections, and directions into a carefully designed framework of a retreat, which he called "spiritual exercises."
The Structure of the Exercises
Ignatius organized the Exercises into four "weeks." These are not seven-day weeks, but stages on a journey to spiritual freedom and wholehearted commitment to the service of God.
First week
. The first week of the Exercises is a time of reflection on our lives in light of God's boundless love for us. We see that our response to God's love has been hindered by patterns of sin. We face these sins knowing that God wants to free us of everything that gets in the way of our loving response to him. The first week ends with a meditation on Christ's call to follow him.
Second week
. The meditations and prayers of the second week teach us how to follow Christ as his disciples. We reflect on Scripture passages: Christ's birth and baptism, his sermon on the mount, his ministry of healing and teaching, his raising Lazarus from the dead. We are brought to decisions to change our lives to do Christ's work in the world and to love him more intimately.
Third week
. We meditate on Christ's Last Supper, passion, and death. We see his suffering and the gift of the Eucharist as the ultimate expression of God's love.
Fourth week
. We meditate on Jesus' resurrection and his apparitions to his disciples. We walk with the risen Christ and set out to love and serve him in concrete ways in our lives in the world.
Prayer in the Exercises
The two primary forms of praying taught in the Exercises are meditation and contemplation. In
meditation
, we use our minds. We ponder the basic principles that guide our life. We pray over words, images, and ideas.
Contemplation
is more about feeling than thinking. Contemplation often stirs the emotions and enkindles deep desires. In contemplation, we rely on our imaginations to place ourselves in a setting from the Gospels or in a scene proposed by Ignatius. We pray with Scripture. We do not study it.
The
discernment of spirits
underlies the Exercises. We notice the interior movements of our hearts, and discern where they are leading us.
As you can see, it's a very intense retreat. So I ask that you please keep me in prayers each day as I move through the Spiritual Exercises. And you can be assured of my prayers for all of you as well. I look forward to seeing all of you when I return in August and can share with you what I learned.
God Bless,
