Grace: To choose always what will allow for a deepening of Christ’s life in me and be a benefit to my own happiness and the good of the Church. Reflection: This week has clearly been a week that has been marked by choices.  The Exercises have been all about setting us up to make choices…. Read more »

Grace: A heartfelt knowledge of Jesus Christ who became man for me, that I might follow Him more closely and love Him more dearly. This week we have been praying for a deeper knowledge of the God who became man for us. Specifically, we’ve begged for the grace, “to have heartfelt knowledge of Jesus who… Read more »

At the start of the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius provides a series of Annotations—instructions for the director and retreatant on how to give and make this retreat. In his Fifth Annotation, St. Ignatius advises the retreatant “to enter into [the Exercises] with great courage and generosity.” At the end of this week, the reason for… Read more »

Over the course of Lent, each post during the week will provide new material for us to bring to prayer, but weekends are dedicated to repetitions, to looking again at the material we have covered thus far during our Lenten journey towards the Cross and Easter Sunday. The first week of that journey has so… Read more »

The first half of the week has been dedicated to praying over scenes not found in the gospels. A major focus of these prayers has been allowing us to take a good look at ourselves. Such an activity is not always thought of when one things of the Christian life (or the virtuous life in… Read more »

The week began with Christ in a feeding trough. Subsequent meditations defied expectation and presented the life of Christ in an even less glamorous light. Mary is told of the sufferings she will undergo. The Holy Family flees to Egypt to escape the persecution of Herod. Jesus becomes separated from Mary and Joseph in order… Read more »

The prayers this week are a study in contrasts. We began by meditating on Hell, meditated on our losses, and by the end heard the call of Christ the King. Through the mire of sin, we still have a recognition that the life that we are leading is not the life we were made for…. Read more »

The posts this week have been dedicated to meditating on our sinfulness. By and large, it is not a subject that we like to think about too often. The Jesuit philosopher Bernard Lonergan wrote of the concept of a “flight from understanding.” With certain subjects, we simply overlook them because they are uncomfortable. We would… Read more »

The start of this Lenten blog does not seem like the start of a Lenten blog. When we think of Lent, we think of purifying ourselves of our sins, doing penances, denying ourselves the fruits of creation. Essentially, when we think of Lent, we think of almost anything but what the blog has covered thus… Read more »

This week, we have had what seems like a break from the gospel narrative. The prayers seen are what are sometimes called “election” prayers, prayers that can help us as we make a decision– where to go to school, a new job, marriage, etc. First, in the Two Standards, St. Ignatius has us pray over… Read more »