Archive for the ‘Prayer’ Category

h1

Book Recommendation: The Rosary Of Our Lady – Romano Guardini

December 3, 2009

Madonna dell Granduca, Raphael

The Rosary of Our Lady is a small thin volume — it could be read in one sitting, yet it is also a volume that the reader will return to countless times. Below are some of the “keepers” I noted on my first read-through.

The Role Of Repetition In The Rosary
…Such repetition has a real meaning. Is it not an element of life? What else is the beating of the heart but a repetition? Always the same astriction and expansion; but it makes the blood circulate through the body. What else is breathing but a repetition? Always the same in and out; but by breathing we live. And is not our whole being ordered and sustained by change and repetition? Ever anew the sun rises and sets, night follows day; the round of life begins in the spring, rises, reaches its summit and sinks. What objections can one raise against these and many other repetitions? They are the order in which growth progresses, the inner kernel develops, and the form is revealed. All life realizes itself in the rhythm of external conditions and internal accomplishment. If this is so everywhere, why should  it not be so in religious devotion?

The Rosary A Sojourn To A Place of Holy Tranquility
Man needs a place of holy tranquility that is pervaded by the breath of God and where he meets the great figures of the faith. This place is really the inaccessibility of God himself, which is opened to man only through Christ. All prayer begins by man becoming silent – recollecting his scattered thoughts, feeling remorse at his trespasses, and directing his thoughts toward God. If man does all this, the place is thrown open, not only as a domain of spiritual tranquility and mental concentration, but as something that comes from God.

We are always in need of this place, especially when the convulsions of the times make clear something that has always existed but which sometimes hidden by outward well-being and a prevailing “peace of mind”: namely the homelessness of our lives. In such times a great courage is demanded from us: not only a readiness to dispense with more and to accomplish more than usual, but to persevere in a vacuum we do not otherwise notice. So, we require more than ever this place of which we speak, not to creep into so to hide, but as a place to find the core of things, to become calm and confident once more. For this reason the rosary is so important in times like ours…The Rosary has the character of a sojourn. Its essence is the sheltering security of a quite, holy world that envelops the person who is praying.

The Profusion Of Human Petition In The Hail Mary: “Now And At The Hour Of Our Death”
There is something stupendous in the profusion of human petition that find expression in the Hail Mary: that she may intercede for us “now and at the hour of our death.” There is no naming of details. Every human need is included, and we all employ the same words to portray our misery. Only at two instants can we grasp this human need, instants that are decisive in our lives. The one is “now,” the hour in which we have to fulfill the will of God, to choose between good and evil, and to decide the course of our eternal destiny. The other one is “the hour of our death,” which terminates our life, giving to all deeds and past happenings the character that will count for them in eternity.

The Mystery of Christian Existence
The Apostle Paul speaks in his letters again and again of an ultimate mystery of Christian existence: namely that Christ dwells “in us.” It is now no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me,” he says in his message to the Galatians [Galatians 2:20]. He exhorts us to be faithful and vigilant, “until Christ is formed in you “[Galatians 4:19]. He sees the significance of Christian growth in “the deep knowledge of the Son of God to perfect manhood, to the mature measure of the fullness of Christ” [Ephesians 4:13], and in becoming conformed to the image of his Son, that he should be the firstborn among many brethren”[Romans 8:29].

This, in the first place, is an expression of the unison of faith and the communion of grace, just as one may say of a person that a venerated model lives in him. But there is more significance to this, more from a human standpoint: namely a communion that surpasses the joint indwelling of grace and mercy, of conviction and loyal allegiance; a participation in the reality of Christ that cannot be felt deeply enough. More also in the eyes of God; and we only rightly value the meaning of these words [of the Rosary]  if we seek to understand what they mean to God….To be of real importance to him is a gift God gave to man. It is the beginning of his love…This is the mystery to which the spiritual masters refer when they speak of God’s birth in man. God not only strives to be man’s helper and guardian, as he is with all that have a being, but to have a share in his existence, to enter it, transfer himself into it, to become the Son of Man…The life of Christ is the essential and substantial fulfillment of God’s love expressed to man. God took upon himself the human form, thus he who sees Jesus sees God [John 14:9]. This means that he has not only the grace to recognize God in Jesus, but also God’s joy at dwelling as a human being in Christ. What has happened in Christ, once and for all, shall be consummated again and again, says St. Paul. Not that it will happen again physically – the Incarnation is a divinely personal event of indisputable uniqueness – but spiritually, so that it can be re-enacted in every individual man….To become a true believer means to receive the risen Christ within us. To live the life of faith is to make room for him, so that he may express himself and grow within us. Faith is finally fulfilled when Christ penetrates man’s being and becomes his one and all. The life of Christ is the theme that is given and carried out in every man anew. More and more Christ enters into his life, and God in Christ; evermore his human side is led across to Christ, and through Christ to God.

A Prayer Of Lingering
The Rosary is a prayer of lingering. One must take one’s time for it, putting the necessary time at its disposal, not only externally but internally. One who wants to pray it rightly, must put away those things that press upon him, and become purposeless and quiet…The first part of the prayer consists in beholding and penetrating, in understanding and praising whatever mystery it is that follows the name “Jesus.” After that, one’s thoughts are suspended in contemplation. In the second part of the prayer one turns to Mary as the center of the mystery, asking her intercession “now and at the hour of our death.” All petitions for body and soul, ones own and those of others, personal and general, are laid before her. Above all, the petition to participate in the mystery of Christ.

The Action Of The Rosary
It [The action of the Rosary] is not directed at anything definite; it is all embracing. It is not sharp cut, but unconstrained. The words are not anchored to a special meaning but left free, so that such pictures…. [events of the past…the future...it does not have the shape of a line but resembles a space. It acts symphonically; sees the background in the foreground, the essence in the gesture, and the past and the future in the present] may also emerge that are not directly related to it The person praying not only looks at these pictures but dwells in their company, feels them, speaks to them, and lets his own life pour into them. In this way a quietly moving world comes into being , a world in which the prayer moves with a freedom that is bound only by the number of repetitions and the theme of the mystery. This has to be learned, of course, and it requires patience. A loving patience, one is tempted to say; the kind a man needs when he strives for something beautiful and alive, and does not give in until it reveals itself…. The deeper we penetrate into these mysteries, the plainer we see that they contain the basic laws, as it were, of Christian growth.

Mary’s Faith
Mary had faith. She bowed before God as the Lord of Creation, certain that he could make his word come true beyond all natural possibilities. She entered on the unknown road along which he called her. This road led even further into the mystery, and only her faith enabled her to follow the road to the end. The sentence: “And they did not understand the word that he spoke to them.” [Luke 2:50], stands for Mary’s whole life. She “understood” only in the abundance and grace of Pentecost; earlier she was forced to trust and to obey.

Faith Needs To Increase
Faith is the foundation of our Christian life. It is awakened by God’s revelation. In fact, it has grown out of that very root, for the same power in which God makes himself known to us, also enables us to hear his word and remain faithful to him. With this the new life starts; not with one’s own reason and strength, but with God’s word and grace. As soon as faith diminishes, we are like Peter on the sea – we sink. We always need faith, and the more the longer we live. The more life broadens, the more faith we need, because the more we learn of how impenetrable human existence is. So we ask the Lord that he may “increase our faith.”

Hope
Hope is confidence in God’s power to accomplish all things. He has promised that we shall become new men, and that his creation shall be a “new heaven and a new earth” [Apoc. 21:1]. This is gainsaid by the impression made on us by worldly things; by the course our life is taking; by the opinions of people around us; by our own daily insufficiency and sin – by everything. Hope is the “nevertheless” of faith. In spite of all contradiction, the new life is within us, and God will complete it. We trust in him despite all opposition. But that is difficult, sometimes even impossible. So we must ask again that the Lord “may strengthen our hope.”

The Love Of God And The Meaning Of Mary’s Life
God is driven by his love to give himself to us, not out of some dark impulse, but in the unblemished freedom of  his sovereignty: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten son, that those who believe in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting” [John 3:16]

The Angel’s message to Mary was the request that she receive this love in her heart, and henceforth live out of it. It is here that Christian love began on earth. The answer Mary gave the message was a surpassing of herself, a readiness to obey. Out of this grew not only her felicity – remember the jubilant praises that mounted from her heart when she greeted Elizabeth:

And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord
    and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
      of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
    for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
      holy is his name.
 His mercy extends to those who fear him,
      from generation to generation.
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
      he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
      but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
      but has sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
      remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever,
      even as he said to our fathers.”
Luke 1:46-55

–but also her lasting sacrifice. Again and again she had to re-enact what seemed to be God’s self-abandonment in him who as her one and all. Again and again her Son was taken from her into alien parts, to obey the will of the Father, until at the last hour, when she would no longer be his mother only, he said, “Woman behold thy son.” [John 19:26]. To accept this, to stand the test over and over, and to grow ever more in charity, was the meaning of her life.

The Completion And Sanctification Of Human Love
When we hear of the love of God, we understand it instinctively out of our own human love, as its completion and sanctification. In truth, it is the consummation of the love that is of God. It means that beyond ourselves we merge into his love, and that it begins with obedience, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” [John 5:3]. And obedience it remains; only now the obedience that was burdensome in the beginning has become joyful and free. Out of this comes the essential meaning of our life: that in it the will of God matters more than our own. We may surmise the meaning of this when we read the words form the letter to the Romans: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Recognizing The Truth
Above all, it is when man is touched for the first time by the person and the word of Christ – be it through another man, or a book, or an inner experience – that he recognizes the truth and craves to embrace it. The Lord, in his body and living might, enters into him at this moment. Now begins, as we mentioned before, the penetration and growth of Christ in man; the “infiguration” of man in Him. From here on the summons is always repeated. Every hearing of his truth, every radiation of his image, every reminder of his commandments, demand that we take him deep into our hearts and put ourselves willingly at his disposal.

The Sacred Domain In Christian Life
In every Christian life there is a sacred domain of nascent growth in which dwells Christ – a domain in which we are more firmly rooted than we are in our own. There he works and grows; takes possession of our being; draws strength towards him; penetrates our thought and volition; sways our emotions and sentiments, so that the word of the Apostle may come true: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”[St. Paul in Galatians 2:20]…This takes place in every Christian as often as that inner life which is divined by faith steps into the clarity of knowledge, into the distinctiveness of action, and into the decisiveness of testimony. In every one of us Christ is born as often as he penetrates, as essence and standard, into any deed or happening. One day this happens with particular significance; namely when it dawns on us, clear and strong, who Christ is, so that he becomes he governing reality of our inner lives…What God has given us, if we believe and obey, does not belong to us by nature. The new life is not ours like a talent or a characteristic; it is a gift, and it remains a gift. It is governed by God’s will and guidance, and we must always be ready for a call away from ourselves, a transfer to duty, renunciation, and destiny that have their meaning only in the will of God.

Remoteness From Christ
Christ is the center; our faith in him is firm and loving. But then he disappears, often suddenly and apparently without the slightest reason. A remoteness has been created. A void is formed. Man feels forsaken. Faith seems folly. Hope he must maintain “against all hope.” Everything becomes heavy, wearisome and senseless. He must walk alone and seek. But one day he finds Christ again – and it is such circumstances that the power of the Father’s will becomes evident to him.

The Graveness Of Sin
The graveness (with which God views our salvation: so gravely that he not only bestowed this salvation but himself assumed human nature and became the child of Mary) breaks through in the mysteries of the sorrowful rosary.  They also reveal God’s love but by showing us the frightfulness of sin. The question of what sin really is, we cannot answer ourselves – and this is its result – or we are blinded by it. Its meaning dawns upon is when we realize what God has done to triumph over it. It is that frightful thing which God in his omniscience and justice decreed must be expiated through the suffering and death of the Incarnate Word…The worst part of sin is its hiddenness. It hides everywhere under the pretense of being something natural, something unavoidable; the pretence that the power, gravity, or tragedy of life is expressed by it. If we are witnesses of Christ’s fate, our eyes are opened wide. It is an important moment in the life of a Christian when he is touched the first time by horror at the reality of sin. On all sides we meet this horror—but the creature does not know what it is that frightens him most deeply. All existence labors beneath the spell of sin. In Christ’s anguish it breads through to a last and most terrible transparency. Because of it , the Son of God feels the terror of this hour. But each of us must himself realize, in the deepest part of his being, that it it the fearfulness of my own sins that are here revealed.

Christianity And The Body
Christianity does not say that the body is evil and its passion sin — not that sin cannot enter passion or evil find root in the body. To become a Christian does not mean to despise or destroy the body but to do away with blindness and to recognize the evil that is at work in nature. It means to fight for purity of body and soul, and even to accept bodily pain as a means of purification. If the believer does this, it is Christ’s purity that penetrates into him.

The Crowning With Thorns
The dignity of man is revealed by his head. The crown is the emblem of the royal majesty which belongs to God. The mockery of Christ is directed at the head o the Lord, who wears invisibly the crown of the “King of Kings” The soldiers make a mock king out of him. But behind their hollow cruelty lies another wish, one that seeks to make of him – we venture the word – a “mock-god.” All the mockery on earth is combined here to abolish God’s dignity, and with it the dignity of man which is rooted in God. Man’s lie is interwoven with pride, rebellion and vanity, sometimes open, mostly hidden. Their roots are invisible to human eyes and they stretch beyond the human will. The Lord unveils their power by giving them the possibility to be turned against himself. The pride with which we strut about and the vanities we relish are turned for the Son of God into a pattern of humiliation. His suffering is as great as the measure of human evil.

The Unbearable-ness Of The Cross
“As they led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus.”[ Luke 23:26], because he could not go on. Everything that means a burden in life is shown here in its last fearfulness: toil, destitution, pain, the people around one, one’s own existence, the inner void, the unbearableness of all things. In the last analysis, everything is a “burden”…because sin has stamped it with the curse of hardship. Man seeks to escape it. He will not take it upon his shoulders and persevere beneath it. Indolence, cowardice, resistance against the hardships of life, all mean here for Christ the obligation to carry a weight that is beyond his strength.

It Is Consummated
Before the end, the Lord spoke the words “It is consummated. [John 19:30]. The whole mystery of this; all is “consummated.” What happened here had its prelude in the creation of the world, the time when everything was generated. Then sin tore everything asunder, and all was lost. Now the Lord draws everything back again unto his bosom, and suffers it in a way that is known only to himself. In this he reaches in to the abyss of grace and lets it gush forth. And from this issues forth the new creation. The new start that is given us; the forces from which the “new man in us” can grow and rise into eternity; the new heaven and the new earth that will one day surround us – all of these issue from this hour.

And this we must know. We become Christians in the measure that we are awakened and penetrated by the is knowledge of the agony and death suffered by Christ. From this point our own suffering is transformed.

While our suffering was formerly only the consequence of our guilt, it is now part of the mystery of the Cross. It shares in the force that changes the old existence into the new. In the eyes o the world, suffering is inconsolable to the last. Nothing can really help it. Mostly we do not notice it, because it does not last very long, or because our attention is diverted. But when it becomes great and we have to face it, then we see there is only one help for our suffering and that help comes from suffering itself. Since the time of Christ’s passion it has always been so. It was then there was raised up a fearful and blessed ground onto which we might safely step; and the strength has been given us to change the old life into the new if we suffer together with Christ. If man understands this mystery and commits himself to it, he has reached the center of all things, and all goes well.

Mary Stood “Beneath The Cross”
Scripture does not speak of Mary in its last days of Jesus …(until) only at the end, when we are told that “now there was standing by the Cross of Jesus his mother” [John 19:25]. This sentence covers all of the preceding events. She always stood “beneath the cross,” and never withdrew from the holy and terrible domain of Christ’s passion. It was natural for her to be present in whatever place it happened. And just as natural that she would come to know all that had occurred. Every breath the Lord drew passed thorough her breast; every throb of his heart was her own; and nothing happened to him that had not also “penetrated her soul,” as Simeon had foretold. So we must draw her into it all.

She connects us with all these happenings. It is she who causes us not only to look and meditate, but also makes us aware that all these happenings concern us, every one of us, concern me. She is the reason I do not run away when my faint heartedness becomes unbearable, but that I remain. She herself remained, “until all was consummated.” And so must I.

The Resurrection of the New Man Within Us
Paul says in the letter to the Romans that “our old self” should be “crucified” and die and be “buried in Christ.” If this happens, then “as Christ has arisen from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we may also walk in newness of life” [Romans 6:4]. This dying and entombing of the old self is a constant process within us: through every struggle against evil; through every conquest of self; through every suffering bravely borne; through every sacrifice of love and charity. But through it is also accomplished the resurrection of the new man. At times, very deep within us, and covered by earthly insufficiency and calamities, we feel the secret spark of this ever-holy and living flame, “the glory of the sons of God” (Romans 8:21). For the rest, we have to believe.

A Christian (Mary’s) View Of The Ascension
It applied to Mary, above all, when Paul said: “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” [Colossians. 3 1-2] Her son was “above” and her heart was with him, and her whole being strove upward to him.

Posted in Prayer | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

h1

Book Recommendation: Reading Selections From The Examen Prayer – Fr. Timothy M. Gallagher

November 13, 2009

examen bookA review by Peter Fennessy on Amazon says: “In Jesuit spirituality enormous emphasis is placed on the form of prayer called the Examen. Ignatius Loyola would dispense his followers from virtually any religious observance but never from the Examen. When this exercise was understood as looking at the commandments and at personal violations of the commandments — an examination of conscience really, a preparation for confession — the prayer was negative in feel and its importance on a daily basis was difficult to fathom. But once the essence of the exercise was rediscovered as on-going discernment of God’s presence, activity, self-revelation and calling– an examination of consciousness — the emphasis was understandable. The foreword to the book incidentally is written by Fr. George Aschenbrenner, SJ, whose 1972 article was pivotal in the rediscovery of the examen. Not many books have been written since on the topic, and this is the best I have come across so far. Fr. Gallagher… explains not only the prayer itself, but the motives, settings, results, etc. He draws on a day in the life of Ignatius to illustrate the prayer and on dozens of examples (He has taught the prayer to a number of people in retreat settings) to illustrate the way people in all walks of life have prayed and adapted it.

The problem I have with prayer is falling in and out of it. It’s become almost like dieting. I spent long hours, years at a time, really, seeking to make prayer a regimen, a habit, I would not break, but it wasn’t like that in the end.

 I enjoy doing it when I do it, yet too often find days, weeks, months going by when all I can do when coming back home is having my head hit the pillow. It is certainly not what prayer should be – so I seem to do it now when I feel moved to. Exercise and diet are regimens; prayer should be different – it should come from a loving relationship with God – and I surprise myself when I realize I don’t have that. I had it before, why not now?

An Outline of the Examen
This outline is based on Ignatius’s presentation of the examen in the Spiritual Exercises (no. 43). I place it here as an introduction to all that follows; it may also serve, once the content of this book has been assimilated, as a practical tool in praying the examen.
Transition: I become aware of the love with which God looks upon me as I begin this examen.
Step One: Gratitude. I note the gifts that God’s love has given me this day, and I give thanks to God for them.
Step Two: Petition. I ask God for an insight and a strength that will make this examen a work of grace, fruitful beyond my human capacity alone.
Step Three: Review. With my God, I review the day. I look for the stirrings in my heart and the thoughts that God has given me this day. I look also for those that have not been of God. I review my choices in response to both, and throughout the day in general.
Step Four: Forgiveness. I ask for the healing touch of the forgiving God who, with love and respect for me, removes my heart’s burdens.
Step Five: Renewal. I look to the following day and, with God, plan concretely how to live it in accord with God’s loving desire for my life.
Transition: Aware of God’s presence with me, I prayerfully conclude the examen.

The Incomparable Value Of Gratitude
In one of his letters Ignatius explains more at length his thought regarding gratitude.  In speaking of what is for him the almost unendurable thought of ingratitude, Jgnatius energetically describes — both by negation and by affirmation — the unique power of gratitude in our relationship with God and with each other. He writes:

“May the highest grace and the everlasting love of Christ our Lord be our never-failing protection and help. It seems to me, in the light of the divine Goodness, though others may think differently, that ingratitude is one of the things most worthy of detestation before our Creator and Lord, and before all creatures capable of his divine and everlasting glory, out of all the evils and sins which can be imagined. For it is a failure to recognize the good things, the graces, and the gifts received. As such, it is the cause, beginning, and origin of all evils and sins. On the contrary, recognition and gratitude for the good things and gifts received is greatly loved and esteemed both in heaven and on earth.”

It would be difficult to express more strongly a sense of the incomparable value of gratitude. If you and I were asked to name the most unbearable of all evils and sins in this world, what might we choose? If you and I were asked to identify “the cause, beginning, and origin of all evils and sins” in our world, how might we reply? For Ignatius, who has become so conscious of God as constantly pouring out gifts of love upon our world and upon each one of us, the answer to both questions is utterly clear: it is the simple failure to recognize (des-conocimiento) “the good things, the graces, and the gifts received” from God, simply not to know that there is a God who loves us and who is unceasingly, even this very day, bestowing gifts of love upon us.

What will happen in our lives and in our world when the recognition (conocimiento) of these gifts begins to grow within us? When day after day we consciously choose to recognize these gifts and the Giver’s love for us that is revealed through them? Then, Ignatius says, something “greatly loved and esteemed both in heaven and on earth” will come into our hearts, bringing great blessings into our lives. The first step in the practice of Ignatian examen is exactly this: “to give thanks to God our Lord for the benefits received” (Spiritual Exercises, 43) in the course of the hours we are reviewing — to recognize these gifts and, through them, God’s personal love for us.

In its first step, then, the examen begins with what is most fundamental in our spiritual lives. When the Scriptures record the history of God’s saving work in the world, the primary reality is always what God does. The people’s response is vital to their relationship with God as salvation history unfolds, but it is never the first reality; that is always the work of God, who takes the initiative in leading the people toward salvation. And what God continually does, Ignatius says, is to pour out gifts upon this people, past and present. The first step in the examen consists of recognizing the primary reality that shapes our daily lives. Some examples will concretize what this might mean in practice.

It Is All About Something That God Does
On one occasion when I took part in a conversation regarding the examen, one person said: “When I make the examen in the evening, I ask the Lord: What do you want to show me about this day? What do you want me to see about this day?” “Because,” she said, “it is all about something that God does. It is all about grace.” In a few words she had touched the core of what makes the examen effective in our lives. It is all about something that God does; it is all about grace.

These are not just words. Human effort is indispensable in the practice of examen, but those who undertake it quickly realize that they cannot hope for a faithful and fruitful practice of the examen simply through their own efforts. Their experience teaches them clearly that the insight and transforming power that the examen offers are essentially the work of God’s grace within us (1 Corinthians. 15:10). In the examen, then, after recalling the gifts of God’s love (step one) and before reviewing the movements of our hearts and our response to them throughout the day (step three), Ignatius invites us to turn to God in humble prayer, asking for the grace that alone can make our examen fruitful (Spiritual Exercises, 43). This faith-inspired and hope-filled asking is the second step of the examen; in this step, desire, now warmed by gratitude, takes shape as a petition of the heart, asking that vivifying grace effect in us what God has inspired us to “wish and desire” (Spiritual Exercises, 48) as we make the examen each day.

The grace we humbly seek is twofold: the gift of understanding, which opens the way to new freedom.’ In this second step we pray for deeper insight into God’s concrete workings in our day and into any interior movements opposed to those workings, so that we may act more surely in overcoming all that hinders our freedom for growth in our relationship with God.

Spiritual Consolation And Desolation
Spiritual consolation and spiritual desolation — times of energizing joy in the Lord and times of interior heaviness in our life of faith — are the common experience of us all. How aware of these are we when our hearts experience them? And how do we respond to them? Thoughts arise in all of us, both God-inspired thoughts that offer clarity for spiritually fruitful action and confusing thoughts inspired by the enemy (from the tempter, from within the self, from our surroundings), which, if unreflectively followed, will lead to spiritual harm. Again, how aware of such thoughts are we? Can we discern which are of God and should be followed, and which are not and should be rejected?

Like Ignatius, we may have expectations of the way God will act in our lives, which may occasion interior struggles when events prove, in fact, different from our expectations. When such struggles occur, how conscious are we of their cause? How quickly are we aware of that cause? Are we able, like Ignatius, to strive to harmonize the desires of our hearts with the desires of God’s heart for us, and so progress toward the peace that flows from communion of heart with God?

Each of our days is filled with a richness of interior experience: love, hopes, anxieties, joys, fears, attractions, resistances, desires, disinclinations, all accompanied by an endless flux of varied thoughts. This interior experience occurs in the context of continual and constantly changing activity: interactions with others, conversations, meals, prayer, work, travel, projects, planning, and decision-making. In the prayer of examen we ask:

Where was God in all of this today? Toward what was the Lord calling me in the day? How did I respond to this call? Were there inclinations and thoughts this day that were not of God? If there were, was I able to discern and resist them? Was the use of my freedom in accord with God’s loving desire for me today?

Ignatius’s experience is his own, and it is furthermore the experience of one long accustomed to a discerning awareness of personal spiritual experience. Further examples will serve to expand our vision of how step three might appear in the concrete reality of daily spiritual living today. These examples will situate the examen in some of the widely diverse spiritual contexts of individual lives. God and empowers us to be agents of healing forgiveness in our communities, in our families, and in society as a whole.

At this point the wisdom of the order in the steps of the examen emerges. Within the examen much has preceded and prepared us for the fourth step; this context is key to praying the fourth step as Ignatius intends it. For Ignatius, God’s love is always the first consideration, and all else is viewed after and only in the light of this love.  The first step in the examen, and the basis for all that follows, is simply to notice the endless outpouring of God’s gifts of love to us in the day. When the human heart knows that another heart loves it deeply, faithfully, and unconditionally, it loses all fear. It may ask with trust for any forgiveness it seeks because it already knows that it is unshakably loved. The prayer of step one (gratitude) is uniquely powerful in preparing space in our hearts for the prayer of step four (forgiveness).

If indeed the prayer of examen is a matter not only of moral growth but also of discerning the spiritual stirrings of our hearts: then the value of such spiritual accompaniment is evident. In his Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius always presumes the assistance of a competent spiritual guide in the process of discernment, a need that remains even as we grow in a personal ability to discern:

He or she can, by listening well, help us to notice and say for ourselves what we might never clearly uncover for ourselves unless we were trying to tell some trusted and interested listener — a listener who has adequate learning and experience to be of help.

What form might this spiritual accompaniment take?

•       Spiritual direction, that is, regular meetings with a capable spiritual guide, is a solidly attested element of our spiritual tradition and can be of great assistance in praying the examen.
•    For some people, occasional meetings with an experienced spiritual companion may be the most realistic form of such spiritual accompaniment.
•    Participation in groups of spiritual formation with qualified leadership may be another avenue to obtain such spiritual support.
•    Conversation with spiritual friends who share the same journey can also be highly encouraging in the practice of examen.

Such forms of spiritual accompaniment are all the more important for persons living in a culture that itself provides less spiritual “accompaniment” than in the day of Ignatius.

Competent spiritual accompaniment provides the answer to many of the difficulties that dedicated persons may encounter in praying the examen (Spiritual Exercises, 326). At times — as is true of the spiritual life in general — notwithstanding our sincere willingness and diligent efforts, we may feel discouraged as we pray the examen. The examen may not seem fruitful in the way we had hoped, and we may even find it disheartening in some measure. We may consequently experience a certain diminishment of our energy to continue in its practice. As all that we have discussed earlier indicates, there may be many reasons for such difficulties. The surest way to navigate safely through them is conversation with a capable spiritual companion. Without such conversation, we may tend simply to relinquish the prayer of examen in these times of difficulty. Aided by such conversation, these very struggles become stepping-stones to new growth in the examen and through it to broader growth in our spiritual lives.

A Prayer That Itself Presupposes Another Level Of Prayer
A glance at Ignatius’s practice of examen on March 12, 1544, reveals that his prayerful review occurs within a day marked by various times of prayer. Ignatius prays upon rising, prays as he prepares for Mass, prays throughout the Mass itself, prays again after the Mass… a prayer in which Ignatius meets the God “who loves me more than I love myself.” From the richness of that communion with God in habitual times of prayer, the desire for ongoing communion with God throughout the day is born. It is this desire, as we have seen, that fuels the practice of examen. Our relationship with God in faithful daily prayer is the fertile soil in which a fruitful practice of the examen takes root and grows.

As Aschenbrenner so clearly notes, the examen is prayer but a prayer that itself presupposes another level of prayer in our lives. Every step, then, that we take to grow in relationship with God through faithful prayer prepares the ground for our practice of examen. Is it superfluous to suggest once more that this might be profitably discussed with a spiritual guide? Or with others who share the same longing?

As with the examen and spiritual direction, here too a principle of mutual benefit holds.  Loving communion with God in formal times of prayer (meditation on Scripture, Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours, lectio divina, and other forms of prayer) awakens the desire to find that God of love throughout the day as well, and so leads to the examen. The examen in turn expands that relationship of love beyond the formal times of prayer and into the concrete activity of the day. In this way the formal times of prayer are not only occasional welcome moments of communion with God, but also flow more easily from and into the day of which they are a part, much as we see in Ignatius’s March 12, 1544.

These are not just words. When our hearts rejoice to encounter God in habitual and faithfully observed times of prayer and, consequently, yearn to experience that communion more frequently and more deeply throughout the day as well, then we are ready for the practice of examen.

A Transition Into Prayer
Ignatius himself began his prayer with this living awareness of God’s loving presence to him. An eyewitness tells of how Ignatius used to pray on the open terrace of the community’s house in Rome:

He would stand there and take off his hat; without stirring he would fix his eyes on the heavens for a short while. Then, sinking to his knees, he would make a lowly gesture of reverence to God. After that he would sit on a bench, for his body’s weakness did not permit him to do otherwise. There he was, head uncovered, tears trickling drop by drop, in such sweetness and silence, that no sob, no sigh, no noise, no movement of the body was noticed.

Ignatius begins his prayer with a brief moment in which he simply absorbs the joyful reality of God’s presence to him. His awareness of God’s loving gaze upon him fills him with “sweetness and silence,” and moves him deeply and surely into the prayer to follow.

When in his Spiritual Exercises Ignatius counsels such a transition into prayer, he is evidently speaking from his own rich experience of prayer. Ignatius invites us, on the threshold of our formal time of prayer, to pause “for the time I would take to pray an Our Father” and “with my understanding raised on high” to consider “how God our Lord looks upon me” (SpirEx, 75). This transitional space need not, Ignatius tells us, be overly lengthy:

“the time I would take to pray an Our Father.” As Ignatius’s words further indicate, what we consider during this brief time is how God looks upon us. As so often in Ignatian prayer, the focus is not primarily on our own activity but above all on what God is doing: here on what God is doing now as I begin my time of prayer. This transition is profoundly relational; before all else we become aware simply of being with the God who is looking upon us.

The What Not The How Of Experience
As so often in his pedagogy of prayer, Ignatius simply indicates what experience, his own and others, has shown to be helpful without further specification of precisely how this indication is to be used in practice.

One woman prays a short formal prayer, an Our Father, the Soul of Christ, or a prayer of Thomas Merton, and finds that in this way she enters the living presence of the Spirit.
A man simply becomes aware of Father, Son, and Spirit, slowly pronouncing each divine name and so entering into communion with the living God.
Another person recalls the scriptural words that “Jesus, looking at him, loved him” (Matt. 10:21) and feels that gaze of love personally as he lifts his heart in prayer.

Counting The Footsteps Of Fidelity
Among “The Sayings of the Desert Fathers,” in which history and legend mingle in teaching profound spiritual truths, we read of a man who went out into the desert to dedicate his life to God. He lived there for years, devoting himself faithfully to God’s service through prayer and a life of great material simplicity. His dwelling was several miles from the nearest water, and daily he walked those miles to and from the source, carrying back the water he needed to live. Year followed upon year and he grew elderly in God’s service.

But as those years passed, his heart gradually wearied of his service: the physical privations, the labor, the endless routine of one day utterly like the next. The long daily trek for water became the symbol of his weariness, and it was in walking those miles each day that he first began to consider surrendering the service of God he had pursued for so many years. Finally one day as he plodded across the desert under the burning sun, his heart weakened. The account tells us:

Once when he was going to draw water, he flagged and said to himself, “What need is there for me to endure this toil? I shall come and live near the water.” And saying this, he turned about and saw one following him and counting his footprints: and he questioned him, saying, “Who are you?” And he said: “I am an angel of the Lord, and I am sent to count your footprints and give you your reward.” And when he heard him, the old man’s heart was stout, and himself more ready, and he set his cell still farther from the water.

Trial That Destroys Superficial Security
Jean Vanier, speaking of trials in relationships, writes: “The times of trial which destroy a superficial security often free new energies which had until then been hidden.” In the prayer of the examen as in all prayer — which is simply a relationship of love — there will very likely be times when we will be called to love with faithful courage, a courage that will “free new energies which had until then been hidden.”

Our awareness that the examen is God’s gift rather than our accomplishment gives’ us the confidence expressed by Paul: “I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me” (Philemon 4:13). And experience teaches, as Thérèse of Lisieux says, that “God never refuses that first grace that gives one the courage to act; afterwards, the heart is strengthened and one advances from victory to victory.”

In this part of our reflections, then, we will consider the times when the prayer of examen may call us to a love that is patient and faithful. Having reviewed them, we will be the better equipped to progress through such times unfalteringly and indeed with spiritual benefit. Our discussion here will presume all that we have said thus far about the examen: solid understanding of the five steps, of their flexible use, and of the various conditions that assist in praying the examen fruitfully.

Spiritual Consolation
The practice of the examen itself can be the instrument of liberation from spiritual desolation. A woman writes:

I feel now as if I was wandering through a jungle before I began the examen, and was wide open to every negative thought which could pretty freely take hold of me, since I wasn’t paying attention. It was only when those thoughts got dark enough and consuming enough that I noticed that something was very wrong. But even then, I felt helpless to stop what was happening since I wasn’t at all clear what it was….

My “after” experience, that is, of making the examen daily, has let me see the problem much more clearly for what it is. The simple question of asking if certain thoughts or patterns of acting are leading me toward God or away from him is like shining a light into a dark room — one sees all sorts of things for what they are. The other thing it has let me see is “early warning signals” — the blindness that got me into trouble in the first place. . . . I am very, very grateful that the Lord has been so patient, that he has given me such clear helps along the way, and that he has shown me so clearly what I need to do.

For this woman as for many of us, the prayer of examen — with the accompaniment at least occasionally of a spiritual guide — becomes an experience of spiritual freedom: “The simple question of asking if certain thoughts or patterns of acting are leading me toward God or away from him is like shining a light into a dark room – one sees all sorts of things for what they are.” As her spiritual understanding grows, her darkness dissipates and gratitude wells up in her heart.

Listening For The “Still Small Voice”
On March 12, 1544, Ignatius realizes at a certain point that his own desire contrasts with God’s desires for him. And he writes:

Once I recognized that I felt this inclination and that this was different from what God desired, I began to note this and to strive to move my heart toward what was pleasing to God. (382)

The love for the Lord that fills Ignatius’s heart leads him, he says, “to strive to move my heart toward what was pleasing to God.” When Ignatius perceives God’s desire, he begins — not without effort — “to strive to move” his own heart toward communion with the heart of God. And, as he tells us, “With this the darkness gradually began to lift and tears began to come.” His earlier spiritual desolation lifts and consolation returns, providing clarity for his process of decision.

To pray the examen daily is to listen constantly for the “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12) of God speaking in our hearts. The examen expresses our daily readiness to hear God’s desires for our lives. Said in the words of Paul, to pray the examen is to confess that “Jesus is Lord” (Rom. 10:9) every day of our lives, eager to know his desires and to follow where he would lead us in the hours of our day. It is, like Ignatius, “to strive to move” our hearts toward the heart of the God whose love embraces us daily. To pray the examen is to surrender our lives increasingly to the Lord and to let ourselves be led because, like Ignatius, “we have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us” (1 John 4:16).

John Henry Newman
The prayer of the examen progressively leads to that transformation so tellingly depicted by John Henry Newman at a moment when he was himself facing a new surrender to God’s mysterious leading in his life:

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
                Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
                Lead Thou me on!

“I loved to choose and see my path”: this is the human tendency toward self-sufficiency, toward seeking personal control in the unfolding of our lives. A powerful transition, however, is occurring in the Newman who writes these lines: “but now / Lead Thou me on!” The prayer of examen arises in hearts that desire to say with Newman, “but now / Lead Thou me on,” and that desire this divine leading not only in the great decisions of their lives but also in the concrete, daily, and “small” activities that fill their days.

Joseph Cardinal Bernardin
In a meditation completed thirteen days before his death from pancreatic cancer, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin movingly describes what he calls “letting go.” He writes:

One theme that arises on the surface more than any other takes on new meaning for me now — the theme of letting go. By letting go, I mean the ability to release from our grasp those things that inhibit us from developing an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus. Letting go is never easy. Indeed, it is a lifelong process. But letting go is possible if we understand the importance of opening our hearts and, above all else, developing a healthy prayer life.

This is the “lifelong process” of the prayer of examen. As we pray it daily, we may perceive more clearly the things “that inhibit us” from what our hearts most deeply desire: “developing an intima~e relationship with the Lord Jesus.” Increasingly we will seek “to release from our grasp” all that limits our spiritual freedom and so to grow in love of the Lord. Examen becomes indispensable in our lives when “we understand the importance of opening our hearts” to the God whose “still small voice” ceaselessly calls us to inexhaustible newness of life.

Bernardin’s words reflect what is probably our own experience as well:

Still, letting go is never easy. I have prayed and struggled constantly to be able to let go of things more willingly, to be free of everything that keeps the Lord from finding greater hospitality in my soul or interferes with my surrender to what God asks of me. . . . My daily prayer is that I can open wide the doors of my heart to Jesus and his expectations of me.  This is the heart itself of the examen: to seek unceasingly “to be free of everything that keeps the Lord from finding greater hospitality in my soul,” from everything that “interferes with my surrender to what God asks of me.” It is a “daily prayer” that “I can open wide the doors of my heart to Jesus.”

Finally, Bernardin speaks of the self-emptying (Philemon. 2:7) that frees our hearts to surrender to God:

God speaks very gently to us when he invites us to make more room for him in our lives. The tension that arises comes not from him but from me as I struggle to find out how to of. fer him fuller hospitality and then to do it wholeheartedly. The Lord is clear about what he wants, but it is really difficult to let go of myself and my work and trust him completely. The first step of letting go, of course, is linked with my emptying myself of everything — the plans I consider the largest as well as the distractions I judge the smallest—so that the Lord can really take over.

God does indeed speak “very gently” to us when “he invites us to make more room for him in our lives.” Our hearts need to be finely attuned and daily attentive to hear the voice of that loving invitation. That is why, as we have said from the beginning, the prayer of examen is at the heart of the spiritual life. So much depends on hearing the promptings of a God who speaks “very gently” in calling us forward on our spiritual journey.

As Bernardin notes, “the Lord is clear about what he wants.” Our struggle, like Bernardin’s, is “to find out how” to respond and then “to do it wholeheartedly.” To find out daily, and then to do: this is a powerful description of the prayer of examen.

Bernard of Clairvaux
In the end, it all comes down to footprints in the sand: day after day, year after year, in the times when our hearts are warm with God’s love and all that is spiritual delights us, and in the times when we must plod forward faithfully under the burning sun and across the miles that seem to stretch endlessly before us, knowing that God sees and loves each footprint of our fidelity.

And the energy that impels us forward on that journey is always the same: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us” (1 John 4:16). What we seek, then, year after year in our examen is “to know the Lord interiorly. . so that I may love him more and follow him more closely” (Spiritual Exercises).

Bernard of Clairvaux, whose faithful love for the Lord transformed hearts and blessed nations, proclaims:

Love suffices unto itself, gives delight of itself and because of itself. Love is its own merit, its own reward. Love needs no cause outside itself, no fruit other than itself. Its fruit is its practice. I love because I love; I love that I may love. Love is a great thing, so long as it reverts to its source, returns to its origins and flows back to its fount, constantly drawing there the water that gives it new life.

There is finally no other reason why we pray the examen:

“Love needs no cause outside itself. . . I love because I love; I love that I may love.” That love remains young, fresh, and alive when, as Bernard says, it continually “flows back to its fount, constantly drawing there the water that gives it new life.” When that living water flows constantly in our hearts (John 7:38), then the Spirit guides our lives. In our faithful prayer of examen, we hear that Voice daily and with our lives we answer: “Lead Thou me on.”

Communion Of Will And Life With God
To love the One who loves us is to say like Jesus, “Behold, I come to do your will, 0 God” (Heb. 10:7). These words, which Jesus proclaims as he comes into the world (Hebrews 10:5), are the response of his heart and his life to the Father who says to him:

“You are my beloved Son” (Luke 3:22). When our hearts know that they are infinitely loved, that like Jesus and in Jesus they are beloved, then the thirst for communion of will and life with God is born. Then our hearts desire to “seek and find the divine will” every day of our lives. As we have observed, there is profound wisdom and spiritual truth in Ignatius’s choice to place awareness of God’s loving gifts at the beginning of his prayer of examen; the desire to say “yes” to love arises within us when we experience that love concretely.

Gradually Prayer Changes Us
She has always been reflective but has striven in a special way for the past thirty years to understand herself and God’s workings in her life. She lets nothing deter her from this search. Even the painful times, once the first emotions have subsided sufficiently, become valued times of a learning process that never ends. Daily, constantly, in all that happens around her and in her, she searches for God’s word to her, for God’s leading in her life. Each evening she reviews her life with God.

Gradually prayer has changed for her. She maintains her daily times of prayer as her health permits. But, she says, in recent years prayer has become a way of life. She lives with God, aware of God, sharing with God. The deep peace that characterizes her now even in the not infrequent struggles of life reveals that this is so.

She tells of a time not many years ago when she was sitting by the sea. Suddenly she found herself reviewing her entire life, remembering the painful and the happy times over the years and to the present. A great sense of gratitude welled up in her heart as she remembered; in that experience of grace, she could see the love of God in all of this. Joy and deep peace filled her heart in that moment. She grasped in a new way the meaning of her whole life. A daily effort of over thirty years to perceive God’s workings in her life bore fruit in a rich understanding of the pattern of her entire life. She says:

I feel as though I’ve turned a corner spiritually in recent months. All the stages of my life have come together. I can see the Lord’s love and invitation in each, constantly calling me forward. I’ve always wanted to be a transparent instrument for the Lord to work through me. It’s like he took a Brillo pad and scrubbed me — as I asked. This is truly “awesome.” It’s basically a sense of trust in God from looking back over it all. I think heaven is this — a constant journey, always discovering God more.

All that we have seen in this book is summarized here: “It’s basically a sense of trust in God from looking back over it all.”  This basic “sense of trust in God” that results from faithful review of our spiritual experience over many years is the fruit to which examen finally leads. This kind of trust becomes unshakeable.

Posted in Prayer | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »