The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius Loyola are best suited for prayer during a silent retreat. However, Ignatius knew that they could also be effective when employed in a less isolated environment. It is the hope of the authors of this blog that you, the reader, find the meditations that we offer here useful in your own search to encounter Christ in prayer in your daily life. The meditations are intended to be prayed in order, from as close to the beginning as possible, perhaps over the course of a dedicated time such as the season of Lent. Also, we highly recommend that anyone beginning these exercises does so under the supervision of a trusted spiritual director.
Each post during the retreat will have roughly the same format. It will begin with a grace to ask the Lord for as you begin your time of prayer and reflection. Then, it will provide a text for prayer, either from the Scriptures or the Spiritual Exercises. After this will come the main part of the post, a reflection based on a meditation from the Exercises. Then, questions or a prayer that will help you reflect with greater depth on how the day’s reflection applies to your own relationship with God. Having read the reflection and gone over the questions, you might then want to use the day’s text for further prayer, using your imagination to enter into the scene.
As you read these daily reflections to grow in your relationship with the Lord, you should feel free to use as much or as little as you need, and spend as much or as little time as you have. If you have five minutes to read the reflection of the day, that will be five minutes well spent. If you wish to spend 30 minutes and use the reflection, the questions, and the texts, that too, is fine. Likewise with anything in between, or even more time in prayer if you so desire. The ultimate goal of this blog is to help everyone who reads it to grow in their love and knowledge of the Lord and to better discern His will in their daily lives. We would encourage you to let that goal of growing in the love of God be the one measure that you use to determine how much or how little you make use of the materials provided here and how much or how little time you spend in prayer. Let all things be Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam: for the greater glory of God!
If you are starting the retreat sometime after the beginning of Lent, look at the list of posts first. Once you are caught up, just come back to the blog everyday for the newest posts.