Beginning Again
January 30, 2013
Now entering into our fourth year, we are once again pleased to announce the beginning of our reflections on the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Starting on February 12th, we will once again commence our Lenten journey towards Easter with six young Jesuits as our guides. By Easter Sunday, anyone who has followed these reflections regularly will have a basic introduction to the whole of the Spiritual Exercises.
Each post 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 prayer from the Exercises. Then, questions or a prayer that will help you reflect with greater depth 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 depicted.
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 can allow. If you simply wish to take 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’s fine, too. Likewise with anything in between, or even more time in prayer if you so desire. The ultimate goal of this blog is to help anyone who reads it to grow in their love for God our Lord, and to better discern His will in their daily life. We encourage you to let that goal of growing in the love of God be the one measure 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!