If you go to IgnatianSpirituality.com this week, you’ll see daily prayer prompts based on the Examen, a practice begun by St. Ignatius and which is a foundational prayer of Ignatian spirituality. The Examen is a simple form for “checking in” daily with God. It’s a review of your day, by which you observe how you felt, what you did or didn’t do, and how grace was present and active.

Because information on the Examen is provided on IgnatianSpirituality.com, I won’t repeat it here—just know that it’s available, accessible, and quite helpful.

The Examen is just one way of training yourself to notice God’s presence in daily life. And, actually, it’s quite effective, because you develop the habit of looking at your life and expecting to find God there.

I’ve said more than once to a group of people at a talk or retreat: “If God isn’t here, then God isn’t anywhere.” If God is not present in your day-to-day work and struggle and fun, in your emotions and discoveries, and even in the incidental things that happen—then why should you invest so much time and energy trying to get to whatever place God inhabits?

This isn’t a form of pantheism—of believing that God is in everything all the time. The idea of finding God in all things points to the love and grace of God that find us no matter what we’re going through and no matter what shape we’re in.

I challenge you to look at the details of your life this week and ask the question, “Where is God in this situation? Where is the grace? In what way do I encounter Divine love?”

This post is a part of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure, Week 2.

During this first week of our Lenten retreat, we have concentrated on what St. Ignatius called the Principle and Foundation. I’ve referred to this as our essential nature as people created by God for the purpose of living out Divine Love in our specific circumstances.

Right now, give yourself a few quiet moments to reflect, using the video below.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeaTixvIV80

This post is part of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure, Week 1. See a complete list of what to expect from this Lent’s retreat. We want to offer you options, but do not feel you have to keep up with everything posted. Use what works for you.

The easiest ways to follow An Ignatian Prayer Adventure are by bookmarking the retreat home page, which will be updated throughout the season with all of our reflections and suggestions, or by liking the Ignatian Spirituality page on Facebook.

I grew up in a religious subculture that was very certain about who God was and how God operated. Very often I heard, “God loves you and has a plan for your life!” At times this was a comforting thought—after all, wouldn’t it be nice if someone else mapped out my life for me and made sure everything worked according to plan?

But over the years I’ve come to appreciate God’s lack of pushiness. Yes, God loves me. And, yes, God has a plan, but it’s a huge plan, one that encompasses the universe. If I want to cooperate with that plan, I’m invited to join the party. But in order to participate in God’s big plan, I have to make choices every day—about the kind of person I want to be, about the priorities I keep, about the loves I nurture.

In other words, I live God’s “plan” for my life in the ongoing process of discernment. I cooperate with God’s loving the world by becoming love myself. And I fulfill God’s plan for me by growing up, by becoming an adult who is wise and compassionate. That happens day by day, and through many life lessons.

I no longer believe that there’s a connect-the-dots plan for Vinita’s life. Every day, Vinita has options, and some are better than others. Some are obviously wrong and harmful, but many are variations on good. As I learn to distinguish what is the best of the good, that’s called growth.

What’s my purpose? To grow into my God-created potential to love. That happens as I make decisions, but it involves more than that. I become my best self as I become more intimately engaged with God.

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius are all about learning how to engage with God—and thus fulfill the amazing gift and purpose within us. So it’s really not about a plan; it’s about a relationship.

If someone asked you, “What’s your purpose on this earth?” what would you say? As always, we eagerly await your responses.

This post is a part of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure, Week 1.

Christian spirituality in general and Ignatian spirituality in particular operate from an overarching assumption. We believe that humanity has inherent purpose.

That purpose fueled our very creation. God desires our existence, and so . . . we are. In traditional Judeo-Christian language, God created humanity. And because we are generated from that Divine energy and desire, we are imbued with honor and beauty and a reason to exist.

Don’t mistake me for a theologian, but allow me to state my opinion. It’s not terribly important what name or image you use for the Divine. And it doesn’t matter how God “created” us—this has nothing to do with creationism or evolution or anything along the spectrum between those philosophies. The only important fact is that we are because God desired us. And continues to desire us.

If we believe that, then it follows that human beings do not realize their fullest joy and potential until they engage with the desire that created them. There is an entity we call God, because language cannot capture that presence. Christians, Jews, and Muslims (and undoubtedly other faiths about which I’m not knowledgeable enough to comment) believe that God is love and mercy and whole and true. Out of love God created us, and God desires that we receive that love daily.

Not only that, God desires that we respond to that love. And what that response looks like, from day to day and hour to hour, is a mystery, a deepening wisdom—and an adventure.

During Lent of 2012, I invite you to explore the adventure of God’s love and what you and I will do with it.

Peace,
Vinita

This post is a part of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure, Week 1.

Joe Paprocki and I continue our conversation about spiritual wellness in today’s video. We discuss recognizing and setting limits. As Joe says, “There are so many things that we try to do to fill the empty space within, and spirituality is simply about getting in touch with that empty space and recognizing that God alone fills it.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcHC9fKbPyk

What do you think leads to spiritual wellness?

Take advantage of special savings on 7 Keys to Spiritual Wellness by using the promo code 7keysDDF for 30% off. Offer expires 2/29/12.

We’ve spent a number of days talking about spiritual freedom, a discussion that led quite naturally to the topic of discernment. We want to go about our lives with wisdom; we want to develop the ability to reflect and learn.

Sometimes our difficulty in spiritual growth can be traced to fundamental self-neglect. What I mean by that is, we are going full speed ahead without taking proper care of ourselves. We think our belief is faltering, but really we are physically exhausted. We’re frustrated by spotty concentration, not realizing that we’re distracted by worry over possessions or what we’ll have for dinner.

This week, I’ll introduce you to a colleague, Joe Paprocki, whose new book addresses keys to spiritual wellness. We’ll share a video of Joe and me discussing the book and will offer a special discount for those who want to purchase it. Joe has been working with catechists for many years and maintains Loyola Press’s popular blog, Catechist’s Journey.

Although Days of Deepening Friendship is not a blog for catechists, many of you in our DDF community have given years, even decades, of work to ministry in and out of the Church. Some of us have worn ourselves out before realizing that self-care is not a luxury but a necessity.

What’s interesting about Joe’s book is that he began with the seven deadly sins and explored what their opposites would be. The seven deadly sins lead to a breakdown in spiritual health, so wouldn’t their opposites—the virtues—lead to spiritual wellness?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImYpTw3bLpw

I’m interested to hear your ideas about what leads to spiritual wellness—please post your wisdom!

Take advantage of special savings on 7 Keys to Spiritual Wellness by using the promo code 7keysDDF for 30% off. Offer expires 2/29/12.

For our online Lenten Retreat 2012, I invite you to join me in An Ignatian Prayer Adventure. This year’s retreat will be a little different from previous ones, because we’re joining with our friends at IgnatianSpirituality.com and People for Others to offer an eight-week adaptation of the Spiritual Exercises, drawing from the longer retreat in The Ignatian Adventure by Kevin O’Brien, SJ.

What to expect from this Lent’s retreat:

• Sundays: The week’s excerpts and exercises from The Ignatian Adventure and other sources will be available at IgnatianSpirituality.com.
• Mondays: A post here based on the week’s themes. Also look to People for Others for a video reflection.
• Tuesdays: Jim Manney at dotMagis (the blog of IgnatianSpirituality.com) will offer a video reflection.
• Wednesdays: A second post here on DDF, going deeper into the week’s themes.
• Thursdays: Discussion question on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/IgnatianSpirituality.
• Fridays: A video or reflection of words and images to help you focus and rest.
• Saturdays: Review the graces of the week, and take time to comment at any of the blogs or on Facebook.

We’ll begin on Sunday, February 19, just a few days before Ash Wednesday. Our retreat will take us through Lent, Holy Week, and the first week of Easter.

For notifications of all of the new elements to the retreat, please subscribe to dotMagis and People for Others in addition to this blog. And if you’re not already subscribed to Days of Deepening Friendship, you can sign up for e-mail alerts when new posts are ready here.

This week’s Friday video is several minutes long, but for those of you intrigued by our discussion on discernment, consolation, and desolation, here is a direct translation from St. Ignatius’s “Rules for the Discernment of Spirits,” with music and images. Of course this was written in quite a different time, so the language and some of the examples reflect that, but the wisdom of discernment is certainly present. And you can always simply enjoy the music and images and reflect on your own thoughts about discernment!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-wKBQsGWZI

No matter how pure our motives and how flawless our discernment process, we depend on God’s grace ultimately to help us make not only good choices, but the best ones.

We count on God’s grace as we examine our hearts. We need grace to help us detach from biases and the sorts of passions—both negative and positive—that can sometimes cloud our judgment.

We count on God’s grace as we seek out information. It’s not always easy to get to the truth of a matter—sometimes it depends on who is supplying the information. Three different people may have three different sets of recommendations as to a job or a major purchase or the best way to deal with a defiant teenager. Sometimes we seek out—perhaps subconsciously—those who generally agree with us and who are less likely to challenge our thinking or our facts.

We count on God’s grace as we listen to the wisdom of Scripture, the Church, and our conscience. Scripture can be misused, misquoted, and misinterpreted in so many ways! I can probably find a specific verse in the Bible to back up anything I want to do. This is why the Scriptures themselves encourage us to study God’s word and meditate on it so that it seeps down into us not just intellectually but in ways that the Holy Spirit can use to transform us. In the same way, we know that the Church has made various bad judgments through its history. God does not magically make the Church omniscient—as the body of Christ, we move forward in community by grace and with constant learning and discernment.

And the human conscience is shaped by situation and conditioning—which is why it took centuries for well-meaning Christians to understand that slavery is wrong and that women and children are full human souls and not the property of men.

My conscience has limits, and so does yours. We make our best judgments, but we pray that God’s grace will continue working in us so that the conscience is shaped, not only by family and culture, but by Divine Love itself.

Just as grace can help us discern, grace can help us when we don’t discern well. Grace is God’s love showing up no matter how things go. Grace helps us grow beyond the mistakes and beyond the situations we cannot control.

To continue exploring the topic of discernment, read What’s Your Decision? and God’s Voice Within. Take advantage of special savings on these books by using the promo code Freedom for 25% off. Offer expires 2/29/12.

It’s hardly fair—to the material or to readers—to limit discussion of consolation and desolation to one post! But these topics will come up in some form during Lent. Also, many of you in the DDF community are already somewhat familiar with Ignatian spirituality and terms such as consolation and desolation. So here is a brief summary.

Consolation and desolation are states of the soul that, if we pay attention to them, can guide our steps and aid our prayer. When in consolation, we are growing in love and grace, moving toward God and God’s desires for us. When in desolation, we are moving away from God, and we experience a diminishment of peace and other marks of spiritual growth and health.

It’s important to understand that consolation does not always feel good, and desolation does not always feel bad. False consolation can give us feelings of pleasure and satisfaction in situations and activities that are not enhancing our spiritual growth. And sometimes when we are moving in the right direction, we can experience emotional turmoil, even deep sadness.

Many, many writers and spiritual teachers have described desolation and consolation, but I always fall back to Margaret Silf’s effective summary (from Inner Compass, 84–85):

Desolation

• Turns us in on ourselves
• Drives us down the spiral ever deeper into our own negative feelings
• Cuts us off from community
• Makes us want to give up on the things that used to be important to us
• Takes over our whole consciousness and crowds out our distant vision
• Covers up all our landmarks
• Drains us of energy

Consolation

• Directs our focus outside and beyond ourselves
• Lifts our hearts so that we can see the joys and sorrows of other people
• Bonds us more closely to our human community
• Generates new inspiration and ideas
• Restores balance and refreshes our inner vision
• Shows us where God is active in our lives and where he is leading us
• Releases new energy in us

As we learn to recognize when we are in desolation and consolation, we can respond accordingly—changing course (through prayer, community, discernment, spiritual direction) when in desolation, and staying the course when in consolation.

Please feel free to add to our wisdom on this topic.