This put up is predicated on Week Two of An Ignatian Prayer Journey.
There’s a dramatic conical mountain on the west coast of Eire known as Croagh Patrick, the place St. Patrick is alleged to have defeated the druids. Now a preferred pilgrimage vacation spot, it’s a testing stroll up a steep mountain with typically wild and unpredictable climate. I used to be launched to this stroll by Fr. Frank Fahey, a neighborhood priest, who resurrected the traditional pilgrim route from Ballintubber Abbey and led lots of the walks himself. One of many issues he used to say was, “We climb the mountain to get perspective, to look again on our lives and see issues clearly.” The humorous rule that he had on the stroll was, “No complaining,” or, “Be glad about all,” so when you had sore toes or fell in a bathroom gap, you had been to say, “Thanks be to God,” and shake it off!
Years later, I used to be to information pilgrims on the identical stroll and provides them the identical items of recommendation that I had acquired from Fr. Frank. They at all times proved to be apt for a pilgrimage: gaining perspective, trying again on life from the next place, and being grateful. These are key Ignatian ideas and are central to the Examen, or overview of the day, one of many Religious Workout routines of St. Ignatius.
Step one of the Examen is to ask God for mild, or attempt to see issues the best way God sees them. We have to get ourselves to a “excessive place” to have the ability to look again on the journey and see it clearly. This reflection, trying again over expertise, helps us to kind out what’s real and offers path ahead. The top of a day is often a very good time to look again and consider the experiences of the day. Inevitably, there are ups and downs, highs and lows, mild and darkness. Seeing the day as God sees it’s key to appreciating the feel of our expertise and noticing the place now we have been with God or not.
The Examen’s second step is to domesticate gratitude for all the pieces good that has occurred. Usually, this includes figuring out a number of moments of sunshine within the day, and such moments are at all times current. Crucially, that is felt interiorly as an emotional shift; gratitude modifications the center. Nonetheless, it typically takes work to beat our recurring negativity and undertake a extra hopeful means of seeing. That is in all probability crucial step, and one must really feel this inside motion, known as comfort in Ignatian language, to have the ability to transfer forward.
Then we are able to transfer to the third step of the Examen: watching our day replayed like a film earlier than us with Jesus beside us. Seeing it as he sees it, we understand the marvel of how God is alive on the planet. We come to know precisely how now we have been cooperating with God or not. With apply, we are able to really feel or get a way of what was good and genuinely from God and the other.
That results in the fourth step: asking forgiveness for errors, studying from them, and shifting on. This fuels our dedication to dwelling the subsequent day in a extra conscious, discerning, and proactive means. This last step, then, means committing concretely to behave higher sooner or later.
The Examen takes apply and persistence, however it works successfully over time to make our Christian dedication a actuality when it comes to how we act and determine. It’s a journey we stroll with God in reflection and gratitude, as Fr. Frank typically jogged my memory.
Picture by Bart Horeman beneath CC BY-SA 2.0.
