Michael Rossmann, SJ, took up spinning to keep in shape during the winter.  He lists 11 lessons he relearned while he rode his stationary bike.  Number 3:

It’s important to push through to the very end. . . . Ignatius instructs those going through the Exercises to pray for an hour at a time and to make sure we spend the full hour in prayer.  He even goes out of his way to note that “the enemy of our human nature” will tempt us to shorten the time we had set aside for prayer.  It’s the same in spin.  It is tempting to relax during the bit of silence between the end of one song and the start of another, but instructors push us to keep up the intensity of the workout and in so doing they keep us moving through the lulls to the very end.

The final contemplation of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius is the Contemplation on Divine Love, or the Contemplation on the Love of God. It captures all of the movements we’ve been praying through during our retreat in daily life.

In the video below, Kevin O’Brien, SJ, explains the exercise as contemplating God’s love, which is given to us so freely and generously. We are first asked to contemplate how God creates out of love, creates everything in this world and our very lives, and sustains everything by God’s labor and God’s love. We are called to see all things as a reflection of God’s love and give gratitude. And that gratitude should inspire in us a natural response to give back.

This video is part of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure, Week 8. If you’re receiving this via e-mail, click through to watch the video The Contemplation on Divine Love.

Happy Easter! We’ve come to the final week of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure. Jesus is risen! And in exploring our theme of “God’s Love and Our Response,” we take the lessons from the entire retreat and go forward, changed by the experience.

This retreat has been introduced during Lent and Easter, but it will have a permanent home on this site. You may wish to return to the entire experience or select portions in the future. Or invite a friend to experience the retreat at a convenient time.

Please share your questions and reflections in the comments section throughout the week.

In the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius Loyola teaches ways to pray with our feelings. Engaging our emotions in prayer is key for conversion and discernment. I explain in today’s video contribution to An Ignatian Prayer Adventure.

If you’re receiving this via e-mail, click through to watch the Week 7 video Praying with Your Feelings.

Holy Week begins today and so does Week 7 of our Ignatian Prayer Adventure online retreat.  You might think about following the retreat this week even if you haven’t done it so far.  The readings follow Jesus through his passion and death.  They will help you pray during this sacred time.

Next week the retreat ends with scripture readings and reflections on the resurrected Jesus and God’s boundless love.

Please share your questions and reflections in the comments section throughout the week.

Imaginative prayer is a big part of the Ignatian Adventure retreat, now in week six, and it’s been a big topic on this blog.  I remembered a helpful thing that Lisa Kelly wrote a while ago–it’s fine to imagine what isn’t in the scripture as well as what is:

I am also instructed to contemplate what wasn’t said, that is, what  wasn’t written in the Gospels. What would I have said?  What side conversations may be going on? What would Jesus have said to me had I been there?  Ignatius asks that I allow the Spirit to speak to me more clearly through what wasn’t said.  Listen for what wasn’t said then, but is being said to you now.  In this is the message you need to hear.

Lisa has a great story about an episode of imaginative prayer in her blog post “Why There’s No Laughter in Lent.”

For this Week 6 of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure, we consider the public ministry of Jesus, focusing on his interactions with people. And because we’re all so busy, we start by joining Jesus on a busy day.

Please note that all of the retreat materials will remain online after Lent and Easter, so if you want to slow down the pace of your reflections, feel free to do so. And if you haven’t started the retreat yet, you may begin An Ignatian Prayer Adventure at any time.

Throughout the week, come back here and share your experiences of praying imaginatively.

To follow Jesus we must know him, and we get to know him through our imagination. Imaginative Ignatian prayer teaches us things about Jesus that we would not learn through scripture study or theological reflection. It allows the person of Christ to penetrate into places that the intellect does not touch. It brings Jesus into our hearts. It engages our feelings. It enflames us with ideals of generous service.

Imaginative prayer makes the Jesus of the Gospels our Jesus. It helps us develop a unique and personal relationship with him. We watch Jesus’ face. We listen to the way he speaks. We notice how people respond to him. These imaginative details bring us to know Jesus as more than a name or a historical figure in a book. He is a living person.

David L. Fleming, SJ
What Is Ignatian Spirituality?

The theme of Week 5 of our Lent-Easter Ignatian Prayer Adventure is “What Do I Really Want?”  This is an excellent question; a good one to ask at the halfway point in Lent.  Ignatius believed that once we rid ourselves of disordered attachments and discover what we really want, we’ll discover what God wants for us too.

Here’s a way to pray about desire.  It’s by Anthony de Mello, SJ, in his book Sadhana: A Way to God:

Place before God the desires you have for yourself: expose him to all the great things you desire to do in his service. The fact that you will never actually do them, or that you feel incapable of doing them, is irrelevant. What is important is that you gladden the heart of God by showing him how immense your desires are even though your strength is very small. It is thus that lovers speak when they express their immensity of their desires which far outdistances their limited capacity.

An Ignatian Prayer Adventure is at the halfway point. We move into Week 5, exploring the question: What do I really want?

We begin with the meditation on the Call of Christ, Our King.

How has the retreat experience been for you so far? Please share your questions and reflections in the comments.