There’s an old saying that we should “pray as if everything depends on God, work as if everything depends on you.” It’s been attributed to Ignatius (though there’s no evidence that he said it), and many think it captures the Ignatian spirit: turning it all over to God in prayer and then working tirelessly and [...]
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Something to think about | Prayer is time taken out of the linear journey of our days, and it is also our most profound reality. When we pray, we move inward to our God center. Then we move out again. . . to our situation in the world. This movement into the center and out [...]
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Here’s a fine overview of the Examen by Canadian Jesuit Artur Suski. (Click here to watch it on YouTube.)
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Dorothy Day’s 1934 Letter to an Agnostic is republished in this week’s America Magazine. In it, she writes about her own struggles with belief and unbelief, sounding this very Ignatian note: We are taught that our souls never exercise just as our body does, otherwise it will never be healthy and well, and if it [...]
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Something to think about | The words of Jesus on prayer sound so simple: “Ask and you shall receive.” But behind that simple formula lies a whole way of life: a life of faith, of forgiveness of our brother, of generosity with those in need, of unworldliness, of total trusting in and dependence upon God. [...]
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How would you depict something as abstract as the Examen prayer? That was the challenge for artists vying for a commission to make a statue of St. Ignatius for Fairfield University. The winning idea came from New York artists Joan Benefiel and Jeremy Leichman. Their statue, “Examen,” was unveiled this week, picture above. Two identical [...]
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Rick Malloy, SJ, on what prayer is and is not: Prayer is not a competition, or a “goal” oriented activity. To pray is to already have “won.” Prayer is much more like making love, or hitting a baseball, or learning to play a musical instrument (sometimes loudly and badly!), then it is like getting a [...]
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Armand Nigro, SJ, urges us to pray for what we want: When we beg God for sunny weather, or pray that our bursitis will go away, or pray for something more holy or important such as international peace and justice we pay a great compliment to God. This is an expression of “becoming as little [...]
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I sometimes keep notes about things that happen in prayer but I seldom look at them. Joseph Tetlow, SJ, thinks it’s a good idea to do that. Here are some suggestions for reviewing former prayer. Here are some likenesses: Two friends have been going over the picture album of a two week vacation together when [...]
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“Prayer is to be in God’s presence with open hands and an open heart. There are many things in my life to which I cling as with a clinched fist – my possessions for sure but the immaterial things as well–the work I do, the position I hold, the friends I have, my ideas, my [...]
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