We can trust our experience because God deals with us directly. Ignatius certainly believed that the Church and Scripture are trustworthy teachers of truth, and that we need that truth to help us interpret our experience. He also believed that Christians receive spiritual nourishment in the sacraments and in devotional prayer. But he also believed that God communicates directly to each of us. We can have a personal relationship with him. Prayer in the Ignatian mode is essentially a conversation. He warned spiritual directors not to get in the way. “Leave the creator to act immediately with the creature,” he wrote.
—Excerpted from What’s Your Decision? by J. Michael Sparough, SJ, Jim Manney, and Tim Hipskind, SJ
Dear Brother Umberto. You are so NOT evil, just wonderfully human. God bless you x
I am so interested in the Liturgy of the Hours. I thought that it’s for priests only. Can a lay person understand it?
For close to two years now, I have done the Liturgy of the Hours. It has brought me closer to G-d (and vice versa) than two graduate theology degrees, reading the Bible thorough a couple times in the koine and Biblical Hebrew (plus over 30 years of daily attendance in various 12-step programs). Or perhaps I should say that doing those things made me ready to do the “Hours”. “What do ye more than others.” My brother, an atheistic surgeon now retired told me recently, “I can’t decide if you are good or evil.”
“EVIL”, I said. “Absolutely, but saved by grace.”
I love your humility. I am evil absolutely saved by grace. I still Love the liturgy of the hours. As a sensate person I feel so connected to God in creation
How well put….GOD does speak directly WHEN we LISTEN..Ignatian prayer helps.