On Sunday the Ignatian Prayer Adventure retreat begins here on IgnatianSpirituality.com. I hope you take a look at it and consider following it through the Lent-Easter season. Prayer material will be posted every day for the next eight weeks.
The retreat follows the design of St. Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises. Here’s what you can expect to find every day:
A Grace to Pray For. Ignatius said that we should directly ask God for the grace we want to receive. Different graces are associated with each part of the Exercises, and you’ll find these graces every day. For example, the grace to pray for on Sunday is “to be more aware of how God is near; to trust in God’s personal care and love for me.”
A Reading. Most of these are scripture passages. Some are contemplations and meditations from The Spiritual Exercises.A Reflection. These are quotes, prayers, Ignatian exercises, or other material related to the subject of the day.
There’s more: every week you can watch short videos by Paul Campbell SJ, Vinita Wright, and me about that week’s theme. We’ll also be writing on our blogs: Days of Deepening Friendship (Vinita) and People for Others (Paul), as well as dotMagis.
You can spend as much or as little time on this material as you wish. You can have a fine retreat if you just pray for the day’s grace and read the reading. If you have the time and inclination, you can keep a prayer journal and spend 30 to 40 minutes a day in prayer, as people do when they are making the Spiritual Exercises. Read this page Before You Begin for some ideas about praying this retreat.
If you can, try to visit the retreat pages every day (or most days). The retreat is a version of the Spiritual Exercises. It’s adapted from the excellent book The Ignatian Adventure, a presentation of the Spiritual Exercises by the author and spiritual director Kevin O’Brien, SJ. The Exercises have a structure and direction. If you follow An Ignatian Prayer Adventure for the next two months, you’ll experience many of the graces of the Exercises.
So please visit the retreat here on Sunday. If your friends and colleagues are looking for a good Lenten program, tell them to come too.
Looking foward to the start of this Retreat