Dear Friends,
This weekend I am on retreat at Cloisters on the Platte with a group of men from the parish.
This is the first time I am doing the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius in an abbreviated fashion. I have
done numerous eight-day retreats and two thirty-day retreats using the spiritual exercises, so it will be
interesting to see how the director will take the different meditations and put them into a Thursday
through Sunday format.
On both the eight-day and the thirty-day retreats there is an expectation of total silence and a
minimum of four prayer periods a day with each prayer period lasting for one hour. I know people often
say that they could never spend that much time in silence or that much time praying, but I have found
that every retreat is too short – even the thirty-day retreats. The time flies by and God fills the day with
great experiences of prayer. Ignatius encourages the use of memory and imagination as helps in the
prayer time. When you give them the time and space, memories come back to life and imagination
becomes very creative. Insights happen in an intense fashion during a retreat because there is the time
and the space allowing God to work.
Having God talk to you and deepening your relationship to God is not limited to time on a
retreat. St. Ignatius knew that some people could never go on a retreat because of family or business
commitments. Other people just never feel comfortable with that much silence. Because Ignatius
received so many requests from people for help with their spiritual journeys, he created the 19 th
Annotation, which was a way to make the thirty-day retreat by spending a little time in quiet prayer
each day for thirty weeks. If you are interested in using that format and trying out the exercises of
St. Ignatius they can be found at the Creighton University website for online ministries, it is entitled
“An Online Retreat”.
Along the course of the exercises, the retreatant comes to a greater knowledge of Christ and of
self. He or she learns which activities, desires, habits, practices, enable a person to live a good and holy
life, as well as those that prevent such living. So, the exercises are as much a discovery of one’s self as
it is of Christ. The grace of the exercises is intended to lead a person to interior freedom.
Let me conclude today with a couple quotes from Dr. Peter Kreeft’s book on learning to pray:
“Prayer is easier than we think. We want to think it is too hard or too high and holy for us,
because that gives us an excuse for not doing it … Can you talk to a friend? Then you can talk to God, for
he is your Friend. And that is what prayer is … But this ‘free and familiar’ conversation is not idle
chatter. It is not flip and casual. God is not our pet or our pop psychologist. God is God: utterly
awesome, infinitely great. The familiarity of prayer is wonderful because it is familiarity with God.”
“Prayer gives truth to our mind, goodness to our will, and beauty to our heart. ‘The true, the good, and
the beautiful’ are the three things we need and love the most because they are three attributes of God.
Prayer gives truth to our mind because it puts us in the presence of Truth itself … It gives goodness to our
will because it puts us ‘on line’ with God, in love with the God who is love and goodness … It gives beauty
to our heart because it plunges us into the heart of God, which is the eternal energy of infinite joy.”
Peace,
Fr. Damian