A Time of Reflection
While we are not meeting this week, please continue with your daily prayers. Continue to use the Thanksgiving Examen and/or the Positive Particular Examen. The Scripture readings for each day will provide inspirational messages to bring into prayer, and the Examens will give you a framework for gratitude as you pray.
We are concluding what Ignatius would call the Days of Disposition. They are times of developing your prayer routines, checking to see your interior availability to enter into the full Exercises, and determining whether the schedules fit with your situation. For some, it marks a time of postponement or departure; for others, it is a resolved commitment to move forward into the deeper relationship with the Triune God – and with ourselves. If you decide this is not the best time for you, we’ll see you back here next year or at a future time, or perhaps your schedule requires a shorter commitment of time. With those who are preparing for next year, I will work with you to further develop your prayer and discover your unique style of praying. It is all a gain. Let me know what you need.
Perhaps you have further questions about the Foundational Principles of Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. These will serve as the foundation for our further work. Does it make sense to you? Are you willing to go forward without understanding the entire package?
Some of you already have retreat or spiritual directors. That’s great. As we move forward, we’ll be checking in with a retreat director to talk about how your prayer is going. Just as a guideline, as you set time with the director, you will want to do a quick check-in. Think about 30 minutes. If you need 40, that’s possible, but consider 30-minute meetings every other week or so. What is important is that you spend time in prayer, and you seek the grace of the Exercise.
What is the grace? In the first week, you will be praying for something like, “Give me a sense of the progression of sin in the world and my growing consciousness of the interconnectedness with all of creation.” When the prayer period is over, you can ask God the question, “Am I more fully aware of the progression of sin and how I am interconnected with it?” We will talk more about graces in our next Zoom meeting.
When you are speaking with the retreat director, let her or him know of what God is saying to you or how you are experiencing God. We often speak about what we think God might be saying or doing; We want to hear of your experience of God.
Continue forward! We’ll make some sense of it together.
WhatsApp: This is not a critical component of the retreat. It is there as a useful tool for communications among yourselves. It is a helpful repository for songs, poems, images, and videos that may be helpful to you. It is there just for your information. Do not feel like you have to check the app each time someone adds a post. It is simply a way for you to contact one another and build community.
TEDx Talk: Celebrate What’s Right with the World
This is a video that might fit in well with the Thanksgiving or Positive Particular Examen.
Nature photographer Dewitt Jones called the natural world “a banquet laid, a cup overflowing…” which beautifully describes the welcome to a well-set table, to a deepening of God’s life in us, one grounded in gratitude and capacious love. It moves us away from self-absorption, self-convenience, or willfulness and closer to a willing participant in God’s Project, one shaped by God’s pure intention.
https://www.ted.com/talks/dewitt_jones_celebrate_what_s_right_with_the_world
The Ignatian Adventure
Read pages 85-93.
Song:
Also sprach Zarathustra by Strauss — Known for its iconic opening, this tone poem reflects on the philosophical ideas of existence and the cosmos, often associated with the dawn of creation.
Retreat Directors
Michelle Gomez – michelle.gomez90@gmail.com
Meg Foreman – megforeman66@gmail.com
Steve Titus – stevetitus51@gmail.com
Chad Roeber - roeverdvm@gmail.com
All Notes will be Accessible through this website: To the Frontiers
https://predmoresj.blogspot.com/
Christogenesis Conference
Ilia Delio, Kathleen Duffy, and others will chair this conference at Villanova University November 9-11. I plan on attending. Virtual attendance is available.
