All in the Tertianship wish you a happy Christmas and every blessing in 2012.

In the Spiritual Exercises we are invited by Saint Ignatius to visualise and engage with the nativity scene, the better to understand the incarnation and to grow closer to Jesus:

See, with the eyes of the imagination, the people, that is to say Our Lady, and Saint Joseph, and the servant girl, and the child Jesus after his birth. Making myself into a poor and unworthy little servant, I watch them, and contemplate them, and serve them in their needs as if I were present, with all possible submission and reverence: and afterwards I reflect within myself to derive some profit.

Jesuit Paul Coutinho is the author of How Big Is Your God? The Freedom to Experience the Divine and writes about ‘The Contemplation to Attain Love’ – a final element of the Spiritual Exercises.

The first step in this exercise is to recall the gifts of your life: your birth, baptism, family, children, redemption, grace, qualities, and talents—anything and everything you have to be grateful for. In gratitude for these gifts that God has given you—and that includes the Divine himself—you offer it all, including yourself, back to God.

Continue reading on Ignatian Spirituality where you will also find other articles about the Spiritual Exercises

Ignatius of Loyola wrote the Spiritual Exercises once he had found that certain meditations and contemplations–“Exercises”–were helpful to others in coming to a clearer image of God, themselves and their place in the world. While the text is widely published, the Exercises are a more a set of “director’s notes” used to guide a person during a month-long retreat than a text to be read alone. The ‘weeks’ described in the Exercises refer to the four main phases.

Every Jesuit does the Spiritual Exercises during his initial training and again during Tertianship. Please pray for the Tertians in Dublin who will be doing the exercises from 19 November to 20 December.

During this week we are asked to bring the encounters of the Risen Jesus with the disciples to focus in our prayer.  We do this so that we can more clearly see how it is that we, in our  ordinary lives,  can meet with Jesus and recognise his presence.  We seek to draw strength, consolation and hope from Jesus presents to us, the better that we may inspire and encourage others in our ministry.

See Ignatian Spirituality for more about the Spiritual Exercises

Ignatius of Loyola wrote the Spiritual Exercises once he had found that certain meditations and contemplations–“Exercises”–were helpful to others in coming to a clearer image of God, themselves and their place in the world. While the text is widely published, the Exercises are a more a set of “director’s notes” used to guide a person during a month-long retreat than a text to be read alone. The ‘weeks’ described in the Exercises refer to the four main phases.

Every Jesuit does the Spiritual Exercises during his initial training and again during Tertianship. Please pray for the Tertians in Dublin who will be doing the exercises from 19 November to 20 December.

The third week of the Exercises draws us into union with Christ. We come to realise that to follow Christ is to be united with him, not just on the road of discipleship, but in his suffering and death. We pray not only that we have deep sorrow for sin, but that we have deeper compassion for the world in which God still suffers. Even in the shadow of the cross, we pray that we may discover a joy in being united with Jesus. We pray for a deeper desire to live our lives fully in response to God’s love.

See Ignatian Spirituality for more about the Spiritual Exercises

Ignatius of Loyola wrote the Spiritual Exercises once he had found that certain meditations and contemplations–“Exercises”–were helpful to others in coming to a clearer image of God, themselves and their place in the world. While the text is widely published, the Exercises are more a set of “director’s notes” used to guide a person during a month-long retreat than a text to be read alone.  The ‘weeks’ described in the Exercises refer to the four main phases.

Every Jesuit does the Spiritual Exercises during his initial training and again during Tertianship. Please pray for the Tertians in Dublin who will be doing the exercises from 19 November to 20 December.