Remember, you are loved…
At the heart of the Spiritual Exercises is the relationship with Jesus and the realisation that Jesus suffered and died for me personally. This insight changes everything: realising that you are loved and are even worth dying for is liberating and transformative. Sometimes it takes a big life event or moment of crisis to realise this central Christian insight, that there are limits to our own efforts or ego, and freedom consists in giving ourselves totally to this God of love.
Excerpted from Brothers in Arms by Brendan McManus SJ (p.71)
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Finding God in the everyday
St Ignatius said that God deals directly with us and is always trying to reach us, so our job is to recognise where God is present in our everyday lives. Even in the mess of things, in the dirt and muck of things, God is always there. That may be unexpected, but it is liberating. Our job is to spot where God is calling and learn to respond, helping us to transform the situations where we find ourselves. There is no point in making the same old prayers in the same old way if God is waiting for a creative response and looking to make something new of us. This is an adventure into the unknown where we can take some pointers from wise people who have gone before us, but it is also one where we have to trust our instincts and believe that God is offering us new possibilities. Make your prayers real, heartfelt and based on your experience, and step out into the unknown. God is waiting.
Excerpted from Deeper into The Mess: Praying Through Tough Times by Brendan McManus SJ and Jim Deeds (p.
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That’s not what I had expected….
Inflated expectations and wanting to repeat previous experiences can become unhelpful attachments that trap us in the past and hinder accepting the new realities. Unexamined, expectations can become idols that dominate our thinking and take away our peace, necessitating a reality check to deal with them. Ignatian freedom is the opposite: freely accepting new conditions as gifts, without being limited by preconceptions or expectations, in order to find the newness of God in current situations.
Excerpted from Brothers in Arms by Brendan McManus SJ (p.39)
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Visiting and Sharing at Christmas
We hardly realise what we take in, as we in our own way take steps to visit other people’s houses: those of friends and family, those of strangers and neighbours, those of fellow church-goers and maybe those of other faiths with whom we have come to share the main celebrations of our respective religions. As we knock on the door, or ring the bell, with maybe a present or greeting card to hand, perhaps we could spare a thought for this meeting of Mary and Elizabeth: the absence of jealousy, the genuine joy of playing some part together in the mystery of God’s amazing plan, the chance to share with a smile and excitement and, yes, a blessing, with someone else whose life at that moment is crossing ours. We may not have much to give, but as we will all recall from the last verse of the Christmas carol, ‘In the bleak mid-winter’, it is our heart that is the greatest treasure, and that we can give to the Christ-child by sharing what we have with others.
Excerpted from Journeying to the Light: Daily Readings through Advent and Christmas by John Mann (p.67)
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Seeking a world of justice and peace
Humanity has a short memory and imagines that the unassailable of today will remain in the ascendancy forever, but history shows that the only true and everlasting rock is that of the Lord. The Christian, in seeking to understand the coming of the Messiah, is receiving images from a Hebrew faith community that held the vision of a world of justice and peace. Christ owned those images and we have received the legacy of the kingdom founded upon the principles that he showed and taught from the day of his birth, and to which we continue to be drawn.
Excerpted from Journeying to the Light: Daily Readings through Advent and Christmas by John Mann (p.14)
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Advent Preparation
We wait, as surely we must, in awe at what is about to happen, as we reflect upon the vision of the prophets of long ago in a reformed world more than two thousand years after Christ’s birth. We know that the key is the Incarnation. The reality of God becoming human in the person of Jesus may be incomprehensible even in a single lifetime, but we have some days left in Advent to do what we can, that is to try to understand what this miracle implies. So we pray for sight to glimpse the glory that is being revealed and for the ability to listen to messages as they are delivered to the ears of those who wait.
Excerpted from Journeying to the Light: Daily Readings through Advent and Christmas by John Mann (p.16)
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‘The Spirit of the Lord shall rest on him’ Isaiah 11:1–10
Things do not always work out the way we picture them. As Christians, we interpret this within the providence of God and seek to follow where we believe Christ leads. I would add to that a belief that where we take steps that are found later to have been clearly wrong, our Lord can and does call us from there into a new place. Such is his love for us that, no matter what, it never fails. Somehow, Life with Christ demonstrates this; redirection, when it comes, though we may think of it like the recalibration of a sat-nav, is more akin to a friend walking with us, sometimes gently guiding and occasionally bringing us up sharply to see our error.
Excerpted from Journeying to the Light: Daily Readings through Advent and Christmas by John Mann (p.9)
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‘It’s Not Fair’
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the state of the world and to feel helpless. There’s not much any single individual can do. A starting point is to see how the world works through the eyes of the disadvantaged, the poor, the marginalised and those most impacted by climate change. When leading sixth year Quo Vadis pilgrims on a three-day hike over the mountains, there was an implicit understanding. ‘I’ am not there yet until ‘we’ are all there. No matter how fast or athletic a person was, the pace had to accommodate the weakest. We would often stop to wait for the stragglers who were finding it difficult to climb the steep sections and then continue only after they had recovered. While the stronger may have been frustrated from time to time, there was an invaluable lesson. We walked as a community where people watched out for one another. We weren’t in competition. We were in empathetic solidarity. This experience mirrors our better nature.
Excerpted from Reimagining Religion by Jim Maher SJ (p.116)
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Random Reflections
Don’t cry for too long when something beautiful ends or a dear friend dies. Rejoice and be grateful that the beautiful happened.
Excerpted from Random Reflections by Des O’Donnell OMI (p.49)
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Tips From Learning From Your Feelings
Distinction is in the first place based on one’s own feelings. It is about what you notice in your own heart, not the hearts of your housemates, parents or friends. It is valuable to know how people who love you feel about what you do or don’t do, and to distinguish between your desires and their desires. Their feelings can provide valuable information. The only place where all this information finally comes together, however, is your own heart. It is about your life.
Excerpted from Living with Ignatius: On the Compass of Joy by Nikolaas Sintobin (pp. 85-86)
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