> Second Week Of The Spiritual Exercises -- Chapters 10 and 11 Chapter 10 and 11 stay here Chapters 12 click here Chapters 13 and 14 click here Complete section Chapters 10 through 14 in a longer download click here.
> Chapter Ten Some Perspectives On The Kingdom Exercise Different perspectives concerning the Kingdom Exercise inevitably affect the different ways of proposing the Second Week and vice versa. Often the way we view the Kingdom Exercise affects the way we understand the text of the Exercises in general and apply Ignatian spirituality in our present cultural setting. In the closed retreat according to notation [20], this Kingdom Exercise has come to represent the material for pondering that directees are given for the day of rest after the First Week is over and just before the Second Week begins. Some commentators and many directors of the Exercises understand this exercise as a kind of Principle and Foundation for the rest of the Exercises journey. Just as the P & F is related to the Exercises journey as a whole, the Kingdom Exercise is related to all of the exercises from this point onward. The Kingdom Exercise is connected to the decision-making process and the Election. which, in turn, are crucial to the understanding of the perspective from which the Exercises text is written. The Kingdom Exercise is the kernel of all the exercises of the Second Week which are cast in the theme of responding to a call to follow Jesus. The Kingdom Exercise is supposed to mirror a directee's interior desires at this point in the Exercises journey. As such, it can function as a tuning fork to check the quality of generosity in a directee's heart. Throughout the Exercises journey, it can also function as a predominant musical theme which keeps recurring throughout the whole of the musical work. By now, it is expected that a directee has received a deep-felt sorrow for his sins and has experienced God's overwhelming love saving him now from the destructive forces in his own heart. It is frequently expected that, as it was for Ignatius, a directee's response will be one of gratitude and generosity filled with desires to serve. When you consider the text of the Exercises from certain points of view, and when you recall the experiences of certain types of directees, such expectations may be appropriate. Here is a listing of the different perspectives which give these insights validity: A thematic and cognitive understanding of the Exercises text; The frequent experiences of directees who are in the Call Mode in the closed retreat setting of notation [20]; The life and times of Ignatius of Loyola; A similarity of the directee's archetype to the archetype that influenced Ignatius; The Kingdom Exercise images the charism of the Society of Jesus; (Historically, most of the commentators giving insight into the meaning of this exercise have been Jesuits.) A male spirituality. Theoretically, therefore, the expectation is that your directee has experienced God's overwhelming love saving him now and that your directee's response is analogous to that of Ignatius in his personal conversion story. And so it is with many directees whose journey coincides with several of the perspectives listed above. Nevertheless. when you attend to many directees' actual experiences of the Exercises journey both in the notation-[20] and -[19] modes, many of the variables implied in the perspectives listed above are not verified. Therefore, it is not surprising that the experiences resulting from doing the Kingdom Exercise often do not measure up to the theoretical assumptions of prayer guides and directors of the Exercises. With this in mind, here are different approaches from which you can choose to propose this exercise. Classic Approach(1) In some ways this is the simplest approach. When the First Week comes to an end, you would instruct your directee to ponder the Kingdom Exercise prayerfully for his daily prayer exercise on the three or four days before your interview. This is the context suggested in Supplementary Prayer Unit 1. You would encourage your directee to apply the parable to his situation by using the example of a charismatic person he finds inspiring, one who could capture his imagination and allegiance. Then you would suggest that, if he cannot make the offering towards the end of the Kingdom Exercise [98], he formulate his own personal offering expressive of his own desires at this time. This approach presumes that after the First Week the directee is definitely in the Call Mode with an archetypal energy similar to that of a warrior Queen or King. Mythic Approach I have been using the mythic approach for some years -- sometimes with surprising success, sometimes with frustration! In some ways, this is a more difficult approach because it requires your directee to use symbols and imagery which he probably has not been using in any conscious way. Coming from a more technological culture of our computer age, the directee would be asked to create something out of the energies that have been within him all along below his consciousness. However, when done properly, this approach can be more rewarding because it has the power to evoke a directee's heart-felt desires just as the Kingdom Exercise evoked Ignatius' heart-felt desires with the myth of the king [91]-[98]. The exercises that you might propose to your directee are found in Supplementary Prayer Unit 3. The theoretical explanation behind this mythic approach is discussed in Chapter 25. The goal in this approach is that your directee express in a personal myth his innermost and often less-than-conscious overarching symbol(s) that give energy and meaning as he confronts his future living in God's love. What is the story, parable, image, or myth that captures his way of cooperating with others in the fulfilment of God's desires for humankind? This approach presumes none of the cultural and ideological variables listed above. Nor does it presume that your directee is in the Call Mode. It respects where the directee is spiritually situated at this point in the Exercises journey and the personal culture and archetype that your directee brings to his prayer. Even if your directee were in the Call Mode, this approach can enhance the dream of his heart. I find that many directees in our culture are not in the Call Mode by the time they finish the First Week. The sign of this is the way they make the Gospel Contemplations on the Incarnation, Nativity, and the Early Years of Jesus before his ministry. They enter into them from the position of their own personal growth and healing rather than from the position of how they can better cooperate with others in the development of God's realm. They enter these gospel mysteries primarily from the stance of their own personal growth and brokenness; not primarily from the stance of the brokenness of their environment. A Combination Approach I have chosen to present the Kingdom Exercise according to an approach that attempts to bring together several issues that are, more often than not, present in our culture. In order of priority, these issues are: 1) The Healing Mode which continues well into the Second Week; 2) The mythic approach which is more in keeping with a directee's personal archetype; 3) The logistics of the church calendar if a directee begins the notation-[19] Exercises journey in September or October. This would place the material proposed for the Incarnation and early life of Jesus around the Christmas holiday season. The design of Prayer Units 10-15 facilitates some necessary adaptations for the inevitable interruptions. Though not in the Exercises text, my design(2) respects both the intent of the Kingdom Exercise and the practical reality of many directees. Hence, after the First Week, it moves directly into the Incarnation Exercise followed by the exercises on the early life of Jesus. I give more time to the early life of Jesus than a student of the Exercises text might expect. Only after these exercises on Jesus' early life, do I present the Kingdom Exercise and, then, with the mythic approach. If you would prefer to use the classic approach, consult Supplementary Prayer Unit 1, p.261f. If you would prefer to use more creativity for the mythic approach than that suggested in Prayer Units 10-15, consult Supplementary Prayer Unit 3, p.265ff. For a greater understanding on the use of myth, both in the Kingdom Exercise and in ongoing spiritual direction outside the Exercises journey, consult Part B, Chapter 25, "The Kingdom Exercise And The Use Of Myth In Spiritual Direction," p.349-358. Chapter Eleven The Incarnation -- Conception, Birth, And Childhood Of Jesus Comments For Prayer Units 10-14 Prayer Guidance And Gospel Contemplation This section begins with our foundational Christian belief that God became human in Jesus -- the Incarnation. We should keep in mind that the Incarnation does not refer only to the moment of the human conception of Jesus but also to the whole reality of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. The historical way by which the early church began to enunciate the belief in the Incarnation did not begin with a knowledge of the historical moment of Jesus' conception in Mary's womb. It began with the eyewitness accounts of Jesus' public life, of the disciples' experience of Jesus' death and Resurrection, and of the early Christian church's reflection which has been codified in the early Christian creeds. This mystery of the Incarnation is expressed beautifully in the ancient Christian hymn about how God emptied God's self to become human (Phil 2:1-11). Our belief is also interwoven with the mystery of God as Triune. Not only has God become fully human in Jesus, but it is the second person of our Triune God that is the person of Jesus.(3) The overall Christian worldview is both incarnational and trinitarian, at once immanent and transcendent. It is a worldview basic to Christianity and particularly stressed in Ignatian spirituality. The owning or appropriation of this worldview is important for both you and your directees. For directees in the Call Mode, this worldview is important for the decision-making process so that they will make "correct and good"(4) choices more in harmony with God's overall vision and movement of creation rather than for some lesser goal and objective. For directees in the Healing Mode, this worldview, appreciated appropriately, can assist a realistic acceptance of their limitations and brokenness which is significant for their personal-growth processes. In addition, this worldview is important for you as a prayer guide in your work of helping your directees interpret their prayer experiences. The relevance of this worldview to discernment will become more evident later in this manual.
> Features Of Prayer Unit 10 Incarnation Exercise. A meditative approach helps to establish the context for the Gospel Contemplations that follow.
> When you introduce Prayer Unit 10, emphasize the First Prelude of the Incarnation Exercise [102]: "... In the First Prelude, note how our God is unfolding God's love.... The title, Trinity, is the great historical way by which we Christians have attempted to grasp both God's personhood and mystery and the multiple ways God desires to relate to us -- creating, redeeming, sanctifying...." At some point, it may be helpful to read the instructions together. For exercises a)-c), suggest more of a meditative approach, a reflection that combines thought with the listening of the heart. Without too many instructions, encourage the use of imagination in prayer for d)-f) exercises. Why a more reflective prayer method for the first three exercises on the Incarnation? This is helpful to establish the overall and ongoing context for all the subsequent prayer exercises on the life of Jesus. This is true even though the literal text of the Incarnation presumes an explicit use of the method of Gospel Contemplation. However, directees seem to lose the impact and meaning of the Incarnation Exercise when they struggle to re-establish the Gospel-Contemplation method with this material. I would suggest that you spend time stressing this method only when you introduce the next prayer unit. Here you may want to engage your directee in a discussion around some of these questions: "... How do you image God's relationship to our human activity in the world? ... How do you image God's concern for the life of the planet itself? ... How do you understand your own role with respect to God's concern at this time in human history? ... In what ways is God present or absent in the world? ... In what ways do our human activities, along with ourselves personally, need saving? ..." Help your directee re-image the notion of salvation as a communal need as well as a private individual need. You can do this by introducing the notion of God's dream for the world. One of the motifs of this dream is in the gospel of John where Jesus prays for us to be one as he and his Father are one (Jn 17). In Jesus' prayer, we get a glimpse of the dream in God's heart. God desires that God's own inner life be made manifest among us. The intimacy that God experiences in God's self is a primordial symbol of how we are called to live in mutual cooperation and respect with our companion human beings and with creation itself. Then explain the meaning of intimate or deep-felt knowledge which is essential in the Grace being sought. For the same reasons given above, Prayer Unit 10 enunciates this Grace differently from the Grace enunciated in notation [104] and in the rest of the Second Week. In the Incarnation Exercise, suggest to your directee that he pray for an intimate knowledge of how God has made a choice to fulfil the dream of God's heart through Jesus' conception. Invite him to enter into the yearning of God's heart by asking for an intimate knowledge of the Trinity's deep desires for our planet and ourselves. In fostering your directee's growing awareness of God's dream and desires for the world, you are encouraging him to appreciate more deeply his own deepest desires and dreams. Hopefully this will be expressed in some form by Prayer Unit 15 where he will be encouraged to develop his own personal myth. Thus, as he releases his imagination with the mysteries of Jesus' early life within the context of God's dream for the world, the foundation for the mythic approach to the Kingdom Exercise is being laid. Before introducing Prayer Unit 11, listen for some of the following aspects of your directee's prayer experiences from the Incarnation Exercise on the dream of God: How has he attempted to comprehend the dream of God? How has this dream been involving for him? If he is in the Call Mode: How is he relating the questions concerning his need for decision-making at this time in his life to God's dream for the world through the mystery of Christ in the Incarnation? Discuss those preliminary issues of call and/or decision-making that he will need to begin to pray over more intentionally. Consult the section, "Walking Around The Question," in Chapter 27, pp.373-376, 383ff. If he is in the Healing Mode: How has he attempted to grasp the relationship of God's dream, implemented through the story of Jesus' conception, with his own life issues? Here are some examples: Mary's unexpected pregnancy intersects with God's dream. Mary's dream is shattered and shifted by unexpected circumstances, yet fulfilled differently. A directee's own personal brokenness is related to the world's brokenness. Correct Use Of Imagination In Gospel Contemplation Also note the manner in which your directee has or has not been able to use his imagination. If he is using Gospel Contemplation correctly, that is, if he has entered into the mystery of the Annunciation passage, then simply point out that he is doing Gospel Contemplation and that this will be the key method that he will be invited to use most of time on the Exercises journey. Note whether he is in Consolation or Desolation. If he is in Consolation and if he recognizes what has been happening in prayer and has a basic understanding of how it fits for himself, then there is no need for `interpretation' at this point. Just propose the next prayer unit.
> Features Of Prayer Unit 11 Nativity Exercise. This is a more practical place to give a teaching on the method of Gospel Contemplation and on the Grace.
> If your directee has not been using his imagination correctly in d)-f) exercises of Prayer Unit 10, it might be time to give some instructions on the use of imagination and its importance in the Exercises journey. However, for a directee who cannot easily do Gospel Contemplation, too many instructions may interfere rather than help. For directees who are definitely in the Call Mode, the purpose of the exercises on the early years of Jesus is to learn better how to do the method of Gospel Contemplation before entering explicitly and intentionally into the decision-making process. As notation [162] indicates, facility or the lack of facility to do Gospel Contemplation is one of the reasons given for shortening or lengthening the number of weeks assigned to these exercises on Jesus' early years. If you want to explore Gospel Contemplation, consult Chapter 23. Here is a short summary of some points from that chapter that may have relevance for you here: The best place where Ignatius gives a very clear approach of this method is the Nativity Exercise which is featured in Prayer Unit 11 [110]-[117]. Note what the method of Gospel Contemplation is and what it is not. It is the use of imagination on a text of a gospel event of Jesus' life. It is not the `steps' in the Ignatian `model.' The Exercises text presents only one model of the method. Do not confuse imagination with only image-making visually or pictorially. Everyone has imagination and can be present somehow to a past event through memory in various ways -- some people imagine through feelings, others through hearing, others through picturing, others through a combination of these. You can explain this method in many different ways.(5) Explain the Grace being sought. Here are a few ideas that might help: This Grace will be used for all the Second-Week Gospel Contemplations. Deep-felt knowledge means experiential and real as opposed to merely notional knowledge -- as real as the knowledge of a parent of one's own child, or of long-time lovers, or of best friends. It is both affective and effective; it is a deep-felt knowledge that is expressed in the decisions of one's life and the actions that flow from them [230]. This deep-felt knowledge implies intimacy which is manifested by a deep respect for each other's differences but in a context of mutuality [231]. The following of Jesus is not the following of some past historical ideal, but the following of Jesus living now by the work of the Spirit in the context of the directee's present history. This following is expressed in his discerned decisions and in the actions that flow from these. For a directee who is more in the Healing Mode, this following of Jesus is expressed in the intentional choices he makes to take concrete steps which foster his growth in the acceptance of his true self -- concrete steps which imply the embracing of his life as it is, not as he would like it to be. For a directee in the Healing Mode, you will certainly have to give some instructions on Gospel Contemplation and the Grace. After all, these will become helpful instruments for his healing. However, you may need to do much more work in listening to him at ever-deepening levels -- the different aspects of his story and the unresolved feelings about his past personal life which affect the way he makes choices and follows Jesus now. When a directee feels safe enough to allow the gospel stories to engage his imagination, unresolved issues surface. The stories of Jesus' birth, infancy, and early life may touch off memories that have been affecting his present life. Usually these memories are from the area of the psyche just below the conscious level. In the Exercises journey according to notation [20], the text suggests three days on the early life of Jesus. For the Exercises journey according to notation [19], this could translate into three weeks. However, Healing-Mode directees may need more time -- even longer than the five weeks suggested in this manual. Prayer Unit 11 invites the directee to use the Application of Senses. Do not spend time introducing this until you discover that your directee is doing both the Gospel Contemplations and Repetitions correctly. In a later session, perhaps in the next couple of weeks, you may judge that a teaching on this method will be helpful.
> Features Of Prayer Unit 12 The Naming of Jesus; The Visit of the Magi; The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. This might also be a good time for a teaching on the Application of Senses. The interpretation and discernment of Gospel Contemplations can only follow after the directee has learned how to do Gospel Contemplation.
> > Why is Gospel Contemplation difficult for some directees? Here are some typical difficulties a directee might manifest: Fear of giving up control on some level: conscious or less-than-conscious fears, unresolved conflicts such as personal-relationship issues that need to be resolved, etc.; Belief that he has no imagination and unaware of how he is constantly using it; Too many distractions; Some confusion and false assumptions about Gospel Contemplation: Imagining the gospel story needs the creativity of a movie director and has to progress as a story line does, Lack of appreciation of the nature of dreaming and of how Gospel Contemplation is `awake-dreaming' on scripture; Difficulty with accepting Jesus as truly human -- not taking the Incarnation seriously enough; Belief that Gospel Contemplation is not for him because he prefers centering prayer.(6) Generally many directees have difficulties because they are typical products of our scientific culture. They give more credence to conscious and controlled thinking rather than to the realities that arise from their spontaneous and ambiguous imagination. At times you need to teach your directees the value of allowing distractions to surface in prayer.(7) Distractions are not always distractions; there are some advantages in allowing them to surface with God: Unresolved conflicts get resolved. `Healing of integration' and `healing of meaning' take place.(8) Directees begin to face issues which God's Spirit or their own psyches have been nudging them to consider. Directees are liable to experience prayer more deeply and to resolve important concerns and issues for their lives. Gospel Contemplation And Prayer Guidance There are many facets involved in the art of guiding Gospel Contemplations. If you think through carefully all the facets in the guidance process and list these according to the chronological order in which you are likely to do them, they break down into these three basic activities -- instruction, interpretation, and discernment: Instruction 1) Is your directee using his imagination correctly both passively and actively? Passively he should be allowing his imagination to flow in a spontaneous manner; actively he should be remaining within the ambience and sense of the gospel story. 2) Is he asking for the Grace and how? 3) Is he allowing his real life to be affected by the gospel story in some way? 4) Has he allowed himself to be part of the story in a spontaneous manner without too much self-monitoring? Interpretation 5) Then note how he enters the story -- the manner in which he takes part in the mystery. Is he his own age or is he another age and what is the significance of this? Is he outside looking in or does he interact as a participant in the gospel event? In this interaction, does he dialogue with or does he "talk at" the persons in the story while just thinking about what their responses could be? 6) After all of this, you still need to discover how he is affected in his real life. Is there some connection between his personal life story that you have heard thus far and the awarenesses, trends of feelings and scenarios of his prayer? The "imagination logic" of the prayer in time should reveal itself as fitting into the "logic" of his personal life story. Discernment 7) Following the above, you need to note how central Jesus is in his Gospel Contemplations. 8) Ultimately what you are doing is trying to recognize whether what you are hearing is an expression of Consolation or Desolation: If your directee is in Consolation, leave the movement alone [15]. If you recognize that your directee is experiencing Counterfeit Consolation or Desolation, help him discern appropriately. If you are not sure whether the Consolation is authentic or counterfeit, let the movement be and wait. Any counterfeit aspects will generally become more evident as the movement is allowed to unfold. When we use the word discernment in a more generalized way, we imply all the above facets together. When we use the term discernment more technically, we primarily denote activities 7) and 8), particularly as they affect the decision-making process. However, you cannot discern Gospel Contemplations unless you do activities 1)-6) listed above. Furthermore, with Healing-Mode directees, most of your time will be spent in these first six activities. Perhaps the chart below will help pull together some of this discussion.
> > The chart illustrates how the discerning context often shifts,
> > as a directee moves through the Second Week,
> > The arrow in the diagram illustrates the flow of the Call-Mode directee's interior experiences as it passes through the various contexts of the Exercises. The variety of shading in the arrow indicates how the directee's experience is affected as he moves through the different contexts. The columns show how the prayer guide's role shifts as discernment, more strictly speaking, is required.
> > FROM more of a healing/identity** context with the interpretation of Gospel Contemplations: Is the directee -- — in or out of the mystery? — close or far from Jesus? — up or down with respect to Jesus and the other persons in the event; that is, younger, older, his own age, etc.? — realistic or unrealistic in bringing his personal life experiences into the Gospel Contemplation? — consistent or inconsistent with the graces received thus far or with what you know of him? — in Consolation or Desolation? |  | TO more of a call context of the Second Time [176] with discernment more strictly speaking: Is the directee -- — in Consolation or Desolation? — in true Consolation or Counterfeit Consolation [331]? — receiving the experience like water on a sponge or water on a rock [335]? — experiencing Spiritual Freedom or counterfeit freedom? Is the directee's response part of the Consolation Without Cause or did it come after the reception of that Consolation in the Afterglow [336]?
> > Use Of First Set Of Guidelines and through the above there often takes place: — Left-over healing; — Development of readiness for a decision; — Appropriation of being a loved sinner; — Growth in the ability to use Gospel Contemplation; — Putting on the mind and heart of Jesus; — More acceptance of himself and his personal history; — Rudimentary practice in using Guidelines for Discerning Spirits in day-to-day living |  | Use Of Second Set Of Guidelines and through the above there often takes place: — Some awareness of the important touchstones of directee's personal history that can help to recognize freedom and present call; — Consciousness of deceiving forces in directee's interior experiences; — Development of readiness and Spiritual Freedom; — Discernment of the Unconfirmed Decision; — Consolation Without Cause; — Grace of Confirmation in the decision-making process; — Familiarity with and ability to use of Guidelines for Discerning Spirits.
> ** A directee is in touch with his `identity' when he knows deeply that he is a loved creature, and a saved sinner -- and this awareness is living and empowering because of his personal relationship with Jesus. Consult the Glossary.
> Features Of Prayer Unit 13 Flight into Egypt; Slaughter of the Infants; Jesus' Boyhood before Age Twelve. Continue to monitor whether the directee is making the Gospel Contemplations appropriately. As required, interpret and discern the Gospel Contemplations. This is a good time to monitor how the directee uses the Application of Senses. With a Call-Mode directee who has come into the Exercises journey with a significant issue around which a choice needs to be made, now is the time to deal with the preliminaries of the decision-making process if you have not yet done so. Confer the section, "Walking Around The Issue," in Chapter 27. With a Healing-Mode directee, this is a good time to deal with the memories of past wounds that affect his adult day-to-day living as a mature Christian. Confer Chapter 24, "Guiding Directees In The Healing Mode During The Second Week."
> When you introduce your directees to the early life of Jesus such as in Prayer Unit 13, remember how the experiences and the events of Jesus' early life mirror those of real people in human history. The trauma and fear involved in escaping the slaughter of the infants would have left scars on anyone. Living in a foreign land away from one's extended family would bring with it some of the inevitable self-protective dysfunctions that any political refugees might develop. Many directees have roots in immigrant and refugee backgrounds. Many are living and working with people who have been displaced from their birthplaces. One would hope that the graces of this part of the Exercises journey would encourage a directee to embrace the pain of his own past more fully and find within it the seeds of hope for the future. As explained more fully in Chapter 23, the Application of Senses is another form of Repetition through which the directee is passively absorbed by some aspect of the mystery to which he has returned. Sometimes you can give certain images or use certain phrases to communicate the "how-to" of this method: "Let the mystery penetrate you like a person soaking leisurely in a bath tub ... like listening and being carried by a very beautiful melody ... or fragrance ... or sunset. Taste Joseph's faithfulness ... enter into Jesus' trust in Mary." Sometimes it is helpful to share one or two of your own experiences of the Application of Senses with your directees. Remember that the use of the word `senses' in this method is more by way of analogy. Ignatius' meaning is reflected in biblical phrases such as: "O taste and see the goodness of the Lord," and "Your law is honey to my lips." The tasting and seeing are beyond the veil of the material senses of tasting and seeing; they are deeper tasting and seeing -- with the heart, with the soul. In Ignatius' model of the Application of Senses in notations [121]-[126], he suggests that we "taste the virtues," not the food they eat; that we "smell the divinity," not the stable's straw and scent of the animals; that we "touch the place" where the persons sit or stand, not the persons! This should not be confused with smelling the animals or feeling the warmth of the swaddling clothes or the cold of the evening or the bumping along of the donkey or holding the baby which belong more to the category of Gospel Contemplation. These latter examples are usually not the profound and receptive passivity that Ignatius envisaged as being the outcome of the process of Repetition in the method he names as the Application of Senses. At the end of Chapter 23 there is a reflection exercise, with three different Reviews of a directee's prayer, to help you distinguish Gospel Contemplation from the Application of Senses. Discovering One's Personal Myth Once your directee has developed a facility with Gospel Contemplations and has begun to use the Application of Senses, it may be helpful to draw his attention frequently to the development of his own personal myth. He can do this by paying attention to how Joseph and Mary probably had to re-interpret the events of their lives. Both Joseph and Mary had been looking forward to the typical life and routine of a small village when Mary became pregnant and when the topsy-turvy situation of the census forced them to move to a strange region at the time of Jesus' birth. The circumstances and birth of their child was unpredictable. After Jesus' birth in a strange environment, further complications and unexpected events along with the fear of violence forced them to flee by night into a foreign country. Their understanding of what was happening in their lives and the unfulfillment of their dreams for the future needed to be adapted by shifting their personal paradigms. They would have had to re-vision their own situations and develop a new personal way of imagining how their lives might unfold into the future. If your directee is like the lawyer in the hypothetical examples given in the reflection exercise at the end of Chapter 23, it might be helpful later in the decision-making for your directee to get in touch with his operative myth to check whether it is still valuable or to discover a new emerging one. Myths and dreams, whether they are conscious or less-than-conscious, influence decisions. To be in touch with one's operative myth(s) facilitates the gift of Spiritual Freedom in the decision-making process. If you desire to encourage this approach, you may want to read Chapter 25. On Dealing With Healing Issues However, your directee may be dealing with feelings and issues that leave no space for developing his personal myth at this moment in his life. Frequently by this point in the Exercises journey, particularly with a Healing-Mode directee, past wounds and deep yearnings begin to surface. Some examples might include: feelings of abandonment accompanied by incapacity to relate very significantly with others; a sense of inappropriate shame; an anxiety of not performing well enough; etc. Such directees experience wounds that need to be healed. Their stories often indicate repetitious attempts to recapture missed experiences that, theoretically, would have taken place in the best of all worlds. Their wounds interfere with their ability to embrace life fully and, consequently, with their more complete following of Jesus. Our psychologically literate culture offers us a multiplicity of concepts to understand and deal with some of the issues of our wounded psyches. Among these concepts are toxic shame, addictive behaviours, co-dependent relationships, adult child of the alcoholic, dysfunctional family of origin, etc. Many of these concepts can be combined with the techniques of the Exercises to facilitate a directee's inner healing. Chapter 24, "Guiding Directees In The Healing Mode During The Second Week," deals with this more completely. When such experiences begin to surface in a directee's prayer, a prayer guide, influenced by her own unconscious needs, unwittingly may discount her directee's experiences. This can be done in many less-than-conscious ways such as when she projects her own stuff on her directee; or when she unwittingly denies what is being expressed. A more complete listing, with a brief explanation of ways we can trivialize, is given in Chapter 24. By this point in your work of prayer guidance, you might use that listing for your own Awareness Examen. Is it always beneficial for a directee to deal with memories that surface in Gospel Contemplations? Not always. Much depends on your own level of self-awareness and skilfullness as a prayer guide and on your directee's readiness. Certain signals will indicate this readiness and give you confidence to rely on the techniques of the Exercises as the directee brings such memories forward into the Gospel Contemplations. The faith context of meaning and the personal presence of God during the Exercises journey may empower him to face the pain of his past.
> Features Of Prayer Unit 14 Jesus is Lost and Found in the Temple; Jesus' Teen Years; Jesus' Years as a Young Adult.
Chapter 10 and 11 stay here Chapters 12 click here Chapters 13 and 14 click here Complete section Chapters 10 through 14 in a longer download click here. Endnotes For The Second Week 1. William A. Barry, S.J., Finding God In All Things: A Companion to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1991). Chapter 5, "God's Dream for Our World" (p.66ff), is a good, easy-to-read explanation of the Kingdom Exercises as myth and is very helpful in explaining the role of the Kingdom Exercise in relationship to the Second Week. Barry deals with the use of the Kingdom Exercise with the classic approach which encourages the directee to enter into Ignatius' myth of the King. 2. This creative approach of placing the Kingdom Exercise after the exercises on the early life of Jesus was first suggested to me by John English, S.J., for the "ad hoc" situation of giving the Exercises to individuals as part of a large-group, training program in the early 1980s. We wanted to harmonize the prayer material with the church calendar. As we were moving into the Christmas season, we discovered that many directees needed to spend more time on healing issues (surfaced during the First Week) and were not ready for the Kingdom Exercise. But they were able to deal with these healing issues with the Gospel Contemplations which were associated with the Nativity season. 3. In Roman, Anglican, and Orthodox theology, Mary is the mother of that person who is God. 4. The decision-making process within the Exercises is called the Election which means "choice" [175]. The model used by Ignatius is based on a choice of a state of life involving a permanent commitment -- marriage, some form of religious calling such as the priesthood. In other words, Ignatius uses the example of a directee's determining of a life-calling as the context for developing the principles for the decision-making process. He seems to view everything else as being `Reformation of Life'[189]. A good, sound, well-discerned Election can be referred to as a "correct and good choice" (as in Puhl's translation). A correct choice is not necessarily a successful choice in the future. It implies that, given the data the directee has while in the process of discerning, his choice was the most loving and spiritually free choice he could have made at the time. 5. A very useful way of explaining Gospel Contemplation is in my revised Orientations, Vol. 1, pp.37-39. However, I have discovered that some people take its encouragement for passivity too literally. 6. Occasionally during the Exercises journey, particularly when a directee is not involved in discerning a significant decision, Gospel Contemplation, as a method of prayer, may not fit his needs at this time in his life. The methods of the Exercises are made for the person, not the person for the methods of the Exercises. Like other created things, the prayer methods of the Exercises must be used inasmuch as they help, and not used inasmuch as they hinder our praise, reverence and service of God [23]. 7. Not too long ago (certainly in the first half of this century), this would not have been considered good advice. Distractions were considered an imperfection and signs of Inordinate Affections because they took the directee's total attention away from God. It was believed that, in prayer, the conscious mind had to be riveted consciously on a God who was more transcendent than immanent. 8. Consult the section, "The Healing Connection" in Chapter 33 of this manual, p.520ff. 9. John F. Wickham's article, "Ignatian Contemplation Today," in The Way Supplement 34 (Autumn 1978), shows that the fruit of Gospel Contemplation for the contemporary directee often does not manifest itself in a societal way as it did in the time of Ignatius. This article has been reprinted more recently in The Way of Ignatius Loyola (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1991), edited by Philip Sheldrake, S.J., p.145ff. 10. The issue here deals with Desolation, whether evident (as described in notations [315] and [317]) or less apparent. Also, the answer assumes that your directee has already used Gospel Contemplation well; this means that he has been able to allow the story to touch his real self. The assumption is that he is no longer in the phase of learning how to use this method. 11. Together is key to everything on the Exercises journey. You are not a "guru" with the magical, intuitive answer. The dynamic of the Exercises implies that you and your directee work together. The directee knows the Grace being prayed for and thus has the final say as to what may appropriately help him be disposed for it. 12. In this manual consult the Introduction to Part A; and Chapter 30, "Different Perspectives In Understanding And Using The Exercises," especially pp.461-466. 13. The habitual manner in which the directee relates to God and avoids the deepening of this relationship can become more subtle as the Exercises journey progresses. The Hidden Disordered Tendencies, illumined by the Third Exercise of the First Week, become more elusive in the "riches" of the Two Standards and the Temptation Under the Guise of Light during the decision-making process. Perhaps you have been able to note with your directee some relationship between the way he has got into trouble in doing the prayer exercises and the ways he is likely to get into trouble in his day-to-day living outside the prayer exercises and after the Exercises journey. For illustrative cases and a more explicit discussion of this point, consult Chapter 29, section C. Everyone has a different capacity and need for self-awareness and the particular correlation between the manner of handling the prayer exercises and the manner of handling life may be too subtle for your directee at this point. 14. What would be a distillation that would fit your directee's culture? 15. When resistance to explicit decision-making occurs, you should monitor your own resistance to this. Are you discovering in your directee what you resist for yourself? 16. Don't be misled by the Second-Week notation [161] which proposes both the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus' Preaching in the Temple for the directee's prayer exercises. The technique of Gospel Contemplation is intended here, too! The directee is to pray these by being present with Jesus as Jesus is teaching or preaching and not succumb to the temptation of turning the exercise into an analysis of each beatitude. 17. Mary, before the empty tomb (Jn 20:11), is a good example of the kind of "upsetness" that comes from a heart-filled generosity and love. She cannot understand what has happened. Here it is a question of misinterpretation, not having the facts. Her distress does not flow from disordered affectivity the way Desolation does. She is desolate, but not in Desolation. Go to Table Of Contents Of Orientations Volume 2