Embedded Files
opening song
opening song
The Contemplation of the Love of God
We conclude these days of personal prayer with a reflection on the Contemplation of the Love of God. This is the culmination of our Days of Personal integration and Wellness, but in a deeper sense, another new beginning for you. In this contemplation, we let God’s overwhelming love empower our lives. We see that the whole movement of these days has been rooted in and oriented toward love.
Before he offers this contemplation, Ignatius of Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises says two things about love:
1. “Love ought to manifest itself more by deeds than by words” (SE 230). Love must be put into action; words are not enough. Having been schooled as disciples these many weeks, we must now do something. WE end with a sense one of mission.
2. “Love consists in a mutual communication between the two persons” (SE 231). Just as the love between two persons is marked by giving and receiving, the love we share with God enjoys a certain mutuality. God wants our friendship. God wants to be known by us. These divine desires are the source of our desire to know, love, and serve God.
The Grace I Seek
“I ask for what I desire. Here it will be to ask for interior knowledge of all the great good I have received, in order that, stirred to profound gratitude, I may become able to love and serve the Divine Majesty in all things”
Thank God for So Many Gifts
The first point of the Contemplation of the Love of God: thanking God for so many gifts.
I will call back into my memory the gifts I have received—my creation, redemption, and other gifts particular to myself. I will ponder with deep affection how much God our Lord has done for me, and how much he has given me of what he possesses, and consequently how he, the same Lord, desires to give me even his very self, in accordance with his divine design.
Then I will reflect on myself, and consider what I on my part ought in all reason and justice to offer and give to the Divine Majesty, namely, all my possessions, and myself along with them. I will speak as one making an offering with deep affection, and say:
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and all my will—all that I have and possess. You, Lord, have given all that to me. I now give it back to you, O Lord.
All of it is yours. Dispose of it according to your will. Give me love of yourself along with your grace, for that is enough for me. (SE 234)
The “Take, Lord, Receive” prayer is an offering made in freedom. We have been praying for indifference throughout the retreat: to become free of disordered loves. Now we focus on why this freedom is necessary: we become free from excessive attachments so that we can love and serve God and others more. Basking in the love of God, we are empowered to love as God loves.
REFLECTION:
Fall in Love
Attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe, SJ (1907-1991)
Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.
closing song
closing song
Page updated
Report abuse