Facilitators - Week 2

Pentecost retreat 2020: Week 2 - Growing in love and compassion

Thank you again for your generosity and commitment.

At the beginning of this week it would be worth going round the group and checking how people are finding the transition from the Lent book to this Pentecost retreat material. The style is different, it is in some ways `lighter`. The Lent retreat was as you know a precis of the Spiritual Exercises and included many of the notes and teaching points presented in the Exercises. This retreat assumes your groups have a working knowledge of those. The Lent retreat was put together in the autumn in what feels like a different world. This material has been written in response to the present unprecedented situation.

The grace we are praying for in the second week is:

“At this time of need: to be open and touched and formed by God who IS love and compassion”.

In later weeks we will consider how each of us is called and sent out as part of God`s mission. For now, the grace we are asking for is that we will experience for ourselves the God who is love and compassion. Some people in the groups may be at the front line of this pandemic, others may be staying at home and contributing through their experience of loneliness or boredom rather than activity. Each person`s situation will be different. In the grace we are praying for this week we are asking for God to open us to new possibilities and touch us in new ways in preparation for service. The challenge here is to entrust ourselves to God and to allow him to use this time of uncertainty to “mould us and fashion us” so that we can serve him in this pandemic and beyond.

There are passages which would be suitable to pray with lectio this week and a number of passages where imaginative contemplation could be used. Often there is an invitation to have a conversation with God or with Jesus. This is an important element in Ignatian Prayer, Ignatius refers to it as a colloquy. There are some additional notes about using a colloquy below.

This week also suggests using a mantra and praying with the body, again there are some additional notes on these ways of prayer below.

On Saturday we again have a day for repetition. This is built into each week of the retreat so hopefully people will recognise it as a way to deepen the prayer from the week. This week mentions resistance. Most people will recognise this experience but may not be used to using it as part of their prayer. A few notes are included below on this too.

In this retreat we have time, if people are finding the prayer of one particular day fruitful, they need not rush on to the next day`s material. If your group doesn`t feedback on everything that is fine too, stay with and deepen what has the most life.

Colloquy

A colloquy is an intimate conversation between you and God or between you and Jesus. Let this conversation naturally develop in your prayer.

In the colloquy, we speak and listen as the Spirit moves us: expressing ourselves, for example, as a friend speaks to a friend, or as a child speaks to a parent or mentor, or as a lover speaks to his or her beloved.

Whatever the context, be “real,” speaking from the heart. As in any meaningful conversation, make sure to leave times of silence for listening.

It is usually helpful after the prayer to use your journal to recall the conversation and how it left you feeling.

Using a Mantra

A mantra is a word or phrase that you repeat throughout your prayer. Here it is suggested you chose a word or a phrase from the psalm, but it could be anything that is of significance for you. Whichever word or phrase works for you in your prayer is the right one.

You can use it in your prayer time, repeating the phrase slowly and rhythmically and allowing it to deepen in you. You can also carry the word or phrase with you through the day, perhaps, repeating it to yourself as you walk or by writing it down. You could make it into your screen saver for the day or stick it on the fridge or coffee machine to remind you of it at regular intervals.

Body Prayer

Your mind, heart, soul, and spirit are embodied. You cannot compartmentalize your experience into categories of spiritual as opposed to physical. Kevin O`Brien SJ warns against giving up and saying God is absent when actually your body is tired, hungry or angry¦

The body nurtures and carries prayer. Prayer simmers within, sometimes for a long time, before it ever becomes conscious words you say or think

All your experience is housed in your body. In fact, your body has memories you don’t have access to. Anyone who plays an instrument or trains for a sport knows that muscles have memory. Our bodies remember bliss, stress, excitement, and trauma; our muscles and organs often remember better than our minds do.

How appropriate, then, that we enlist our bodies—that we deliberately engage our physical senses—when we pray.

The exercise offered in the retreat material is very simple. The gestures described will be familiar to most. But some members of the groups might like to more creative and put movements together in a way that helps them to pray with a passage, poem, or song.

Resistance

We can encounter resistance in a variety of ways. We might in an imaginative contemplation find ourselves recoiling from a particular character or feeling angry with Jesus. We might instantly dislike a picture. We might feel uncomfortable in our prayer.

Resistance might seem negative, but God’s action is always there inside the resistance

Resistance is a term that is often used in descriptions of spiritual movements. In its simplest terms, it is used to describe when we resist God’s action, but what exactly does that look like?

We can resist many things to which God might be calling us. For example:

We can resist change, even though change is a necessary part of life.

We can resist God’s asking to try new roles that are uncomfortable

We can resist letting go.

We can resist a change in the way we are being invited to pray.

We can even resist love.

When we notice our own resistance, it can be helpful to (1) name it, (2) be kind and patient with ourselves, and (3) “act against” it, as Ignatius recommends. For example, the resistance you might feel towards someone you are close to after an argument often melts away when you actively act against the resistance and show love to that person.

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