This week was the fourth gathering of those participating in the Lent Retreat in Daily Living I’m offering both at St. Hubert and at the University of St. Thomas. As we do each week, the participants started by spending time in small groups, sharing something of their prayer experiences from this past week.
This past week, the participants began praying with Week 2 of the Spiritual Exercises, where the focus is on getting to know Jesus so that we desire to follow him more deeply. Last week the prayer included prayer exercises that began with the Incarnation and ended with the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. As we continue with Week 2, we walk with Jesus during the early part of his public ministry.
During my talk, I spoke about the sources of discouragement that sometimes arise when engaged in prayer of this sort. I also talked about the Ignatian concepts of spiritual consolation and spiritual desolation and how we recognize each. Finally, I talked about the prayer material for the upcoming week.
If you are just joining us now, check the podcast page for links to my talks and the prayer material for the first three weeks of the retreat. You can join with us in prayer at any time. If you do, feel free to contact me with any questions either as a comment here or via e-mail.
You can find the recording of the talk I gave this week at St. Thomas here . (The podcast runs for 19:05.) You can find here a copy of the prayer material for the third week of the retreat, as well as a couple of other handouts I distributed (which I refer to during the talk).
Creo en Dios! 