Walk through an actual meditation inspired by St Ignatius Loyola
To prepare for meditation and mental prayer begin the previous evening by choosing your meditation. And the predominant fault you will be addressing or the virtue you wish to aquire. After rising prepare the place for meditation by lighting a candle:
seting up your crucifix and picture of Our Blessed Lady. Its a good idea to sprinkle holy water around.
Bless yourself In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
Bring to mind and welcome God all around you.
Kneel and Adore. Servim “I will serve You Lord.”
Settle yourself to do your meditation and mental prayer.
Keep aware that God is all around you. He sees and is listening to you.
In the following meditation inspired by Ignatius we consider two points:
I belong to God
God has universal dominion over me
When Jesuit priests did secret missionary work in communist Russia –
they began their instruction – to the catacumins – with the proofs for the exitence of God.
With the Ignatian meditations it is presupposed that the aspaiant is christian and believes in God.
We don’t need to ask “Who is God”
So our next questions are:
Who am I?
And
Why am I here?
Here is how ignatius answers that question:
He says: I am destined for God:
the most important thing about us – believe it or not – turns out to be our relationship with God.
Not only do we ask – why we are here but
“Where am I going?”
The answer:
“ I am going to God”
I have no option.
I am on my way to God whether I like it or not.
That’s the truth of it. That’s just how things are.
It is as if when I entered the world, I was encased in a body.
I will journey through this life destined to abandon this body.
I will step out into the reality of God.
So ignatius would answer the questihaton “who am I” by describing the human being as a creature made by God and totally dependant on God.
And so Ignatius begins with the relationship between man and God.
He wants us to meditate on the reality that
We live under absolute dominion of God.
The most important piece of information is that mankind is on its way to God.
i belong to god.
he has absolute and universal dominion over me..
sit with this thought for a little while. In your meditation
I belong to God
sit with this truth in your mind. In your heart. loving the truth and loving God. Feel how those words have life in themselves.
I belong to God.
His Majesty owns me. He brought me to life from nothing. He has all prevailing dominion over me.
His ownership permeates my being.
I belong to God.
He caused me to come into being for a reason.
the reason? He created me for Himself.
I belong to God.
He wills that I come to Him, live within His presence, my face always turned toward Him.
I belong to God
He has complete authority over me. He is my King – I am a subject in His Kingdom.
This world belongs to God. All the heavens and the earth. The moon, the sun the stars belong to God. They are His. He created them from nothing. All belongs to God.
I belong to God.
I am destined for God
Ego sum alpha et omega, principium et finis,
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord God, – who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.
I am destined for God.
Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind.
Ait illi Jesus: Diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo, et in tota anima tua, et in tota mente tua.
We join with Jesus who said:
Begone, Satan: for it is written, The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and him only shalt thou serve.
Tunc dicit ei Jesus: Vade Satana: Scriptum est enim: Dominum Deum tuum adorabis, et illi soli servies.
I am destined for God.
When I follow satan by commiting sin I am disturbed and unhappy. I am not at peace.
When I recognise Satans traps and turn away quickly to keep the commandments of the most high God. I feel at peace.
“ We were made for thee o Lord and our hearts are restless until we find peace in thee.”
“Non serviam”. I will not serve. Said by satan will not be said by me.
I say Serviam = I will serve.
You are my king. Your Majesty it is my duty to serve you.
It is necessary that I serve God.
It is not necessary that I have worldy success
It is necessary that I serve God.
It is not necessary that I own a new car a new house. Many possessions
It is necessary that I serve God
It is not necessary that I am honoured among my family and friends.
It is necessary that I serve God.
I exist to serve God. To love Him. To know Him.
Lord you said to Abram: Fear not, Abram, I am thy protector, and thy reward exceeding great.
Your Magesty, I know you are my reward. I walk toward heaven. I turn away from Hell.
I renounce the devil and all his empty promises.
I choose You Lord. I choose Heaven.
It at a point such as this dear listener that you become still and dwell on the truths you have just read or spoken from your heart.
It is time to move deep into the narritive. Understanding it. In a way you breathe it. Live in its reality.
Even if you only hold onto one word repeating it over and over until the full force of it consumes all of your focus.
You may want to be silent.
Your talk now to God can take any form that presents itself to you as long as it is spontainous and from the heart.
Here is an example of how might talk to God in the collilloque:
In you my* God I see my faults.
I am guilty of lack of control in everday situations. I am guilty of showing irritation.
Irritation with my family, with friends, with strangers with things.
moments of quick anger rising unchecked with a dropped utensil.
irritation with a computer, phone, an animal. I’m failing in life moments.
The irritation erpts quickly when I am thawarted and is gone so quickly I mostly dont notice it. Even triping over a hen makes me screw up my face in annoyance.
I display such prideful exasperation when someone eles’s opinion is opposed to my own.
I react to my peevishness by sighing loudly, making exasperated sounds.
I use unnecessary noise. say something I shouldn’t.
I roll my eyes make a million little involuntary unchecked grimaces with my face.
How many time have I taken my irritation further deferred answering the request of another person, making them wait until I am ready because I felt put upon.
when you look at my soul Lord it must look like a tangled mess. Waspish and lacking peaceful control.
Yes Lord I am guilty of this sin with grows from pride and has no place here with you.
Oh my dear God I know I will hear once again my uncontrolled words of irritation for you warned us that on the day of judgement every idle word would be accounted for.
I’m sorry.
I belong to You my God.
Your majesty I am sorry, This behaviour is displeasing to you. I know.
I will stand before you at my judgement and view again all these seeds of wrath and wish with all my heart and soul that I had eradicated them from my life.
How much more painful will it be then to have all this tried by fire? For I know I cannot live in heaven and look upon your face with even the smallest sin between You and me.
I belong to you my God and I will serve you and because I love you I will do all I can to be gentle with others in all situations. I will interact with all material things with calm and poise. I will fill my life with gentleness.
At least that is what I would like to do.
But your Majjesty I cannot do without your help and your grace. I need your help will you help me.
sacred heart of Jesus I place my trust in thee. Immaculate heart of Mary make my heart like unto thine.
Thank you Lord for all your help and graces this far. Thank you for the great grace of making me want to do better and to please you. Amen
We end our meditation by saying the Our Father or Hail Mary.
Having finished the Our FAther which is a short vocal prayer we move from the place where we did our meditation and begin to review how successful we were in the meditation and the movement of love we experienced.
How do we gauge success or failure?
An important consideration is to ask ourselves how focused we were able to stay during the meditation?
How often did we wander off onto other thoughts about our material lives.?
when we felt ourselves begin to stray were we quick enough to pull ourselves back to the task?
when we survey the meditation part of our prayer did we feel that God was telling us anything in particular?
Did some thing reveal itself to us to make us look at a part of our lives that was not under the full dominion of God.
It is important to make a written note of particular things we learned. What resolutions have we felt lead to make after this meditation and our mental prayer?
It is usual to end our meditation with an Our Father or te Ave Maria.
What is termed Vocal prayer as in saying an Our Father with its strict formula is very different from mental prayer.
Or is it?
Having or coming to the end of our mental prayer when the words of the our father are pronounced generally you find that if the meditation has been successful that the graces received will still be falling on your soul.
As you recite the prayers the mind and heart will still be so involved with God and the our father so focused as to
appear as mental prayer itself.
I belong to God
I am destined for God…
Outro:
You have been listening to the meditaion and mental prayer podcast. Catholics talking to God. If your found this podcast interesting and would like more infomation on catholmic meditation to to my website. meditationjournals.com
Until we meet again. God Bless.
ending……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………dominion: lordship sovereignty ,control; domain of feudal lord, territory of sovereign or government.…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
