Why I love “Ignatian Prayer”: Five Blessings from Praying in the Way of St. Ignatius

Why I love praying in the way of St. Ignatius

A few years ago, I discovered a number of “Ignatian prayer” resources on the Web, and I have loved them over these past years. These kind of prayers, which draw their inspiration from St. Ignatius of Loyola, the 16th century author of the “Spiritual Exercises” and the founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), seem to work well for someone of my particular wiring. They also have several positive features, which I believe are helpful to anyone wanting to grow in intimacy with God.

So what is it about these “Ignatian” prayers that are so appealing? Well, here is my brief list drawn from my impressions of these exercises in these last months, and also the brief reading I have done about them.

First, these prayers recognize God’s presence and activity in every aspect of our lives – even the most mundane ones, and as we rest in our present prayer time or review the day we just lived, we begin to find God in places and experiences that we may not have noticed Him before. It helps to foster our call to “pray without ceasing” and to truly to see “God in all things” (not in a pantheistic sort of way but in the sense that all things were created by Christ and for Christ and are upheld by Christ at every moment.)

Second, they remind us of God’s love for us, and even though we Christians know this Truth intellectually, sometimes especially when times are hard, we have a more difficult time believing this deep down in our hearts. However, when we pray in the way of St. Ignatius, we are compelled to contemplate God’s love for us. For me in particular, it has been moving in these past months (which have personally represented a time of letting go, endings, and loss) to participate in various recorded Ignatian prayer exercises and to hear someone else pronounce God’s love for me over me.

Third, they encourage an attitude of thanksgiving in us. Whether we are thinking about the present moment or reviewing the previous hours of our day, we are encouraged to remember that all that we have is a gift from God and then to thank Him for all these wonderful gifts, great and small. Again, this is particularly helpful in times of difficulty in our life because in these moments, we tend to think that nothing is going right. However, if we dig deeper, we can find all sorts of gifts and graces that God has given us to lighten the darkness in which we find ourselves. These prayers remind us of God’s love and they help us to find joy in whatever circumstances we are currently experiencing.

Fourth, they help us get in touch with our emotions. While some Christians think our emotions can be misleading and even dangerous, it is safe to say that ignoring our emotions is equally as dangerous. We must be present to our emotions and for the movement of God in them. God speaks through them, and our deepest desires and our inner orientation towards God and towards things in this world can be found in them. For example, intellectually we may say that we trust God, but when we look to our emotions, we actually find that our inner orientation is a lack of trust. When we realize this, we can be truthful with God and ask Him to give us the grace to trust in Him. As another example, if we are present to our emotions, we can see those things that bring us delight over and over again – for me, for example, one of those things is being out in creation. When we recognize these things that bring us joy, we can begin to clue in to how God has designed us and perhaps even how he may be calling us to live. Thus, opening up to our emotions in prayer is extremely important in the exercise of knowing self and knowing God. (To see how we can “test” our emotions to see when they are leading us towards God or away from God, read the article on “Discernment and the Role of Emotions that can be found here.)

Finally, they allow us to use our imagination as we enter into Biblical stories as if we were actually there. Just think of the kids of Mary Poppins jumping into the sidewalk chalk pictures, and that is what we are doing – popping into the Biblical stories! We ask: what do we see, hear, feel, smell, taste? What emotions rise up in us as we hear the Scripture story retold? Now, while I recognize that such exercises will not work for all of us, for those of us with rich imaginations, God can speak to us in deep ways and also in different ways than when we simply “think” about the text and only the “facts” that are there. Again, some of us might worry that our imaginations will lead us astray, but if we our truthful with ourselves, we recognize that our thinking, itself can lead us astray, and we have plenty of examples in our church history to prove that! So just as we ask that all our thinking be sanctified and lead us into Truth, we ask the same of our imagination and we trust that God will show up and speak to us in the ways we need to hear.

So at least for me, these aspects of Ignatian prayer have proved to be very helpful in getting in touch with myself and in growing closer with Christ in these last months.   Perhaps, they will be of help to you too.  To try out some simple Ignatian prayers and examens, look here. (Try “Pray as You Go” and the Examens.)

Blessings,

Kristen+