*A Final Reflection

• Growth in friendship and intimacy needs time and constant attention. Try to give 10 to 15 minutes daily to this examination.

• Cover all five points daily with a freedom to linger more at one point than another, as the Spirit moves you.

• Notice how you grow in appreciation for the variety of vocations -- marriage, priesthood, religious life -- among the people of God.

• Pray that all hear God's call and respond generously to their vocation. "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth ..."

The First Principle and Foundation

The goal of our life is to live with God forever.
God who loves us, gave us life.
Our own response of love allows God's life to flow into us
without limit.

All the things in this world are gifts of God,
presented to us so that we can know God more easily
and make a return of love more readily.

As a result, we appreciate and use all these gifts of God
insofar as they help us develop as loving persons.
But if any of these gifts become the center of our lives,
they displace God
and so hinder our growth toward our goal.

In everyday life, then, we must hold ourselves in balance
before all of these created gifts insofar as we have a choice
and are not bound by some obligation.
We should not fix our desires on health or sickness,
wealth or poverty, success or failure, a long life or short one.
For everything has the potential of calling forth in us
a deeper response to our life in God.

Our only desire and our one choice
should be this:
I want and I choose what better
leads to the
deepening of God's life in me.

- St. Ignatius as paraphrased by David L. Fleming, S.J. from the beginning of the Spiritual Exercises

St. Ignatius' Prayer for Generosity

Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.

Take, Lord, and Receive

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding, and my entire will.
All I have and call my own.
Whatever I have or hold, you have given me.
I restore it all to you and surrender it wholly
to be governed by your will.
Give me only your love and grace
and I am rich enough and ask for nothing more.

- St. Ignatius, from the end of the Spiritual Exercises

The Prayer of a First Jesuit

With great devotion and new depth of feeling,
I hope and beg, O God, that it finally be given me
to be the servant and minister of Christ the consoler,
the minister of Christ the redeemer,
the minister of Christ the healer,
the liberator, the enricher, the strengthener.
To be able through you to help many --
to console, liberate and give them courage;
to bring them light not only for their spirit
but also for their bodies,
and bring as well other helps to the soul and body
of each and every one of my neighbors.
I ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

- Blessed Peter Faber, S.J., from his Memoriale

Teach Me to Listen

Teach me to listen, O God,
to those nearest me,
my family, my friends, my co-workers.
Help me to be aware that
no matter what words I hear,
the message is,
"Accept the person I am. Listen to me."

Teach me to listen, my caring God,
to those far from me --
the whisper of the hopeless,
the plea of the forgotten,
the cry of the anguished.

Teach me to listen, O God my Mother,
to myself.
Help me to be less afraid
to trust the voice inside --
in the deepest part of me.

Teach me to listen, Holy Spirit,
for your voice --
in busyness and in boredom,
in certainty and in doubt,
in noise and in silence.

Teach me, Lord, to listen. Amen.

- Adapted by John Veltri, S.J.