What I Did on my Silent, Ignatian Retreat

In speaking to people 'In Real Life' recently, I've realised that there is some curiosity as to what goes on during a silent retreat. and even some puzzlement as to why anyone should want to do such a thing.

So I thought I would post here a bit about 'What I did on my silent retreat'.

There are many different places around the country that give silent retreats but I went to Loyola Hall Jesuit Spirituality Centre in Rainhill near Liverpool.

I arrived at about 4:00 pm on Monday and was greeted by three staff members and then shown to my room. I was told that Mass would be celebrated at 6:00 pm if I wanted to attend and that dinner would be at 6:45 pm. (None of the activities are compulsory) At dinner, I met the people in my group and, as we were still allowed to talk at this stage, we were able to chat and get to know each other.

At 8:00 pm we met with the two women who would be our 'Prayer Companions' and we were each assigned to a Prayer Companion as well as given a few housekeeping notices as to what would happen when. A few bible passages were suggested for us to choose to meditate upon and the silence began.

The basic pattern of my week was:

1) Meditate on a bible story. I tend to use either Ignatian prayer or Lectio Divina mainly because these ways of 'praying the bible' work well for me.
2) Listen to God in prayer in order to hear and discern where he is leading me.
3) Share the above with my Prayer Companion and agree on the next bible passage, if any.

4) Spend the day in prayer and quiet and attend the daily Mass (service of Holy Communion)

So, did I spend 16 hours a day on my knees praying? No. Although I did spend several hours praying in either 1-hour or 30-minute chunks. Loyola House has quite a number of different rooms and chapels specifically designed for prayer and there are also extensive grounds for walking. I also walked around Rainhall as well as the Loyola grounds. A lot of my listening to God takes place whilst walking. Did I mention that one is not supposed to read during a silent retreat, either? The silence is actually a way of tuning in to your own mind as well as to what God might have to say.

Silent prayer is not supposed to be about contemplating your navel, either. Ignatian prayer is supposed to have what is termed 'an apostolic mission': i.e. the pray-er is meant to discern what God wants them to do as a Christian disciple.  

One last thing. I expect that this way of praying is not for everyone nor is a silent retreat for everyone. God made us all differently and we don't all have to pray in one manner any more than we all have to worship in one manner. One of the most important tenets of prayer is 'Pray as you can, not as you can't'.

Thinking Faith

The British Provence of The Society of Jesus (Jesuits) has launched a new website entitled Thinking Faith.

Those who know me in person know that I originally studied theology at a Jesuit university in the States during the 1970s. I'm indebted to my university experience for showing me that it is possible to be both a Christian and a thinking person.

I'm particularly indebted to Jesuits at my university for introducing me to Ignatian prayer. I belong to the Christian Life Community which is a community dedicated to praying and sharing prayer in an Ignatian format.

The Society of Jesus is dedicated to 'thinking' as well as to prayer, hence a 'Thinking Faith' website is well within their tradition (although I think they might need someone who knows just a little bit more about formatting web-space). Historically, Jesuits have been committed to prayer, to social justice and to education.

Methodism: Dissing is Futile, Vision is Everything

I've been an amateur practitioner of Ignatian Spirituality since my undergraduate years at a Jesuit University in the 1970s. I don't claim to be an expert, by any means, although I've made some study of Ignatian Spirituality for my own devotional purposes.

The thing that I really like about Ignatian spirituality is that it actually provides fairly simple, common-sense guidelines for spiritual discernment. How do I find God in ordinary situations? How do I know that it's God talking and not The Enemy?

The principle is simple although the practice of the principle most certainly is not. Using Protestant Evangelical language: a committed, saved Christian who is genuinely trying to seek the will of God will find energy and motivation when he seeks to do the will of God. The Enemy will not normally tempt a committed Christian by trying to get him to perform blatently sinful acts. The Enemy will tempt a committed Christian by presenting him with apparently 'Godly' options. Jesus' temptation in the desert fits this model well.

One way that I suspect that The Methodist Church in Great Britian may be falling into the temptation of The Enemy (define her / him as you will; I believe) is our constant talking ourselves down. As an organisation, we have very effectively communicated the message to both our members and to the general public that we are dying, that we are useless, that we are ineffective and that we have nothing to offer. In other words, we have been very, very, VERY effective in 'dissing' ourselves. Everyone is now 'on message' with this, including the secular media.

I believe, in fact, that Methodism has a great deal to offer the world. By history and tradition our rendition of the Gospel is a very powerful 'vision statement': The Kingdom of God. A Kingdom that is: 1) now and 2) not yet. 1) A 'now' kingdom that we are called to work for in our discipleship in this life; 2) A future, eschatological, 'supernaturally'-initiated Kingdom that will come when God decides and by his mighty hand mediated by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This is a vision that I can get excited about; I don't understand why we are not holding this vision before the Church at every opportunity.

The human mind does not work well in negatives. We will not inspire anyone - members or others - by constantly talking ourselves down. If we keep saying that we are useless, then this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy just like the little boy whose parents tell him he will never amount to anything. Hold before the Methodist people an image of a dying, gospel-less denomination and we will become that dead thing.

I genuinely believe that by and large Methodists and Methodism know what the Gospel is. My challenge to us is to hold this vision of the The Kingdom of God constantly before each other and before ourselves. Whenever we are tempted to say 'We are useless because our numbers are declining', I hope we can hold Christ and the vision of the Gospel before each other to encourage one another. I hope we can stop repeating our narratives of discouragement.

This is not a call to complacency. It is, in fact, a call to action and a call to stop using our energy to discourage ourselves and one another but rather to encourage each other and to work for the Kingdom. Who knows what God's purposes are? This may be a time when we are being called to patience and perserverence so that God may do things we cannot even imagine in the future.

Prayers of St. Ignatius and John Wesley

St. Ignatius' Prayer

Take, O Lord, and receive my entire liberty,
my memory, my understanding
and my whole will.
All that I am
and all that I possess
You have given me:
I surrender it all to You
to be disposed of according to Your will.
Give me only Your love and Your grace;
with these I will be rich enough,
and will desire nothing more.

John Wesley's Covenant Prayer (modern version)

I am no longer my own but yours.
Your will, not mine, be done in all things,
wherever you may place me,
in all that I do
and in all that I may endure;
when there is work for me
and when there is none;
when I am troubled
and when I am at peace.
Your will be done
when I am valued
and when I am disregarded;
when I find fulfilment
and when it is lacking;
when I have all things,
and when I have nothing.
I willingly offer
all I have and am
to serve you,
as and where you choose.

Glorious and blessèd God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours.
May it be so for ever.
Let this covenant now made on earth
be fulfilled in heaven.

Ignatius of Loyola and John Wesley

Ignatius of Loyola was born in 1491 and died in 1556. He was a contemporary of Martin Luther and had his dramatic conversion at about the same time that Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. The religious society that Ignatius founded (Society of Jesus - Jesuits) pledged its loyalty to the Pope, who Ignatius sincerely regarded as the Vicar of Christ on Earth. Clearly Ignatius was no Protestant!

John Wesley was born in 1703 and died in 1791. He was an Anglican clergyman and the son of an Anglican clergyman. Although credited with being the Father of Methodism, he did not set out to found a new denominantion. His interest was rather in a spiritual revival within the Church of England and bringing the message of the Gospel to those who were not readily able to hear it - especially the poor (who were normally not welcomed in churches).

In my opinion, Ignatius and Wesley had broad commonalities in their ministries. Both were passionate about God and Christ, both were passionate about living lives dedicated to discipleship and service, both were concerned with the development of people's prayer lives and both were concerned about practical help for the poor.

I also think that both men were "reformers" in the broad sense of the word - calling the Church of their time out of an institutionalised religion and into genuine service. Both were absolutely passionate about what Catholics term "Apostolic Ministry" and what Protestants term "The Social Gospel".

I love both St. Ignatius' prayer of commitment and John Wesley's covenant prayer. I'm not the first to spot the similarities, but one has to wonder whether Wesley's prayer was influenced by Ignatius' prayer. Or perhaps both prayers simply sprang spontaneously from the commitment that these two men felt for God?

St Ignatius and Me

One Christian teacher, thinker and saint who keeps "popping up" (coincidence? I don't think so) in my life is Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits.

I first "met" Ignatius when I went to university to study International Affairs in 1975. I had chosen that university specifically for their International Affairs degree but because it was a Jesuit university, we were required to study two modules of theology in our first year and two in our second year (university studies are a four-year affair in in the US, for those who don't know)

It's hard to find the words for what that first theology module was like. Ignatius would have said - I think - that I found my "vocation". I fell madly, passionately in love with theology (and if I'm being brutally honest, at that time I was more in love with theology than with God). After my first year at university, I changed my major (changed my course of study) and began to study Theology rather than International Affairs.

It was through the Christian community at university - particularly the Jesuit community - that I learned about Ignatius of Loyola. I learned about his way of meditating from scripture: how to "put" myself inside a biblical story and ask God to speak to me through it. This was not about getting "the correct interpretation of the passage" - as it has been in my inerrantist denomination - Ignatian scriptural meditation was simply about allowing God's word to speak to me, many times in very surprising ways that had nothing to do with "the right interpretation" of the text.

I left university and, as many young people do, I became a sporadic church-goer for a variety of reasons. For a very long time I also considered that I was not a Christian. But I continued to practice the Ignatian way of prayer that I learned in university. With the benefit of hindsight, I think that I can safely say that this prayer-practice may well have saved my faith. So I poodled along for a very long time until one day - after about 2 years of trying to gently nudge me - God made it dramatically clear that he wanted me to commit every fibre of my being to his service.

I responsed to that call, "pushed doors" - as they say - until one day I found myself accepted into the preliminary stages (Foundation Training) for the Methodist ministry (The Methodist Church of Great Britain). Once again, I encountered Ignatius. As prospective Methodist ministers, we were being trained in the Ignatian way of prayer and taken through sections of The Spiritual Exercises!

In theology college, I found myself choosing Ignatius as the subject for my module on Contemporary Spirituality and this past July, I attended a short retreat at Loyola Hall near Liverpool. There I met three other Methodist Ministers on retreat and one of them encouraged me to find a Spiritual Director, so I now find myself with a Jesuit Spiritual Director.

So, St. Ignatius now seems like a permanent feature in my life. I have no idea why this is the case, but I'm certain God is at work; I shall just keep pushing these Ignatian doors to see what happens.

P. S. I didn't set out to write a post like this, but I think there must be a reason for having done it, so I'll take a breath, trust in God and post the story in faith that it touches someone for some reason. God willing, the next post will be on the subject I originally intended to write about.