Introduction Part 2
At the end of the Spiritual Exercises, authored by St. Ignatius of Loyola in the 16th century, there is an exercise that has come to be known simply as “the Contemplatio”.The exercise has two pre-notes describing love as a mutual gifting and more present in deeds than in words. This is followed by a fourfold contemplation of the gifts of God, and the human response held in the thrust of the Suscipe, a prayer of offering beginning with “Take, Lord, receive all. . .”
In the first point, the retreatant is invited to contemplate the mystery that GOD GIVES, and contemplate the mystery that GOD GIVES, and brings to memory the many gifts of God , gifts of life, family, opportunities, etc.
In the second point the retreatant deepens the awareness that GOD INHABITS all creatures, giving them being, coming to us in sacraments, making of us a dwelling place.
In the third point, the retreatant considers how GOD LABORS—for me-- like a mother giving birth, like a potter, a bread maker, or a farmer.
Finally, with an awareness of God as both giver and gift, lavishing love upon me, like the sun pouring down its life-giving light and warmth and energy, GOD DESCENDS.
Given the mutuality of love, each movement of God elicits a response. As St. Ignatius says, "If I am to give a reasonable response, I will pray the prayer,"
"Take, Lord, and receive, all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my
entire will—all that I have and call my own. You have given it all to me. To you,
Lord, I return it. Everything is yours, do with it what you will. Give me only your
love and your grace. That is enough for me. love and your grace. That is enough for me."
Retreat directors have frequently puzzled about how to use this exercise. Is it the climax of the Exercises or simply an important way of praying? Is it a highly condensed form of the kernel of the Exercises? Is it to be divided into four prayer periods on a single day, or incorporated into the fourth week? This book, Loved and Loving: Contemplation to Attain God’s Love, is not to be considered as a culmination of the "Take and Receive" series. Although it may be used as an ongoing prayer for the retreatants who have completed the Exercises, it has been written with the intention to draw people into intimacy with God, to heighten their awareness of how they are loved and gifted by God, how God continues to labor within them to bring them to fullness and, finally, to elicit from them a loving response, a total offering of self, a co-laboring with God to bring forth the Kingdom. Our hope is that all who pray the Ignatian meditations in this book will see themselves as the loved and loving.
In recent years there has been a growing awareness that this Exercise was initially given by Ignatius, to the novices who were returning home after having come to Rome as pilgrims to make the month long Spiritual Exercises. At the end of this incredible spiritual experience, they were eager to return to their spiritual experience. They were eager to return to their various homelands to begin to “ co-labor with Jesus”. Ignatius knew that by the end of their long retreat, they were men in love with Jesus Christ and his mission. He gave them as their prayer for the journey home what has come to be known as the Contemplatio.
Ignatius told them to keep their eyes and their hearts open, for as men in love they would see what they had never really seen before—the majesty of the mountains, the strength of the winds, the beauty of the flowers, etc. These, he told them, they would now see as God’s gifts to them. What would be their response,? Take Lord, receive. . .
Not only would they see the mountains and trees and flowers as God’s gifts to them, but they would experience in the majesty of the mountains, the majesty of God, and in the strength of the winds, the strength of God. As they experienced the seasonal changes and the people at work in the fields, they would become more aware of how God labored in and for them, and finally they would be overwhelmed how all these gifts were showered on them like rain, or like the beams of sunlight.
So the journey home would be a pilgrimage, and the contemplation that marked the journey would become a way of life for the rest of their lives. S. Anne Hennessey, CSJ suggests that everything that follows the Spiritual Exercises in the Society of Jesus is an expression of the Contemplatio.
The Contemplatio is the crown and fruit of the Exercises. It is a way of life. It is as a “way of life’ that we have approached the writing of this book, with the desire to make available to those who make use of it, the deepening of the grace that was Ignatius’ own and which was described in the words of one of his early companions, Fr. Nadal:
"I shall not fail to recall that grace which Ignatius had in all circumstance, while
at work or in conversation, of feeling the presence of God and of tasting spiritual
things, of being contemplative even in the midst of action; he used to interpret this
as seeking God in all things."
Thanks be to God, who . .. through us is spreading everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of himself. To God we are the fragrance of Christ both among those who are being saved. . . . the smell of life leading to life. (2 or 2:14-16)
