Fourth Week
Contemplation to Attain Love
The close of the Exercises: finding and loving God in all things.
Preparatory prayer
Ask God our Lord for the grace that all my intentions, actions and works may be directed purely to the service and praise of his Divine Majesty.
Composition of place
See myself standing before God our Lord, the angels and the saints who intercede for me.
Petition
Ask for an inner knowledge of all the good I have received, so that, fully grateful, I may in all things love and serve his Divine Majesty.
Points
- Bring to mind the gifts I have received: creation, redemption and my own particular gifts. Weigh with great affection how much God has done for me, and how much of what he has he has given me.
- See how God dwells in his creatures: in the elements giving them being, in plants giving them life, in animals giving them sense, in people giving them understanding; and so in me, giving me being, life and sense, and making me his temple.
- Consider how God works and labours for me in all created things on the face of the earth (the heavens, the elements, plants, fruits, flocks and so on), giving them being and keeping them in being.
- See how all good things and gifts come down from above: my limited power from the supreme and infinite power above, and so too justice, goodness, compassion and mercy, as rays come down from the sun and waters from a spring.
Colloquy
End by offering everything to God in this prayer: “Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my entire will, all that I have and possess. You have given it all to me; to you, Lord, I return it. All is yours; dispose of it wholly according to your will. Give me only your love and your grace, for this is enough for me.”
Adapted from the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola (1548).