Hi! It has been a while since I posted on here. We started a new homeschool year, which always scatters my focus, and did some traveling.
Today I went on a walk and listened to a couple of Catholic Comments podcasts. Catholic Comments is affiliated with Creighton University, a Jesuit institute. You tend to have to pick and choose between your modern Jesuits, sadly, so I can't vouch for the whole series, but the two I listened to were good. They were:
The first one I listened to was an interview with a nun, Sister Marie Schwan, who directs retreats and has written a retreat series published by Word Among Us.
She was talking about the different ways you can be involved in an Ignatian Retreat and the different time frames and purposes. St Ignatius envisioned his Spiritural Exercises as taking a month, but the "month" wasn't really a specific time frame but rather a set of four weeks which were more like stages of progress. The Exercises allow for variations in time frame, so some retreats can take nine months to a year (obviously, then they would not be total withdrawals from the world but take place as part of daily life).
The podcast on the Examen was an explanation by a priest of the practice of this specific exercise, which St Ignatius regarded as one of the most essential. He says that even if a Jesuit has no time for any other traditional Ignatian practice, he should not forgo the daily Examen. It is not the same as an Examination of Conscience. It is a way of reflecting on your immediate past (the day gone by) and considering your immediate future (the day to come) in the light of grace. You are supposed to pay attention to strong emotions as you consider your memories of the past day. In other words, if you had a sort of topographical map or infrared sensor of your past day, what would loom the largest? These are often the moments you are intended to use and examine thoughtfully with an eye to what God is telling you. Same with your immediate future. Is there an event on your schedule that fills you with happiness or contrarily, dread? What is God guiding you to see here? This examen can involve looking at your journal or log of the past day and your planner for the coming day but it is not simply, say, a productivity exercise. IT is a way of being mindful and above all, making sure you are deeply aware of God's presence in the most nitty-gritty, tiny, particular areas of your life. It is the antidote to compartmentalization, among other things, and this is why it is considered so vitally important to Ignatian spirituality.
Catholic Comment has a whole series on the Ignatian exercises so now I am getting more motivated to get out and start walking again so I can keep listening. I've only gone on one walk this past week, so I need to make inertia work for me and rebuild the habit. The podcasts are shorter than the ones I have been listening to recently, which suits my presently more scattered frame of reference.
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