Thy Love and Thy Grace are Enough for Me

I've always been drawn to Loyola in one way or another. Growing up, my favorite saints were St. Anthony, St. Therese, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Dymphna (I often felt like I was loosing my sanity). You would never have heard me mention St. Ignatius. However, I was drawn to Loyola University, and Jesuits..ok ok, maybe I was drawn to Jesuit High School because I thought it was filled with attractive, rich, smart boys. As I said, in one way or another. Sadly didn't get to go to Loyola and I didn't get to date a smart Jesuit boy.
I've always been a super reserved Catholic. Maybe it's because I was raised so traditionally. I hated the WOW worship cds that came out in high school, and when I was in middle school I loved going to adoration. When I went with my dad, he would always give me prayers to say and books to read to spend an hour with Jesus. I just liked going to sit in there. I'm sure my understanding of the blessed sacrament has changed since my pre-teen years, but I knew Jesus was there in that sun-like monstrance. And yes, I knew what a monstrance was because I was in Catholic school. I knew my prayers and I liked saying prayers, I specifically liked novenas and the Divine Mercy Chaplet, but I also always wanted to just talk to God frankly.

The more I've grown, the more that I know God does want us to open our hearts to speak and ears to listen to him just as much as he likes us to recite devotions. So when I go to communion, I like to say the Anima Christi and then just sit there. There are so many distractions, I don't need to block out the crying children or the girl wearing an inappropriate length dress by reciting prayers that will block out God if he's trying to tell me something.

I've heard of the examen for years. I've heard that St. Ignatius was very internal with his praying. It struck a chord with me but I never looked into his life or practices further. However, this year, situation after situation has pulled me into St. Iggy's orbit, so to speak. In a retreat meditation I was leading, I decided to start with an examen. This examen lead me to find all of these Ignatian spirituality resources online just waiting for me. Parallel to this time, I was also made aware of a young adults retreat called Charis that was new to this area. I was invited to be on the first team for this retreat and I have been so ultra focused on St. Ignatius ever since. I guess my prayer life has always been influenced by Matthew 6:6
"But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."
And I'm a bit of a headcase at times, err, I just think, a lot, about everything. It seems like St. Iggy could be a bit of a kook as well. And if he was a little too introverted and overly analytical and still became a saint, I think maybe I'm in good company and just maybe I can live a holy life. As Matthew Kelly says, I just need to start with holy moments.

So I'm trying. And as I try, I continue to accidentally happen upon St. Ignatius in my life. My friends introduced me to this hymn/song "Take Lord, Receive" and I just thought the words were so beautiful. Months later, I found out that this was a prayer of St. Ignatius called the Sucipe. The prayer is as follows:
Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.
You have given 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.

When I discovered this, I thought it was so cool that he popped up yet again. I also noticed that the catechumen course I'm taking online mentions examens and methods of St. Ignatius quite frequently. Then just last Friday was his feast day, I wanted to go to mass but couldn't fit it in because of work and proceeded to have a horrible evening. Somehow, everything worked out and then I was blessed with two extremely talented teenage boys as new students. After that refocused my mind, I had a great evening hanging out with a friend.

Just this past Sunday, I was sharing a photo of my dream church for my wedding (yes, I think about the churches even though I know in reality it will not work out that way), and I realized that the "nickname" I grew up calling this, my favorite church, was "Jesuits." It's official title is Immaculate Conception, but it was run by Jesuit priests so the old native folk (new orleanians) called it Jesuits.
I thought and thought, am I making crazy connections? I couldn't find so many commonalities with other saints/religious orders in mu life. Maybe St. Anthony being in my top 5, visiting Lisboa and seeing his church and then  landing in St. Antonio...not to mention the numerous answered prayers...
Still it isn't as intense as this pull I have to all things Ignatian.

I started this 10 week meditation titled The Desires of the Heart and it is basically an introduction of the Ignatian prayer process. Our young adult group is even going to start it at meetings next month.
I love having found this devotion/appreciation/connection to St. Ignatius. I love St. Anthony, St. Francis, and St. Therese, and I always will. They impacted me at different stage of my spiritual development. And now, as I was growing stale, the Holy Spirit lit a fire in my heart and lead me to this wonderful saint. I see many years of my life devoted to spreading the awareness of self and our intimate desires through his examen and prayers. I know, had I listened to my desires early on, I might have never continued on music. But all things in God's time.
And now thanks to the examen, I'm listening.

Click here for more on the life of St. Ignatius of Loyola
Are you a young adult in search of your path? Find a Charis retreat near you!
And for the wonderful website that gave me so many tools go to www.godinallthings.com