1. A two-hour weekly meeting
of leaders and participants is the very heart of program. The first hour
should be devoted to sharing the previous week's prayer experiences --
this is essential. It may begin with a five-minute prayer (responses to
a brief Scripture passage read at the start) which aims at creating the
right dispositions for the sharing. Every participant should enter into
the sharing process, if not at a given session, the at least at the next
session. (If some members have not done so at the previous session, they
could be invited to share first at the following session.)
The second hour of the weekly group meeting could begin with a fifteen-minute
"beverage and cookie break," one that is kept simple. This greatly assists
growth in personal relating and provides a needed relief after intense
moments of sharing. The next forty minutes should be used to introduce
a new theme with its accompanying exercises.
The printed presentations of each theme are meant for private reading (and
even daily rereading) at home. They should not be read out extensively
at the meeting itself (except for brief phrases or sentences), but its
gist should be given "live," with the help of personal anecdotes, by the
leader. Other helps would be designs or words on blackboards, flip-charts
or over-head projectors, and especially by pointing to the brief version
of the theme, the aim and the key notions listed for each.
The session as a whole would conclude with five minutes devoted to practicalities.
SUMMARY
OF THE PROPOSED WEEKLY
PROGRAM
(60 min.) After a brief
opening prayer, this hour should
consist in sharing the
previous week's prayer experiences.
(15 min Beverage Break)
(45 min.) Presenting the
new theme and its exercises,
ending with 5 min. on
practical matters.
2. Leaders: who have already
prepared the upcoming material, should be ready to present each theme to
the group, week by week, in a vivid and personal manner. (It would help
to have a pair of leaders working together, but a single leader could manage
it.)
3. Methods of prayer: During
the early months each participant should learn how to pray on the exercises
(see p.17 for a few suggestions). They need to know how to open their deepest
selves to imaginatively presented materials, such as Scripture passages,
various kinds of stories, questions about personal experiences in their
life-history, etc. They should learn how to give themselves to such exercises
in order to discover how they truly respond to them, so that later on they
may share the results with the others.
This means that (a) they should learn now to surrender their energies to
whatever might happen deep within their being -- negative events as well
as positive ones; (b) they should allow these interior experiences to develop,
grow and continue -- wherever they might lead; (c) they should try to notice
them while they are happening and react to them quite spontaneously. These
are experiential skills, other, more reflective skills are mentioned below,
and both sets need to be put into practice alternately.
The leaders, along with the spiritual directors (see below) should coach
participants frequently on this way of praying and remind them about practical
methods until satisfied that each one has acquired the needed skills. Perhaps
many will have already learned them and will easily adapt to the program.
For others who have not had the opportunity to acquire the method, some
months of Prayer Companioning (or the equivalent) would be the best preparation
-- if time is available.
4. Spiritual direction for
each of the participants is an important part of the plan. The leaders
may not be able to take on many individuals and should look for assistance.
Weekly interviews with an assigned spiritual director have a double purpose:
(a) to develop reflective skills so that all may get into touch with their
actual feelings, notice what is happening within themselves, and learn
how to articulate those vital experiences; (b) to deal discerningly with
individual needs in each one's personal growth, especially with matters
which might be too private for sharing with others, or which a member may
not yet be ready to share (privacy and freedom should be carefully respected).
At least one meeting between the leaders and the personal directors will
be required prior to the program's inception. Its aim is to co-ordinate
roles, name the needed skills and clarify the nature of the program. Occasional
follow-up meetings of leaders and directors, in order to monitor progress
and ensure unanimity of goals and methods, would also be helpful.
(Where sufficient numbers of spiritual directors are not available, recourse
may be had to weekly "paired sharing" times of the more mature participants.)
5. Prayer journals: Each participant
should be asked to make a daily entry of prayer experiences in a journal.
This book is to be brought to weekly interviews with the personal director
and also to the weekly group sessions. Journal entries are meant to stimulate
reflection on daily prayer experiences, heighten awareness of what is actually
happening (negative feels and reactions as well as positive responses to
the exercises given), and to prepare for the personal interviews and the
group sharings.
6. Sharing of actual experiences
at the hour-long group sessions should be received without argument and
with deep respect. Very brief responses of various kinds by the leaders
and other participants are, of course, natural and to be expected, but
these responses should not attempt to solve any of the problems or difficulties
mentioned, not to give advice or take issue with what is said.
Good faith should always be assumed. Should questions arise about the heterodoxy
of statements made, they could be calmly addressed by leaders during the
session if the issue is a plain one, but it would be better to handle these
outside the meeting whenever the issue is more complicated. The main benefit
is to affirm the others in their feelings and their struggles, to accept
them and to be accepted in one's turn.
Finally, the truism so often heard about practical programs -- not least
about the Spiritual Exercises themselves -- must be repeated here for the
sake of those unfamiliar with spiritual and personal growth, especially
in group relationships. Simply to read over the texts provided in this
book will not be very enlightening. They are instrumental in developments
which are to be experienced together over many months. In order to grasp
what is involved, one must listen to those who have already gone through
the program as a whole. They may tell you what the texts are all about.
The persons who first undertook this program, both the participants and
the directors, have all become very dear to me. It is hard to find other
words to say to them than simply, "Thank you!" I will mention only one
person by name, St. Helen Normandeau, osu, who encouraged me so much in
this work.
J.W.,
sj,
June
19, 1988.