This reflection stems from a month-long experience of centering prayer at the Desert House of Prayer near Tucson AZ. It offers a general view, surveys recent controversies within the Catholic world on this form of prayer; and suggests a few techniques. It offers a Christian take on this form of prayer and shows its compatibility with Ignatian prayer.NEW: FEBRUARY 5, 2017
This document contains an introduction and sections on each of the three vows of religion: poverty, chastity, and obedience, especially the spirituality which accompanies them. This material was originally destined for Jesuits, and has some specific Jesuit references, but it is generally applicable to other religious communities.NEW: FEBRUARY 15, 2016
This text-book on the theology of the Trinity, seeks to show this essential Christian doctrine is grounded in spiritual experience down through the ages and gives us new insights into the dynamic of ministry. Authored and self-published by J.-M. Laporte, it is available for purchase. More information on the web-site. Click on the title above. NEW: JULY 17, 2014
This valuable work, edited and introduced by Eric Jensen, S.J., sets side by side in columns the Latin Vulgate and the Spanish Autograph, with their translations in English. The .pdf file can be printed. Eric Jensen is a member of the staff of Loyola House in Guelph ON. NEW: FEBRUARY 17, 2014
With the guidance of Richard of St. Victor, this brief essay seeks to clarify the difference between meditation and contemplation, and to highlight the role that our wandering minds with their distractions play in our prayer -- both negative and positive. NEW: JANUARY 14, 2014
This text results from a work-shop given in September 2013 to the members of the Atlantic Association for the Spiritual Exercises Apostolate in Saint John NB. Five units develop different facets of Paul's teaching and relate them to the Exercises.NEW: OCTOBER 31,2013
Richard of St. Victor is a creative spiritual author of the 12th century. His treatises on contemplation (The Twelve Patriarchs and The Mystical Ark) are translated in the Classics of Western Spirituality and his The Four Degrees of Violent Love has been recently translated into English. In this series of four sermons he offers an original presentation of the classical three degrees of perfection in the spiritual journey and points a way beyond the three degrees. NEW: JANUARY 14, 2013
Most Roman Catholic spiritual directors accompany Anglican priests and Protestant ministers, and for them this is a highly positive and fruitful experience. How does this experience square with the official Roman Catholic perspective on their orders, exemplified in the 1896 judgement that Anglican orders are utterly null and absolutely void? A question worth reflecting on. REVISED DECEMBER 10,2012
This brief piece seeks to present the awareness examen as presently practiced within the process of human maturation. As humans mature, they become better able to deal in an integrated manner with broader areas of their lives. In this case they begin by dealing with individual actions, then with virtues and vices, then with their overall orientation towards God, and finally with their place within God's project for the whole world. NEW MARCH 4, 2012
This article is on rules 7 8 and 9 of the first set of rules for discernment in
the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, (#320-322). It offers a theological perspective on the alternation of consolation and desolation which Ignatius talks about in these rules, and uses that perspective to better explain these rules. It it indebted to the excellent work of Fr. Timothy Gallagher. NEW JANUARY 10, 2012
This brief article is based on a presentation made to an ecumenical retreat for those in formation at the Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax. It is my effort to reflect for the first time on the distinction often made today between spirituality and religion. JANUARY 21 2011
This article arises out of a recent work-shop. The enneagram is a system of personal self-discovery which came out of an esoteric tradition. It has been found useful by many counsellors and spiritual directors, but it needs to be transposed out of its original context into one based on Christian spiritual teaching. We do so with the help of Paul's anthropology and theology of grace, and Ignatius' own keen insights into spiritual dynamics. Thus our presentation's Pauline and Ignatian flavour. REVISED OCTOBER 9, 2017
This 2006 article deals with the structure of the Exercises as a whole. It begins by showing how the entire progression of the Exercises is foreshadowed in the Principle and Foundation, and develops the movement through the four weeks as a progression towards election, followed by progression from election to implementation. REVISED NOV. 25 2009
The saying quoted above, not directly from Ignatius, is referred to as an Ignatian paradox. Some would reverse it to say that we should pray as if everything depended on God and act as if everything depended on us. Building on the previous article, this appendix seeks to justify the original presentation of this saying.
This 2009 article tries to understand what Ignatius was up to in devising the second week as he did, with its special meditations. It offers many practical pointers for one accompanying a person who has entered into the second week dynamic towards choice. It arises out of a work-shop given to persons preparing to be spiritual directors under the aegis of the Atlantic Association for Spiritual Exercises Ministry (AASEA) in St. John NB.
This 2009 article is the expansion of a course at the Jesuit Centre of Spirituality in Halifax. It begins by explaining the received tradition of three stages of spiritual progress, purgative, illuminative, and unitive, continues with the creative contribution of Richard of St. Victor, a noted 12th century spiritual author, and ends with the four weeks of the Ignatian Exercises, showing how the the three stages and the four weeks can come together. REVISED SEP. 25, 2017.
This 2008 article arises out of the experience of a workshop on Communal Apostolic Discernment offered in Rome in January 2008. Half the participants were Jesuits, and the others lay persons deeply committed to the Ignatian project.Is there an Ignatian identity distinct from a Jesuit identity, and what are the implications of this? Recent General Congregations of the Society, including the most recent, GC 35, have engaged this question, vital at a time of increased collaboration.
